Nikola Tesla-Life, Inventions and Quotes
Nikola Tesla. If you can read these sentences right now, I can tell you that it was thanks to the ideas and discoveries of Nicola Tesla, a Serbian American inventor, electrical and mechanical engineer, inventor. Nikola Tesla is the scientist who discovered the most common electrical system in the world today, the alternating-current (AC). He also invented the Tesla Coil, which is still used in radio technology. We could call him the father of the Wireless Electricity. Tesla filed more than 300 patents and his inventions helped pave the way for alternating current (AC), fluorescent lights, electric motors, radios, lasers, and remote controls, among many other things.
Nikola Tesla Museum – 1925 | Who is Nikola Tesla? | Life, Inventions and Quotes of Nicola Tesla
Nicola Tesla | Biography, Facts and Inventions
Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia.
Statue of Nikola Tesla in front of his birth house. – Smiljan, Croatia.
Nikola Tesla Family
Nikola Tesla was one of five children, including siblings Dane, Angelina, Milka, and Marica.
Nikola Tesla Family
Nikola Tesla had probably taken his inventor genes from his mother. Because her mother, Djuka Mandic, was a woman who designed household appliances to make housework easier. He even designed a mechanical egg beater once.
Tesla started his inventions at a very early age. He built his own waterwheel when he was six.
But he was a different child, full of weirdness. For example, he was counting his steps while walking and couldn’t touch anyone’s hair. He had a great weakness for shiny objects. He was also always calculating the cubic content of his food, refusing to eat if he failed to do so.
Tesla’s father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian orthodox priest and writer, who pushed his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola had in mind to turn to science.
Nikola Tesla had a difficult childhood; his family always compared him to his older brother. His brother fell off a horse when he was 12. His family blamed Tesla for scaring the horse.
It is thought that his family’s treatment of Tesla influenced his psychology and paved the way for him to be an introverted person.
Nikola Tesla’s Education Life
Tesla liked to read and write poetry as a child. He had a great memory; he did not forget anything he saw, heard and read, especially his visual memory was fantastic. That’s why he didn’t like to take notes, he usually kept them in his mind and applied them.
Nikola Tesla first studied at the Polytechnic Institute in Graz in 1873 and then at the University of Prague in 1880.
Polytechnic Institute in Graz | Nikola Tesla’s Education Life
In the early days, his aim was to specialize in physics and mathematics, but later he became interested in the field of electricity.
He began his career in 1881 as an electrical engineer at a telephone company in Budapest. While working here he came up with the idea of an induction motor and decided to design it.
He emigrated to the United States from Europe at the age of 28. The inventor, who had nothing but his crazy ideas in mind, would continue his work in the United States.
Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison | The War of Currents
Nikola Tesla? Thomas Edison? Their rivalry is one of the most talked-about competitions in the world of science.
Both have left their mark on the world of science and continue to change the world with what they have done for science even after their death.
Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and gave an introductory letter to Thomas Edison, the famous inventor and businessman who built DC (Direct Current) – based electrical works and quickly grew the business.
He was hired as an engineer at Thomas Edison’s headquarters in Manhattan. Tesla had managed to impress Edison with his hard-work and mastery.
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison told Tesla he could pay $ 50,000 to design the DC dynamos. After months of experiments and tests, Nikola Tesla offered a solution and asked for the money that Edison had promised, but could not take it.
The two were separated because of their conflicting understanding of business and science with their different personalities: while Edison was a power figure focusing on marketing and financial success, Tesla was commercially contactless and vulnerable.
Tesla decided to leave this 6-month working adventure.
Their competition with Edison would become even tougher in the commercial field in the coming years.
* He’s a great talker, and, say, he’s a great eater too. I remember the first time I saw him. We were doing some experimenting in a little place outside Paris, and one day a long, lanky lad came in and said he wanted a job.
We put him to work thinking he would soon tire of his new occupation for we were putting in 20-24 hours a day, then, but he stuck right to it and after things eased up one of my men said to him: “Well, Tesla, you’ve worked pretty hard, now I’m going to take you into Paris and give you a splendid supper.” So he took him to the most expensive cafe in Paris a place where they broil an extra thick steak between two thin steaks. Tesla stowed away one of those big fellows without any trouble and my man said to him: “Anything else, my boy? I’m standing treat.” “Well, if you don’t mind, sir,” said my apprentice, “I’ll try another steak.”
After he left me he went into other lines and has accomplished quite a little. (Thomas Edison | New York News-August 1896)
* Make a Tesla or buy a Tesla coil. I made one, find it…Get books on wireless telegraphy. (From The Private Notebook of Thomas Edison)
Top 3 of Nikola Tesla Inventions
During his career, Nikola Tesla discovered, designed and developed ideas for a number of important inventions, including Dynamos and induction motors, many of which were officially patented by other inventors.
He has also been a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology, remote control and rotary magnetic field, which form the basis of AC machines.
But Tesla is best known for his contributions to the field of electricity with AC (Alternating Current) and Tesla Coil.
Alternating Current (AC)
Tesla designed the AC system, which will become the leading power system of the 20th century and is now the world standard.
In 1887, Tesla found funding for the Tesla Electric Company, and by the end of that year was able to obtain patents for AC-based inventions.
Tesla’s AC system caught the attention of American engineer and business person George Westinghouse. Westinghouse was looking for a solution to power to travel the long distance.
Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse
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.
My first impression was that of a man with the tremendous potential energy of which is the only part had taken kinetic form. But even to a superficial observer, the latent force was manifest. A powerful frame, well proportioned, with every joint in working order, an eye as clear as crystal, a quick and springy step he presented a rare example of health and strength. Like a lion in a forest, he breathed deep and with delight the smoky air of his factories. (Nikola Tesla on George Westinghouse)
As interest in the AC system grew, it brought Tesla and Westinghouse into direct competition with Thomas Edison, who was intent on selling the direct current (DC) system.
Thomas Edison had even launched smear campaigns in the press to undermine interest in the Alternating Current (AC).
Hydroelectric Power Plant
In 1895, Nikola Tesla designed the Niagara Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant, one of the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States.
In 1895, along with George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla built the first power plant to tap the hydroelectric potential trapped within Niagara Falls.
The following year, it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York, which was widely promoted around the world and helped AC electricity move towards becoming the world’s power system.
Tesla Coil
At the end of the 19th century, Nicola Tesla patented the Tesla Coil, which is the basis of wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today.
The Tesla coil, the heart of an electrical circuit, is a coil used in many radio transmission antennas.
Nikola Tesla, East Houston St. in front of a spiral coil used in wireless power experiments in a laboratory | What are Tesla’s Inventions?
Tesla used this coil to study fluorescence, x-rays, radio, wireless power and electromagnetism on earth and in its atmosphere.
The Death of Nikola Tesla | How did Nikola Tesla die?
Tesla has spent the last twenty years in a hotel in New York. He was working on new inventions, even when his energy and mental health declined.
His obsession with number three and meticulous washing further increased in his old age.
He spent his last years feeding pigeons.
Nikola Tesla – On the Cover of Time Magazine for his 75th Birthday | 1931
Nikola Tesla was found dead on January 7, 1943, by the employee of the hotel, in room 3327 on the 33rd floor in New York.
One of the last photos of Nikola Tesla before his death – 1943
Representatives of the US government’s Alien Property Department have seized several documents on the work of the bright and prolific inventor, 86 years old.
It was the hottest days of World War II, and Nicola Tesla claimed to have invented a powerful particle beam weapon known as the Death Ray, which could prove invaluable in the ongoing war.
So rather than risk Tesla’s technology falling into the hands of America’s enemies, the government swooped in and took possession of all the property and documents from his room at the Hotel in New York.
The contents of the documents in Nikola Tesla’s hotel room have been hidden for a long time, and conspiracy theories have been the subject of much. After years of secrecy, the FBI finally removed the confidentiality of 250-page documents related to Tesla under the information retrieval law in 2016.
In March 2018, two more confidentiality decisions were abolished and the documents were made public. Even with the publication of these documents, however, many questions remain unanswered, and it turns out that some of Tesla’s files are still missing.
In 1952, a US court ruled that Tesla’s nephew, Sava Kosanovic, deserved his uncle’s property and declared himself an heir.
Tesla’s documents and other materials were then sent to Belgrade, Serbia. Currently, these documents are in the Nikola Tesla Museum.
However, it is known that Tesla’s documents seized by the FBI are about 80 packages, but only 60 are sent to Belgrade.
It is possible that 80 packages fit into 60 packages, but it is also possible that the FBI still has certain documents in its possession. The result; The conspiracy theories established on Tesla’s documents will never end.
A dinner of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1915 honoring John Stone Stone, president of the society. Standing along the back wall from the left are Karl F. Braun, winner with Marconi of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1909; John Stone Stone; Jonathan Zeaneck, of the Sayville wireless plant; Lee DeForest, radio pioneer; Nikola Tesla; Fritz Lowenstein, Tesla’s longtime associate; Rudolf Goldschmidt, a physicist who worked with Emil Meyer, third from the left, seated in center row, who ran the German wireless plant at Tuckerton, New Jersey. Seated in the back, at far left in front of Braun, is David Sarnoff, later head of RCA and NBC-TV. (Smithsonian Institution)
Nikola Tesla Quotes
* Now, I must tell you of a strange experience which bore fruit in my later life. We had a cold snap drier than ever observed before. People walking in the snow left a luminous trail. As I stroked Mačak’s back, it became a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks. My father remarked, this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see on the trees in a storm. My mother seemed alarmed. Stop playing with the cat, she said, he might start a fire. I was thinking abstractly. Is nature a cat? If so, who strokes its back? It can only be God, I concluded.
I cannot exaggerate the effect of this marvelous sight on my childish imagination. Day after day I asked myself what is electricity and found no answer. Eighty years have gone by since and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it. (Nikola Tesla | 1936)
* It has cost me years of thought to arrive at certain results, by many believed to be unattainable, for which there are now numerous claimants, and the number of these is rapidly increasing, like that of the colonels in the South after the war.
* There were many days when I did not know where my next meal was coming from. But I was never afraid to work, I went to where some men were digging a ditch…and said I wanted to work. The boss looked at my good clothes and white hands and he laughed at the others…but he said, “All right. Spit on your hands. Get in the ditch.” And I worked harder than anybody. At the end of the day, I had $2. (Tesla Has Plan to Signal Mars | New York Sun – July 12, 1937)
* All around us everything is spinning, everything is moving, everywhere is energy. There must be some way of availing ourselves of this energy directly, then, with the light obtained through the medium, with the power derived from it, with every form of energy obtained without effort, from stores forever inexhaustible, humanity will advance with giant strides. The mere contemplation of these magnificent possibilities expands our minds, strengthens our hopes and fills our hearts with supreme delight. (From a presentation by Nikola Tesla)
* The day when we shall know exactly what “electricity” is, will chronicle an event probably greater, more important than any other recorded in the history of the human race. The time will come when the comfort, the very existence, perhaps, of man will depend upon that wonderful agent.
* How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate…As a youth, I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.
* If there are intelligent inhabitants of Mars or any other planet, it seems to me that we can do something to attract their attention…I have had this scheme under consideration for five or six years. (Nicola Tesla | New York Sun – March 25, 1896)
* The problem was rendered extremely difficult, owing to the immense dimensions of the planet…But by gradual and continuous improvements of a generator of electrical oscillations…I finally succeeded in reaching rates of delivery of electrical energy actually surpassing those of lightning discharges…By use of such a generator of stationary waves and receiving apparatus properly placed and adjusted in any other locality, however remote, it is practicable to transmit intelligible signals, or to control or actuate at will anyone apparatus for many other important and valuable purposes.
* I do not hesitate to state here for future reference and as a test of the accuracy of my scientific forecast that flying machines and ships propelled by electricity transmitted without a wire will have ceased to be a wonder in ten years from now. I would say five were it not that there is such a thing as “inertia of human opinion” resisting revolutionary ideas. (Nikola Tesla, May 16, 1907)
* I come from a very wiry and long-lived race. Some of my ancestors have been centenarians, and one of them lived 129 years. I am determined to keep up the record and please myself with prospects of great promise. Then again, nature has given me a vivid imagination…
References:
- https://www.biography.com/inventor/nikola-tesla
- https://www.history.com/news/nikola-tesla-files-declassified-fbi
- https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla
- https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-tesla-inventor-biography-2017-7#nikola-tesla-was-born-on-july-10-1856-in-smiljan-in-the-austo-hungarian-empire-modern-day-croatia-1
- https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/31254/did-edison-refuse-to-pay-tesla-saying-you-dont-understand-our-american-humor
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
- Marc J.Seifer-The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla Biography of a Genius
