nikola tesla biography in nepali

Nepali Translation of the Novel ‘Nikola Tesla’ Released

• Shilash Thapa Tamang
• February 21, 2024

English.Sahityapost Kathmandu, February 21

The novel ‘Nikola Tesla’ based on the mysterious life of the inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, has recently been published in Nepali. Originally written in Serbian by Vladimir Pistalo under the title ‘ Tesla: A Portrait with Masks’ , the Nepali translation of the novel has been done by translator Bimal Kumar Subedi.

Tesla is best known for his significant contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) system.

The novel serves as an inspiration for anyone seeking to explore new discoveries or undertake innovative work. Despite facing numerous challenges and setbacks along the way, Tesla continued to forge ahead on his path of progress. His unwavering determination was the key to his success.

The book, in 527 pages, is priced 1050 rupees.

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Nikola Tesla

Serbian American scientist Nikola Tesla invented the Tesla coil and alternating-current (AC) electricity, in addition to discovering the rotating magnetic field.

Quick Facts

When was nikola tesla born, nikola tesla and thomas edison, solo venture, how did nikola tesla die, legacy: movies, electric car, and wardenclyffe tower renovation, who was nikola tesla.

Engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla designed the alternating-current (AC) electric system, which is the predominant electrical system used across the world today. He also created the “Tesla coil” that is still used in radio technology. Born in modern-day Croatia, Tesla immigrated to the United States in 1884 and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways. The Serbian American sold several patent rights, including those to his AC machinery, to George Westinghouse . Tesla died at age 86 in January 1943, but his legacy lives on through his inventions and the electric car company Tesla that’s named in his honor.

FULL NAME: Nikola Tesla BORN: July 10, 1856 DIED: January 7, 1943 BIRTHPLACE: Smiljan, Croatia ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the Austrian Empire town of Smiljan that is now part of Croatia.

He was one of five children, including siblings Dane, Angelina, Milka, and Marica. Nikola’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 Serbian orthodox priest and a writer, and he pushed for his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola’s interests lay squarely in the sciences.

Tesla received quite a bit of education. He studied at the Realschule, Karlstadt (later renamed the Johann-Rudolph-Glauber Realschule Karlstadt) in Germany; the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria; and the University of Prague during the 1870s.

After university, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, 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.

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.

Several months later, the two parted ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship , attributed by historians to their incredibly different personalities. While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was commercially out-of-touch and somewhat vulnerable. Their feud would continue to affect Tesla’s career.

In 1885, Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company and was tasked by his investors to develop improved arc lighting. After successfully doing so, however, Tesla was forced out of the venture and, for a time, had to work as a manual laborer in order to survive. His luck changed two years later when he received funding for his new Tesla Electric Company.

Throughout his career, Tesla discovered, designed, and developed ideas for a number of important inventions—most of which were officially patented by other inventors—including dynamos (electrical generators similar to batteries) and the induction motor.

He was also a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology, remote control, and the rotating magnetic field—the basis of most AC machinery. Tesla is most well-known for his contributions in AC electricity and for the Tesla coil.

AC Electrical System

Tesla designed the alternating-current (AC) electrical system, which quickly became the preeminent power system of the 20 th century and has remained the worldwide standard ever since. In 1887, Tesla found funding for his new Tesla Electric Company, and by the end of the year, he had successfully filed several patents for AC-based inventions.

Tesla’s AC system soon caught the attention of American engineer and businessman George Westinghouse , who was seeking a solution to supplying the nation with long-distance power. Convinced that Tesla’s inventions would help him achieve this, in 1888, he purchased his patents for $60,000 in cash and stock in the Westinghouse Corporation.

As interest in an AC system grew, Tesla and Westinghouse were put in direct competition with Thomas Edison , who was intent on selling his direct-current (DC) system to the nation. A negative press campaign was soon waged by Edison, in an attempt to undermine interest in AC power.

Unfortunately for Edison, the Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and Tesla conducted demonstrations of his AC system there.

Hydroelectric Power Plant

In 1895, Tesla designed what was among the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States, at Niagara Falls. The following year, it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York—a feat that was highly publicized throughout the world and helped further AC electricity’s path to becoming the world’s power system.

In the late 19 th century, Tesla patented the Tesla coil, which laid the foundation for wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today. The heart of an electrical circuit, the Tesla coil is an inductor used in many early radio transmission antennas.

The coil works with a capacitor to resonate current and voltage from a power source across the circuit. Tesla used his coil to study fluorescence, x-rays, radio, wireless power, and electromagnetism in the earth and its atmosphere.

Wireless Power and Wardenclyffe Tower

Having become obsessed with the wireless transmission of energy, around 1900, Tesla set to work on his boldest project yet: to build a global, wireless communication system transmitted through a large electrical tower that would enable information sharing and provide free energy throughout the world.

With funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan , Tesla began work on the free energy project in earnest in 1901. He designed and built a lab with a power plant and a massive transmission tower on a site on Long Island, New York, that became known as Wardenclyffe.

However, doubts arose among his investors about the plausibility of Tesla’s system. As his rival, Guglielmo Marconi —with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison —continued to make great advances with his own radio technologies, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project.

The Wardenclyffe staff was laid off in 1906, and by 1915, the site had fallen into foreclosure. Two years later, Tesla declared bankruptcy, and the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap to help pay the debts he had accrued.

After suffering a nervous breakdown following the closure of his wireless power project, Tesla eventually returned to work, primarily as a consultant. But as time went on, his ideas became progressively more outlandish and impractical. He grew increasingly eccentric, devoting much of his time to the care of wild pigeons in the parks of New York City . Tesla even drew the attention of the FBI with his talk of building a powerful “death ray,” which had received some interest from the Soviet Union during World War II.

Poor and reclusive, Tesla died of coronary thrombosis on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86 in New York City, where he had lived for nearly 60 years.

The legacy of Tesla’s work lives on to this day. In 1994, a street sign identifying “Nikola Tesla Corner” was installed near the site of his former New York City laboratory, at the intersection of 40 th Street and 6 th Avenue.

Several movies have highlighted Tesla’s life and famous works, most notably:

• The Secret of Nikola Tesla , a 1980 biographical film starring Orson Welles as J. P. Morgan .
• Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World , a 1994 documentary produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia.
• The Prestige , a 2006 fictional film about two magicians directed by Christopher Nolan , with rock star David Bowie portraying Tesla.

In 2003, a group of engineers founded Tesla Motors, a car company named after Tesla dedicated to building the first fully electric-powered car. Entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk contributed over $30 million to Tesla in 2004 and serves as the company’s co-founder and CEO.

Tesla Motors unveiled its first electric car, the Roadster, in 2008. A high-performance sports vehicle, the Roadster helped changed the perception of what electric cars could be. In 2014, Tesla launched the Model S, a lower-priced model that, in 2017, set the MotorTrend world record for 0 to 60 miles per hour acceleration at 2.28 seconds. The company’s designs showed that an electric car could have the same performance as gasoline-powered sports car brands like Porsche and Lamborghini.

Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe

Since Tesla’s original forfeiture of his free energy project, ownership of the Wardenclyffe property has passed through numerous hands. Several attempts have been made to preserve it, but efforts to declare it a national historic site failed in 1967, 1976, and 1994.

Then, in 2008, a group called the Tesla Science Center (TSC) was formed with the intention of purchasing the property and turning it into a museum dedicated to the inventor’s work. In 2009, the Wardenclyffe site went on the market for nearly $1.6 million, and for the next several years, the TSC worked diligently to raise funds for its purchase. In 2012, public interest in the project peaked when Matthew Inman of TheOatmeal.com collaborated with the TSC in an Internet fundraising effort, ultimately receiving enough contributions to acquire the site in May 2013.

Wardenclyffe Tower finally joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. Work on its restoration is still in progress. A $20 million redevelopment broke ground in April 2023, but those efforts were complicated by large fire that November. The site is closed to the public “for the foreseeable future” for reasons of safety and preservation, according to the Tesla Science Center.

• Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
• I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.
• The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

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Nikola Tesla Biography

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was one of the greatest and most enigmatic scientists who played a key role in the development of electromagnetism and other scientific discoveries of his time. Despite his breathtaking number of patents and discoveries, his achievements were often underplayed during his lifetime.

Short Biography Nikola Tesla

Tesla was a bright student and in 1875 went to the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz. However, he left to gain employment in Marburg in Slovenia. Evidence of his difficult temperament sometimes manifested and after an estrangement from his family, he suffered a nervous breakdown. He later enrolled in the Charles Ferdinand University in Prague, but again he left before completing his degree.

During his early life, he experienced many periods of illness and periods of startling inspiration. Accompanied by blinding flashes of light, he would often visualise mechanical and theoretical inventions spontaneously. He had a unique capacity to visualise images in his head. When working on projects, he would rarely write down plans or scale drawings, but rely on the images in his mind.

In 1880, he moved to Budapest where he worked for a telegraph company. During this time, he became acquainted with twin turbines and helped develop a device that provided amplification for when using the telephone.

In 1882, he moved to Paris, where he worked for the Continental Edison Company. Here he improved various devices used by the Edison company. He also conceived the induction motor and devices that used rotating magnetic fields.

With a strong letter of recommendation, Tesla went to the United States in 1884 to work for the Edison Machine Works company. Here he became one of the chief engineers and designers. Tesla was given a task to improve the electrical system of direct current generators. Tesla claimed he was offered $50,000 if he could significantly improve the motor generators. However, after completing his task, Tesla received no reward. This was one of several factors that led to a deep rivalry and bitterness between Tesla and Thomas Edison . It was to become a defining feature of Tesla’s life and impacted his financial situation and prestige. This deep rivalry was also seen as a reason why neither Tesla or Edison was awarded a Nobel prize for their electrical discoveries.

Disgusted that he did not ever receive a pay rise, Tesla resigned, and for a short while, found himself having to gain employment digging ditches for the Edison telephone company.

In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, but it wasn’t a success as his backers didn’t support his faith in AC current.

In 1887, Tesla worked on a form of X-Rays. He was able to photograph the bones in his hand; he also became aware of the side-effects of using radiation. However, his work in this area gained little coverage, and much of his research was later lost in a fire at a New York warehouse.

“The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up… His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.”

– Nikola Tesla,  Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)

In 1891, Tesla became an American citizen. This was also a period of great advances in electrical knowledge. Tesla demonstrated the potential for wireless energy transfer and the capacity for AC power generation. Tesla’s promotion of AC current placed him in opposition to Edison who sought to promote his Direct Current DC for electric power. Shortly before his death, Edison said his biggest mistake was spending so much time on DC current rather than the AC current Tesla had promoted.

In 1899, Tesla moved to Colorado Springs where he had the space to develop high voltage experiments. This included a variety of radio and electrical transmission experiments. He left after a year in Colorado Springs, and the buildings were later sold to pay off debts.

In 1900, Tesla began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility. This was an ambitious project costing $150,000, a fortune at the time.

In 1904, the US patent office reversed his earlier patent for the radio, giving it instead to G. Marconi . This infuriated Tesla who felt he was the rightful inventor. He began a long, expensive and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to fight the decision. Marconi went on to win the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909. This seemed to be a repeating theme in Tesla’s life: a great invention that he failed to personally profit from.

Nikola Tesla also displayed fluorescent lamps and single node bulbs.

Tesla was in many ways an eccentric and genius. His discoveries and inventions were unprecedented. Yet, he was often ostracised for his erratic behaviour (during his later years, he developed a form of obsessive-compulsive behaviour). He was not frightened of suggesting unorthodox ideas such as radio waves from extraterrestrial beings. His ideas, lack of personal finance and unorthodox behaviour put him outside the scientific establishment and because of this, his ideas were sometimes slow to be accepted or used.

“All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”

– Nikola Tesla, A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

Outside of science, he had many artistic and literary friends; in later life he became friendly with Mark Twain , inviting him to his laboratory. He also took an interest in poetry, literature and modern Vedic thought, in particular being interested in the teachings and vision of the modern Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda . Tesla was brought up an Orthodox Christian, although he later didn’t consider himself a believer in the true sense. He retained an admiration for Christianity and Buddhism.

“For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.”

– Nikola Tesla,  The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

As well as considering scientific issues, Tesla was thoughtful about greater problems of war and conflict, and he wrote a book on the subject called   A Means for Furthering Peace (1905).  This expressed his views on how conflict may be avoided and humanity learn to live in harmony.

“What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife.”

– Nikola Tesla,  My Inventions (1919)

Personal life

Tesla was famous for working hard and throwing himself into his work. He ate alone and rarely slept, sleeping as little as two hours a day.  He remained unmarried and claimed that his chastity was helpful to his scientific abilities. In later years, he became a vegetarian, living on only milk, bread, honey, and vegetable juices.

Tesla passed away on 7 January 1943, in a New York hotel room.  He was 86 years old.

After his death, in 1960 the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic field strength the Tesla in his honour.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Nikola Tesla” , Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Last updated 25th September 2017

Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age

Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age at Amazon

Tesla: The Man who invented the Twentieth Century

Key Inventions of Nikola Tesla

• Development in electromagnetism
• Theoretical work on Alternating Current (AC)
• Tesla Coil – magnifying transmitter
• Polyphase system of electrical distribution
• Patent for an early form of radio
• Wireless electrical transfer
• Devices for lightning protection
• Concepts for electrical vehicles

Important contributions in

• Early models of radar
• Remote control
• Nuclear physics

Related pages

Inventions that changed the world  – Famous inventions that made a great difference to the progress of the world, including aluminium, the telephone and the printing press.

External pages

• Tesla Museum

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The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla

About the book.

Tesla is regarded as one of the top researchers and inventors in the field of electricity. There are 43 chapters in the book, the majority of which focus on various areas of research and discoveries by Tesla. The ideas and inventions are communicated in their unique ways, each of which establishes its position based on inherent value. Tesla advanced past his contemporaries to the next stage while also extending and revolutionizing the work of his predecessors. The book has historical relevance since it reveals the breadth of Tesla’ s early innovations in addition to demonstrating the depth of his thought and inventiveness. This popular collectable is a must-have for all! • An exhaustive collection of Tesla’ s ground-breaking endeavors, studies, and creations • Filled with an amazing sense of possibilities • Comprises Tesla’ s incredible research and writings • Considered as the bible of every electrical engineer • An insightful and fascinating read

Case Files: Nikola Tesla

Introduction

Born in a rural village in Croatia, Nikola Tesla would bring his brilliant scientific mind to America in 1884 to work with Thomas Edison. It was George Westinghouse, however, who fully recognized Tesla's brilliance and initiated a partnership with him. During that temporary partnership with Westinghouse and for many years that followed, Tesla generated amazing new advances in electrical engineering and earned patents by the dozen.

Who was Nikola Tesla? What were his contributions to research in high frequency phenomena?

Brilliant Imaginings

Nikola Tesla was born on July 9, 1856, in Smiljan, a village in rural Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest who was a notable preacher, and a clever and inventive, though uneducated, mother. Tesla was the second son in a family of two boys and three girls. His brilliant 12-year-old brother, Dane, died from an accident when Nikola was five years old.

Tesla grew up a keenly imaginative child, becoming fluent in six languages and developing a fascination for mechanical contraptions. A science prodigy, he was destined for the family occupations of priesthood or the military, but he was able, during a childhood illness, to get permission to pursue his dreams in science. He described his adventurous imaginings to be much more than dreams; instead, they were highly detailed visualizations with a dash of intuition added.

Between the age of 10 and 14, Tesla attended school in the town of Gospic, graduating as a brilliant student who had taught himself as much outside the classroom as he had learned inside. During the next three years at college in Carlstadt, Tesla discovered his lifetime passion: the science of electricity. His announcement of this choice was resisted by his parents, but decisions delayed when Tesla succumbed to the cholera epidemic in his hometown. He was dangerously ill and restricted for a year, and when he recovered, his father permitted his son's engineering ambitions to go forward.

Planting Seeds

In 1875, Tesla began studying electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria. Again, with obsessive effort that permitted only study, he excelled. In Graz, Tesla was able to observe the new Gramme machine, which generated direct current electricity using electromagnets and could also be reversed to operate as an electricity-driven motor. The demonstration planted an intuitive seed in Tesla's brain. Why was it necessary to go to such lengths to convert the alternating current (AC) produced by the dynamo to direct current (DC)? Why not leave the current AC and run the motor that way?

The electrical standard at that time was DC, the same mode produced by a battery, the mode that everyone was used to and accepted. To even imagine usable alternating current was visionary. Tesla's strong instincts told him this was possible, but at that time, in spite of his visualization efforts and the mental gymnastics of picturing many operating dynamo models, he failed to find the solution to this nagging problem.

Breakdown and Revelation

Tesla moved on to study electricity at the University of Prague and, short of funds, left after a year for a minor position with the newly-established Hungarian Telegraph Office in Budapest. Recognition of his ability came quickly and, in 1881, he was made manager of the telephone company and, with his characteristic enthusiasm, worked, invented, and began his avalanche of discoveries. However, his fixation with the alternating motor idea remained and eventually manifested in a critical mental and physical breakdown with highly mysterious symptoms. A hypersensitivity to sounds, light, and vibration brought shivers, twitches, and wildly erratic pulse rates. The illness continued for some months and defied medical diagnosis. Physical improvement came, the extreme sensitivity subsided, and Tesla returned to work still maintaining his captivation with the AC motor puzzle.

The puzzle's solution came to him in dramatic fashion in February, 1882. While walking with a friend at sunset, reciting poetry by Goethe, a spasm of revelation struck Tesla. He stood transfixed, explaining how an AC motor would work. The vision he outlined in minute detail had surfaced spontaneously in response to the questions he had asked himself back in 1875. Tesla later described his visualization powers with the example that he would envisage a design in meticulous detail, then return to the retained image days or weeks later and be able to examine it for wear as if it had been running during the intervening period.

In the midst of this excitement, Tesla's employer sold the telephone company but encouraged this unusual genius to move to Paris for work and expanded opportunities. Tesla moved to Paris in April of 1882.

Interested in learning more about Nikola Tesla? Learn More About His Cresson Award

Dreams to Reality

In Paris, Tesla was referred to a junior engineer position with the Compagnie Continental Edison, the branch of the American company set up to expand Edison’s DC generators and lighting systems. Advancing quickly, Tesla became one of the traveling repairmen sent to work on installations throughout Europe. He continued to be a strange, phobic character and talk enthusiastically about his AC system. He received little attention from colleagues who were too busy expanding the DC system. The company had stunned the public by illuminating the 1881 Paris Electrical Exhibition and was setting up generators to light-restricted areas such as factories. However, the one-mile transmission range for practical DC transmission limited sales to larger installations such as towns and cities.

The German city of Strasburg did purchase an Edison system, but the dedication ceremony for the railroad station lighting was disastrous. Throwing the switch caused an immediate explosion which blew out a wall of the train shed. The German-speaking Tesla was dispatched to deal with the problem. He spent a year doing the repairs and waiting for various levels of bureaucracy to approve the work.

During the slow time of waiting, Tesla was able to convert his dreams to reality. In a rented machine shop, he built the solid version of the dynamo he had preserved in his mind's eye during the previous year. The model worked beautifully. On returning to Paris, Tesla's plan was to collect his Strasburg bonus for start-up funds and find French financial backers as he built his new AC generators and motors.

The bonus did not materialize, either through lack of funds on the Edison company's part or misplaced expectations on Tesla's part. Edison managers advised Tesla to take his dreams and plans and try them out in America. The 28-year-old who had studied, worked, and traveled through much of central Europe set out for the United States.

Coming to America

Nikola Tesla arrived in New York on June 6, 1884, and set out to look for the friend he would live with. He stopped to do an engine repair job he happened to find along the way, and met with Thomas Edison, a meeting he described as "a memorable event in my life."

Working for Edison, Tesla again advanced quickly and his many patentable designs improved efficiency and controls. Tesla again became convinced that Edison had not lived up to a promise of bonuses and he resigned from the company within a year.

By this time, Tesla's engineering reputation was known and he found financial backing to develop his cherished AC generators and motors. The Tesla Light and Manufacturing Company was established and began to produce AC-driven arc lighting. Following completion of the project that illuminated the city of Rahway, New Jersey, Tesla expected to go on to manufacture his generators but his naivety brought failure. In the fall of 1886, the backers disagreed with Tesla, tricked him out of his money and patents, and left him penniless.

In the next step of his eventful life, Tesla spent the winter of 1886 working as a ditch digger and no doubt telling everyone he met of his AC electricity systems. A foreman recognized his promising labor and introduced Tesla to superiors who also appreciated his possibilities.

Recognized Genius

In April of 1887, the Tesla Electric Company was born in southern Manhattan and Tesla finally had the opportunity to build—in reality—the entire electrical systems, from generators through transformers to motors, that had been in his visual memory since that day in Budapest.

When he applied for the patent on his invention, he was directed by the patent office to rework and resubmit it broken into seven separate sections to reflect the inventive scope of the work. U.S. patents numbered 381,968 through 381,970 and 382,279 through 382,282 were issued on May 1, 1888.

The engineering fraternity began to notice Tesla and he was persuaded to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on May 16, 1888. Tesla's description of the theory and realization of his inventions was greeted as a masterwork; his genius was recognized.

Partnerships

Tesla had very little interest in the commercial development of his inventions, preferring to continue his "dreaming" and trust that somehow funding would materialize. Opportunity came in the form of George Westinghouse, an inventor and businessman from Pittsburgh who had made his fortune manufacturing air brakes for the burgeoning railroad industry. Westinghouse saw Tesla's potential and Tesla accepted his offer of one million dollars for his patents plus a royalty of one dollar per horsepower on all motors produced. Tesla now had enormous riches to match his reputation and his genius.

The arrangement required that Tesla spend time at the Pittsburgh plant as production of his motors started up. He did not enjoy the inevitable conflicts that arose in converting theoretical and pilot plant design to full scale production and gladly returned to New York at the end of the year. Manufacture of the motors began soon afterwards and Tesla happily went back to his laboratory. During the next four years, he received 45 U.S. patents.

At this time, the major application for electricity was in lighting from the DC incandescent lamps developed by Thomas Edison and the AC arc lights supplied by Westinghouse and the Thomson-Houston Company. The United States financial climate in this era of industrial expansion was dominated by the demand for capital and consolidations were common. Thomson-Houston merged with Edison and others to become the General Electric Company and Westinghouse needed partners to ensure its solvency.

These potential partners demanded that Westinghouse cancel his royalty arrangement with Tesla, a step this fellow inventor was reluctant to take. With no other choice, Westinghouse approached Tesla to cancel their contract with its multimillion-dollar value while stressing his commitment to AC power and Tesla's efforts. Citing his friend's confidence and support, Tesla simply tore up the contract. This hugely generous gesture meant that the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company flourished. By definition, Tesla had also shrunk the funding for his own further research and inventions by at least ten million dollars.

Electrical Endeavors

Now 33 years old, a rich man who had rejected marriage in favor of his devotion to science and nature, Tesla applied his genius to wider, greater endeavors. He set out to investigate the limits of electromagnetic radiation. He created an electric current operating at up to 10,000 cycles per second (the U.S. standard is 60) in an effort to duplicate a light beam. He noted the advantage of high frequency current in the transformer used for electricity transmission and went on to invent the Tesla coil transformers in insulating oil baths still in use today. Tesla's experiments reached a frequency of 20,000 cycles per second at extremely high voltages. At an address to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in May, 1891, he caused a sensation by demonstrating 100,000 volt spark discharges five inches long, plus the brightest of electric lamps, from transformed alternating current.

Tesla was now a public hero, celebrated everywhere, yet still obsessed with his appetite for knowledge of all things electrical. He returned the favor of many invitations with elaborate meals for his guests followed by a laboratory show of all kinds of spellbinding, glowing, sparking, and spinning objects driven by electricity. The highlight was a demonstration in which he passed electric current through his body from head to toe, having first determined the optimum frequency and power, then producing these conditions using his high-frequency dynamos and coil transformers.

Eventually accepting European invitations, Tesla took his enlightening lecture and show of amazing electrical experiments on the road. In just eight years since leaving Paris for the United States, Tesla had gone from penniless immigrant to engineer to destitute ditch digger to international celebrity—all by the age of 36. Among the innovative, and later widely adopted, inventions he demonstrated were neon and phosphorescent lamps, electronic tubes for wireless signal reception, and coil tuning principles used in radios.

While in Paris, Tesla learned of his mother's serious illness and left for Gospic; he was able to be with her during her final weeks of life. He was treated as a national hero while in his homeland. A severe illness he suffered while in Serbia prompted Tesla to self-examination and a resolution to avoid all further distractions and concentrate on his experimentation. He returned to New York, resumed his solitary lifestyle, and restarted his investigations of electricity's promise.

In May, 1893, The Columbian Exhibition opened in Chicago with illumination inside and out supplied by the Westinghouse Company using Tesla technologies. The Westinghouse installation was "outshining" Edison's lighting efforts and Tesla supplied a spectacular personal rebuttal to Edison's claim that AC current was by nature too dangerous for everyday use.

Since Tesla's first introduction of AC electricity, the "War of Electric Currents" had been waged, with Edison insisting on the safety of DC current over AC current. The safeness in fact came from the minimal strength of the direct current.

Now Tesla disproved that claim by letting a charge of one million volts be passed through his body without harm. Alternating current had won the "War."

Westinghouse also used the Tesla polyphase system in harnessing the power of Niagara Falls to produce 37,300 kilowatts electrical output from ten generators and transmit it to Buffalo, which was 22 miles away. The system went online in August, 1895.

Front Page News

To advance his experiments with high frequency, Tesla built a reciprocating engine, operable by air or steam, which led to an altercation with the Police Department. From watching the machine's vibrations, he was side-tracked into investigating the mechanical vibrations it caused. He came to believe that mechanical vibrational resonance was similar to the resonances of electric current. The "high-vibrations" machine he built worked too well. It operated strongly enough to raise neighborhood fears of an earthquake and caused the police shutdown of his experiments.

In September, 1898, Tesla was again front page news with his demonstration of a remotely-controlled robotic boat. The model boat was wirelessly controlled by the signals from Tesla's transmitter to its antenna and receiver and then to a servomechanism which translated the signal to a variety of maneuvers: starting, stopping, turning, etc. This was a remarkable combination of wireless telegraphy and robotics.

Tesla, an American citizen since 1889, offered this invention to the U.S. government but it was ridiculed and rejected. A patent was granted in November, 1898, but only after the Chief Examiner had visited New York to confirm the machine was really operable.

Next, Tesla returned to his experiments with power sources but having built an oscillator that produced 4 million volts, he had reached his laboratory's safety limitations and was short of money yet again.

An offer of much space and operating funds sent Tesla to Colorado Springs in May, 1899. The Tesla coil transformers in Colorado were huge, 75 feet in diameter and produced correspondingly large voltages and frequencies—artificial lightning bolts 135 feet long and accompanying thunder heard 15 miles away. Tesla had charged the earth to a level that would only have been achievable by hundreds of natural lightning bolts. Enough power was used to overload and cause short circuits at the powerhouse of the Colorado Springs Electric Company. Again Tesla's experiments were curtailed and he returned to New York to report on his findings. Further details of the Colorado experiments remained locked in Tesla's imagination until he died.

Advancing Humanity

Out of money again, Tesla returned to New York in the fall of 1899, satisfied that he had advanced his overriding and glorious goal of improving the condition of humanity by extending scientific knowledge. Through a friend, he published an article entitled "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy" which outlined his personal philosophy and his Colorado discoveries. Tesla believed that the type of energy available had been and would continue to be the controlling factor in the progress of the human condition, reducing such developments to a mechanical process. Thus, by discovering and improving electrical energy, he was playing his part in advancing humanity: a grandiose assertion.

J. Pierpont Morgan was Tesla's next benefactor. He had underwritten the Niagara Falls power system and was aware of Tesla's genius and now supported his ideas on transmitting electric power through the earth and on worldwide wireless broadcasting. Morgan could imagine the commercial potential, which never occurred to Tesla, and the importance of controlling the release of the ideas' conclusions. Tesla now had a willing supporter and spoke of Morgan's "noble generosity."

Again, in 1900, Tesla set out to build a new plant in Long Island, New York, intended as a source of a universal power supply and world-wide broadcasting. The enormous scope of his project never troubled Tesla; with Morgan's first donation, he confidently went forward. Stanford White agreed to design the centerpiece building of this new industrial city, a 154-foot-high tower to be the origin of the electrical power. Inevitably, delays crept into the project and bills went unpaid. The project ceased in 1905 and Tesla returned to New York City.

Pure vs. Applied Science

Tesla refused further lucrative offers which did not meet his idealistic purposes and took the consequences. He returned to the design of turbines and by 1910 had models available. However, his entry competed with machinery which had been developed in the interval since Niagara when Tesla was occupied with his Colorado and Long Island enterprises. Tesla's secretive nature and stubbornness caused problems and he met an audience which was not inclined to cooperate. The Tesla turbine, a machine of great ingenuity and promise, did not succeed.

In 1912, the Nobel Committee announced that Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison were the recipients of the Physics Prize; instead, the prize went to Gustav Dalen. Details of the reversal are unclear but it is known that Tesla refused the prize (and the $20,000 that came with it). Tesla differentiated between inspirational discoverers such as himself and methodical improvers such as Edison; he gave greater value to the former. Tesla was a pure scientist and Edison an applied scientist, and they should not be in combination. Tesla was persuaded to accept the 1917 Edison Medal from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers but made his disinterest noticeable.

Continued Progress

Tesla continued his work on power generation, making occasional announcements of progress which reached the press. He mentioned many discoveries but supplied no experimental details. He had enough money to live and always remained optimistic. There was talk of Tesla having invented a "death ray beam"; he spoke of sending a beam from Earth to the dark side of the moon. The discovery of atomic physics sent Tesla's mind racing to cosmic possibilities as he celebrated what he saw as the reach of man nearing that of “the Creator”. He described himself as "merely an automaton endowed with power of movement, responding to the stimuli of the sense organs and thinking and acting accordingly”.

His admiration for the human mind stood in contrast to his definition of the human body as "a meat machine which responds to external forces”.

Tesla died of heart failure, a forgotten man, on January 7, 1943, the Orthodox Christmas Day of that year. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately removed the papers from Tesla's safe, citing wartime security concerns. His funeral was conducted in New York, and his body was cremated.

Introduction (Science)

Michael Faraday first demonstrated the connection between magnetism and electricity by moving a magnet inside a coil of wire. So long as the magnet moved in relation to the coil, an electric current was induced in the wire; when the magnet was stationary, the current ceased. Faraday further suggested that the electromagnetic forces which occurred spread into the area around the wire. The first electricity generator, known as a dynamo, applied these principles with a cranked permanent magnet spinning inside a wire coil. Each time the magnet turned, a current in alternating directions was produced, depending on which pole of the magnet was passing the wire. All electric currents available at the time of this discovery were the direct currents from the batteries invented by Alessandro Volta, so this alternating current was altered to direct by adding a commutator (switch) to the dynamo design.

The Gramme dynamo, which so intrigued Tesla, improved on previous versions. It was made up of a series of thirty coils, connected in series with a commutator at each connection, placed inside a rotating, magnetized iron ring. It created an almost uninterrupted direct current with the drawback that Tesla noticed—sparking at the commutator brushes due to the tiny power disruptions. The dynamo was reversible; a supply of electricity to the coils induced rotation of the magnet, which could be connected to the spindle of a motor. Electrical force could be converted to mechanical force and vice versa.

Two-Phase Induction Motor

In the two-phase motor, two sets of coils are set perpendicular to each other surrounding the core. When alternating current is sent to the coils, they become electromagnets where polarity rapidly changes with each reversal of current flow. As the first coils are supplied with current, they create a magnetic field which starts the core turning. When the first coil’s current supply reverses, the second coil set is at its maximum supply point and creates its own magnetic field; the core spins on. In effect, the "magnetization" amount never varies and a rotating magnetic field is created. The result is a smooth-running, commutator-free motor with the rotor as its only moving part.

The Tesla Transformer

Tesla described his coil as "a simpler device for the production of electric oscillations" for use in the design of high frequency machines.

In this device, a primary transformer coil with a few turns of wire is connected to a selected condenser (or capacitor) through a spark gap. When the condenser is supplied with electric current, it continuously charges up to reach the point where it achieves the selected breakdown voltage of the gap, and a spark results. At the moment of sparking, the condenser and primary coil are connected and form an oscillating circuit.

As the charge-to-spark process is rapidly repeated, the high energy pulsation in the primary coil induces voltage in the secondary transformer coil, which has many turns of smaller wire. Settings and adjustments of each circuit control the oscillation frequencies of each circuit and optimum operation is achieved when the oscillating frequencies match, i.e. resonate. Then, the oscillation in the second coil is multiplied, the coil produces high voltage, and strong sparks are emitted by the secondary terminal. With this output voltage reaching many millions of volts, some exceptional lightning-like discharges can be created.

The Nikola Tesla presentation was made possible by support from The Barra Foundation and Unisys.

Read the Committee on Science and the Arts Report on “Nikola Tesla’s Researches in High Frequency Phenomena."

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Biography of Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American Inventor

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Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856–January 7, 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and futurist. As the holder of nearly 300 patents, Tesla is best known for his role in developing the modern three-phase alternating current (AC) electric power supply system and for his invention of the Tesla coil, an early advancement in the field of radio transmission.

During the 1880s, Tesla and Thomas Edison , inventor and champion of direct electrical current (DC), would become embattled in the “War of the Currents” over whether Tesla’s AC or Edison’s DC would become the standard current used in long-distance transmission of electrical power.

Fast Facts: Nikola Tesla

• Known For: Development of alternating current (AC) electrical power
• Born: July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia)
• Parents: Milutin Tesla and Đuka Tesla
• Died: January 7, 1943 in New York City, New York
• Education: Austrian Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria (1875)
• Patents: US381968A —Electro-magnetic motor, US512,340A —coil for electro-magnets
• Awards and Honors : Edison Medal (1917), Inventor’s Hall of Fame (1975)
• Notable Quote : “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

Early Life and Education

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the village of Smiljan in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia) to his Serbian father Milutin Tesla, an Eastern Orthodox priest, and his mother Đuka Tesla, who invented small household appliances and had the ability to memorize lengthy Serbian epic poems. Tesla credited his mother for his own interest in inventing and photographic memory. He had four siblings, a brother Dane, and sisters Angelina, Milka, and Marica. 

In 1870, Tesla started high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium in Karlovac, Austria. He recalled that his physics teacher’s demonstrations of electricity made him want “to know more of this wonderful force.” Able to do integral calculus in his head, Tesla completed high school in just three years, graduating in 1873.

Determined to pursue a career in engineering, Tesla enrolled at the Austrian Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria, in 1875. It was here that Tesla studied a Gramme dynamo, an electrical generator that produces direct current. Observing that the dynamo functioned like an electric motor when the direction of its current was reversed, Tesla began thinking of ways this alternating current could be used in industrial applications. Though he never graduated—as was not uncommon then—Tesla posted excellent grades and was even given a letter from the dean of the technical faculty addressed to his father stating, “Your son is a star of first rank.”

Feeling that chastity would help him focus on his career, Tesla never married or had any known romantic relationships. In her 2001 book, “ Tesla: Man Out of Time ,” biographer Margaret Cheney writes that Tesla felt himself to be unworthy of women, considering them to be superior to him in every way. Later in life, however, he publicly expressed strong dislike what he called the “new woman,” women he felt were abandoning their femininity in an attempt to dominate men.

The Path to Alternating Current

In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he gained practical experience as the chief electrician at the Central Telephone Exchange. In 1882, Tesla was hired by the Continental Edison Company in Paris where he worked in the emerging industry of installing the direct current-powered indoor incandescent lighting system patented by Thomas Edison in 1879. Impressed by Tesla’s mastery of engineering and physics, the company’s management soon had him designing improved versions of generating dynamos and motors and fixing problems at other Edison facilities throughout France and Germany.

When the manager of the Continental Edison facility in Paris was transferred back to the United States in 1884, he asked that Tesla be brought to the U.S. as well. In June 1884, Tesla emigrated to the United States and went to work at the Edison Machine Works in New York City, where Edison’s DC-based electrical lighting system was fast becoming the standard. Just six months later, Tesla quit Edison after a heated dispute over unpaid wages and bonuses. In his diary, Notebook from the Edison Machine Works: 1884-1885 , Tesla marked the end of the amicable relationship between the two great inventors. Across two pages, Tesla wrote in large letters, “Good By to the Edison Machine Works.”

By March 1885, Tesla, with the financial backing of businessmen Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail, started his own lighting utility company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. Instead of Edison’s incandescent lamp bulbs, Tesla’s company installed a DC-powered arc lighting system he had designed while working at Edison Machine Works. While Tesla’s arc light system was praised for its advanced features, his investors, Lane and Vail, had little interest in his ideas for perfecting and harnessing alternating current. In 1886, they abandoned Tesla’s company to start their own company. The move left Tesla penniless, forcing him to survive by taking electrical repair jobs and digging ditches for $2.00 per day. Of this period of hardship, Tesla would later recall, “My high education in various branches of science, mechanics, and literature seemed to me like a mockery.”

During his time of near destitution, Tesla’s resolve to prove the superiority of alternating current over Edison’s direct current grew even stronger.

Alternating Current and the Induction Motor

In April 1887, Tesla, along with his investors, Western Union telegraph superintendent Alfred S. Brown and attorney Charles F. Peck, founded the Tesla Electric Company in New York City for the purpose of developing new types of electric motors and generators.

Tesla soon developed a new type of electromagnetic induction motor that ran on alternating current. Patented in May 1888, Tesla’s motor proved to be simple, dependable, and not subject to the constant need for repairs that plagued direct current-driven motors at the time.

In July 1888, Tesla sold his patent for AC-powered motors to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owned by electrical industry pioneer George Westinghouse. In the deal, which proved financially lucrative for Tesla, Westinghouse Electric got the rights to market Tesla’s AC motor and agreed to hire Tesla as a consultant.

With Westinghouse now backing AC and Edison backing DC, the stage was set for what would become known as “The War of the Currents.”

The War of the Currents: Tesla vs. Edison

Recognizing the economic and technical superiority of alternating current to his direct current for long-distance power distribution, Edison undertook an unprecedently aggressive public relations campaign to discredit AC as posing a deadly threat to the public—a force should never allow in their homes. Edison and his associates toured the U.S. presenting grizzly public demonstrations of animals being electrocuted with AC electricity. When New York State sought a faster, “more humane” alternative to hanging for executing condemned prisoners, Edison, though once a vocal opponent of capital punishment, recommended using AC-powered electrocution. In 1890, murderer William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in a Westinghouse AC generator-powered electric chair that had been secretly designed by one of Edison’s salesmen.

Despite his best efforts, Edison failed to discredit alternating current. In 1892, Westinghouse and Edison’s new company General Electric, competed head-to-head for the contract to supply electricity to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. When Westinghouse ultimately won the contract, the fair served as a dazzling public display of Tesla’s AC system.

On the tails of their success at the World’s Fair, Tesla and Westinghouse won a historic contract to build the generators for a new hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls. In 1896, the power plant began delivering AC electricity to Buffalo, New York, 26 miles away. In his speech at the opening ceremony of the power plant, Tesla said of the accomplishment, “It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering.”

The success of the Niagara Falls power plant firmly established Tesla’s AC as the standard for the electric power industry, effectively ending the War of the Currents.

The Tesla Coil

In 1891, Tesla patented the Tesla coil, an electrical transformer circuit capable of producing high-voltage, low-current AC electricity. Though best-known today for its use in spectacular, lightening-spitting demonstrations of electricity, the Tesla coil was fundamental to the development of wireless communications. Still used in modern radio technology, the Tesla coil inductor was an essential part of many early radio transmission antennas.

Tesla would go on to use his Tesla coil in experiments with radio remote control, fluorescent lighting , x-rays , electromagnetism , and universal wireless power transmission. 

On July 30, 1891, the same year he patented his coil, the 35-year-old Tesla was sworn in as a naturalized United States citizen.

Radio Remote Control

At the 1898 Electrical Exposition in Boston’s Madison Square Gardens, Tesla demonstrated an invention he called a “telautomaton,” a three-foot-long, radio-controlled boat propelled by a small battery-powered motor and rudder. Members of the amazed crowd accused Tesla of using telepathy, a trained monkey, or pure magic to steer the boat.

Finding little consumer interest in radio-controlled devices, Tesla tried unsuccessfully to sell his “Teleautomatics” idea to the US Navy as a type of radio-controlled torpedo. However, during and after World War I (1914-1918), the militaries of many countries, including the United States incorporated it.

Wireless Power Transmission

From 1901 through 1906, Tesla spent most of his time and savings working on arguably his most ambitious, if a far-fetched, project—an electrical transmission system he believed could provide free energy and communications throughout the world without the need for wires. 

In 1901, with the backing of investors headed by financial giant J. P. Morgan, Tesla began building a power plant and massive power transmission tower at his

Wardenclyffe laboratory on Long Island, New York. Seizing on the then commonly-held belief that the Earth’s atmosphere conducted electricity, Tesla envisioned a globe-spanning network of power transmitting and receiving antennas suspended by balloons 30,000 feet (9,100 m) in the air. 

However, as Tesla’s project drug on, its sheer enormity caused his investors to doubt its plausibility and withdraw their support. With his rival, Guglielmo Marconi—enjoying the substantial financial support of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison—was making great advances in his own radio transmission developments, Tesla was forced to abandon his wireless power project in 1906.

Later Life and Death

In 1922, Tesla, deeply in debt from his failed wireless power project, was forced to leave the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City where he had been living since 1900, and move into the more-affordable St. Regis Hotel. While living at the St. Regis, Tesla took to feeding pigeons on the windowsill of his room, often bringing weak or injured birds into his room to nurse them back to health.

Of his love for one particular injured pigeon, Tesla would write, “I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.”

By late 1923, the St. Regis evicted Tesla because of unpaid bills and complaints about the smell from keeping pigeons in his room. For the next decade, he would live in a series of hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills at each. Finally, in 1934, his former employer, Westinghouse Electric Company, began paying Tesla $125 per month as a “consulting fee,” as well as paying his rent at the Hotel New Yorker.

In 1937, at age 81, Tesla was knocked to the ground by a taxicab while crossing a street a few blocks from the New Yorker. Though he suffered a severely wrenched back and broken ribs, Tesla characteristically refused extended medical attention. While he survived the incident, the full extent of his injuries, from which he never fully recovered, was never known.

On January 7, 1943, Tesla died alone in his room at the New Yorker Hotel at the age of 86. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as coronary thrombosis, a heart attack.

On January 10, 1943, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia delivered a eulogy to Tesla broadcast live over WNYC radio. On January 12, over 2,000 people attended Tesla’s funeral at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Following the funeral, Tesla’s body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley, New York.

With the United States then fully engaged in World War II ., fears that the Austrian-born inventor might have been in possession of devices or designs helpful to Nazi Germany , drove the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seize Tesla’s possessions after his death. However, the FBI reported finding nothing of interest, concluding that since about 1928, Tesla’s work had been “primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.”

In his 1944 book, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla , journalist, and historian John Joseph O’Neill wrote that Tesla claimed to have never slept more than two hours per night, “dozing” during the day instead to “recharge his batteries.” He was reported to have once spent 84 straight hours without sleep working in his laboratory.

It is believed that Tesla was granted around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions during his lifetime. While several of his patents remain unaccounted for or archived, he holds at least 278 known patents in 26 countries, mostly in the United States, Britain, and Canada. Tesla never attempted to patent many of his other inventions and ideas.

Today, Tesla’s legacy can be seen in multiple forms of popular culture, including movies, TV, video games and several genres of science fiction. For example, in the 2006 movie The Prestige, David Bowie portrays Tesla developing an amazing electro-replicating device for a magician. In Disney’s 2015 film Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, Tesla helps Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel , and Jules Verne discover a better future in an alternate dimension. And in the 2019 film The Current War, Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult, squares off with Thomas Edison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, in a history-based depiction of the war of the currents.

In 1917, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal, the most coveted electrical prize in the United States, and in 1975, Tesla was inducted into the Inventor’s Hall of Fame. In 1983, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Tesla. Most recently, in 2003, a group of investors headed by engineer and futurist Elon Musk founded Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing the first car fittingly powered totally by Tesla’s obsession—electricity.

• Carlson, W. Bernard. “Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age.” Princeton University Press, 2015.
• Cheney, Margaret. “Tesla: Man Out of Time.” Simon & Schuster, 2001.
• O'Neill, John J. (1944). “Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla.” Cosimo Classics, 2006.
• Gunderman, Richard. “The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla.” Smithsonian.com , January 5, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/extraordinary-life-nikola-tesla-180967758/ .
• Tesla, Nikola. “Notebook from the Edison Machine Works: 1884-1885.” Tesla Universe, https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/books/nikola-tesla-notebook-edison-machine-works-1884-1885 .
• “The War of the Currents: AC vs. DC Power.” U.S. Department of Energy , https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power .
• Cheney, Margaret. “Tesla: Master of Lightning.” MetroBooks, 2001.
• Dickerson, Kelly.“Wireless Electricity? How the Tesla Coil Works.” LiveScience , July 10, 2014, https://www.livescience.com/46745-how-tesla-coil-works.html .
• “About Nikola Tesla.” Tesla Society , https://web.archive.org/web/20120525133151/http:/www.teslasociety.org/about.html .
• O’Neill, John J. “Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla.” Cosimo Classics, 2006.
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Nikola Tesla

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 13, 2020 | Original: November 9, 2009

Serbian-American engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. Though he was famous and respected, he was never able to translate his copious inventions into long-term financial success—unlike his early employer and chief rival, Thomas Edison.

Nikola Tesla’s Early Years

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church and his mother managed the family’s farm. In 1863 Tesla’s brother Daniel was killed in a riding accident. The shock of the loss unsettled the 7-year-old Tesla, who reported seeing visions—the first signs of his lifelong mental illnesses.

Did you know? During the 1890s Mark Twain struck up a friendship with inventor Nikola Tesla. Twain often visited him in his lab, where in 1894 Tesla photographed the great American writer in one of the first pictures ever lit by phosphorescent light.

Tesla studied math and physics at the Technical University of Graz and philosophy at the University of Prague. In 1882, while on a walk, he came up with the idea for a brushless AC motor, making the first sketches of its rotating electromagnets in the sand of the path. Later that year he moved to Paris and got a job repairing direct current (DC) power plants with the Continental Edison Company. Two years later he immigrated to the United States.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and was hired as an engineer at Thomas Edison’s Manhattan headquarters. He worked there for a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. At one point Edison told Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Tesla quit soon after.

Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse

After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own Tesla Electric Light Company and a stint digging ditches for $2 a day, Tesla found backers to support his research into alternating current. In 1887 and 1888 he was granted more than 30 patents for his inventions and invited to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on his work. His lecture caught the attention of George Westinghouse, the inventor who had launched the first AC power system near Boston and was Edison’s major competitor in the “Battle of the Currents.”

Westinghouse hired Tesla, licensed the patents for his AC motor and gave him his own lab. In 1890 Edison arranged for a convicted New York murderer to be put to death in an AC-powered electric chair—a stunt designed to show how dangerous the Westinghouse standard could be.

Buoyed by Westinghouse’s royalties, Tesla struck out on his own again. But Westinghouse was soon forced by his backers to renegotiate their contract, with Tesla relinquishing his royalty rights.

In the 1890s Tesla invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights and the high-voltage transformer known as the Tesla coil. He also experimented with X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication two years before Guglielmo Marconi and piloted a radio-controlled boat around a pool in Madison Square Garden. Together, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls , creating the first modern power station.

Nikola Tesla’s Failures, Death and Legacy

In 1895 Tesla’s New York lab burned, destroying years’ worth of notes and equipment. Tesla relocated to Colorado Springs for two years, returning to New York in 1900. He secured backing from financier J.P. Morgan and began building a global communications network centered on a giant tower at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island. But funds ran out and Morgan balked at Tesla’s grandiose schemes.

Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel, working on new inventions even as his energy and mental health faded. His obsession with the number three and fastidious washing were dismissed as the eccentricities of genius. He spent his final years feeding—and, he claimed, communicating with—the city’s pigeons.

Tesla died in his room on January 7, 1943. Later that year the U.S. Supreme Court voided four of Marconi’s key patents, belatedly acknowledging Tesla’s innovations in radio. The AC system he championed and improved remains the global standard for power transmission.

HISTORY Vault: The Tesla Files

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AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Celebrate nikola tesla’s birthday with an excerpt from a new biography of the inventor.

Scholar W. Bernard Carlson explores Tesla’s experiments with automatons and radio controlled boats in this excerpt from his new book

Leah Binkovitz

The Serbian inventor was born 157 years ago today, July 10, in what is now Croatia. To honor that genius that helped bring us alternating current as well as countless other inventions, we’re offering an excerpt from a new biography, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age , by W. Bernard Carlson. A former fellow at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center, Carlson stopped by the American History Museum in June to discuss Tesla’s many innovations , including some on display at the museum. Tesla’s popularity has received a boost recently with everything from comedy sketches, operas and car companies made in his honor. In the following excerpt from Carlson’s new biography, read up on Tesla’s experiments with automatons and radio controlled boats.

Tesla’s interest in automata dates back to his childhood. As a boy, he suffered from nightmares that he overcame by developing his willpower. Struck by the fact that the frightening visions were often the result of some external stimuli that he could identify, Tesla concluded that all thoughts and emotions were the result of outside factors and that the human organism was no more than a “self-propelling machine, the motions of which are governed by impressions received through the eye.” His efforts to understand and control his intense visions, as he explained in his autobiography, “led me finally to recognise that I was but an automaton devoid of free will in thought and action and merely responsible to the forces of the environment.” But if he were merely an automaton, wondered Tesla, why not build one as well?

Read the full excerpt here

Excerpted from TESLA: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson. Copyright (c) 2013 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.

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Leah Binkovitz | | READ MORE

Leah Binkovitz is a Stone & Holt Weeks Fellow at Washington Post and NPR. Previously, she was a contributing writer and editorial intern for the At the Smithsonian section of Smithsonian magazine.

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