“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856, to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia). His father, Milutin Tesla, was an Orthodox priest. Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had an older brother named Dane and three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica.
In 1861, Tesla attended the "Lower" or "Primary" School in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion. In 1862, Tesla family moved to Gospić, Austrian Empire, where tesla completed "Lower" or "Primary" School, followed by the "Lower Real Gymnasium" or "Normal School."
In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac to attend school at Higher Real Gymnasium, where he was profoundly influenced by a math teacher Martin Sekulić. Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head , which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating. He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873.
In 1873, Tesla returned to his birthtown, Smiljan where he contracted cholera; he was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times.
In 1875, Tesla enrolled at Austrian Polytechnicin Graz, Austria, on a Military Frontier scholarship. During his first year, Tesla never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams and even received a letter of commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated, "Your son is a star of first rank." Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted. After his father's death in 1879, Tesla found a package of letters from his professors to his father, warning that unless he were removed from the school, Tesla would be killed through overwork. At the end of his second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling. During his third year, Tesla gambled away his allowance and his tuition money and When exam time came, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an extension to study, but was denied. He never graduated from the university and did not receive grades for the last semester.
In December 1878, Tesla left Graz and severed all relations with his family to hide the fact that he dropped out of school.Tesla went to Maribor (now in Slovenia), where he worked as a draftsman for 60 florins a month.
On 24 March 1879, Tesla was returned to Gospić under police guard for not having a residence permit.
In January 1880, two of Tesla's uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospić for Prague where he was to study. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University; he never studied Greek, a required subject; and he was illiterate in Czech, another required subject.
Working for Edison
In 1882, Tesla began working for the Continental Edison Company in France.In June 1884, he relocated to New York City where he was hired by Thomas Edison to work for his Edison Machine Works.
Tesla was offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company's direct current generators.
According to Tesla, Edison remarked, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it"
After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, claiming that he was only joking, replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla's US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned.
Trouble years
After leaving Edison's company Tesla partnered with two businessmen in 1886, Robert Lane and Benjamin Vale, who agreed to finance an electric lighting company in Tesla's name, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. The company installed electrical arc light based illumination systems designed by Tesla and also had designs for dynamo electric machine commutators, the first patents issued to Tesla in the US.
The investors showed little interest in Tesla's ideas for new types of motors and electrical transmission equipment, this eventually forced Tesla out leaving him penniless.He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and even as a ditch digger for $2 per day. Tesla considered the winter of 1886/1887 as a time of "terrible headaches and bitter tears." During this time, he questioned the value of his education.
AC & the Induction Motor
In late 1886 Tesla met Alfred S. Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and New York attorney Charles F. Peck.Based on Tesla's patents and other ideas they agreed to back him financially and handle his patents. Together in April 1887 they formed the Tesla Electric Company. They set up a laboratory for Tesla at 89 Liberty Street in Manhattan where he worked on improving and developing new types of electric motors, generators and other devices.
One of the things Tesla developed at that laboratory in 1887 was an induction motor that ran on alternating current, a power system format that was starting to be built in Europe and the US because its advantages in long distance high voltage transmission.
In 1888, the editor of Electrical World magazine, Thomas Commemorated Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his alternating current system, including his induction motor, at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE).
In July 1888, Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla's poly phase induction motor.Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of $2,000 ($52,500 in today's dollars) per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs.
War of currents (AC vs DC)
Tesla's alternating current work put him firmly on the "AC" side of the so-called "War of Currents," an electrical standards battle waged between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse.
In 1893, George Westinghouse won the bid to electrify the 1893 Worlds Columbian exposition in Chicago with alternating current, beating out a bid by Edison to electrify the fair with direct current.
In 1897, Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms, saying that if things continue the way they were he would no longer be in control of Westinghouse Electric and Tesla would have to "deal with the bankers" to try to collect future royalties. Westinghouse convinced Tesla to release his company from the licensing agreement over Tesla's AC patents in exchange for Westinghouse Electric purchasing the patents for a lump sum payment of $216,000.
On 30 July 1891, at the age of 35, Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and established his South Fifth Avenuelaboratory, and later another at 46 E. Houston Street, in New York. He lit electric lamps wirelessly at both locations, demonstrating the potential of wireless power transmission. In the same year, he patented the Tesla coil.
X-ray Experiment
Starting in 1894, Tesla began investigating what he referred to as radiant energy of "invisible" kinds after he had noticed damaged film in his laboratory in previous experiments (later identified as "Roentgen rays" or "X-Rays").
Soon after, much of Tesla's early research—hundreds of invention models, plans, notes, laboratory data, tools, photographs, valued at $50,000—was lost in the 5th Avenue laboratory fire of March 1895. Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X-ray image when he tried to photograph Mark Twain illuminated by a Geissler tube, an earlier type of gas discharge tube. The only thing captured in the image was the metal locking screw on the camera lens.
Radio
Tesla's theories on the possibility of the transmission by radio waves go back as far as lectures and demonstrations in 1893 in St. Louis, Missouri, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the National Electric Light Association.
Tesla's radio wave experiments in 1896 were conducted in Gerlach Hotel (later renamed The Radio Wave building), where he resided.
In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlledboat—which he dubbed "teleautomaton"—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. The crowd that witnessed the demonstration made outrageous claims about the workings of the boat, such as magic, telepathy, and being piloted by a trained monkey hidden inside.
When Guglielmo Marconi made his famous first-ever transatlantic radio transmission in 1901, Tesla quipped that it was done with 17 Tesla patents.
Colorado Springs Experiment
On 17 May 1899, Tesla moved to Colorado Springs, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments; his lab was located near Foote Ave. and Kiowa St. Upon his arrival, he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments, transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris.
On 15 June 1899, Tesla performed his first experiments at his Colorado Springs lab; he recorded his initial spark length at five inches long, but very thick and noisy.
He produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts and up to 135 feet long). Thunder from the released energy was heard 15 miles away in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Light bulbs within 100 feet of the lab glowed even when turned off.
During his time at his lab, Tesla observed unusual signals from his receiver which he concluded may be communications from another planet.
On 7 January 1900, Tesla left Colorado Springs. His lab was torn down in 1904, and its contents were sold two years later to satisfy a debt.
Wardenclyffe Project
In 1900, with $150,000 ($4,252,200 in today's dollars), Tesla began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility. Tesla later approached Morgan to ask for more funds to build a more powerful transmitter.
In December 1901, Marconi successfully transmitted the letter S from England to Newfoundland, terminating Tesla's relationship with Morgan. Over the next five years, Tesla wrote over 50 letters to Morgan, pleading for and demanding additional funding to complete the construction of Wardenclyffe. Tesla continued the project for another nine months. The tower was erected to its full 187 feet (57 m).
In July 1903, Tesla wrote to Morgan that in addition to wireless communication, Wardenclyffe would be capable of wireless transmission of electric power.
On 14 October 1904, Morgan finally replied through his secretary, stating, "It will be impossible for [me] to do anything in the matter,"
On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 horsepower (150 kilowatts) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine.
Tesla invented a steam-powered mechanical oscillator—Tesla's oscillator. While experimenting with mechanical oscillators at his Houston Street lab, Tesla allegedly generated a resonance of several buildings. As the speed grew, it is said that the machine oscillated at the resonance frequency of his own building and, belatedly realizing the danger, he was forced to use a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment.
Tesla theorized that the application of electricity to the brain enhanced intelligence. In 1912, he crafted "a plan to make dull students bright by saturating them unconsciously with electricity," wiring the walls of a schoolroom and, "saturating [the schoolroom] with infinitesimal electric waves vibrating at high frequency. The whole room will thus, Mr. Tesla claims, be converted into a health-giving and stimulating electromagnetic field or 'bath.'
Before World War I, Tesla sought overseas investors. After the war started, Tesla lost the funding he was receiving from his patents in European countries. Eventually, he sold Wardenclyffe for $20,000 ($470,900 in today's dollars). In 1917, around the time that the Wardenclyffe Tower was demolished by Boldt to make the land a more viable real estate asset, Tesla received AIEE's highest honor, the Edison Medal.
Won Nobel Prize but Denied
On 6 November 1915, a Reuters news agency report from London had the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla; however, on 15 November, a Reuters story from Stockholm stated the prize that year was being awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."
There have been subsequent claims by Tesla biographers that Edison and Tesla were the original recipients and that neither was given the award because of their animosity toward each other; that each sought to minimize the other's achievements and right to win the award; that both refused ever to accept the award if the other received it first; that both rejected any possibility of sharing it; and even that a wealthy Edison refused it to keep Tesla from getting the $20,000 prize money.
Later years of his life
In 1928, Tesla received his last patent, U.S. Patent 1,655,114, for a biplane capable of taking off vertically (VTOL aircraft) and then be "gradually tilted through manipulation of the elevator devices" in flight until it was flying like a conventional plane.
In the fall of 1937, after midnight one night, Tesla left the Hotel New Yorker to make his regular commute to the cathedral and the library to feed the pigeons. While crossing a street a couple of blocks from the hotel, Tesla was unable to dodge a moving taxicab and was thrown heavily to the ground. Tesla's back was severely wrenched and three of his ribs were broken in the accident.
Death Ray
Later in life, Tesla made claims concerning a "teleforce" weapon after studying the Van de Graaff generator. The press called it a "peace ray" or death ray. Tesla described the weapon as being able to be used against ground-based infantry or for antiaircraft purposes.
During the same year, Tesla wrote a treatise, The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, concerning charged particle beam weapons. Tesla published the document in an attempt to expound on the technical description of a "superweapon that would put an end to all war." This treatise is currently in the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade.
Death
On 7 January 1943, Tesla, 86, died alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. His body was later found by maid Alice Monaghan after she had entered Tesla's room, ignoring the "do not disturb" sign that Tesla had placed on his door two days earlier. Assistant medical examiner H.W. Wembly examined the body and ruled that the cause of death had been coronary thrombosis. Tesla's remains were taken to the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home at Madison Ave. and 81st St. A long-time friend and supporter of Tesla, Hugo Gernsback, commissioned a sculptor to create a death mask, now displayed in the Nikola Tesla Museum.
Two days later, the FBI ordered the Alien Property Custodian to seize Tesla's belongings, even though Tesla was an American citizen. Tesla's entire estate from the Hotel New Yorker and other New York City hotels was transported to the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Company under Office of Alien Property (OAP) seal. John G. Trump, a professor at M.I.T. and well-known electrical engineer serving as a technical aide to the National Defense Research Committee, was called in to analyze the Tesla items in OAP custody. After a three-day investigation, Trump's report concluded that there was nothing that would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands.
In 1952, following pressure from Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanović, Tesla's entire estate was shipped to Belgrade in 80 trunks marked N.T. In 1957, Kosanović secretary Charlotte Muzar transported Tesla's ashes from the United States to Belgrade. The ashes are displayed in a gold-plated sphere on a marble pedestal in the Nikola Tesla Museum.
Personal life
Tesla worked every day from 9:00 a.m until 6:00 p.m. or later, with dinner from exactly 8:10 p.m., at Delmonico's restaurant and later the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Tesla would telephone his dinner order to the headwaiter, who also could be the only one to serve him. "The meal was required to be ready at eight o'clock ... He dined alone, except on the rare occasions when he would give a dinner to a group to meet his social obligations. Tesla would then resume his work, often until 3:00 a.m."
Tesla walked between 8 to 10 miles per day. He squished his toes one hundred times for each foot every night, claiming that it stimulated his brain cells.
Tesla read many works, memorizing complete books, and supposedly possessed a photographic memory. He was a polyglot, speaking eight languages: Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.
Literary works
Tesla wrote a number of books and articles for magazines and journals. Among his books are My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, compiled and edited by Ben Johnston; The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla, compiled and edited by David Hatcher Childress; and The Tesla Papers.
Many of Tesla's writings are freely available on the web, including the article "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy," published in The Century Magazine in 1900, and the article "Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency," published in his book Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla.
Inventions
1. Tesla coil.
2. Auto ignition system.
3. AC polyphase system.
4. Wireless energy.
5. Radio.
6. Fluorescent light and neon light.
7. X-ray.
8. VTOL.
9. Robotics.
10. Death ray.
11. Radar.
12. Remote control.
13. Bladeless turbine.
14. Earthquake machine.
.....and many more
Legacy and honors
- On Tesla's 75th birthday in 1931, Timemagazine put him on its cover. The cover caption "All the world's his power house" noted his contribution to electrical power generation. He received congratulatory letters from more than 70 pioneers in science and engineering, including Albert Einstein.
- The Tesla Society, founded in 1956.
- Tesla, a 26 kilometer-wide crater on the far side of the moon.
- 2244 Tesla, a minor planet.
- TPP Nikola Tesla, the largest power plant in Serbia.
- Tesla (company), electrotechnical conglomerate in the former Czechoslovakia.
- Tesla Motors, an electric car company.
- The Nikola Tesla Museum Archive in Belgrade
- July 10, National day of Nikola Tesla in Croatia
Holidays and events
1. Day of Science, Serbia, 10 July
2. Day of Nikola Tesla, Association of Teachers in Vojvodina, 4–10 July
3. Day of Nikola Tesla, Niagara Falls, 10 July
4.Nikola Tesla Day in Croatia, 10 July
5. Nikola Tesla annual electric vehicle rally in Croatia
Awards
1. Order of St. Sava, II Class, Government of Serbia (1892)
2. Elliott Cresson Medal (1894)
3. Order of Prince Danilo I (1895)
4. Edison Medal (1916)
5. Order of St. Sava, I Class, Government of Yugoslavia (1926)
6. Order of the Yugoslav Crown (1931)
7. John Scott Medal (1934)
8. Order of the White Eagle, I Class, Government of Yugoslavia (1936)
9. Order of the White Lion, I Class, Government of Czechoslovakia (1937)
10. University of Paris Medal (1937)
11. The Medal of the University St Clement of Ochrida, Sofia, Bulgaria (1939)