Nikola Tesla (aged 86) was born 10 July 1856 and died 7 January 1943. He was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He is frequently cited as one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current (AC) electric power systems, including the polyphase system of electrical distribution and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution. Tesla was fluent in many languages. Along with Serbian, he spoke seven other languages: Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.
Statue of Nikola Tesla, Niagara Falls, NY, USA
photo by Author Mskadu (c) wikipedia.org ; This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, Croatian Military Frontier, in the territory of today's Croatia, he was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen. After his demonstration of wireless communication through radio in 1894 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Tesla never put much focus on his finances. It is said he died impoverished, at the age of 86.
The International System of Units unit measuring magnetic field B (also referred to as the magnetic flux density and magnetic induction), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960), as well as the Tesla effect of wireless energy transfer to wirelessly power electronic devices which Tesla demonstrated on a low scale with incandescent light bulbs) as early as 1893 and aspired to use for the intercontinental transmission of industrial power levels in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.
Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. A few of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.
Another of Tesla's theorized inventions is commonly referred to as Tesla's Flying Machine, which appears to resemble an ion-propelled aircraft.[90] Tesla claimed that one of his life goals was to create a flying machine that would run without the use of an airplane engine, wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source. Initially, Tesla pondered about the idea of a flying craft that would fly using an electric motor powered by grounded base stations. As time progressed, Tesla suggested that perhaps such an aircraft could be run entirely electro-mechanically. The theorized appearance would typically take the form of a cigar or saucer.
Tesla may have suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes, and was adamant about staying in a hotel room with a number divisible by three. Tesla was also noted to be physically revolted by jewelry, notably pearl earrings. He was fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene, and was by all accounts mysophobic.
Tesla was obsessed with pigeons, ordering special seeds for the pigeons he fed in Central Park and even bringing some into his hotel room with him. Tesla was an animal-lover, often reflecting contentedly about a childhood cat, "The Magnificent Mačak." Tesla never married. He was celibate and claimed that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities. Nonetheless there have been numerous accounts of women vying for Tesla's affection, even some madly in love with him. Tesla, though polite, behaved rather ambivalently to these women in the romantic sense.
Tesla was prone to alienating himself and was generally soft-spoken. However, when he did engage in a social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of him. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force." His loyal secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote: "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul." Tesla's friend Hawthorne wrote that "seldom did one meet a scientist or engineer who was also a poet, a philosopher, an appreciator of fine music, a linguist, and a connoisseur of food and drink."
Nevertheless, Tesla displayed the occasional cruel streak; he openly expressed his disgust for overweight people, once firing a secretary because of her weight. He was quick to criticize others' clothing as well, on several occasions demanding a subordinate to go home and change her dress.
Tesla was widely known for his great showmanship, presenting his innovations and demonstrations to the public as an artform, almost like a magician. This seems to conflict with his observed reclusiveness; Tesla was a complicated figure. He refused to hold conventions without his Tesla coil blasting electricity throughout the room, despite the audience often being terrified, though he assured them everything was perfectly safe.
Tesla died of heart failure alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, on 7 January 1943. Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts on the books. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number 645576, in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.
Soon after his death Tesla's safe was opened by his nephew Sava Kosanović. Shortly thereafter Tesla's papers and other property were empounded by the United States' Alien Property Custodian office in Tesla's compound at the Manhattan Warehouse, even though he was a naturalized citizen. At the time of his death, Tesla had been working on the Teleforce weapon, or 'death ray,' that he had unsuccessfully marketed to the US War Department. It appears that Teleforce was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma, and was conceived as a particle beam weapon. The US government did not find a prototype of the device in the safe. After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. The personal effects were sequestered on the advice of presidential advisers; J. Edgar Hoover declared the case most secret, because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and patents. One document stated that "he is reported to have some 80 trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to do with his experiments".
Tesla's family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually Mr. Kosanović won possession of the materials, which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum.
Tesla's funeral took place on 12 January 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City. His body was cremated and his ashes taken to Belgrade, Serbia, then-Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn was placed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, where it resides to this day. bio info (c) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
Books of Nikola Tesla:
Tesla, Nikola, "My Inventions" Parts I through V published in the Electrical Experimenter monthly magazine from February through June, 1919. Part VI published October, 1919. Reprint edition with introductory notes by Ben Johnson, New York: Barnes and Noble,1982, ; also online at Lucid Cafe, et cetera as My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, 1919.
Martin, Thomas C., The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla, 1894 .
Tesla, Nikola, Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900,
Anderson, Leland I., Dr. Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), 2d enl. ed., Minneapolis, Tesla Society. 1956.
Ratzlaff, John and Leland Anderson, Dr. Nikola Tesla Bibliography, Ragusan Press, Palo Alto, California, 1979, 237 pages. Extensive listing of articles about and by Nikola Tesla.
O'Neill, John Jacob, Prodigal Genius, 1944. Paperback reprint 1994, (ed. Prodigal Genius is available online)
Cheney, Margaret, Tesla: Man Out of Time, 1981.
Seifer, Marc J., Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, 1998.
Jonnes, Jill Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House, 2003.
Auster, Paul, Moon Palace, 1989. Tells Tesla's story within the history of the United States.
Lomas, Robert, The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century: Nikola Tesla, forgotten genius of electricity, 1999.
Childress, David H., The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla, 1993.
Glenn, Jim, The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla, 1994.
Trinkaus, George TESLA: The Lost Inventions, High Voltage Press, 2002.
Valone, Thomas, Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature: Tesla's Science of Energy, 2002.
Filmography Nikola Tesla:
There are at least two films describing Tesla's life. In the first, filmed in 1977, arranged for TV, Tesla was portrayed by Rade Šerbedžija. In 1980, Orson Welles produced a Yugoslav film named Tajna Nikole Tesle (The Secret of Nikola Tesla), in which Welles himself played the part of Tesla's patron, J.P. Morgan. The film was directed by Krsto Papić, and Nikola Tesla was portrayed by Petar Božović.
"Tesla: Master of Lightning". 1999. ISBN (Book) ISBN (PBS Video)
Lost Lightning: The Missing Secrets of Nikola Tesla (at Google Video.) Tesla's designs for free energy and defensive weapons systems.
David Bowie portrayed Tesla in the 2006 film The Prestige. Tesla's time in Colorado Springs was the focus of several scenes in the film, which featured speculations on the explosive power of Tesla's electrical experiments.
Tesla: Master of Lightning, produced by Robert Uth for New Voyage Communications in 2003, tapped Stacy Keach to supply the voice of Tesla.
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