Nikola Tesla
Serbian-American Scientist and
Inventor, Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of all
time, was born on July 10, 1856, in the village of Smiljan, in
the province of Lika within Vojna Krajina region in Austria, the
area that later became the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats & Slovenes, Yugoslavia and nowadays
Croatia. His father was a Serbian Orthodox priest, a gifted
writer and poet. In his library young Tesla spent countless
hours. Nikola's mother, in his own words was an inventor of the
first order. Tesla himself inherited a mix of his parents
characteristics. He was a poetic dreamer, highly intelligent,
altruistic, and strongly self-disciplined with desire for
invention.
After studies at universities in Graz and Prague and spending
several years working in Hungary and France, Tesla migrated to America
in 1884. He arrived in New York with few material possessions and little
money but his creative mind and capacity to invent would lead him to
make his mark in his new country and indeed in history. Initially, Tesla
worked very closely with Thomas Edison. However, the two inventors were
far apart in scientific approach and methods and it was soon clear that
they would take divergent paths.
In 1882 Tesla
made the discovery that changed the world by harnessing the power of
Alternating Current. The patent rights were soon bought
by George Westinghouse precipitating thus a power struggle between
the Edison’s direct current and Tesla-Westinghouse AC system.
In 1888 Tesla obtained US patents covering an entire system of polyphase
AC
that remains unchanged in principle today. Tesla soon established his
own laboratory where he experimented with shadowgraphs similar to those
later used by Wilhelm Rontgen, who discovered X-rays in 1895. Countless
experiments conducted by Tesla included work on carbon button lamp,
the power of electric resonance, and various types of lighting resulting
in the invention of both neon and fluorescent lights.
Tesla’s system was used to light up the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago in 1893. This success was a key factor in winning
him the contract to install the first power machinery at Niagara Falls,
that bore Tesla’s name and patent numbers. In 1898 Tesla performed the very first demonstration
of wireless remote control by navigating the teleguided boat before
a crowd in Madison
Square Garden. Also, Tesla’s basic radio patent was granted
in 1900.
In his laboratory in Colorado Springs, Tesla
made what he regarded as his most important discovery - terrestrial
stationary waves.
This
discovery proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and
would be responsive, like a tuning fork, to electrical vibrations
of a certain
frequency. He staged the first demonstration of a wireless power
transmission by lighting up 200 lamps without wires from a distance
of 40 kilometres
and creating artificial lightening that produced flashes measuring
41 meters. Back in New York, Tesla the visionary began construction
of
a wireless world-broadcasting tower on Long Island. He was convinced
that this would allow worldwide communication by furnishing facilities
for sending pictures, messages, and stock reports. The project
was abandoned
because of an economic crisis, labour troubles, and investors withdrawal
of support. Tesla’s focus then shifted to turbines and other
projects. Once again, due to lack of funds, his many ideas remained
in his notebooks
that are even today often examined by engineers for unexploited clues.
Nikola Tesla died on January 7, 1943 in a New York
hotel room, alone, rather poor and almost forgotten. Nevertheless, he
remains one of the
main founders of modern radio communications through invention
of inductively coupled resonant electric circuits and patents for Tesla
coil and radio
tuning device. Most of his estate including many of his notes,
calculations and letters are housed in the
Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade,
Serbia.
