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Introduction of Tesla's motor in 1888 initiated what is sometimes referred to as the Second Industrial Revolution, making possible both the efficient generation and long distance distribution of electrical energy using the alternating current transmission system, also of Tesla's invention (1888). Before widespread use of Tesla's principle of poly-phase induction for rotating machines, all motors operated by continually passing a conductor through a stationary magnetic field.

Initially Tesla suggested that the commutators from a machine could be removed and the device could operate on a rotary field of electromagnetic force. Professor Poeschel, his teacher, stated that would be akin to building a perpetual motion machine. This was because Tesla's teacher had only understood one half of Tesla's ideas. Professor Poeschel had realized that the induced rotating magnetic field would start the rotor of the motor spinning, but he did not see that the counter electromotive force generated would gradually bring the machine to a stop. Tesla would later obtain U.S. Patent 0,416,194, Electric Motor (December 1889), which resembles the motor seen in many of Tesla's photos.