Nikola Tesla: the man time forgot

"By scientific application we can project destructive energy in thread-like beams as far as a telescope can discern an object. "

-Niko/a Tesla, discussing his "death" ray machine (1934)

Today, Nikola Tesla is all but forgotten. All that is left of him are the inventions that he gave to the world. Some of his great inventions are the alternating current motor, the polyphase system, radio control, radio circuits, frequency induction heating, gaseous/fluorescent lighting and electric clocks. Who is Tesla? Never heard of him? Read on.

Tesla was born on the stroke of midnight July 9, 1856, in the village of Smiljan, in what is now Yugoslavia. He was the fourth child of five. He had two older sisters, a brother and a younger sister. His father was a Serbian Orthodox priest. His mother, though she could not read or write, was quite creative around the house, creating devices that made the household chores easier. After Tesla's younger sister was born the family moved to Gospic, a small town.

At the age of four Tesla attempted his first invention. With his brother's help, he made a waterwheel from a disk. A twig was used for the axle. When he placed it in a nearby brook and saw it turn, he was thrilled at his inventive achievement.

At the age of fifteen he was sent to the Higher Real Gymnasium at Karlovac and stayed with a relative. There, in a book, he saw a steel engraving of Niagara Falls and confided to his uncle that someday he would harness its power.

When Tesla finished school at Karlovac, he returned to Gospic. At that time there was a cholera epidemic in the town and he contracted the disease. For nine months he was sick and could hardly move.

Tesla wanted to be an engineer but his father wanted him to go into the priesthood. His father, seeing that his son wasn't recovering told him that if he recovered, he would send him to the finest schools to finish his education.

Tesla in later years with some of his models and drawings.

This, according to Tesla, quickened his recovery and at the age of nineteen went to the Polytechnic School at Graz (Austria).

Tesla's favorite subjects were math and science. One of his professors, Professor Poeschl, chair of theoretical and experimental physics, held a demonstration of a Gramme dynamo. During the demonstration, the brushes sparked badly. Tesla pointed this out to the professor in front of the class and suggested it would operate better without a commutator. To do this he reasoned, one would have to use an alternating current.

The professor didn't like Tesla showing him up in front of the class and belittled his ideas; saying they were impossible and impractical. The professor likened Tesla's ideas to a perpetual motion machine. This hurt Tesla but it didn't discourage him.

After graduating from the Polytechnic School at Graz he went to Prague to finish his graduate work.

One day while walking in a park with his friend, the solution to alternating current motors came to him in a flash. With a stick he started drawing diagrams and explained the principle of the rotating magnetic field to his friend. Tesla saw it so clearly in his mind's eye that he knew it had to work.

Tesla had a special gift. He could imagine things in his mind's eye so

clearly that they would seem real. In his mind he could build a prototype and experiment with it until it was perfected. Once perfected, he would build an actual physical prototype and this prototype would work exactly as he imagined it.

After finishing school, Tesla worked for a while in Budapest, then in Paris. He decided that to develop his alternating current motor he would have to go to the United States.

He arrived in the U.S. with four cents, a book of poems, some personal notes and a letter of recommendation for Edison saying: "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man."

Upon arriving at Edison's shop and showing h im the le t ter of recommendation, Tesla started work immediately. While there, he improved Edison's dynamos. Tesla offered to increase the output, lower the costs and decrease the maintenance of the dynamos. Supposedly, Edison said he would pay-Tesla $50,000 if he could do it. Tesla did so, putting in long hours to accomplish the task. Edison was delighted but Tesla wasn't paid $50,000. When Tesla asked why, Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." So Tesla quit his job.

For the next two years, Tesla couldn't find work in his field. He ended up

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taking any job he could get. At one point, he became a ditch digger for two dollars a day. The foreman saw Tesla's wasted potential and introduced him to A.K. Brown of Western Union Telegraph Company. Through Brown, Tesla met George Westinghouse, Jr., of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Tesla told Westinghouse about his alternating current motor. Westinghouse listened and, being an astute businessman, saw great potential in Tesla's invention.

Westinghouse had such confidence in the motor that he gave Tesla $1,000 000 for patent rights and a royalty of one dollar per horsepower. Tesla did not keep all of the money. It was shared among Mr. Brown and others who helped him develop his system.

By this time lines were being drawn for the battle of currents. It was Edison's direct current against Tesla's and Westinghouse's alternating current.

Edison launched a vicious campaign against alternating current. Alternating current was endorsed as a form of capital punishment in New York State. In the public's eyes, this made direct current seem much safer.

Tesla countered with a demonstration in his laboratory. By allowing high voltage at high frequencies to pass through his body; he lit gas filled lamps by holding them. This demonstrated that his type of current was just as safe. This also showed that high voltage didn't damage flesh, but that high current did.

The battle of currents was a costly one. The Westinghouse company would go bankrupt unless it withdrew from the royalty agreement with Tesla. Tesla tore up the contract when George Westinghouse came to him. Tesla did this because Westinghouse was the only one who believed in him and made his invention a reality.

On October 17, 1893, Westinghouse was awarded the contract to develop a power system for Niagara Falls. This was the final coup in the battle of currents. Because of this, Edison General Electric was forced to secure license rights of Tesla's polyphase system.

On April 20, 1895 the powerhouse, with generators totalling 15,000 horsepower was completed and residents in the area turned on lights for the first time. The transmission and distribution system to Buffalo was completed by General Electric Co. in 1896.

Westinghouse installed seven more generators bringing the total generating power to 50,000 horsepower. General Electric later installed 11 more generators and power now reached New York City. With the availability of cheap electricity, industries flourished.

In 1899, Tesla went to Colorado Springs to set up a laboratory and experiment with some ideas. In Colorado, Tesla built a huge transformer. Today we call it a Tesla Coil.

With this coil Tesla generated more than 12 million volts. This was not duplicated until Robert Golka launched PROJECT TESLA in 1970. Golka wanted to find a new way to contain hot gases in a fusion reaction without using a magnetic field. Since Tesla's huge coil generated fireballs, Golka thought he could use this to contain the hot gases.

Tesla was far ahead of his time with some of the experiments. He noticed that the huge coil produced fireballs after he turned it off. This was a nuisance to him and he spent time investigating the phenomenon. Unfortunately he didn't keep good notes. He had such a good memory that he only wrote down the things he deemed necessary. Today, ninety years later, scientists are still puzzled by these fireballs and are struggling to understand them.

Tesla performed many experiments but one of the more interesting ones was his wireless transmission of power. In this experiment he was able to light 200 lamps, 26 miles away from his lab. This has yet to be duplicated today.

According to Tesla, the whole earth is a giant conductor. A wireless transmitter could be designed such that power goes throughout the earth's surface.

To operate motors, lamps and such, all one would have to do is connect an antenna or suitable conductors to the appliance. This antenna would absorb enough power to run the device. This would eliminate miles and miles of transmission lines running from power plants to homes and offices. Instead an antenna in the form of a ball or cylinder, placed in the attic or ceiling and attuned to Tesla's transformer would do the same job. Electric companies could monitor power consumption the way they do now; by a little meter and bill accordingly. Due to lack of sufficient funds the project was never realized.

As Tesla got older, not having sufficient funds for research was a

constant problem. He devoted most of his time to solving problems in his head and usually announced his theoretical achievements on his birthday. Some say that as Tesla aged, his claims got wilder and more eccentric.

On his 78th birthday, Tesla announced that he was able to make a "death" ray producing machine that was able to destroy an army of one million, 200 miles away and bring down ten thousand airplanes at that distance.

According to Tesla it would be produced by four different machines. The first machine would produce the rays. The second would produce and control the large amounts of current. This current was needed to produce rays of significant strength. The third machine would amplify and intensify the process. The fourth machine would produce a "tremendous electrical repellent force." The beam of force would be concentrated current no thicker than a pencil with microscopic particles moving very fast.

This weapon, Tesla reasoned, would end war because, if every nation had it, no one would dare attack because of its destructive capabilities. People would be left to pursue more noble work such as art, music and science.

The weapon that Tesla described in 1934, today sounds like a particle beam weapon planned for use in the Strategic Defense Initiative.

In the years before his death, Tesla became more withdrawn. His only interest was caring and feeding the pigeons in the local park. Tesla died in his sleep January 7, 1943.

Read more about it Hunt, Inez, and Draper, Wanetta W.,

Lightning In His Hand, The Life Story Of Nikola Tesla. Hawthorne, CA: Omni Publications, 1981.

O'Neill, John, Prodigal Genius. New York, NY: Ives Washburn, Inc., 1944, p. 60.

Radio Electronics, p. 105, Oct. 1980. Radio Electronics, p. 49, Feb. 1981. Science & Invention, Vol. 17, No. 12,

p. 1125, Apr. 1930. New York Herald Tribune, pp. 1, 15,

July 11, 1934.

About the author John Ivan Vuckovic graduated last

April from Ryerson Polytechnical University (Canada) in electrical engineering. He is a great admirer of Nikola Tesla and his inventions. Vuckovic hopes to work in research and development.

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