Short
biography of Nikola Tesla for newbies
The man who invented the 20th century
(July 10. 1856. - January 7. 1943.)
Tesla was from a family of Serbian origin. His father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest, and his mother, Djuka, unschooled but highly intelligent woman who invented many home appliances, among them and loom, which was not easy thing to create in that time.
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| Nikola Tesla in school days |
He finished 4 year school in just 3 years at Gymnasium Karlovac (1870–1873), and after studied for an engineering career at Technical University at Graz, Austria, and the University of Prague. While he was in Graz, he first saw the Gramme dynamo, which operated as generator, and when it was reversed became an electric motor, and he conceived a way to use AC current to advantage. Later, while he was walking in Graz park, he got a mental image of rotating magnetic for induction motor in, as he said, 'flash of a lightning' and drew his plans in sand with a stick. That became his first step toward the successful utilization of alternating current. He went to Paris to work for Continental Edison Company in 1882. and, while on assignment to Strassburg in 1883. he constructed his first induction motor in after-work hours. With only 4 cents, and recommendations in his pocket, Tesla sailed for America where he started working for Thomas Edison, but two inventors where far apart in background and methods, and Tesla quit his job when Edison refused to pay Tesla 50 000$ as promised if Tesla improved Edison's inefficient motor and generators, which he completed in short amount of time.
George Westinghouse, head of Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, bought the patent rights to Tesla's polyphase system of alternating current dynamos, transformers and motors in may 1885. Westinghouse used Tesla system to light the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and his success was a major factor in winning him the contract to install the first power generating machinery which finally ended 'War of the currents' between Tesla and Edison.
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| World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago lightened with Tesla's alternating current |
In 1898 Tesla presented his teleautomaic boat guided by remote control which Guglielmo Marconi got Nobel Prize for and in 1943, a Supreme Court of the United States decision restored the prior patents of Tesla.
In Colorado Springs, Tesla made what he claimed as his most important discovery - terrestrial stationary waves. With this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency, and he also lighted about 200 light bulbs wireless from a distance of 40 kilometres (25 miles), and created man made lightning with flashes of 41 metres (135 feet).
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| Wardenclyffe Tower |
When he returned to New York in 1900., with financial help from J.P. Morgan, Tesla began construction of wireless world broadcasting tower. Tesla's plans were to provide worldwide wireless communication which could be used to send messages, pictures, stock reports, and weather reports. This project was abandoned because of a financial panic, labour troubles and Morgan's withdrawal of support, which was Tesla's greatest defeat. After that, Tesla shifted to turbines and other projects, and because of lack of funds, most of his ideas remained in his notebooks, that are still being examined by engineers. In 1915, he got a report that he and Edison were to share the Nobel Prize, which Tesla refused.
Tesla had only few close friends, writter
Mark Twain,
Roberts Underwood Johnson and
Francis Marion Crawford. He was quite impractical in financial matters and an eccentric, driven by compulsions and a progressive germ phobia. But he had a way of intuitively sensing hidden scientific secrets and employing his inventive talent to prove his hypotheses. Tesla was a godsend to reporters who sought sensational copy but a problem to editors who were uncertain how seriously his futuristic prophecies should be regarded. Caustic criticism greeted his speculations concerning communication
with other planets, his assertions that he could split the Earth like an apple, and his claim of having invented a death ray capable of destroying 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles (400 kilometres).
After Tesla's death the
Custodian of Alien Property impounded his trunks, which held his papers, his diplomas and other honours, his letters, and his laboratory notes. These were eventually inherited by Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanovich, and later housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. Hundreds filed into New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine for his funeral services, and a flood of messages acknowledged the loss of a great genius. Three Nobel Prize recipients addressed their tribute to "one of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times." (I.W.H.)
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| Last known picture of Tesla |
