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| Nikola Tesla |
Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Austria to a Serbian prime minister. His father was very strict and wanted him to become a prime minister to but Tesla had a different plan. Nikola Tesla was a genius. When Tesla was a child, he had a photographic memory and could learn languages very quickly. By the age of 18, he learned how to speak six languages fluently. Since childhood Tesla's dream was to use the power of Niagara Falls in New York to create a hydropower plant. While he was a child Tesla suddenly became very sick and when he was lying in his bed very close to death, his father promised him that he would let him travel to New York to pursue his dream if he recovered from this sickness. It is rumored that Tesla recovered within days of his father telling him this. When he had fully recovered, Tesla’s father let him travel to New York.
Tesla arrived in New York with nothing but three cents in his pocket. This was not enough for Tesla to survive on, so he went to meet with Thomas Edison. When Edison read the proposal that Tesla gave to him, he was wowed by the talent that this boy had and hired him immediately. Edison had Tesla fix his broken machines and do other small tasks. He told Tesla that he would pay him 50,000 dollars when he finished all of his jobs, but when Tesla asked for the money Edison laughed and said, “Tesla you need to learn the ways of our American humor.” People that knew and worked with Edison said that he was not very grateful to his employees and only cared about how much money his inventions made. During his time of working with Edison, Tesla was secretly working on projects of his own. One of the projects that Tesla designed and built the very first rotary engine. Tesla would later show this invention to the world but Edison would try to steal some of the credit for it.
At this time, Edison was famous for inventing a form of electricity called direct current or DC current. DC current worked fine for transmitting electricity through short distances, but it could not travel very far it all. For Edison's DC current to work, he had to build electricity stations almost every two miles along the eastern coast to power the city of New York. This frequency led to a lot of children and adults getting electrocuted and dying. Tesla recognized this problem and wanted to come up with a way to solve it, so he invented a kind of current that he called alternating current or AC current. AC current could travel much farther than DC current and was also a lot safer, therefore, to most people this seemed like the obvious solution for the problem. Edison saw this coming and tried to use his fame and money to shut Tesla’s AC current down. Edison said that AC current mutated people and made them get very sick. People started to fear Tesla’s AC current and went back to using Edison’s DC current. This fight between the two inventors was called the “War of the Currents.” Eventually Tesla was able to convince New York City that AC current was the best option.
The “War of the Currents” between Tesla and Edison got so bad, it made them become arch enemies. This fight between the two men allowed neither of them to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1915 because neither wanted to receive it if the other was going to get it at sometime and it was not like they were going to share it. When Edison died, Tesla was interviewed for the obituary and of course Tesla wanted to make Edison sound like a terrible man so he said, “He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in a utter disregard of the most elementary hygiene.” Most people think that Edison was the king of the electric age, but really it was Tesla. Edison took advantage of having Tesla work for him and used a lot of his findings to make his inventions better. After the “War of the Currents” ended Tesla went off on his own to work independently.
After leaving Edison, Tesla had forty or more patents on various different things including many types of generators, transformers and motors all using his alternating current. During this time, Tesla had a mini laboratory in a tower. All of his inventions, notes, and blueprints were stored there. Tragically this building burned to the ground and all of his notes and blueprints were lost. This was one of the many devastating things that happened during his career. After this loss of most of his notes, he was noticed by a man named George Westinghouse. George bought all of Tesla's patents and they worked together to build a large laboratory for Tesla to work in. This laboratory was called, The Tesla Tower, and this would be the place where Tesla stored all of his work.
This period, when Tesla was working with Westinghouse, was when his work was the most noticed and he was the most famous. Tesla invented many great things while working for Westinghouse including the Tesla Coil. The Tesla Coil is one of Tesla's most famous inventions. It is a giant metal pole that shoots out high voltage volts of electricity. Tesla had built smaller versions of this when he was younger, but with the resources he was given from Westinghouse, he was able to built a giant Tesla Coil on top of his laboratory. If you can think of any invention around that time Tesla probably had something to do with it. He invented neon lights, remote controls, the radio, cellular communication, the rotary engine, microwaves, x-ray photography and many, many more. Tesla even had ideas for the invention of robots, a bath that can electrically kill all of your germs, missiles, nuclear fission, and the satellite. Tesla once bragged that he could build a earthquake machine that split the earth in two. Of course no one challenged him on that statement.
Tesla was known for coming up with something amazing, but forgetting to write it down. One may ask, “Where are Tesla's plans for all the things he invented but wasn't given credit for?” Well the truth is, there never were any written plans. Tesla kept complex 3D images in his head. Tesla was the true definition of genius. He spoke 8 languages fluently and he could recite entire books and documents from memory. He would never write anything down, so when scientists were trying to recreate his inventions, they had a hard time because all of his notes were either destroyed or not documented.
As Tesla got older, the stock market crashed and he started needing more and more money to buy parts. Sadly, he did not have this money so he had to stop building inventions. This caused Tesla to have a nervous breakdown and he starting acting very odd. He would take hurt pigeons into his hotel room and nurse them back to health. He was also reported for receiving messages from extraterrestrials. Of course this was not true, but it really scared the press and most people. Tesla was boasting to the press, that he was making a 60 million volt death beam that could vaporize a tank from 200 miles away. Tesla was a pacifist, so he was trying to end all war completely. The FBI got very concerned when they heard this, so they confiscated Tesla’s lab and all of his inventions. Tesla lived his last three years of life in the 37th floor of the New Yorker Hotel, surviving off of only milk and crackers. Tesla died of heart failure in 1943 at the age of 86. When Tesla died, he had over 700 patents for various different inventions. Tesla was one of the most important inventors in U.S history and what was he rewarded with? Nothing. Tesla died alone and forgotten.
This period, when Tesla was working with Westinghouse, was when his work was the most noticed and he was the most famous. Tesla invented many great things while working for Westinghouse including the Tesla Coil. The Tesla Coil is one of Tesla's most famous inventions. It is a giant metal pole that shoots out high voltage volts of electricity. Tesla had built smaller versions of this when he was younger, but with the resources he was given from Westinghouse, he was able to built a giant Tesla Coil on top of his laboratory. If you can think of any invention around that time Tesla probably had something to do with it. He invented neon lights, remote controls, the radio, cellular communication, the rotary engine, microwaves, x-ray photography and many, many more. Tesla even had ideas for the invention of robots, a bath that can electrically kill all of your germs, missiles, nuclear fission, and the satellite. Tesla once bragged that he could build a earthquake machine that split the earth in two. Of course no one challenged him on that statement.
Tesla was known for coming up with something amazing, but forgetting to write it down. One may ask, “Where are Tesla's plans for all the things he invented but wasn't given credit for?” Well the truth is, there never were any written plans. Tesla kept complex 3D images in his head. Tesla was the true definition of genius. He spoke 8 languages fluently and he could recite entire books and documents from memory. He would never write anything down, so when scientists were trying to recreate his inventions, they had a hard time because all of his notes were either destroyed or not documented.
As Tesla got older, the stock market crashed and he started needing more and more money to buy parts. Sadly, he did not have this money so he had to stop building inventions. This caused Tesla to have a nervous breakdown and he starting acting very odd. He would take hurt pigeons into his hotel room and nurse them back to health. He was also reported for receiving messages from extraterrestrials. Of course this was not true, but it really scared the press and most people. Tesla was boasting to the press, that he was making a 60 million volt death beam that could vaporize a tank from 200 miles away. Tesla was a pacifist, so he was trying to end all war completely. The FBI got very concerned when they heard this, so they confiscated Tesla’s lab and all of his inventions. Tesla lived his last three years of life in the 37th floor of the New Yorker Hotel, surviving off of only milk and crackers. Tesla died of heart failure in 1943 at the age of 86. When Tesla died, he had over 700 patents for various different inventions. Tesla was one of the most important inventors in U.S history and what was he rewarded with? Nothing. Tesla died alone and forgotten.
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| Tesla in his labratory |
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| Thomas Edison |
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| The Tesla Tower, Nikola Tesla with some of his inventions Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Nikola_Tesla.htm http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/ |
