Ive been fascinated by Tesla for a long time, but it seems theres lots of conflicting info, ro the point where its hard to know whats true.

The other day, radio station DJ said Tesla invented the induction motor,

And i said to my wife, “thats false”, and she asked how do i know,

And i said because Michael Faraday invented the induction motor

But i figured id better fact-check myself, and wow what a rabbit hole

it just seems everything “i thought” i knew about Tesla is bullshit

I thought Tesla invented 3-phase electricity, but nope, it was some Italian guy we have never heard of, for some reason…

But he invented both the Y and Delta configurations! This is f’ing HUGE!

The Italian you’re thinking of is Galileo Ferraris.

Ferraris was the Italian physicist who independently discovered and developed the rotating magnetic field, and he was one of the key originators of the three-phase AC system. His work directly enabled three-phase motors and the whole concept of polyphase power.

If you’re also remembering the person who formalized and industrialized wye (Y) and delta (Δ) connections, that was Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky — but he was Russian-German, not Italian.

So the Italian inventor associated with three-phase AC is:

Galileo Ferraris.