NIKOLA TESLAEngineer, Inventor (c. 1856–1943)

Over a hundred years ago, in a time when theMajority of the world was still lit by candle power, anElectrical system known as alternation currentwas invented and to this day is what powers everyhome on the planet.Who do we have to thank for this invention that usheredHumanity into a second industrial revolution?

Nikola Tesla

Let us take a look at this genius who wasn’t been given as much credit as he deserves to get.

Early Life

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in what is now Smiljan, Croatia. Tesla's interest in electrical invention was spurred by his mother, Djuka Mandic, who invented small household appliances in her spare

time while her son was growing up. Tesla's father, Milutin Tesla, was a priest and a writer, and he pushed for his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola's interests lay squarely in the sciences. After studying at the Realschule, Karlstadt; the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria; and the University of Prague during the 1870s, Tesla moved to Budapest, where for a time he worked at the Central Telephone Exchange. It was while in Budapest that the idea for the induction motor first came to Tesla, but after several years of trying to gain interest in his invention, at age 28 Tesla decided to leave Europe for America. While in America he worked with Thomas Edison for a brief while before parting ways.

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HE HAD A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY

Tesla had what’s known as a photographic memory. He was known to memorize books and images and stockpile visions for inventions in his head. He also had a powerful imagination and the ability to visualize in three dimensions, which he used to control the terrifying vivid nightmares; he suffered from as a child.

Tesla vs Edison

In 1884 Tesla arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction to famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison, whose DC-based electrical works were fast becoming the standard in the country. Edison hired Tesla, and the two men were soon working tirelessly alongside each other, making improvements to Edison's inventions.

Tesla was offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company's direct current generators. In 1885, he said that he could redesign Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy. According to Tesla, Edison remarked, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it." This has been noted as an odd statement from an Edison whose company was stingy with pay and who did not have that sort of cash on hand. After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, saying that he was only joking, replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humour. Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla's US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned

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If you were to ask anyone in this day and age, “Who invented the light bulb?”, everyone would answer “Thomas Edison!!”. Well, to tell you the truth, Thomas Edison did not “invent” the light bulb. He improved upon the ideas of 22 other men who pioneered the light bulb before him, one of them being Nikola Tesla. Instead, Edison simply figured out how to sell the light bulb.

AC vs DC, which is better?:After Tesla’s falling out with Edison, he went to work on his alternating current electrical system. This ignited a feud with Edison, who at the time was trying to sell the world his direct current system. Edison’s DC system required a power plant in every square mile and couldn’t transmit electricity very far. AC used thinner wires had higher voltages, and could transmit electricity over long distances.

This lead to the War of the Currents in late 19th century. This was the battle of promotion of the AC by Westinghouse Electric (who owned Nikola Tesla’s patent) against the promotion of DC by Thomas Edison.

In order to prove the dangers of Tesla’s alternating current, Thomas Edison staged a highly publicized electrocution of a three-ton elephant known as “Topsy”. She died instantly after being shocked with a 6,600-volt AC charge.

Edison’s efforts all went in vain as the war was eventually won by Westinghouse Electric, which promoted AC current as it was deemed to be more efficient and cost effective.

The X-Ray factor:When X-Rays were initially discovered it was believed that they could cure blindness and other ailments. Tesla had warned everyone that X-Rays could be dangerous and he refused to conduct medical experiments with them.

On the other hand Edison took this as an opportunity to shine and carried experiments on his employee, Clarence Dally, who in the process of the experiments was exposed to so much radiation that his arms had to be amputated to save his life. Clarence eventually died from mediastinal cancer.

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Out of the public Radar:Quick question…Who invented the Radar?

If your answer was Robert A.Watson-Watt, you would be correct…but not really. Tesla came up with the idea of the radar for the U.S. Navy at the beginning of World War I.Unfortunately, Thomas Edison was the head of research and development for the U.S. Navy at the time and he managed to convince them that the Radar would have no practical application in war.

TESLA HAD AN IDEA FOR SMARTPHONE-LIKE TECHNOLOGY

In the race to develop transatlantic radio, Tesla described to his funder and business partner, J.P. Morgan, a new means of instant communication that

involved gathering stock quotes and telegram messages, funnelling them to his laboratory, where he would encode them and assign them each a new

frequency. That frequency would be broadcast to a device that would fit in your hand, he explained. In other words, Tesla had envisioned the smart phone and

wireless internet.

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The Wardenclyffe Project

Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917), also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla in Shoreham, New York in 1901-1902. Tesla intended to transmit messages, telephony and even facsimile images across the Atlantic to England and to ships at sea based on his theories of using the Earth to conduct the signals. His decision to scale up the facility and add his ideas of wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's radio based telegraph system was met with the project's primary backer, financier J. P. Morgan, refusing to fund the changes. Additional investment could not be found and the project was abandoned in 1906 and never became operational.

Patents

Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions. Some of Tesla's patents are not accounted for, and various sources have discovered some that have lain hidden in patent archives. There are a minimum of 278 patents issued to Tesla in 26 countries that have been accounted for. Many of Tesla's patents were in the United States, Britain, and Canada, but many other patents were approved in countries around the globe. Many inventions developed by Tesla were not put into patent protection.

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HE SPOKE EIGHT LANGUAGES

He was a polyglot, speaking eight languages which were Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.

Sleeping Habits

Tesla claimed to never sleep more than two hours. However, Tesla did admit to "dozing" from time to time "to recharge his batteries."

During his second year of study at Graz, Tesla developed a passion for (and became very proficient at) billiards, chess and card-playing, sometimes spending more than 48 hours in a stretch at a gaming table. On one occasion at his laboratory, Tesla worked for a period of 84 hours without sleep or rest.

Relationships

Tesla never married; he said his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities. However, toward the end of his life, he told a reporter, "Sometimes I feel that by not marrying, I made too great a sacrifice to my work ..." There have been numerous accounts of women vying for Tesla's affection, even some madly in love with him.

Tesla, though polite and soft-spoken, did not have any known relationships.

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Tesla, the most under-appreciated Inventor.

Ever wondered who built the first hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls and proved to the world that this type of power was a practical energy source?Yes, it was Tesla.

Who experimented with cryogenic engineering nearly a half century before its invention? Yes, it was Tesla.

Apart from those, the first person to record radio waves from outer space, the person who discovered resonant frequency of the earth, the person who built an earthquake machine that nearly demolished an entire neighbourhood in New York when it was turned on…all were done by none other than Nikola Tesla.

Tesla’s list of inventions includes the Three Phase Electric Power, Induction Motor, Wireless Telegraphy, Alternating Current, Neon Lamp, Remote Control, and Tesla Coil.He also had a hundred other patents, but not all of them worked out.

PEARLS DROVE HIM CRAZY

Tesla could not stand the sight of pearls, to the extent that he refused to speak to women wearing them. When his secretary wore pearl jewellery, he sent her

home for the day.

Nobel Prize Rumours

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On 6 November 1915, a Reuters news agency report from London had the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla; however, on 15 November, a Reuters story from Stockholm stated the prize that year was being awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."There have been subsequent claims by Tesla biographers that Edison and Tesla were the original recipients and that neither was given the award because of their animosity toward each other; that each sought to minimize the other's achievements and right to win the award; that both refused ever to accept the award if the other received it first; that both rejected any possibility of sharing it; and even that a wealthy Edison refused it, to keep Tesla from getting the $20,000 in prize money.

Awards

Tesla had not received many awards but the ones that he was awarded were:

Elliot Cresson Medal (1894)IEEE Edison Medal (1916)John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium (1934)

HE SUFFERED FROM OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER

He was obsessed with the number three and polished every dining implement he used to perfection, using 18 napkins.

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Death

On 7 January 1943, Tesla, 86, died broke and alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. His body was later found by maid Alice Monaghan after she had entered Tesla's room, ignoring the "do not disturb" sign that Tesla had placed on his door two days earlier. Assistant medical examiner H.W. Wembly examined the body and ruled that the cause of death had been coronary thrombosis.

I would like to end by telling that the world would be completely a different place without Tesla.He was a scientist and an inventor that didn’t get the credit that he deserved.

Tesla was a one of a kind person with a brilliant mind and beautiful vision for the world.I would like to end this by quoting Nikola Tesla

“Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”

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Written and compiled byVaibhav.R

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