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Nikola Tesla

April 29, 2024

For other uses, see Nikola Tesla (disambiguation).

Nikola Tesla (/ˈtɛslə/; Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла,[2] [nǐkola têsla];[a] 10 July [O.S. 28 June] 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American[5][6] inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.[7]

Nikola Tesla
Никола Тесла
Tesla, c. 1890
Born(1856-07-10)10 July 1856
Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)
Died7 January 1943(1943-01-07) (aged 86)
New York City, U.S.
Resting placeNikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade, Serbia
44°48′18″N 20°28′15″E / 44.8051°N 20.4707°E / 44.8051; 20.4707
Citizenship
  • Austria (1856–1891)
  • United States (1891–1943)
Alma materGraz University of Technology (dropped out)
Occupations
Engineering career
DisciplineElectrical and mechanical
Projects
Significant design
See list:
Awards
See list:
Signature

Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla first studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree. He then gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His AC induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed.

Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wirelessly controlled boat, one of the first ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it.

After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943.[8] Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the International System of Units (SI) measurement of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s.[9]

Early years

 
Tesla's rebuilt house (parish hall) in Smiljan, Croatia, in the region of Lika, where he was born, and the rebuilt church, where his father served. During the Yugoslav Wars, several of the buildings were severely damaged by fire. They were restored and reopened in 2006.[10]
 
Tesla's baptismal record, 28 June 1856. His name is written as Nikolai (Slavonic-Serbian: Николай) on the lower right side of the large paragraph.

Nikola Tesla was born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, within the Military Frontier, in the Austrian Empire (present-day Croatia), on 10 July [O.S. 28 June] 1856.[11][12] His father, Milutin Tesla (1819–1879),[13] was a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[14][15][16][17]

Tesla's mother, Đuka Mandić (1822–1892), whose father was also an Eastern Orthodox Church priest,[18] had a talent for making home craft tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence.[19][20] Tesla's ancestors[which?] were from western Serbia, near Montenegro.[21]

Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had three sisters, Milka, Angelina, and Marica, and an older brother named Dane, who was killed in a horse-riding accident when Tesla was aged six or seven.[22] In 1861, Tesla attended primary school in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion. In 1862, the Tesla family moved to the nearby Gospić, where Tesla's father worked as parish priest. Nikola completed primary school, followed by middle school. In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac[23] to attend high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium where the classes were held in German, as it was usual throughout schools within the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier.[24][25]

 
Tesla's father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest in the village of Smiljan.

Tesla later wrote that he became interested in demonstrations of electricity by his physics professor.[b] Tesla noted that these demonstrations of this "mysterious phenomena" made him want "to know more of this wonderful force".[28] Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating.[29] He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873.[30]

After graduating Tesla returned to Smiljan but soon contracted cholera, was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times. In a moment of despair, Tesla's father (who had originally wanted him to enter the priesthood),[31] promised to send him to the best engineering school if he recovered from the illness.[32]

The next year Tesla evaded conscription into the Austro-Hungarian Army in Smiljan[33] by running away southeast of Lika to Tomingaj, near Gračac. There he explored the mountains wearing hunter's garb. Tesla said that this contact with nature made him stronger, both physically and mentally. He read many books while in Tomingaj and later said that Mark Twain's works had helped him to miraculously recover from his earlier illness.[34][better source needed]

He enrolled at the Imperial-Royal Technical College in Graz in 1875 on a Military Frontier scholarship. Tesla passed nine exams (nearly twice as many as required[35]) and 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."[35] At Graz, Tesla noted his fascination with the detailed lectures on electricity presented by Professor Jakob Pöschl and described how he made suggestions on improving the design of an electric motor the professor was demonstrating.[34][better source needed][36] But by his third year he was failing in school and never graduated, leaving Graz in December 1878. One biographer suggests Tesla was not studying and may have been expelled for gambling and womanizing.[37]

 
Tesla aged 23, c. 1879

Tesla's family did not hear from him after he left school.[38] There was a rumor amongst his classmates that he had drowned in the nearby river Mur but in January one of them ran into Tesla in the town of Maribor and reported that encounter to Tesla's family.[39] It turned out Tesla had been working there as a draftsman for 60 florins per month.[37] In March 1879, Milutin finally located his son and tried to convince him to return home and take up his education in Prague.[39] Tesla returned to Gospić later that month when he was deported for not having a residence permit.[39] Tesla's father died the next month, on 17 April 1879, at the age of 60 after an unspecified illness.[39] During the rest of the year Tesla taught a large class of students in his old school in Gospić.

In January 1880, two of Tesla's uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospić for Prague, where he was to study. He arrived too late to enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University; he had never studied Greek, a required subject; and he was illiterate in Czech, another required subject. Tesla did, however, attend lectures in philosophy at the university as an auditor but he did not receive grades for the courses.[40][41]

Working at Budapest Telephone Exchange

Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, in 1881 to work under Tivadar Puskás at a telegraph company, the Budapest Telephone Exchange. Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead. Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional, and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position. During his employment, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier, which was never patented nor publicly described.[34][better source needed]

Working at Edison

In 1882, Tivadar Puskás got Tesla another job in Paris with the Continental Edison Company.[42] Tesla began working in what was then a brand new industry, installing indoor incandescent lighting citywide in large scale electric power utility. The company had several subdivisions and Tesla worked at the Société Electrique Edison, the division in the Ivry-sur-Seine suburb of Paris in charge of installing the lighting system. There he gained a great deal of practical experience in electrical engineering. Management took notice of his advanced knowledge in engineering and physics and soon had him designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors.[43] They also sent him on to troubleshoot engineering problems at other Edison utilities being built around France and in Germany.

Moving to the United States

 
Edison Machine Works on Goerck Street, New York. Tesla found the change from cosmopolitan Europe to working at this shop, located amongst the tenements on Manhattan's lower east side, a "painful surprise".[44]

In 1884, Edison manager Charles Batchelor, who had been overseeing the Paris installation, was brought back to the United States to manage the Edison Machine Works, a manufacturing division situated in New York City, and asked that Tesla be brought to the United States as well.[45] In June 1884, Tesla emigrated[46] and began working almost immediately at the Machine Works on Manhattan's Lower East Side, an overcrowded shop with a workforce of several hundred machinists, laborers, managing staff, and 20 "field engineers" struggling with the task of building the large electric utility in that city.[47] As in Paris, Tesla was working on troubleshooting installations and improving generators.[48] Historian W. Bernard Carlson notes Tesla may have met company founder Thomas Edison only a couple of times.[47] One of those times was noted in Tesla's autobiography where, after staying up all night repairing the damaged dynamos on the ocean liner SS Oregon, he ran into Batchelor and Edison, who made a quip about their "Parisian" being out all night. After Tesla told them he had been up all night fixing the Oregon, Edison commented to Batchelor that "this is a damned good man".[44] One of the projects given to Tesla was to develop an arc lamp-based street lighting system.[49][50] Arc lighting was the most popular type of street lighting but it required high voltages and was incompatible with the Edison low-voltage incandescent system, causing the company to lose contracts in some cities. Tesla's designs were never put into production, possibly because of technical improvements in incandescent street lighting or because of an installation deal that Edison made with an arc lighting company.[51]

Tesla had been working at the Machine Works for a total of six months when he quit.[47] What event precipitated his leaving is unclear. It may have been over a bonus he did not receive, either for redesigning generators or for the arc lighting system that was shelved.[49] Tesla had previous run-ins with the Edison company over unpaid bonuses he believed he had earned.[52][53] In his autobiography, Tesla stated the manager of the Edison Machine Works offered a $50,000 bonus to design "twenty-four different types of standard machines" "but it turned out to be a practical joke".[54][better source needed] Later versions of this story have Thomas Edison himself offering and then reneging on the deal, quipping "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor".[55][56] The size of the bonus in either story has been noted as odd since Machine Works manager Batchelor was stingy with pay[c] and the company did not have that amount of cash (equal to $1,695,556 today) on hand.[58][59] Tesla's diary contains just one comment on what happened at the end of his employment, a note he scrawled across the two pages covering 7 December 1884, to 4 January 1885, saying "Good By to the Edison Machine Works".[50][60]

Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing

Soon after leaving the Edison company, Tesla was working on patenting an arc lighting system,[61] possibly the same one he had developed at Edison.[47] In March 1885, he met with patent attorney Lemuel W. Serrell, the same attorney used by Edison, to obtain help with submitting the patents.[61] Serrell introduced Tesla to two businessmen, Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail, who agreed to finance an arc lighting manufacturing and utility company in Tesla's name, the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company.[62] Tesla worked for the rest of the year obtaining the patents that included an improved DC generator, the first patents issued to Tesla in the US, and building and installing the system in Rahway, New Jersey.[63] Tesla's new system gained notice in the technical press, which commented on its advanced features.

The investors showed little interest in Tesla's ideas for new types of alternating current motors and electrical transmission equipment. After the utility was up and running in 1886, they decided that the manufacturing side of the business was too competitive and opted to simply run an electric utility.[64] They formed a new utility company, abandoning Tesla's company and leaving the inventor penniless.[64] Tesla even lost control of the patents he had generated, since he had assigned them to the company in exchange for stock.[64] He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and as a ditch digger for $2 per day. Later in life Tesla recounted that part of 1886 as a time of hardship, writing "My high education in various branches of science, mechanics and literature seemed to me like a mockery".[64][d]

AC and the induction motor

 
Drawing from U.S. patent 381,968, illustrating the principle of Tesla's alternating current induction motor

In late 1886, Tesla met Alfred S. Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and New York attorney Charles Fletcher Peck.[66] The two men were experienced in setting up companies and promoting inventions and patents for financial gain.[67] Based on Tesla's new ideas for electrical equipment, including a thermo-magnetic motor idea,[68] they agreed to back the inventor financially and handle his patents. Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887, with an agreement that profits from generated patents would go 1⁄3 to Tesla, 1⁄3 to Peck and Brown, and 1⁄3 to fund development.[67] 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.

In 1887, Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC), a power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current, which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882).[69][70][71] This innovative electric motor, patented in May 1888, was a simple self-starting design that did not need a commutator, thus avoiding sparking and the high maintenance of constantly servicing and replacing mechanical brushes.[72][73]

Along with getting the motor patented, Peck and Brown arranged to get the motor publicized, starting with independent testing to verify it was a functional improvement, followed by press releases sent to technical publications for articles to run concurrently with the issue of the patent.[74] Physicist William Arnold Anthony (who tested the motor) and Electrical World magazine editor Thomas Commerford Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his AC motor on 16 May 1888 at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.[74][75] Engineers working for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company reported to George Westinghouse that Tesla had a viable AC motor and related power system—something Westinghouse needed for the alternating current system he was already marketing. Westinghouse looked into getting a patent on a similar commutator-less, rotating magnetic field-based induction motor developed in 1885 and presented in a paper in March 1888 by Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris, but decided that Tesla's patent would probably control the market.[76][77]

 
Tesla's AC dynamo-electric machine (AC electric generator) in an 1888 U.S. patent 390,721

In July 1888, Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla's polyphase induction motor and transformer designs for $60,000 in cash and stock and a royalty of $2.50 per AC horsepower produced by each motor. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of $2,000 ($67,800 in today's dollars[78]) per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs.[79]

During that year, Tesla worked in Pittsburgh, helping to create an alternating current system to power the city's streetcars. He found it a frustrating period because of conflicts with the other Westinghouse engineers over how best to implement AC power. Between them, they settled on a 60-cycle AC system that Tesla proposed (to match the working frequency of Tesla's motor), but they soon found that it would not work for streetcars, since Tesla's induction motor could run only at a constant speed. They ended up using a DC traction motor instead.[80][81]

Market turmoil

Tesla's demonstration of his induction motor and Westinghouse's subsequent licensing of the patent, both in 1888, came at the time of extreme competition between electric companies.[82][83] The three big firms, Westinghouse, Edison, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company, were trying to grow in a capital-intensive business while financially undercutting each other. There was even a "war of currents" propaganda campaign going on, with Edison Electric claiming their direct current system was better and safer than the Westinghouse alternating current system and Thomson-Houston sometimes siding with Edison.[84][85] Competing in this market meant Westinghouse would not have the cash or engineering resources to develop Tesla's motor and the related polyphase system right away.[86]

Two years after signing the Tesla contract, Westinghouse Electric was in trouble. The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890, causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric.[87] The sudden cash shortage forced the company to refinance its debts. The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies, research, and patents, including the per motor royalty in the Tesla contract.[88][89] At that point, the Tesla induction motor had been unsuccessful and was stuck in development.[86][87] Westinghouse was paying a $15,000-a-year guaranteed royalty[90] even though operating examples of the motor were rare and polyphase power systems needed to run it was even rarer.[72][87] In early 1891, George Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms, saying that, if he did not meet the demands of his lenders, 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.[91] The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion the motor probably seemed obvious to Tesla and he agreed to release the company from the royalty payment clause in the contract.[91][92] Six years later Westinghouse purchased Tesla's patent for a lump sum payment of $216,000 as part of a patent-sharing agreement signed with General Electric (a company created from the 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson-Houston).[93][94][95]

New York laboratories

 
Mark Twain in Tesla's South Fifth Avenue laboratory, 1894

The money Tesla made from licensing his AC patents made him independently wealthy and gave him the time and funds to pursue his own interests.[96] In 1889, Tesla moved out of the Liberty Street shop Peck and Brown had rented and for the next dozen years worked out of a series of workshop/laboratory spaces in Manhattan. These included a lab at 175 Grand Street (1889–1892), the fourth floor of 33–35 South Fifth Avenue (1892–1895), and sixth and seventh floors of 46 & 48 East Houston Street (1895–1902).[97][98] Tesla and his hired staff conducted some of his most significant work in these workshops.

Tesla coil

Main article: Tesla coil

In the summer of 1889, Tesla traveled to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and learned of Heinrich Hertz's 1886–1888 experiments that proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves.[99] Tesla found this new discovery "refreshing" and decided to explore it more fully.[citation needed] In repeating and then expanding on these experiments Tesla tried powering a Ruhmkorff coil with a high speed alternator he had been developing as part of an improved arc lighting system but found that the high-frequency current overheated the iron core and melted the insulation between the primary and secondary windings in the coil. To fix this problem Tesla came up with his "oscillating transformer", with an air gap instead of insulating material between the primary and secondary windings and an iron core that could be moved to different positions in or out of the coil.[100] Later called the Tesla coil, it would be used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity.[101] He would use this resonant transformer circuit in his later wireless power work.[102][103]

Citizenship

On 30 July 1891, aged 35, Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[104][105] In the same year, he patented his Tesla coil.[106]

Wireless lighting

 
Tesla demonstrating wireless lighting by "electrostatic induction" during an 1891 lecture at Columbia College via two long Geissler tubes (similar to neon tubes) in his hands

After 1890, Tesla experimented with transmitting power by inductive and capacitive coupling using high AC voltages generated with his Tesla coil.[107] He attempted to develop a wireless lighting system based on near-field inductive and capacitive coupling and conducted a series of public demonstrations where he lit Geissler tubes and even incandescent light bulbs from across a stage.[108] He spent most of the decade working on variations of this new form of lighting with the help of various investors but none of the ventures succeeded in making a commercial product out of his findings.[109]

In 1893 at St. Louis, Missouri, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, Tesla told onlookers that he was sure a system like his could eventually conduct "intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance without the use of wires" by conducting it through the Earth.[110][111]

Tesla served as a vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1892 to 1894, the forerunner of the modern-day IEEE (along with the Institute of Radio Engineers).[112]

Polyphase system and the Columbian Exposition

 
A Westinghouse display of the "Tesla Polyphase System" at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition

By the beginning of 1893, Westinghouse engineer Charles F. Scott and then Benjamin G. Lamme had made progress on an efficient version of Tesla's induction motor. Lamme found a way to make the polyphase system it would need compatible with older single-phase AC and DC systems by developing a rotary converter.[113] Westinghouse Electric now had a way to provide electricity to all potential customers and started branding their polyphase AC system as the "Tesla Polyphase System". They believed that Tesla's patents gave them patent priority over other polyphase AC systems.[114]

Westinghouse Electric asked Tesla to participate in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago where the company had a large space in the "Electricity Building" devoted to electrical exhibits. Westinghouse Electric won the bid to light the Exposition with alternating current and it was a key event in the history of AC power, as the company demonstrated to the American public the safety, reliability, and efficiency of an alternating current system that was polyphase and could also supply the other AC and DC exhibits at the fair.[115][116][117]

A special exhibit space was set up to display various forms and models of Tesla's induction motor. The rotating magnetic field that drove them was explained through a series of demonstrations including an Egg of Columbus that used the two-phase coil found in an induction motor to spin a copper egg making it stand on end.[118]

Tesla visited the fair for a week during its six-month run to attend the International Electrical Congress and put on a series of demonstrations at the Westinghouse exhibit.[119][120] A specially darkened room had been set up where Tesla showed his wireless lighting system, using a demonstration he had previously performed throughout America and Europe;[121] these included using high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current to light wireless gas-discharge lamps.[122]

An observer noted:

Within the room were suspended two hard-rubber plates covered with tin foil. These were about fifteen feet apart and served as terminals of the wires leading from the transformers. When the current was turned on, the lamps or tubes, which had no wires connected to them, but lay on a table between the suspended plates, or which might be held in the hand in almost any part of the room, were made luminous. These were the same experiments and the same apparatus shown by Tesla in London about two years previous, "where they produced so much wonder and astonishment".[123]

Steam-powered oscillating generator

Main article: Tesla's oscillator

During his presentation at the International Electrical Congress in the Columbian Exposition Agriculture Hall, Tesla introduced his steam powered reciprocating electricity generator that he patented that year, something he thought was a better way to generate alternating current.[124] Steam was forced into the oscillator and rushed out through a series of ports, pushing a piston up and down that was attached to an armature. The magnetic armature vibrated up and down at high speed, producing an alternating magnetic field. This induced alternating electric current in the wire coils located adjacent. It did away with the complicated parts of a steam engine/generator, but never caught on as a feasible engineering solution to generate electricity.[125][126]

Consulting on Niagara

In 1893, Edward Dean Adams, who headed the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company, sought Tesla's opinion on what system would be best to transmit power generated at the falls. Over several years, there had been a series of proposals and open competitions on how best to do it. Among the systems proposed by several US and European companies were two-phase and three-phase AC, high-voltage DC, and compressed air. Adams asked Tesla for information about the current state of all the competing systems. Tesla advised Adams that a two-phased system would be the most reliable and that there was a Westinghouse system to light incandescent bulbs using two-phase alternating current. The company awarded a contract to Westinghouse Electric for building a two-phase AC generating system at the Niagara Falls, based on Tesla's advice and Westinghouse's demonstration at the Columbian Exposition. At the same time, a further contract was awarded to General Electric to build the AC distribution system.[127]

The Nikola Tesla Company

In 1895, Edward Dean Adams, impressed with what he saw when he toured Tesla's lab, agreed to help found the Nikola Tesla Company, set up to fund, develop, and market a variety of previous Tesla patents and inventions as well as new ones. Alfred Brown signed on, bringing along patents developed under Peck and Brown. The board was filled out with William Birch Rankine and Charles F. Coaney.[128] It found few investors since the mid-1890s were a tough time financially, and the wireless lighting and oscillators patents it was set up to market never panned out. The company handled Tesla's patents for decades to come.

Lab fire

In the early morning hours of 13 March 1895, the South Fifth Avenue building that housed Tesla's lab caught fire. It started in the basement of the building and was so intense Tesla's 4th-floor lab burned and collapsed into the second floor. The fire not only set back Tesla's ongoing projects, but it also destroyed a collection of early notes and research material, models, and demonstration pieces, including many that had been exhibited at the 1893 Worlds Colombian Exposition. Tesla told The New York Times "I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?".[129] After the fire Tesla moved to 46 & 48 East Houston Street and rebuilt his lab on the 6th and 7th floors.

X-ray experimentation

 
X-ray Tesla took of his hand

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[130] (later identified as "Roentgen rays" or "X-rays"). His early experiments were with Crookes tubes, a cold cathode electrical discharge tube. Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X-ray image—predating, by a few weeks, Wilhelm Röntgen's December 1895 announcement of the discovery of X-rays—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.[131]

In March 1896, after hearing of Röntgen's discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging (radiography),[132] Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging, developing a high-energy single-terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla coil (the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation). In his research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the "instrument will ... enable one to generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus".[133]

Tesla noted the hazards of working with his circuit and single-node X-ray-producing devices. In his many notes on the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. He believed early on that damage to the skin was not caused by the Roentgen rays, but by the ozone generated in contact with the skin, and to a lesser extent, by nitrous acid. Tesla incorrectly believed that X-rays were longitudinal waves, such as those produced in waves in plasmas. These plasma waves can occur in force-free magnetic fields.[134][135]

On 11 July 1934, the New York Herald Tribune published an article on Tesla, in which he recalled an event that occasionally took place while experimenting with his single-electrode vacuum tubes. A minute particle would break off the cathode, pass out of the tube, and physically strike him:[136]

Tesla said he could feel a sharp stinging pain where it entered his body, and again at the place where it passed out. In comparing these particles with the bits of metal projected by his "electric gun", Tesla said, "The particles in the beam of force ... will travel much faster than such particles ... and they will travel in concentrations".

Radio remote control

 
In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat, which he hoped to sell as a guided torpedo to navies around the world.[137]

In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a boat that used a coherer-based radio control—which he dubbed "telautomaton"—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden.[138] Tesla tried to sell his idea to the US military as a type of radio-controlled torpedo, but they showed little interest.[139] Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward, when a number of countries used it in military programs.[140] Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate "Teleautomatics" in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago, while he was travelling to Colorado Springs, on 13 May 1899.

Wireless power

Further information: Wireless power transfer § Tesla
 
Tesla sitting in front of a spiral coil used in his wireless power experiments at his East Houston St. laboratory

From the 1890s through 1906, Tesla spent a great deal of his time and fortune on a series of projects trying to develop the transmission of electrical power without wires. It was an expansion of his idea of using coils to transmit power that he had been demonstrating in wireless lighting. He saw this as not only a way to transmit large amounts of power around the world but also, as he had pointed out in his earlier lectures, a way to transmit worldwide communications.

At the time Tesla was formulating his ideas, there was no feasible way to wirelessly transmit communication signals over long distances, let alone large amounts of power. Tesla had studied radio waves early on, and came to the conclusion that part of the existing study on them, by Hertz, was incorrect.[141][142][143] Also, this new form of radiation was widely considered at the time to be a short-distance phenomenon that seemed to die out in less than a mile.[144] Tesla noted that, even if theories on radio waves were true, they were totally worthless for his intended purposes since this form of "invisible light" would diminish over a distance just like any other radiation and would travel in straight lines right out into space, becoming "hopelessly lost".[145]

By the mid-1890s, Tesla was working on the idea that he might be able to conduct electricity long distance through the Earth or the atmosphere, and began working on experiments to test this idea including setting up a large resonance transformer magnifying transmitter in his East Houston Street lab.[146][147][148] Seeming to borrow from a common idea at the time that the Earth's atmosphere was conductive,[149][150] he proposed a system composed of balloons suspending, transmitting, and receiving, electrodes in the air above 30,000 feet (9,100 m) in altitude, where he thought the lower pressure would allow him to send high voltages (millions of volts) long distances.

Colorado Springs

See also: Tesla Experimental Station; Magnifying transmitter; and Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900
 
Tesla's Colorado Springs laboratory

To further study the conductive nature of low-pressure air, Tesla set up an experimental station at high altitude in Colorado Springs during 1899.[151][152][153][154] There he could safely operate much larger coils than in the cramped confines of his New York lab, and an associate had made an arrangement for the El Paso Electric Light Company to supply alternating current free of charge.[154] To fund his experiments, he convinced John Jacob Astor IV to invest $100,000 ($3,662,400 in today's dollars[78]) to become a majority shareholder in the Nikola Tesla Company. Astor thought he was primarily investing in the new wireless lighting system. Instead, Tesla used the money to fund his Colorado Springs experiments.[155] Upon his arrival, he told reporters that he planned to conduct wireless telegraphy experiments, transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris.[156]

 
A multiple exposure picture of Tesla sitting next to his "magnifying transmitter" generating millions of volts. The 7-metre (23 ft) long arcs were not part of the normal operation, but only produced for effect by rapidly cycling the power switch.[157]

There, he conducted experiments with a large coil operating in the megavolts range, producing artificial lightning (and thunder) consisting of millions of volts and discharges of up to 135 feet (41 m) in length,[158] and, at one point, inadvertently burned out the generator in El Paso, causing a power outage.[159] The observations he made of the electronic noise of lightning strikes led him to (incorrectly) conclude[160][161] that he could use the entire globe of the Earth to conduct electrical energy.

During his time at his laboratory, Tesla observed unusual signals from his receiver which he speculated to be communications from another planet. He mentioned them in a letter to a reporter in December 1899[162] and to the Red Cross Society in December 1900.[163][164] Reporters treated it as a sensational story and jumped to the conclusion Tesla was hearing signals from Mars.[163] He expanded on the signals he heard in a 9 February 1901 Collier's Weekly article entitled "Talking With Planets", where he said it had not been immediately apparent to him that he was hearing "intelligently controlled signals" and that the signals could have come from Mars, Venus, or other planets.[164] It has been hypothesized that he may have intercepted Guglielmo Marconi's European experiments in July 1899—Marconi may have transmitted the letter S (dot/dot/dot) in a naval demonstration, the same three impulses that Tesla hinted at hearing in Colorado[164]—or signals from another experimenter in wireless transmission.[165][unreliable source?]

Tesla had an agreement with the editor of The Century Magazine to produce an article on his findings. The magazine sent a photographer to Colorado to photograph the work being done there. The article, titled "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", appeared in the June 1900 edition of the magazine. He explained the superiority of the wireless system he envisioned but the article was more of a lengthy philosophical treatise than an understandable scientific description of his work,[166] illustrated with what were to become iconic images of Tesla and his Colorado Springs experiments.

Wardenclyffe

Main article: Wardenclyffe Tower
 
Tesla's Wardenclyffe plant on Long Island in 1904. From this facility, Tesla hoped to demonstrate wireless transmission of electrical energy across the Atlantic.

Tesla made the rounds in New York trying to find investors for what he thought would be a viable system of wireless transmission, wining and dining them at the Waldorf-Astoria's Palm Garden (the hotel where he was living at the time), The Players Club, and Delmonico's.[167] In March 1901, he obtained $150,000 ($5,493,600 in today's dollars[78]) from J. P. Morgan in return for a 51% share of any generated wireless patents, and began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility to be built in Shoreham, New York, 100 miles (161 km) east of the city on the North Shore of Long Island.[168]

By July 1901, Tesla had expanded his plans to build a more powerful transmitter to leap ahead of Marconi's radio-based system, which Tesla thought was a copy of his own.[163] He approached Morgan to ask for more money to build the larger system, but Morgan refused to supply any further funds.[165][unreliable source?] In December 1901, Marconi successfully transmitted the letter S from England to Newfoundland, defeating Tesla in the race to be first to complete such a transmission. A month after Marconi's success, Tesla tried to get Morgan to back an even larger plan to transmit messages and power by controlling "vibrations throughout the globe".[163] Over the next five years, Tesla wrote more than 50 letters to Morgan, pleading for and demanding additional funding to complete the construction of Wardenclyffe. Tesla continued the project for another nine months into 1902. The tower was erected to its full height of 187 feet (57 m).[165][unreliable source?] In June 1902, Tesla moved his lab operations from Houston Street to Wardenclyffe.[168]

Investors on Wall Street were putting their money into Marconi's system, and some in the press began turning against Tesla's project, claiming it was a hoax.[169] The project came to a halt in 1905, and in 1906, the financial problems and other events may have led to what Tesla biographer Marc J. Seifer suspects was a nervous breakdown on Tesla's part.[170] Tesla mortgaged the Wardenclyffe property to cover his debts at the Waldorf-Astoria, which eventually amounted to $20,000 ($608,400 in today's dollars[78]).[171] He lost the property in foreclosure in 1915, and in 1917 the Tower was demolished by the new owner to make the land a more viable real estate asset.

Later years

After Wardenclyffe closed, Tesla continued to write to Morgan; after "the great man" died, Tesla wrote to Morgan's son Jack, trying to get further funding for the project. In 1906, Tesla opened offices at 165 Broadway in Manhattan, trying to raise further funds by developing and marketing his patents. He went on to have offices at the Metropolitan Life Tower from 1910 to 1914; rented for a few months at the Woolworth Building, moving out because he could not afford the rent; and then to office space at 8 West 40th Street from 1915 to 1925. After moving to 8 West 40th Street, he was effectively bankrupt. Most of his patents had run out and he was having trouble with the new inventions he was trying to develop.[172]

Bladeless turbine

Main article: Tesla turbine
 
Tesla's bladeless turbine design

On his 50th birthday, in 1906, Tesla demonstrated a 200 horsepower (150 kilowatts) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine. During 1910–1911, at the Waterside Power Station in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100–5,000 hp.[173] Tesla worked with several companies including from 1919 to 1922 in Milwaukee, for Allis-Chalmers.[174][175] He spent most of his time trying to perfect the Tesla turbine with Hans Dahlstrand, the head engineer at the company, but engineering difficulties meant it was never made into a practical device.[176] Tesla did license the idea to a precision instrument company and it found use in the form of luxury car speedometers and other instruments.[177]

Wireless lawsuits

When World War I broke out, the British cut the transatlantic telegraph cable linking the US to Germany in order to control the flow of information between the two countries. They also tried to shut off German wireless communication to and from the US by having the US Marconi Company sue the German radio company Telefunken for patent infringement.[178] Telefunken brought in the physicists Jonathan Zenneck and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their defense, and hired Tesla as a witness for two years for $1,000 a month. The case stalled and then went moot when the US entered the war against Germany in 1917.[178][179]

In 1915, Tesla attempted to sue the Marconi Company for infringement of his wireless tuning patents. Marconi's initial radio patent had been awarded in the US in 1897, but his 1900 patent submission covering improvements to radio transmission had been rejected several times, before it was finally approved in 1904, on the grounds that it infringed on other existing patents including two 1897 Tesla wireless power tuning patents.[142][180][181] Tesla's 1915 case went nowhere,[182] but in a related case, where the Marconi Company tried to sue the US government over WWI patent infringements, a Supreme Court of the United States 1943 decision restored the prior patents of Oliver Lodge, John Stone, and Tesla.[183] The court declared that their decision had no bearing on Marconi's claim as the first to achieve radio transmission, just that since Marconi's claim to certain patented improvements were questionable, the company could not claim infringement on those same patents.[142][184]

Nobel Prize rumors

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 William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays".[185][186][187] There were unsubstantiated rumors at the time that either Tesla or Edison had refused the prize.[185] The Nobel Foundation said, "Any rumor that a person has not been given a Nobel Prize because he has made known his intention to refuse the reward is ridiculous"; a recipient could decline a Nobel Prize only after he is announced a winner.[185]

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.[20][185]

In the years after these rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won a Nobel prize (although Edison received one of 38 possible bids in 1915 and Tesla received one of 38 possible bids in 1937).[188]

Other awards, patents and ideas

Tesla won numerous medals and awards over this time. They include:

 
Second banquet meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers, 23 April 1915. Tesla is seen standing in the center.

Tesla attempted to market several devices based on the production of ozone. These included his 1900 Tesla Ozone Company selling an 1896 patented device based on his Tesla coil, used to bubble ozone through different types of oils to make a therapeutic gel.[195] He also tried to develop a variation of this a few years later as a room sanitizer for hospitals.[196]

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.'"[197] The plan was, at least provisionally, approved by then superintendent of New York City schools, William H. Maxwell.[197]

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.

In the August 1917 edition of the magazine Electrical Experimenter, Tesla postulated that electricity could be used to locate submarines via using the reflection of an "electric ray" of "tremendous frequency," with the signal being viewed on a fluorescent screen (a system that has been noted to have a superficial resemblance to modern radar).[198] Tesla was incorrect in his assumption that high-frequency radio waves would penetrate water.[199] Émile Girardeau, who helped develop France's first radar system in the 1930s, noted in 1953 that Tesla's general speculation that a very strong high-frequency signal would be needed was correct. Girardeau said, "(Tesla) was prophesying or dreaming, since he had at his disposal no means of carrying them out, but one must add that if he was dreaming, at least he was dreaming correctly".[200]

In 1928, Tesla received patent, U.S. patent 1,655,114, for a biplane design capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), which "gradually tilted through manipulation of the elevator devices" in flight until it was flying like a conventional plane.[201] This impractical design was something Tesla thought would sell for less than $1,000.[202][203]

Tesla had a further office at 350 Madison Ave[204] but by 1928 he no longer had a laboratory or funding.[203]

Living circumstances

Tesla lived at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1900 and ran up a large bill.[205] He moved to the St. Regis Hotel in 1922 and followed a pattern from then on of moving to a different hotel every few years and leaving unpaid bills behind.[206][207]

Tesla walked to the park every day to feed the pigeons. He began feeding them at the window of his hotel room and nursed injured birds back to health.[207][208][209] He said that he had been visited by a certain injured white pigeon daily. He spent over $2,000 (equivalent to $36,410 in 2023) to care for the bird, including a device he built to support her comfortably while her broken wing and leg healed.[210] Tesla stated:

I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.[211]

Tesla's unpaid bills, as well as complaints about the mess made by pigeons, led to his eviction from St. Regis in 1923. He was also forced to leave the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1930 and the Hotel Governor Clinton in 1934.[207] At one point he also took rooms at the Hotel Marguery.[citation needed]

Tesla moved to the Hotel New Yorker in 1934. At this time Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company began paying him $125 (equivalent to $2,850 in 2023) per month in addition to paying his rent. Accounts of how this came about vary. Several sources claim that Westinghouse was concerned, or possibly warned, about potential bad publicity arising from the impoverished conditions in which their former star inventor was living.[212][213][214][215] The payment has been described as being couched as a "consulting fee" to get around Tesla's aversion to accepting charity. Tesla biographer Marc Seifer described the Westinghouse payments as a type of "unspecified settlement".[214] In any case, Westinghouse provided the funds for Tesla for the rest of his life.[citation needed]

Birthday press conferences

 
Tesla on Time magazine commemorating his 75th birthday

In 1931, a young journalist whom Tesla befriended, Kenneth M. Swezey, organized a celebration for the inventor's 75th birthday.[216] Tesla received congratulations from figures in science and engineering such as Albert Einstein,[217] and he was also featured on the cover of Time magazine.[218] The cover caption "All the world's his power house" noted his contribution to electrical power generation. The party went so well that Tesla made it an annual event, an occasion where he would put out a large spread of food and drink—featuring dishes of his own creation. He invited the press in order to see his inventions and hear stories about his past exploits, views on current events, and sometimes baffling claims.[219][220]

 
Newspaper representation of the thought camera Tesla described at his 1933 birthday party

At the 1932 party, Tesla claimed he had invented a motor that would run on cosmic rays.[220] In 1933, at age 77, Tesla told reporters at the event that, after 35 years of work, he was on the verge of producing proof of a new form of energy. He claimed it was a theory of energy that was "violently opposed" to Einsteinian physics and could be tapped with an apparatus that would be cheap to run and last 500 years. He also told reporters he was working on a way to transmit individualized private radio wavelengths, working on breakthroughs in metallurgy, and developing a way to photograph the retina to record thought.[221]

At the 1934 occasion, Tesla told reporters he had designed a superweapon he claimed would end all war.[222][223] He called it "teleforce", but was usually referred to as his death ray.[224] In 1940, the New York Times gave a range for the ray of 250 miles (400 km), with an expected development cost of US$2 million (equivalent to $43.5 million in 2023).[225] Tesla described it as a defensive weapon that would be put up along the border of a country and be used against attacking ground-based infantry or aircraft. Tesla never revealed detailed plans of how the weapon worked during his lifetime but, in 1984, they surfaced at the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade.[226] The treatise, The New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, described an open-ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allows particles to exit, a method of charging slugs of tungsten or mercury to millions of volts, and directing them in streams (through electrostatic repulsion).[220][227] Tesla tried to attract interest of the US War Department,[228] United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia in the device.[229]

In 1935, at his 79th birthday party, Tesla covered many topics. He claimed to have discovered the cosmic ray in 1896 and invented a way to produce direct current by induction, and made many claims about his mechanical oscillator.[230] Describing the device (which he expected would earn him $100 million within two years) he told reporters that a version of his oscillator had caused an earthquake in his 46 East Houston Street lab and neighboring streets in Lower Manhattan in 1898.[230] He went on to tell reporters his oscillator could destroy the Empire State Building with 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of air pressure.[231] He also proposed using his oscillators to transmit vibrations into the ground. He claimed it would work over any distance and could be used for communication or locating underground mineral deposits, a technique he called "telegeodynamics".[136]

In 1937, at his Grand Ballroom of Hotel New Yorker event, Tesla received the Order of the White Lion from the Czechoslovak ambassador and a medal from the Yugoslav ambassador. On questions concerning the death ray, Tesla stated: "But it is not an experiment ... I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."[220]

Death

 
Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker, where Tesla died
 
Commemorative plaque, New Yorker Hotel

In the fall of 1937 at the age of 81, after midnight one night, Tesla left the Hotel New Yorker to make his regular commute to the cathedral and library to feed the pigeons. While crossing a street a couple of blocks from the hotel, Tesla was struck by a moving taxicab and was thrown to the ground. His back was severely wrenched and three of his ribs were broken in the accident. The full extent of his injuries was never known; Tesla refused to consult a doctor, an almost lifelong custom, and never fully recovered.[232][233]

On 7 January 1943, at the age of 86, Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker. His body was found by maid Alice Monaghan when she 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. Wembley examined the body and ruled that the cause of death had been coronary thrombosis (a type of heart attack).

Two days later the Federal Bureau of Investigation ordered the Alien Property Custodian to seize Tesla's belongings. John G. Trump, a professor at M.I.T. and a well-known electrical engineer serving as a technical aide to the National Defense Research Committee, was called in to analyze the Tesla items. After a three-day investigation, Trump's report concluded that there was nothing which would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands, stating:

His [Tesla's] thoughts and efforts during at least the past 15 years were primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.[234]

In a box purported to contain a part of Tesla's "death ray", Trump found a 45-year-old multidecade resistance box.[235]

 
Gilded urn with Tesla's ashes, in his favorite geometric object, a sphere (Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade)

On 10 January 1943, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia read a eulogy written by Slovene-American author Louis Adamic live over the WNYC radio while violin pieces "Ave Maria" and "Tamo daleko" were played in the background. On 12 January, two thousand people attended a state funeral for Tesla at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. After the funeral, Tesla's body was taken to the Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley, New York, where it was later cremated. The following day, a second service was conducted by prominent priests in the Trinity Chapel (today's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava) in New York City.

Estate

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's 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.[236]

Patents

Main article: List of Nikola Tesla patents

Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions.[237] Some of Tesla's patents are not accounted for, and various sources have discovered some that have lain hidden in patent archives. There are a minimum of 278 known patents[237] issued to Tesla in 26 countries. Many of Tesla's patents were in the United States, Britain, and Canada, but many other patents were approved in countries around the globe.[238] Many inventions developed by Tesla were not put into patent protection.

Personal life and character

Appearance

 
Tesla c. 1896

Tesla was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and weighed 142 pounds (64 kg), with almost no weight variance from 1888 to about 1926. His appearance was described by newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane as "almost the tallest, almost the thinnest and certainly the most serious man who goes to Delmonico's regularly".[239][240] He was an elegant, stylish figure in New York City, meticulous in his grooming, clothing, and regimented in his daily activities, an appearance he maintained so as to further his business relationships.[241] He was also described as having light eyes, "very big hands", and "remarkably big" thumbs.[239]

Eidetic memory

Tesla read many works, memorizing complete books, and supposedly possessed a photographic memory.[242] He was a polyglot, speaking eight languages: Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.[243] Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration. During his early life, Tesla was repeatedly stricken with illness. Blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by visions.[242] Often, the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; at other times they provided the solution to a particular problem he had encountered. Just by hearing the name of an item, he could envision it in realistic detail.[242] Tesla visualized an invention in his mind with extreme precision, including all dimensions, before moving to the construction stage, a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. He typically did not make drawings by hand but worked from memory. Beginning in his childhood, Tesla had frequent flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life.[242] He noted in his autobiography that this affliction had developed his powers of observation and enabled him to discover a "truth of great importance", namely that every thought he conceived was suggested by an external impression.[54] Tesla further wrote that "deficient observation was merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing."

Relationships

Tesla was a lifelong bachelor, who had once explained that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities.[242] He once said in earlier years that he felt he could never be worthy enough for a woman, considering women superior in every way. His opinion had started to sway in later years when he felt that women were trying to outdo men and make themselves more dominant. This "new woman" was met with much indignation from Tesla, who felt that women were losing their femininity by trying to be in power. In an interview with the Galveston Daily News on 10 August 1924 he stated, "In place of the soft-voiced, a gentlewoman of my reverent worship, has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man—in dress, voice and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind ... The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me."[citation needed] Although he told a reporter in later years that he sometimes felt that by not marrying, he had made too great a sacrifice to his work,[210] Tesla chose to never pursue or engage in any known relationships, instead finding all the stimulation he needed in his work.

Tesla was asocial and prone to seclude himself with his work.[138][244][245] However, when he did engage in social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of Tesla. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force".[246] His secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote: "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul".[241] Tesla's friend, Julian Hawthorne, wrote, "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".[247]

Tesla was a good friend of Francis Marion Crawford, Robert Underwood Johnson,[248] Stanford White,[249] Fritz Lowenstein, George Scherff, and Kenneth Swezey.[250][251][252] In middle age, Tesla became a close friend of Mark Twain; they spent a lot of time together in his lab and elsewhere.[248] Twain notably described Tesla's induction motor invention as "the most valuable patent since the telephone".[253] At a party thrown by actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1896, Tesla met Indian Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda later wrote that Tesla said he could demonstrate mathematically the relationship between matter and energy, something Vivekananda hoped would give a scientific foundation to Vedantic cosmology.[254][255] The meeting with Swami Vivekananda stimulated Tesla's interest in Eastern Science, which led to Tesla studying Hindu and Vedic philosophy for a number of years.[256] Tesla later wrote an article titled "Man's Greatest Achievement" using Sanskrit terms akasha and prana to describe the relationship between matter and energy.[257][258] In the late 1920s, Tesla befriended George Sylvester Viereck, a poet, writer, mystic, and later, a Nazi propagandist. Tesla occasionally attended dinner parties held by Viereck and his wife.[259][260]

Tesla could be harsh at times and openly expressed disgust for overweight people, such as when he fired a secretary because of her weight.[261] He was quick to criticize clothing; on several occasions, Tesla directed a subordinate to go home and change her dress.[242] When Thomas Edison died, in 1931, Tesla contributed the only negative opinion to The New York Times, buried in an extensive coverage of Edison's life:

He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene ... His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.[262][263]

Sleep habits

Tesla claimed never to sleep more than two hours per night.[264] However, he did admit to "dozing" from time to time "to recharge his batteries".[265] During his second year of study at Graz, Tesla developed a passionate proficiency for billiards, chess, and card-playing, sometimes spending more than 48 hours in a stretch at a games table.[266] On one occasion at his laboratory, Tesla worked for a period of 84 hours without rest.[267] Kenneth Swezey, a journalist whom Tesla had befriended, confirmed that Tesla rarely slept. Swezey recalled one morning when Tesla called him at 3 a.m.: "I was sleeping in my room like one dead ... Suddenly, the telephone ring awakened me ... [Tesla] spoke animatedly, with pauses, [as he] ... work[ed] out a problem, comparing one theory to another, commenting; and when he felt he had arrived at the solution, he suddenly closed the telephone."[265]

Work and dining habits

Tesla worked every day from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. or later, with dinner at exactly 8:10 p.m., at Delmonico's restaurant and later the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Tesla then telephoned 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 then resumed his work, often until 3:00 a.m."[268]

For exercise, Tesla walked between 8 and 10 miles (13 and 16 km) per day. He curled his toes one hundred times for each foot every night, saying that it stimulated his brain cells.[265]

In an interview with newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane, Tesla said that he did not believe in telepathy, stating, "Suppose I made up my mind to murder you," he said, "In a second you would know it. Now, isn't that wonderful? By what process does the mind get at all this?" In the same interview, Tesla said that he believed that all fundamental laws could be reduced to one.[239]

Tesla became a vegetarian in his later years, living on only milk, bread, honey, and vegetable juices.[223][269] In what is believed to be the last photo taken of Tesla, he is frail and emaciated in appearance. [270]

Views and beliefs

On experimental and theoretical physics

Tesla disagreed with the theory of atoms being composed of smaller subatomic particles, stating there was no such thing as an electron creating an electric charge. He believed that if electrons existed at all, they were some fourth state of matter or "sub-atom" that could exist only in an experimental vacuum and that they had nothing to do with electricity.[271][272] Tesla believed that atoms are immutable—they could not change state or be split in any way. He was a believer in the 19th-century concept of an all-pervasive ether that transmitted electrical energy.[273]

Tesla was generally antagonistic towards theories about the conversion of matter into energy.[274] He was also critical of Einstein's theory of relativity, saying:

I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.[275]

In 1935 he described relativity as "a beggar wrapped in purple whom ignorant people take for a king" and said his own experiments had measured the speed of cosmic rays from Arcturus as fifty times the speed of light.[276]

Tesla claimed to have developed his own physical principle regarding matter and energy that he started working on in 1892,[274] and in 1937, at age 81, claimed in a letter to have completed a "dynamic theory of gravity" that "[would] put an end to idle speculations and false conceptions, as that of curved space". He stated that the theory was "worked out in all details" and that he hoped to soon give it to the world.[277] Further elucidation of his theory was never found in his writings.[278]

On society

 
Tesla c. 1885

Tesla is widely considered by his biographers to have been a humanist in philosophical outlook.[279][280] This did not preclude Tesla, like many of his era, from becoming a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics.

Tesla expressed the belief that human "pity" had come to interfere with the natural "ruthless workings of nature". Though his argumentation did not depend on a concept of a "master race" or the inherent superiority of one person over another, he advocated for eugenics. In a 1937 interview he stated:

... man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct ... The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.[281]

In 1926, Tesla commented on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality, and indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future.[282]

Tesla made predictions about the relevant issues of a post-World War I environment in a printed article entitled "Science and Discovery are the great Forces which will lead to the Consummation of the War" (20 December 1914).[283] Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues.[34][better source needed]

On religion

Tesla was raised an Orthodox Christian. Later in life he did not consider himself to be a "believer in the orthodox sense", said he opposed religious fanaticism, and said "Buddhism and Christianity are the greatest religions both in number of disciples and in importance."[284] He also said "To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end" and "what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise."[284]

Literary works

Tesla wrote a number of books and articles for magazines and journals.[285] Among his books are My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, compiled and edited by Ben Johnston in 1983 from a series of 1919 magazine articles by Tesla which were republished in 1977; The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla (1993), compiled and edited by David Hatcher Childress; and The Tesla Papers.

Many of Tesla's writings are freely available online,[286] including the article "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", published in The Century Magazine in 1900,[287] and the article "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency", published in his book Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla.[288][289]

Legacy and honors

See also: Nikola Tesla in popular culture and List of things named after Nikola Tesla

Tesla's legacy has endured in books, films, radio, TV, music, live theater, comics, and video games. The impact of the technologies invented or envisioned by Tesla is a recurring theme in several types of science fiction.

See also

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ^ The Serbo-Croatian word tesla literally means 'adze'[3] and may serve as a nickname for a person with the occupation of, e.g., carpenter. However, in the case of Nikola Tesla the surname is alleged to derive from a traditional nickname for members of one branch of the Draganić family because of their inherited trait of broad protruded front teeth resembling the blade of the adze.[4]
  2. ^ Tesla does not mention which professor this was by name, but some sources conclude this was Martin Sekulić.[26][27]
  3. ^ Tesla's contemporaries remembered that on a previous occasion Machine Works manager Batchelor had been unwilling to give Tesla a $7 a week pay raise [57]
  4. ^ Account comes from a letter Tesla sent in 1938 on the occasion of receiving an award from the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare[65]

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References

  • Burgan, Michael (2009). Nikola Tesla: Inventor, Electrical Engineer. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone. ISBN 978-0-7565-4086-9.
  • Carlson, W. Bernard (2013). Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-4655-9. from the original on 5 August 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  • Cheney, Margaret (2011). Tesla: Man Out of Time. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-7486-6. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • Cheney, Margaret (2001) [1981]. Tesla: Man Out of Time. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-1536-7. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  • Cheney, Margaret; Uth, Robert; Glenn, Jim (1999). Tesla, Master of Lightning. Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 978-0-7607-1005-0. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  • Cooper, Christopher (2015). The truth about Tesla : the myth of the lone genius in the history of innovation. New York: Race Point Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63106-030-4.
  • Dommermuth-Costa, Carol (1994). Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 978-0-8225-4920-8. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • Jonnes, Jill (2004). Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. Random House Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-375-75884-3. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • Klooster, John W. (2009). Icons of Invention: The Makers of the Modern World from Gutenberg to Gates. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-34743-6. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • O'Neill, John J. (1944). Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla. Ives Washburn. ISBN 0-914732-33-1. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 14 May 2020. (reprinted 2007 by Book Tree, ISBN 978-1-60206-743-1)
  • Pickover, Clifford A. (1999). Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-688-16894-0. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • Petešić, Ćiril (1976). Genij s našeg kamenjara: život i djelo Nikole Tesle [The genius from our rocks: life and work of Nikola Tesla] (in Croatian). Zagreb: Školske novine. OCLC 36439558.
  • Seifer, Marc J. (2001). Wizard: the life and times of Nikola Tesla: biography of a genius. Citadel. ISBN 978-0-8065-1960-9. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  • Seifer, Marc J. (1998). Wizard: The Life And Times Of Nikola Tesla. Citadel. ISBN 978-0-8065-3556-2. from the original on 23 March 2024. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  • Van Riper, A. Bowdoin (2011). A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists and Inventors in American Film and TV since 1930. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-8128-0.

Further reading

Library resources about
Nikola Tesla
By Nikola Tesla

Books

Publications

  • A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, May 1888.
  • , Scientific papers and articles written by Tesla and others, spanning the years 1888–1940.
  • Light Without Heat 16 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine, The Manufacturer and Builder, January 1892, Vol. 24
  • Biography: Nikola Tesla 9 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine, The Century Magazine, November 1893, Vol. 47
  • Tesla's Oscillator and Other Inventions 9 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine, The Century Magazine, November 1894, Vol. 49
  • The New Telegraphy. Recent Experiments in Telegraphy with Sparks 16 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine, The Century Magazine, November 1897, Vol. 55

Journals

  • Pavićević, Aleksandra (2014). "From lighting to dust death, funeral and post mortem destiny of Nikola Tesla". Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU. 62 (2): 125–139. doi:10.2298/GEI1402125P.
  • Carlson, W. Bernard, "Inventor of dreams". Scientific American, March 2005 Vol. 292 Issue 3 p. 78(7).
  • Jatras, Stella L., "The genius of Nikola Tesla 30 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine". The New American, 28 July 2003 Vol. 19 Issue 15 p. 9(1)
  • Lawren, B., "Rediscovering Tesla". Omni, March 1988, Vol. 10 Issue 6.
  • Rybak, James P., "Nikola Tesla: Scientific Savant". Popular Electronics, 1042170X, November 1999, Vol. 16, Issue 11.
  • Thibault, Ghislain, "The Automatization of Nikola Tesla: Thinking Invention in the Late Nineteenth Century". Configurations 28 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Volume 21, Number 1, Winter 2013, pp. 27–52.
  • Martin, Thomas Commerford, "The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla", New York: The Electrical Engineer, 1894 (3rd Ed.); reprinted by Barnes & Noble, 1995
  • Anil K. Rajvanshi, , Resonance, March 2007.
  • Roguin, Ariel, "Historical Note: Nikola Tesla: The man behind the magnetic field unit". J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2004;19:369–374. 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
  • Sellon, J. L., "The impact of Nikola Tesla on the cement industry". Behrent Eng. Co., Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Cement Industry Technical Conference. 1997. XXXIX Conference Record., 1997 IEEE/PC. Page(s) 125–133.
  • Valentinuzzi, M.E., "Nikola Tesla: why was he so much resisted and forgotten?" Inst. de Bioingenieria, Univ. Nacional de Tucuman; Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, IEEE. July/August 1998, 17:4, pp. 74–75.
  • Secor, H. Winfield, "Tesla's views on Electricity and the War", Electrical Experimenter, Volume 5, Number 4 August 1917.
  • Florey, Glen, "Tesla and the Military". Engineering 24, 5 December 2000.
  • Corum, K. L., J. F. Corum, Nikola Tesla, Lightning Observations, and Stationary Waves. 1994.
  • Corum, K. L., J. F. Corum, and A. H. Aidinejad, Atmospheric Fields, Tesla's Receivers and Regenerative Detectors. 1994.
  • Meyl, Konstantin, H. Weidner, E. Zentgraf, T. Senkel, T. Junker, and P. Winkels, Experiments to proof the evidence of scalar waves Tests with a Tesla reproduction. Institut für Gravitationsforschung (IGF), Am Heerbach 5, D-63857 Waldaschaff.
  • Anderson, L. I., "John Stone Stone on Nikola Tesla's Priority in Radio and Continuous Wave Radiofrequency Apparatus". The AWA Review, Vol. 1, 1986, pp. 18–41.
  • Anderson, L. I., "Priority in Invention of Radio, Tesla v. Marconi". Antique Wireless Association monograph, March 1980.
  • Marincic, A., and D. Budimir, "Tesla's contribution to radiowave propagation". Dept. of Electron. Eng., Belgrade Univ. (5th International Conference on Telecommunications in Modern Satellite, Cable and Broadcasting Service, 2001. TELSIKS 2001. pp. 327–331 vol.1)

Video

External links

External videos
  Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light, 26 October 2003, C-SPAN
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  • Tesla memorial society by his grand-nephew William H. Terbo
  • FBI. "Nikola Tesla" (PDF). Main Investigative File. FBI.
  • Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe
  • Works by Nikola Tesla at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Nikola Tesla at Internet Archive
  • Works by Nikola Tesla at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Thomas H. White – Nikola Tesla: The Guy Who DIDN'T "Invent Radio"
  • Debunking the Tesla Myth (opinion piece)
  • - "Tesla's pigeon" - Amanda Gefter

April 29, 2024
nikola, tesla, other, uses, disambiguation, serbian, cyrillic, Никола, Тесла, nǐkola, têsla, july, june, 1856, january, 1943, serbian, american, inventor, electrical, engineer, mechanical, engineer, futurist, known, contributions, design, modern, alternating, . For other uses see Nikola Tesla disambiguation Nikola Tesla ˈ t ɛ s l e Serbian Cyrillic Nikola Tesla 2 nǐkola tesla a 10 July O S 28 June 1856 7 January 1943 was a Serbian American 5 6 inventor electrical engineer mechanical engineer and futurist He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current AC electricity supply system 7 Nikola TeslaNikola TeslaTesla c 1890Born 1856 07 10 10 July 1856Smiljan Austrian Empire now Croatia Died7 January 1943 1943 01 07 aged 86 New York City U S Resting placeNikola Tesla Museum Belgrade Serbia44 48 18 N 20 28 15 E 44 8051 N 20 4707 E 44 8051 20 4707CitizenshipAustria 1856 1891 United States 1891 1943 Alma materGraz University of Technology dropped out OccupationsInventorengineerfuturistEngineering careerDisciplineElectrical and mechanicalProjectsAlternating currenthigh voltage high frequency power experimentsSignificant designSee list AC motor Carbon button lamp Induction motor Plasma globe Plasma lamp Polyphase system Radio control Resonant inductive coupling Rotating magnetic field Teleforce Telegeodynamics Teleoperation Tesla coil Tesla Experimental Station Tesla s oscillator Tesla turbine Tesla valve Torpedo 1 Vacuum variable capacitor Violet ray VTOL Wardenclyffe Tower Wireless power transfer World Wireless SystemAwardsSee list Order of St Sava II Class Government of Serbia 1892 Elliott Cresson Medal 1894 Order of Prince Danilo I 1895 Edison Medal 1916 Order of St Sava I Class Government of Yugoslavia 1926 Order of the Yugoslav Crown 1931 John Scott Medal 1934 Order of the White Eagle I Class Government of Yugoslavia 1936 Order of the White Lion I Class Government of Czechoslovakia 1937 University of Paris Medal 1937 The Medal of the University St Clement of Ochrida Sofia Bulgaria 1939 Signature Born and raised in the Austrian Empire Tesla first studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree He then gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry In 1884 he emigrated to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices His AC induction motor and related polyphase AC patents licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888 earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators generators electrical discharge tubes and early X ray imaging He also built a wirelessly controlled boat one of the first ever exhibited Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures Throughout the 1890s Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high voltage high frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs In 1893 he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter but ran out of funding before he could complete it After Wardenclyffe Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success Having spent most of his money Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels leaving behind unpaid bills He died in New York City in January 1943 8 Tesla s work fell into relative obscurity following his death until 1960 when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the International System of Units SI measurement of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s 9 Contents 1 Early years 1 1 Working at Budapest Telephone Exchange 2 Working at Edison 2 1 Moving to the United States 3 Tesla Electric Light amp Manufacturing 4 AC and the induction motor 4 1 Market turmoil 5 New York laboratories 5 1 Tesla coil 5 2 Citizenship 5 3 Wireless lighting 5 4 Polyphase system and the Columbian Exposition 5 5 Steam powered oscillating generator 5 6 Consulting on Niagara 5 7 The Nikola Tesla Company 5 8 Lab fire 5 9 X ray experimentation 5 10 Radio remote control 6 Wireless power 6 1 Colorado Springs 6 2 Wardenclyffe 7 Later years 7 1 Bladeless turbine 7 2 Wireless lawsuits 7 3 Nobel Prize rumors 7 4 Other awards patents and ideas 7 5 Living circumstances 7 6 Birthday press conferences 8 Death 8 1 Estate 9 Patents 10 Personal life and character 10 1 Appearance 10 2 Eidetic memory 10 3 Relationships 10 4 Sleep habits 10 5 Work and dining habits 11 Views and beliefs 11 1 On experimental and theoretical physics 11 2 On society 11 3 On religion 12 Literary works 13 Legacy and honors 14 See also 15 Notes 16 References 17 Further reading 18 External linksEarly years nbsp Tesla s rebuilt house parish hall in Smiljan Croatia in the region of Lika where he was born and the rebuilt church where his father served During the Yugoslav Wars several of the buildings were severely damaged by fire They were restored and reopened in 2006 10 nbsp Tesla s baptismal record 28 June 1856 His name is written as Nikolai Slavonic Serbian Nikolaj on the lower right side of the large paragraph Nikola Tesla was born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan within the Military Frontier in the Austrian Empire present day Croatia on 10 July O S 28 June 1856 11 12 His father Milutin Tesla 1819 1879 13 was a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church 14 15 16 17 Tesla s mother Đuka Mandic 1822 1892 whose father was also an Eastern Orthodox Church priest 18 had a talent for making home craft tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems Đuka had never received a formal education Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother s genetics and influence 19 20 Tesla s ancestors which were from western Serbia near Montenegro 21 Tesla was the fourth of five children He had three sisters Milka Angelina and Marica and an older brother named Dane who was killed in a horse riding accident when Tesla was aged six or seven 22 In 1861 Tesla attended primary school in Smiljan where he studied German arithmetic and religion In 1862 the Tesla family moved to the nearby Gospic where Tesla s father worked as parish priest Nikola completed primary school followed by middle school In 1870 Tesla moved to Karlovac 23 to attend high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium where the classes were held in German as it was usual throughout schools within the Austro Hungarian Military Frontier 24 25 nbsp Tesla s father Milutin was an Orthodox priest in the village of Smiljan Tesla later wrote that he became interested in demonstrations of electricity by his physics professor b Tesla noted that these demonstrations of this mysterious phenomena made him want to know more of this wonderful force 28 Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating 29 He finished a four year term in three years graduating in 1873 30 After graduating Tesla returned to Smiljan but soon contracted cholera was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times In a moment of despair Tesla s father who had originally wanted him to enter the priesthood 31 promised to send him to the best engineering school if he recovered from the illness 32 The next year Tesla evaded conscription into the Austro Hungarian Army in Smiljan 33 by running away southeast of Lika to Tomingaj near Gracac There he explored the mountains wearing hunter s garb Tesla said that this contact with nature made him stronger both physically and mentally He read many books while in Tomingaj and later said that Mark Twain s works had helped him to miraculously recover from his earlier illness 34 better source needed He enrolled at the Imperial Royal Technical College in Graz in 1875 on a Military Frontier scholarship Tesla passed nine exams nearly twice as many as required 35 and 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 35 At Graz Tesla noted his fascination with the detailed lectures on electricity presented by Professor Jakob Poschl and described how he made suggestions on improving the design of an electric motor the professor was demonstrating 34 better source needed 36 But by his third year he was failing in school and never graduated leaving Graz in December 1878 One biographer suggests Tesla was not studying and may have been expelled for gambling and womanizing 37 nbsp Tesla aged 23 c 1879 Tesla s family did not hear from him after he left school 38 There was a rumor amongst his classmates that he had drowned in the nearby river Mur but in January one of them ran into Tesla in the town of Maribor and reported that encounter to Tesla s family 39 It turned out Tesla had been working there as a draftsman for 60 florins per month 37 In March 1879 Milutin finally located his son and tried to convince him to return home and take up his education in Prague 39 Tesla returned to Gospic later that month when he was deported for not having a residence permit 39 Tesla s father died the next month on 17 April 1879 at the age of 60 after an unspecified illness 39 During the rest of the year Tesla taught a large class of students in his old school in Gospic In January 1880 two of Tesla s uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospic for Prague where he was to study He arrived too late to enroll at Charles Ferdinand University he had never studied Greek a required subject and he was illiterate in Czech another required subject Tesla did however attend lectures in philosophy at the university as an auditor but he did not receive grades for the courses 40 41 Working at Budapest Telephone Exchange Tesla moved to Budapest Hungary in 1881 to work under Tivadar Puskas at a telegraph company the Budapest Telephone Exchange Upon arrival Tesla realized that the company then under construction was not functional so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead Within a few months the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position During his employment Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier which was never patented nor publicly described 34 better source needed Working at EdisonIn 1882 Tivadar Puskas got Tesla another job in Paris with the Continental Edison Company 42 Tesla began working in what was then a brand new industry installing indoor incandescent lighting citywide in large scale electric power utility The company had several subdivisions and Tesla worked at the Societe Electrique Edison the division in the Ivry sur Seine suburb of Paris in charge of installing the lighting system There he gained a great deal of practical experience in electrical engineering Management took notice of his advanced knowledge in engineering and physics and soon had him designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors 43 They also sent him on to troubleshoot engineering problems at other Edison utilities being built around France and in Germany Moving to the United States nbsp Edison Machine Works on Goerck Street New York Tesla found the change from cosmopolitan Europe to working at this shop located amongst the tenements on Manhattan s lower east side a painful surprise 44 In 1884 Edison manager Charles Batchelor who had been overseeing the Paris installation was brought back to the United States to manage the Edison Machine Works a manufacturing division situated in New York City and asked that Tesla be brought to the United States as well 45 In June 1884 Tesla emigrated 46 and began working almost immediately at the Machine Works on Manhattan s Lower East Side an overcrowded shop with a workforce of several hundred machinists laborers managing staff and 20 field engineers struggling with the task of building the large electric utility in that city 47 As in Paris Tesla was working on troubleshooting installations and improving generators 48 Historian W Bernard Carlson notes Tesla may have met company founder Thomas Edison only a couple of times 47 One of those times was noted in Tesla s autobiography where after staying up all night repairing the damaged dynamos on the ocean liner SS Oregon he ran into Batchelor and Edison who made a quip about their Parisian being out all night After Tesla told them he had been up all night fixing the Oregon Edison commented to Batchelor that this is a damned good man 44 One of the projects given to Tesla was to develop an arc lamp based street lighting system 49 50 Arc lighting was the most popular type of street lighting but it required high voltages and was incompatible with the Edison low voltage incandescent system causing the company to lose contracts in some cities Tesla s designs were never put into production possibly because of technical improvements in incandescent street lighting or because of an installation deal that Edison made with an arc lighting company 51 Tesla had been working at the Machine Works for a total of six months when he quit 47 What event precipitated his leaving is unclear It may have been over a bonus he did not receive either for redesigning generators or for the arc lighting system that was shelved 49 Tesla had previous run ins with the Edison company over unpaid bonuses he believed he had earned 52 53 In his autobiography Tesla stated the manager of the Edison Machine Works offered a 50 000 bonus to design twenty four different types of standard machines but it turned out to be a practical joke 54 better source needed Later versions of this story have Thomas Edison himself offering and then reneging on the deal quipping Tesla you don t understand our American humor 55 56 The size of the bonus in either story has been noted as odd since Machine Works manager Batchelor was stingy with pay c and the company did not have that amount of cash equal to 1 695 556 today on hand 58 59 Tesla s diary contains just one comment on what happened at the end of his employment a note he scrawled across the two pages covering 7 December 1884 to 4 January 1885 saying Good By to the Edison Machine Works 50 60 Tesla Electric Light amp ManufacturingSoon after leaving the Edison company Tesla was working on patenting an arc lighting system 61 possibly the same one he had developed at Edison 47 In March 1885 he met with patent attorney Lemuel W Serrell the same attorney used by Edison to obtain help with submitting the patents 61 Serrell introduced Tesla to two businessmen Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail who agreed to finance an arc lighting manufacturing and utility company in Tesla s name the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company 62 Tesla worked for the rest of the year obtaining the patents that included an improved DC generator the first patents issued to Tesla in the US and building and installing the system in Rahway New Jersey 63 Tesla s new system gained notice in the technical press which commented on its advanced features The investors showed little interest in Tesla s ideas for new types of alternating current motors and electrical transmission equipment After the utility was up and running in 1886 they decided that the manufacturing side of the business was too competitive and opted to simply run an electric utility 64 They formed a new utility company abandoning Tesla s company and leaving the inventor penniless 64 Tesla even lost control of the patents he had generated since he had assigned them to the company in exchange for stock 64 He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and as a ditch digger for 2 per day Later in life Tesla recounted that part of 1886 as a time of hardship writing My high education in various branches of science mechanics and literature seemed to me like a mockery 64 d AC and the induction motor nbsp Drawing from U S patent 381 968 illustrating the principle of Tesla s alternating current induction motor In late 1886 Tesla met Alfred S Brown a Western Union superintendent and New York attorney Charles Fletcher Peck 66 The two men were experienced in setting up companies and promoting inventions and patents for financial gain 67 Based on Tesla s new ideas for electrical equipment including a thermo magnetic motor idea 68 they agreed to back the inventor financially and handle his patents Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887 with an agreement that profits from generated patents would go 1 3 to Tesla 1 3 to Peck and Brown and 1 3 to fund development 67 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 In 1887 Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current AC a power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long distance high voltage transmission The motor used polyphase current which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882 69 70 71 This innovative electric motor patented in May 1888 was a simple self starting design that did not need a commutator thus avoiding sparking and the high maintenance of constantly servicing and replacing mechanical brushes 72 73 Along with getting the motor patented Peck and Brown arranged to get the motor publicized starting with independent testing to verify it was a functional improvement followed by press releases sent to technical publications for articles to run concurrently with the issue of the patent 74 Physicist William Arnold Anthony who tested the motor and Electrical World magazine editor Thomas Commerford Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his AC motor on 16 May 1888 at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 74 75 Engineers working for the Westinghouse Electric amp Manufacturing Company reported to George Westinghouse that Tesla had a viable AC motor and related power system something Westinghouse needed for the alternating current system he was already marketing Westinghouse looked into getting a patent on a similar commutator less rotating magnetic field based induction motor developed in 1885 and presented in a paper in March 1888 by Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris but decided that Tesla s patent would probably control the market 76 77 nbsp Tesla s AC dynamo electric machine AC electric generator in an 1888 U S patent 390 721 In July 1888 Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla s polyphase induction motor and transformer designs for 60 000 in cash and stock and a royalty of 2 50 per AC horsepower produced by each motor Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of 2 000 67 800 in today s dollars 78 per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric amp Manufacturing Company s Pittsburgh labs 79 During that year Tesla worked in Pittsburgh helping to create an alternating current system to power the city s streetcars He found it a frustrating period because of conflicts with the other Westinghouse engineers over how best to implement AC power Between them they settled on a 60 cycle AC system that Tesla proposed to match the working frequency of Tesla s motor but they soon found that it would not work for streetcars since Tesla s induction motor could run only at a constant speed They ended up using a DC traction motor instead 80 81 Market turmoil Tesla s demonstration of his induction motor and Westinghouse s subsequent licensing of the patent both in 1888 came at the time of extreme competition between electric companies 82 83 The three big firms Westinghouse Edison and Thomson Houston Electric Company were trying to grow in a capital intensive business while financially undercutting each other There was even a war of currents propaganda campaign going on with Edison Electric claiming their direct current system was better and safer than the Westinghouse alternating current system and Thomson Houston sometimes siding with Edison 84 85 Competing in this market meant Westinghouse would not have the cash or engineering resources to develop Tesla s motor and the related polyphase system right away 86 Two years after signing the Tesla contract Westinghouse Electric was in trouble The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890 causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric 87 The sudden cash shortage forced the company to refinance its debts The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies research and patents including the per motor royalty in the Tesla contract 88 89 At that point the Tesla induction motor had been unsuccessful and was stuck in development 86 87 Westinghouse was paying a 15 000 a year guaranteed royalty 90 even though operating examples of the motor were rare and polyphase power systems needed to run it was even rarer 72 87 In early 1891 George Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms saying that if he did not meet the demands of his lenders 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 91 The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion the motor probably seemed obvious to Tesla and he agreed to release the company from the royalty payment clause in the contract 91 92 Six years later Westinghouse purchased Tesla s patent for a lump sum payment of 216 000 as part of a patent sharing agreement signed with General Electric a company created from the 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson Houston 93 94 95 New York laboratories nbsp Mark Twain in Tesla s South Fifth Avenue laboratory 1894 The money Tesla made from licensing his AC patents made him independently wealthy and gave him the time and funds to pursue his own interests 96 In 1889 Tesla moved out of the Liberty Street shop Peck and Brown had rented and for the next dozen years worked out of a series of workshop laboratory spaces in Manhattan These included a lab at 175 Grand Street 1889 1892 the fourth floor of 33 35 South Fifth Avenue 1892 1895 and sixth and seventh floors of 46 amp 48 East Houston Street 1895 1902 97 98 Tesla and his hired staff conducted some of his most significant work in these workshops Tesla coil Main article Tesla coil In the summer of 1889 Tesla traveled to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and learned of Heinrich Hertz s 1886 1888 experiments that proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation including radio waves 99 Tesla found this new discovery refreshing and decided to explore it more fully citation needed In repeating and then expanding on these experiments Tesla tried powering a Ruhmkorff coil with a high speed alternator he had been developing as part of an improved arc lighting system but found that the high frequency current overheated the iron core and melted the insulation between the primary and secondary windings in the coil To fix this problem Tesla came up with his oscillating transformer with an air gap instead of insulating material between the primary and secondary windings and an iron core that could be moved to different positions in or out of the coil 100 Later called the Tesla coil it would be used to produce high voltage low current high frequency alternating current electricity 101 He would use this resonant transformer circuit in his later wireless power work 102 103 Citizenship On 30 July 1891 aged 35 Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States 104 105 In the same year he patented his Tesla coil 106 Wireless lighting nbsp Tesla demonstrating wireless lighting by electrostatic induction during an 1891 lecture at Columbia College via two long Geissler tubes similar to neon tubes in his hands After 1890 Tesla experimented with transmitting power by inductive and capacitive coupling using high AC voltages generated with his Tesla coil 107 He attempted to develop a wireless lighting system based on near field inductive and capacitive coupling and conducted a series of public demonstrations where he lit Geissler tubes and even incandescent light bulbs from across a stage 108 He spent most of the decade working on variations of this new form of lighting with the help of various investors but none of the ventures succeeded in making a commercial product out of his findings 109 In 1893 at St Louis Missouri the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association Tesla told onlookers that he was sure a system like his could eventually conduct intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance without the use of wires by conducting it through the Earth 110 111 Tesla served as a vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1892 to 1894 the forerunner of the modern day IEEE along with the Institute of Radio Engineers 112 Polyphase system and the Columbian Exposition nbsp A Westinghouse display of the Tesla Polyphase System at Chicago s 1893 Columbian Exposition By the beginning of 1893 Westinghouse engineer Charles F Scott and then Benjamin G Lamme had made progress on an efficient version of Tesla s induction motor Lamme found a way to make the polyphase system it would need compatible with older single phase AC and DC systems by developing a rotary converter 113 Westinghouse Electric now had a way to provide electricity to all potential customers and started branding their polyphase AC system as the Tesla Polyphase System They believed that Tesla s patents gave them patent priority over other polyphase AC systems 114 Westinghouse Electric asked Tesla to participate in the 1893 World s Columbian Exposition in Chicago where the company had a large space in the Electricity Building devoted to electrical exhibits Westinghouse Electric won the bid to light the Exposition with alternating current and it was a key event in the history of AC power as the company demonstrated to the American public the safety reliability and efficiency of an alternating current system that was polyphase and could also supply the other AC and DC exhibits at the fair 115 116 117 A special exhibit space was set up to display various forms and models of Tesla s induction motor The rotating magnetic field that drove them was explained through a series of demonstrations including an Egg of Columbus that used the two phase coil found in an induction motor to spin a copper egg making it stand on end 118 Tesla visited the fair for a week during its six month run to attend the International Electrical Congress and put on a series of demonstrations at the Westinghouse exhibit 119 120 A specially darkened room had been set up where Tesla showed his wireless lighting system using a demonstration he had previously performed throughout America and Europe 121 these included using high voltage high frequency alternating current to light wireless gas discharge lamps 122 An observer noted Within the room were suspended two hard rubber plates covered with tin foil These were about fifteen feet apart and served as terminals of the wires leading from the transformers When the current was turned on the lamps or tubes which had no wires connected to them but lay on a table between the suspended plates or which might be held in the hand in almost any part of the room were made luminous These were the same experiments and the same apparatus shown by Tesla in London about two years previous where they produced so much wonder and astonishment 123 Steam powered oscillating generator Main article Tesla s oscillator During his presentation at the International Electrical Congress in the Columbian Exposition Agriculture Hall Tesla introduced his steam powered reciprocating electricity generator that he patented that year something he thought was a better way to generate alternating current 124 Steam was forced into the oscillator and rushed out through a series of ports pushing a piston up and down that was attached to an armature The magnetic armature vibrated up and down at high speed producing an alternating magnetic field This induced alternating electric current in the wire coils located adjacent It did away with the complicated parts of a steam engine generator but never caught on as a feasible engineering solution to generate electricity 125 126 Consulting on Niagara In 1893 Edward Dean Adams who headed the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company sought Tesla s opinion on what system would be best to transmit power generated at the falls Over several years there had been a series of proposals and open competitions on how best to do it Among the systems proposed by several US and European companies were two phase and three phase AC high voltage DC and compressed air Adams asked Tesla for information about the current state of all the competing systems Tesla advised Adams that a two phased system would be the most reliable and that there was a Westinghouse system to light incandescent bulbs using two phase alternating current The company awarded a contract to Westinghouse Electric for building a two phase AC generating system at the Niagara Falls based on Tesla s advice and Westinghouse s demonstration at the Columbian Exposition At the same time a further contract was awarded to General Electric to build the AC distribution system 127 The Nikola Tesla Company In 1895 Edward Dean Adams impressed with what he saw when he toured Tesla s lab agreed to help found the Nikola Tesla Company set up to fund develop and market a variety of previous Tesla patents and inventions as well as new ones Alfred Brown signed on bringing along patents developed under Peck and Brown The board was filled out with William Birch Rankine and Charles F Coaney 128 It found few investors since the mid 1890s were a tough time financially and the wireless lighting and oscillators patents it was set up to market never panned out The company handled Tesla s patents for decades to come Lab fire In the early morning hours of 13 March 1895 the South Fifth Avenue building that housed Tesla s lab caught fire It started in the basement of the building and was so intense Tesla s 4th floor lab burned and collapsed into the second floor The fire not only set back Tesla s ongoing projects but it also destroyed a collection of early notes and research material models and demonstration pieces including many that had been exhibited at the 1893 Worlds Colombian Exposition Tesla told The New York Times I am in too much grief to talk What can I say 129 After the fire Tesla moved to 46 amp 48 East Houston Street and rebuilt his lab on the 6th and 7th floors X ray experimentation nbsp X ray Tesla took of his hand 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 130 later identified as Roentgen rays or X rays His early experiments were with Crookes tubes a cold cathode electrical discharge tube Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X ray image predating by a few weeks Wilhelm Rontgen s December 1895 announcement of the discovery of X rays 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 131 In March 1896 after hearing of Rontgen s discovery of X ray and X ray imaging radiography 132 Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X ray imaging developing a high energy single terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla coil the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation In his research Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X rays Tesla held that with his circuits the instrument will enable one to generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus 133 Tesla noted the hazards of working with his circuit and single node X ray producing devices In his many notes on the early investigation of this phenomenon he attributed the skin damage to various causes He believed early on that damage to the skin was not caused by the Roentgen rays but by the ozone generated in contact with the skin and to a lesser extent by nitrous acid Tesla incorrectly believed that X rays were longitudinal waves such as those produced in waves in plasmas These plasma waves can occur in force free magnetic fields 134 135 On 11 July 1934 the New York Herald Tribune published an article on Tesla in which he recalled an event that occasionally took place while experimenting with his single electrode vacuum tubes A minute particle would break off the cathode pass out of the tube and physically strike him 136 Tesla said he could feel a sharp stinging pain where it entered his body and again at the place where it passed out In comparing these particles with the bits of metal projected by his electric gun Tesla said The particles in the beam of force will travel much faster than such particles and they will travel in concentrations Radio remote control nbsp In 1898 Tesla demonstrated a radio controlled boat which he hoped to sell as a guided torpedo to navies around the world 137 In 1898 Tesla demonstrated a boat that used a coherer based radio control which he dubbed telautomaton to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden 138 Tesla tried to sell his idea to the US military as a type of radio controlled torpedo but they showed little interest 139 Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward when a number of countries used it in military programs 140 Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate Teleautomatics in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago while he was travelling to Colorado Springs on 13 May 1899 Wireless powerFurther information Wireless power transfer Tesla nbsp Tesla sitting in front of a spiral coil used in his wireless power experiments at his East Houston St laboratory From the 1890s through 1906 Tesla spent a great deal of his time and fortune on a series of projects trying to develop the transmission of electrical power without wires It was an expansion of his idea of using coils to transmit power that he had been demonstrating in wireless lighting He saw this as not only a way to transmit large amounts of power around the world but also as he had pointed out in his earlier lectures a way to transmit worldwide communications At the time Tesla was formulating his ideas there was no feasible way to wirelessly transmit communication signals over long distances let alone large amounts of power Tesla had studied radio waves early on and came to the conclusion that part of the existing study on them by Hertz was incorrect 141 142 143 Also this new form of radiation was widely considered at the time to be a short distance phenomenon that seemed to die out in less than a mile 144 Tesla noted that even if theories on radio waves were true they were totally worthless for his intended purposes since this form of invisible light would diminish over a distance just like any other radiation and would travel in straight lines right out into space becoming hopelessly lost 145 By the mid 1890s Tesla was working on the idea that he might be able to conduct electricity long distance through the Earth or the atmosphere and began working on experiments to test this idea including setting up a large resonance transformer magnifying transmitter in his East Houston Street lab 146 147 148 Seeming to borrow from a common idea at the time that the Earth s atmosphere was conductive 149 150 he proposed a system composed of balloons suspending transmitting and receiving electrodes in the air above 30 000 feet 9 100 m in altitude where he thought the lower pressure would allow him to send high voltages millions of volts long distances Colorado Springs See also Tesla Experimental Station Magnifying transmitter and Colorado Springs Notes 1899 1900 nbsp Tesla s Colorado Springs laboratory To further study the conductive nature of low pressure air Tesla set up an experimental station at high altitude in Colorado Springs during 1899 151 152 153 154 There he could safely operate much larger coils than in the cramped confines of his New York lab and an associate had made an arrangement for the El Paso Electric Light Company to supply alternating current free of charge 154 To fund his experiments he convinced John Jacob Astor IV to invest 100 000 3 662 400 in today s dollars 78 to become a majority shareholder in the Nikola Tesla Company Astor thought he was primarily investing in the new wireless lighting system Instead Tesla used the money to fund his Colorado Springs experiments 155 Upon his arrival he told reporters that he planned to conduct wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris 156 nbsp A multiple exposure picture of Tesla sitting next to his magnifying transmitter generating millions of volts The 7 metre 23 ft long arcs were not part of the normal operation but only produced for effect by rapidly cycling the power switch 157 There he conducted experiments with a large coil operating in the megavolts range producing artificial lightning and thunder consisting of millions of volts and discharges of up to 135 feet 41 m in length 158 and at one point inadvertently burned out the generator in El Paso causing a power outage 159 The observations he made of the electronic noise of lightning strikes led him to incorrectly conclude 160 161 that he could use the entire globe of the Earth to conduct electrical energy During his time at his laboratory Tesla observed unusual signals from his receiver which he speculated to be communications from another planet He mentioned them in a letter to a reporter in December 1899 162 and to the Red Cross Society in December 1900 163 164 Reporters treated it as a sensational story and jumped to the conclusion Tesla was hearing signals from Mars 163 He expanded on the signals he heard in a 9 February 1901 Collier s Weekly article entitled Talking With Planets where he said it had not been immediately apparent to him that he was hearing intelligently controlled signals and that the signals could have come from Mars Venus or other planets 164 It has been hypothesized that he may have intercepted Guglielmo Marconi s European experiments in July 1899 Marconi may have transmitted the letter S dot dot dot in a naval demonstration the same three impulses that Tesla hinted at hearing in Colorado 164 or signals from another experimenter in wireless transmission 165 unreliable source Tesla had an agreement with the editor of The Century Magazine to produce an article on his findings The magazine sent a photographer to Colorado to photograph the work being done there The article titled The Problem of Increasing Human Energy appeared in the June 1900 edition of the magazine He explained the superiority of the wireless system he envisioned but the article was more of a lengthy philosophical treatise than an understandable scientific description of his work 166 illustrated with what were to become iconic images of Tesla and his Colorado Springs experiments Wardenclyffe Main article Wardenclyffe Tower nbsp Tesla s Wardenclyffe plant on Long Island in 1904 From this facility Tesla hoped to demonstrate wireless transmission of electrical energy across the Atlantic Tesla made the rounds in New York trying to find investors for what he thought would be a viable system of wireless transmission wining and dining them at the Waldorf Astoria s Palm Garden the hotel where he was living at the time The Players Club and Delmonico s 167 In March 1901 he obtained 150 000 5 493 600 in today s dollars 78 from J P Morgan in return for a 51 share of any generated wireless patents and began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility to be built in Shoreham New York 100 miles 161 km east of the city on the North Shore of Long Island 168 By July 1901 Tesla had expanded his plans to build a more powerful transmitter to leap ahead of Marconi s radio based system which Tesla thought was a copy of his own 163 He approached Morgan to ask for more money to build the larger system but Morgan refused to supply any further funds 165 unreliable source In December 1901 Marconi successfully transmitted the letter S from England to Newfoundland defeating Tesla in the race to be first to complete such a transmission A month after Marconi s success Tesla tried to get Morgan to back an even larger plan to transmit messages and power by controlling vibrations throughout the globe 163 Over the next five years Tesla wrote more than 50 letters to Morgan pleading for and demanding additional funding to complete the construction of Wardenclyffe Tesla continued the project for another nine months into 1902 The tower was erected to its full height of 187 feet 57 m 165 unreliable source In June 1902 Tesla moved his lab operations from Houston Street to Wardenclyffe 168 Investors on Wall Street were putting their money into Marconi s system and some in the press began turning against Tesla s project claiming it was a hoax 169 The project came to a halt in 1905 and in 1906 the financial problems and other events may have led to what Tesla biographer Marc J Seifer suspects was a nervous breakdown on Tesla s part 170 Tesla mortgaged the Wardenclyffe property to cover his debts at the Waldorf Astoria which eventually amounted to 20 000 608 400 in today s dollars 78 171 He lost the property in foreclosure in 1915 and in 1917 the Tower was demolished by the new owner to make the land a more viable real estate asset Later yearsAfter Wardenclyffe closed Tesla continued to write to Morgan after the great man died Tesla wrote to Morgan s son Jack trying to get further funding for the project In 1906 Tesla opened offices at 165 Broadway in Manhattan trying to raise further funds by developing and marketing his patents He went on to have offices at the Metropolitan Life Tower from 1910 to 1914 rented for a few months at the Woolworth Building moving out because he could not afford the rent and then to office space at 8 West 40th Street from 1915 to 1925 After moving to 8 West 40th Street he was effectively bankrupt Most of his patents had run out and he was having trouble with the new inventions he was trying to develop 172 Bladeless turbine Main article Tesla turbine nbsp Tesla s bladeless turbine design On his 50th birthday in 1906 Tesla demonstrated a 200 horsepower 150 kilowatts 16 000 rpm bladeless turbine During 1910 1911 at the Waterside Power Station in New York several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100 5 000 hp 173 Tesla worked with several companies including from 1919 to 1922 in Milwaukee for Allis Chalmers 174 175 He spent most of his time trying to perfect the Tesla turbine with Hans Dahlstrand the head engineer at the company but engineering difficulties meant it was never made into a practical device 176 Tesla did license the idea to a precision instrument company and it found use in the form of luxury car speedometers and other instruments 177 Wireless lawsuits When World War I broke out the British cut the transatlantic telegraph cable linking the US to Germany in order to control the flow of information between the two countries They also tried to shut off German wireless communication to and from the US by having the US Marconi Company sue the German radio company Telefunken for patent infringement 178 Telefunken brought in the physicists Jonathan Zenneck and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their defense and hired Tesla as a witness for two years for 1 000 a month The case stalled and then went moot when the US entered the war against Germany in 1917 178 179 In 1915 Tesla attempted to sue the Marconi Company for infringement of his wireless tuning patents Marconi s initial radio patent had been awarded in the US in 1897 but his 1900 patent submission covering improvements to radio transmission had been rejected several times before it was finally approved in 1904 on the grounds that it infringed on other existing patents including two 1897 Tesla wireless power tuning patents 142 180 181 Tesla s 1915 case went nowhere 182 but in a related case where the Marconi Company tried to sue the US government over WWI patent infringements a Supreme Court of the United States 1943 decision restored the prior patents of Oliver Lodge John Stone and Tesla 183 The court declared that their decision had no bearing on Marconi s claim as the first to achieve radio transmission just that since Marconi s claim to certain patented improvements were questionable the company could not claim infringement on those same patents 142 184 Nobel Prize rumors 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 William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X rays 185 186 187 There were unsubstantiated rumors at the time that either Tesla or Edison had refused the prize 185 The Nobel Foundation said Any rumor that a person has not been given a Nobel Prize because he has made known his intention to refuse the reward is ridiculous a recipient could decline a Nobel Prize only after he is announced a winner 185 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 20 185 In the years after these rumors neither Tesla nor Edison won a Nobel prize although Edison received one of 38 possible bids in 1915 and Tesla received one of 38 possible bids in 1937 188 Other awards patents and ideas Tesla won numerous medals and awards over this time They include Grand Officer of the Order of St Sava Serbia 1892 Elliott Cresson Medal Franklin Institute USA 1894 189 Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Danilo I Montenegro 1895 190 Member of the American Philosophical Society USA 1896 191 AIEE Edison Medal Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers USA 1916 192 Grand Cross of the Order of St Sava Yugoslavia 1926 193 Cross of the Order of the Yugoslav Crown Yugoslavia 1931 John Scott Medal Franklin Institute amp Philadelphia City Council USA 1934 189 Order of the White Eagle Yugoslavia 1936 Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion Czechoslovakia 1937 194 Medal of the University of Paris Paris France 1937 The Medal of the University St Clement of Ochrida Sofia Bulgaria 1939 nbsp Second banquet meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers 23 April 1915 Tesla is seen standing in the center Tesla attempted to market several devices based on the production of ozone These included his 1900 Tesla Ozone Company selling an 1896 patented device based on his Tesla coil used to bubble ozone through different types of oils to make a therapeutic gel 195 He also tried to develop a variation of this a few years later as a room sanitizer for hospitals 196 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 197 The plan was at least provisionally approved by then superintendent of New York City schools William H Maxwell 197 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 In the August 1917 edition of the magazine Electrical Experimenter Tesla postulated that electricity could be used to locate submarines via using the reflection of an electric ray of tremendous frequency with the signal being viewed on a fluorescent screen a system that has been noted to have a superficial resemblance to modern radar 198 Tesla was incorrect in his assumption that high frequency radio waves would penetrate water 199 Emile Girardeau who helped develop France s first radar system in the 1930s noted in 1953 that Tesla s general speculation that a very strong high frequency signal would be needed was correct Girardeau said Tesla was prophesying or dreaming since he had at his disposal no means of carrying them out but one must add that if he was dreaming at least he was dreaming correctly 200 In 1928 Tesla received patent U S patent 1 655 114 for a biplane design capable of vertical take off and landing VTOL which gradually tilted through manipulation of the elevator devices in flight until it was flying like a conventional plane 201 This impractical design was something Tesla thought would sell for less than 1 000 202 203 Tesla had a further office at 350 Madison Ave 204 but by 1928 he no longer had a laboratory or funding 203 Living circumstances Tesla lived at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1900 and ran up a large bill 205 He moved to the St Regis Hotel in 1922 and followed a pattern from then on of moving to a different hotel every few years and leaving unpaid bills behind 206 207 Tesla walked to the park every day to feed the pigeons He began feeding them at the window of his hotel room and nursed injured birds back to health 207 208 209 He said that he had been visited by a certain injured white pigeon daily He spent over 2 000 equivalent to 36 410 in 2023 to care for the bird including a device he built to support her comfortably while her broken wing and leg healed 210 Tesla stated I have been feeding pigeons thousands of them for years But there was one a beautiful bird pure white with light grey tips on its wings that one was different It was a female I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman and she loved me As long as I had her there was a purpose to my life 211 Tesla s unpaid bills as well as complaints about the mess made by pigeons led to his eviction from St Regis in 1923 He was also forced to leave the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1930 and the Hotel Governor Clinton in 1934 207 At one point he also took rooms at the Hotel Marguery citation needed Tesla moved to the Hotel New Yorker in 1934 At this time Westinghouse Electric amp Manufacturing Company began paying him 125 equivalent to 2 850 in 2023 per month in addition to paying his rent Accounts of how this came about vary Several sources claim that Westinghouse was concerned or possibly warned about potential bad publicity arising from the impoverished conditions in which their former star inventor was living 212 213 214 215 The payment has been described as being couched as a consulting fee to get around Tesla s aversion to accepting charity Tesla biographer Marc Seifer described the Westinghouse payments as a type of unspecified settlement 214 In any case Westinghouse provided the funds for Tesla for the rest of his life citation needed Birthday press conferences nbsp Tesla on Time magazine commemorating his 75th birthday In 1931 a young journalist whom Tesla befriended Kenneth M Swezey organized a celebration for the inventor s 75th birthday 216 Tesla received congratulations from figures in science and engineering such as Albert Einstein 217 and he was also featured on the cover of Time magazine 218 The cover caption All the world s his power house noted his contribution to electrical power generation The party went so well that Tesla made it an annual event an occasion where he would put out a large spread of food and drink featuring dishes of his own creation He invited the press in order to see his inventions and hear stories about his past exploits views on current events and sometimes baffling claims 219 220 nbsp Newspaper representation of the thought camera Tesla described at his 1933 birthday party At the 1932 party Tesla claimed he had invented a motor that would run on cosmic rays 220 In 1933 at age 77 Tesla told reporters at the event that after 35 years of work he was on the verge of producing proof of a new form of energy He claimed it was a theory of energy that was violently opposed to Einsteinian physics and could be tapped with an apparatus that would be cheap to run and last 500 years He also told reporters he was working on a way to transmit individualized private radio wavelengths working on breakthroughs in metallurgy and developing a way to photograph the retina to record thought 221 At the 1934 occasion Tesla told reporters he had designed a superweapon he claimed would end all war 222 223 He called it teleforce but was usually referred to as his death ray 224 In 1940 the New York Times gave a range for the ray of 250 miles 400 km with an expected development cost of US 2 million equivalent to 43 5 million in 2023 225 Tesla described it as a defensive weapon that would be put up along the border of a country and be used against attacking ground based infantry or aircraft Tesla never revealed detailed plans of how the weapon worked during his lifetime but in 1984 they surfaced at the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade 226 The treatise The New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non dispersive Energy through the Natural Media described an open ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allows particles to exit a method of charging slugs of tungsten or mercury to millions of volts and directing them in streams through electrostatic repulsion 220 227 Tesla tried to attract interest of the US War Department 228 United Kingdom Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the device 229 In 1935 at his 79th birthday party Tesla covered many topics He claimed to have discovered the cosmic ray in 1896 and invented a way to produce direct current by induction and made many claims about his mechanical oscillator 230 Describing the device which he expected would earn him 100 million within two years he told reporters that a version of his oscillator had caused an earthquake in his 46 East Houston Street lab and neighboring streets in Lower Manhattan in 1898 230 He went on to tell reporters his oscillator could destroy the Empire State Building with 5 pounds 2 3 kg of air pressure 231 He also proposed using his oscillators to transmit vibrations into the ground He claimed it would work over any distance and could be used for communication or locating underground mineral deposits a technique he called telegeodynamics 136 In 1937 at his Grand Ballroom of Hotel New Yorker event Tesla received the Order of the White Lion from the Czechoslovak ambassador and a medal from the Yugoslav ambassador On questions concerning the death ray Tesla stated But it is not an experiment I have built demonstrated and used it Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world 220 Death nbsp Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker where Tesla died nbsp Commemorative plaque New Yorker Hotel In the fall of 1937 at the age of 81 after midnight one night Tesla left the Hotel New Yorker to make his regular commute to the cathedral and library to feed the pigeons While crossing a street a couple of blocks from the hotel Tesla was struck by a moving taxicab and was thrown to the ground His back was severely wrenched and three of his ribs were broken in the accident The full extent of his injuries was never known Tesla refused to consult a doctor an almost lifelong custom and never fully recovered 232 233 On 7 January 1943 at the age of 86 Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker His body was found by maid Alice Monaghan when she 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 Wembley examined the body and ruled that the cause of death had been coronary thrombosis a type of heart attack Two days later the Federal Bureau of Investigation ordered the Alien Property Custodian to seize Tesla s belongings John G Trump a professor at M I T and a well known electrical engineer serving as a technical aide to the National Defense Research Committee was called in to analyze the Tesla items After a three day investigation Trump s report concluded that there was nothing which would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands stating His Tesla s thoughts and efforts during at least the past 15 years were primarily of a speculative philosophical and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power but did not include new sound workable principles or methods for realizing such results 234 In a box purported to contain a part of Tesla s death ray Trump found a 45 year old multidecade resistance box 235 nbsp Gilded urn with Tesla s ashes in his favorite geometric object a sphere Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade On 10 January 1943 New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia read a eulogy written by Slovene American author Louis Adamic live over the WNYC radio while violin pieces Ave Maria and Tamo daleko were played in the background On 12 January two thousand people attended a state funeral for Tesla at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in Manhattan After the funeral Tesla s body was taken to the Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley New York where it was later cremated The following day a second service was conducted by prominent priests in the Trinity Chapel today s Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava in New York City Estate In 1952 following pressure from Tesla s nephew Sava Kosanovic Tesla s entire estate was shipped to Belgrade in 80 trunks marked N T In 1957 Kosanovic s 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 236 PatentsMain article List of Nikola Tesla patents Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions 237 Some of Tesla s patents are not accounted for and various sources have discovered some that have lain hidden in patent archives There are a minimum of 278 known patents 237 issued to Tesla in 26 countries Many of Tesla s patents were in the United States Britain and Canada but many other patents were approved in countries around the globe 238 Many inventions developed by Tesla were not put into patent protection Personal life and characterAppearance nbsp Tesla c 1896 Tesla was 6 feet 2 inches 1 88 m tall and weighed 142 pounds 64 kg with almost no weight variance from 1888 to about 1926 His appearance was described by newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane as almost the tallest almost the thinnest and certainly the most serious man who goes to Delmonico s regularly 239 240 He was an elegant stylish figure in New York City meticulous in his grooming clothing and regimented in his daily activities an appearance he maintained so as to further his business relationships 241 He was also described as having light eyes very big hands and remarkably big thumbs 239 Eidetic memory Tesla read many works memorizing complete books and supposedly possessed a photographic memory 242 He was a polyglot speaking eight languages Serbo Croatian Czech English French German Hungarian Italian and Latin 243 Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration During his early life Tesla was repeatedly stricken with illness Blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes often accompanied by visions 242 Often the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across at other times they provided the solution to a particular problem he had encountered Just by hearing the name of an item he could envision it in realistic detail 242 Tesla visualized an invention in his mind with extreme precision including all dimensions before moving to the construction stage a technique sometimes known as picture thinking He typically did not make drawings by hand but worked from memory Beginning in his childhood Tesla had frequent flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life 242 He noted in his autobiography that this affliction had developed his powers of observation and enabled him to discover a truth of great importance namely that every thought he conceived was suggested by an external impression 54 Tesla further wrote that deficient observation was merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing Relationships Tesla was a lifelong bachelor who had once explained that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities 242 He once said in earlier years that he felt he could never be worthy enough for a woman considering women superior in every way His opinion had started to sway in later years when he felt that women were trying to outdo men and make themselves more dominant This new woman was met with much indignation from Tesla who felt that women were losing their femininity by trying to be in power In an interview with the Galveston Daily News on 10 August 1924 he stated In place of the soft voiced a gentlewoman of my reverent worship has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man in dress voice and actions in sports and achievements of every kind The tendency of women to push aside man supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life is very disappointing to me citation needed Although he told a reporter in later years that he sometimes felt that by not marrying he had made too great a sacrifice to his work 210 Tesla chose to never pursue or engage in any known relationships instead finding all the stimulation he needed in his work Tesla was asocial and prone to seclude himself with his work 138 244 245 However when he did engage in social life many people spoke very positively and admiringly of Tesla Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a distinguished sweetness sincerity modesty refinement generosity and force 246 His secretary Dorothy Skerrit wrote his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul 241 Tesla s friend Julian Hawthorne wrote 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 247 Tesla was a good friend of Francis Marion Crawford Robert Underwood Johnson 248 Stanford White 249 Fritz Lowenstein George Scherff and Kenneth Swezey 250 251 252 In middle age Tesla became a close friend of Mark Twain they spent a lot of time together in his lab and elsewhere 248 Twain notably described Tesla s induction motor invention as the most valuable patent since the telephone 253 At a party thrown by actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1896 Tesla met Indian Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda Vivekananda later wrote that Tesla said he could demonstrate mathematically the relationship between matter and energy something Vivekananda hoped would give a scientific foundation to Vedantic cosmology 254 255 The meeting with Swami Vivekananda stimulated Tesla s interest in Eastern Science which led to Tesla studying Hindu and Vedic philosophy for a number of years 256 Tesla later wrote an article titled Man s Greatest Achievement using Sanskrit terms akasha and prana to describe the relationship between matter and energy 257 258 In the late 1920s Tesla befriended George Sylvester Viereck a poet writer mystic and later a Nazi propagandist Tesla occasionally attended dinner parties held by Viereck and his wife 259 260 Tesla could be harsh at times and openly expressed disgust for overweight people such as when he fired a secretary because of her weight 261 He was quick to criticize clothing on several occasions Tesla directed a subordinate to go home and change her dress 242 When Thomas Edison died in 1931 Tesla contributed the only negative opinion to The New York Times buried in an extensive coverage of Edison s life He had no hobby cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene His method was inefficient in the extreme for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and at first I was almost a sorry witness of his doings knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge trusting himself entirely to his inventor s instinct and practical American sense 262 263 Sleep habits Tesla claimed never to sleep more than two hours per night 264 However he did admit to dozing from time to time to recharge his batteries 265 During his second year of study at Graz Tesla developed a passionate proficiency for billiards chess and card playing sometimes spending more than 48 hours in a stretch at a games table 266 On one occasion at his laboratory Tesla worked for a period of 84 hours without rest 267 Kenneth Swezey a journalist whom Tesla had befriended confirmed that Tesla rarely slept Swezey recalled one morning when Tesla called him at 3 a m I was sleeping in my room like one dead Suddenly the telephone ring awakened me Tesla spoke animatedly with pauses as he work ed out a problem comparing one theory to another commenting and when he felt he had arrived at the solution he suddenly closed the telephone 265 Work and dining habits Tesla worked every day from 9 00 a m until 6 00 p m or later with dinner at exactly 8 10 p m at Delmonico s restaurant and later the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Tesla then telephoned 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 then resumed his work often until 3 00 a m 268 For exercise Tesla walked between 8 and 10 miles 13 and 16 km per day He curled his toes one hundred times for each foot every night saying that it stimulated his brain cells 265 In an interview with newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane Tesla said that he did not believe in telepathy stating Suppose I made up my mind to murder you he said In a second you would know it Now isn t that wonderful By what process does the mind get at all this In the same interview Tesla said that he believed that all fundamental laws could be reduced to one 239 Tesla became a vegetarian in his later years living on only milk bread honey and vegetable juices 223 269 In what is believed to be the last photo taken of Tesla he is frail and emaciated in appearance 270 Views and beliefsOn experimental and theoretical physics Tesla disagreed with the theory of atoms being composed of smaller subatomic particles stating there was no such thing as an electron creating an electric charge He believed that if electrons existed at all they were some fourth state of matter or sub atom that could exist only in an experimental vacuum and that they had nothing to do with electricity 271 272 Tesla believed that atoms are immutable they could not change state or be split in any way He was a believer in the 19th century concept of an all pervasive ether that transmitted electrical energy 273 Tesla was generally antagonistic towards theories about the conversion of matter into energy 274 He was also critical of Einstein s theory of relativity saying I hold that space cannot be curved for the simple reason that it can have no properties It might as well be said that God has properties He has not but only attributes and these are of our own making Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing I for one refuse to subscribe to such a view 275 In 1935 he described relativity as a beggar wrapped in purple whom ignorant people take for a king and said his own experiments had measured the speed of cosmic rays from Arcturus as fifty times the speed of light 276 Tesla claimed to have developed his own physical principle regarding matter and energy that he started working on in 1892 274 and in 1937 at age 81 claimed in a letter to have completed a dynamic theory of gravity that would put an end to idle speculations and false conceptions as that of curved space He stated that the theory was worked out in all details and that he hoped to soon give it to the world 277 Further elucidation of his theory was never found in his writings 278 On society nbsp Tesla c 1885 Tesla is widely considered by his biographers to have been a humanist in philosophical outlook 279 280 This did not preclude Tesla like many of his era from becoming a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics Tesla expressed the belief that human pity had come to interfere with the natural ruthless workings of nature Though his argumentation did not depend on a concept of a master race or the inherent superiority of one person over another he advocated for eugenics In a 1937 interview he stated man s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal 281 In 1926 Tesla commented on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality and indicated that humanity s future would be run by Queen Bees He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future 282 Tesla made predictions about the relevant issues of a post World War I environment in a printed article entitled Science and Discovery are the great Forces which will lead to the Consummation of the War 20 December 1914 283 Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues 34 better source needed On religion Tesla was raised an Orthodox Christian Later in life he did not consider himself to be a believer in the orthodox sense said he opposed religious fanaticism and said Buddhism and Christianity are the greatest religions both in number of disciples and in importance 284 He also said To me the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end and what we call soul or spirit is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body When this functioning ceases the soul or the spirit ceases likewise 284 Literary worksTesla wrote a number of books and articles for magazines and journals 285 Among his books are My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla compiled and edited by Ben Johnston in 1983 from a series of 1919 magazine articles by Tesla which were republished in 1977 The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla 1993 compiled and edited by David Hatcher Childress and The Tesla Papers Many of Tesla s writings are freely available online 286 including the article The Problem of Increasing Human Energy published in The Century Magazine in 1900 287 and the article Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency published in his book Inventions Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla 288 289 Legacy and honorsSee also Nikola Tesla in popular culture and List of things named after Nikola Tesla Tesla s legacy has endured in books films radio TV music live theater comics and video games The impact of the technologies invented or envisioned by Tesla is a recurring theme in several types of science fiction See alsoAtmospheric electricity Electricity in planetary atmospheres Michael Faraday English scientist 1791 1867 Charles Proteus Steinmetz American mathematician and electrical engineer 1865 1923 Telluric current Natural electric current in the Earth s crust Nikola Tesla in popular cultureNotesFootnotes The Serbo Croatian word tesla literally means adze 3 and may serve as a nickname for a person with the occupation of e g carpenter However in the case of Nikola Tesla the surname is alleged to derive from a traditional nickname for members of one branch of the Draganic family because of their inherited trait of broad protruded front teeth resembling the blade of the adze 4 Tesla does not mention which professor this was by name but some sources conclude this was Martin Sekulic 26 27 Tesla s contemporaries remembered that on a previous occasion Machine Works manager Batchelor had been unwilling to give Tesla a 7 a week pay raise 57 Account comes from a letter Tesla sent in 1938 on the occasion of receiving an award from the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare 65 Citations Jonnes 2004 p 355 Tesla Archived 24 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine Random House Webster s Unabridged Dictionary tȅsla Hrvatski jezicni portal in Croatian Znanje d d and Srce Archived from the original on 29 September 2020 Retrieved 28 March 2020 John Joseph O Neill 1944 Prodigal Genius The Life of Nikola Tesla Chapter One Burgan 2009 p 9 Electrical pioneer Tesla honoured BBC News 10 July 2006 Archived from the original on 10 October 2020 Retrieved 20 May 2013 Laplante Phillip A 1999 Comprehensive Dictionary of Electrical Engineering 1999 Springer p 635 ISBN 978 3 540 64835 2 O Shei Tim 2008 Marconi and Tesla Pioneers of Radio Communication MyReportLinks com Books p 106 ISBN 978 1 59845 076 7 Van Riper 2011 p 150 Pictures of Tesla s home in Smiljan Croatia and his father s church after rebuilding Tesla Memorial Society of NY Archived from the original on 2 June 2003 Retrieved 22 May 2013 Cheney Uth amp Glenn 1999 p 143 O Neill 1944 pp 9 12 Carlson 2013 p 14 Dommermuth Costa 1994 p 12 Milutin Nikola s father was a well educated priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church Cheney 2011 p 25 The tiny house in which he was born stood next to the Serbian Orthodox Church presided over by his father the Reverend Milutin Tesla who sometimes wrote articles under the nom de plume Man of Justice Carlson 2013 p 14 Following a reprimand at school for not keeping his brass buttons polished he quit and instead chose to become a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church Burgan 2009 p 17 Nikola s father Milutin was a Serbian Orthodox priest and had been sent to Smiljan by his church O Neill 1944 p 10 Cheney 2001 a b Seifer 2001 p 7 O Neill 1944 p 12 Carlson 2013 p 21 Seifer 2001 p 13 Tesla Nikola Marincic Aleksandar 2008 From Colorado Springs to Long Island research notes Belgrade Nikola Tesla Museum ISBN 978 86 81243 44 2 Budiansky Stephen 2021 Journey to the edge of reason the life of Kurt Godel First ed New York NY ISBN 978 1 324 00545 2 In the natural sciences Austria produced a remarkable number of talented theorists and experimentalists The electrical genius Nikola Tesla from Croatia studied in Karlovac at one of the rigorous German language high schools the Gymnasiums established throughout the Austrian Empire a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Seifer 1998 CHILDHOOD 1856 74 Petesic 1976 pp 29 30 Carlson 2013 p 32 Tesla Life and Legacy Tesla s Early Years PBS Archived from the original on 20 July 2018 Retrieved 8 July 2012 O Neill 1944 p 33 Glenn Jim ed 1994 The complete patents of 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Money A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States Addenda et Corrigenda PDF American Antiquarian Society 1700 1799 McCusker J J 1992 How Much Is That in Real Money A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States PDF American Antiquarian Society 1800 present Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Consumer Price Index estimate 1800 Retrieved 29 February 2024 Klooster 2009 p 305 Harris William 14 July 2008 William Harris How did Nikola Tesla change the way we use energy Science howstuffworks com p 3 Archived from the original on 22 May 2019 Retrieved 10 September 2012 Munson Richard 2005 From Edison to Enron The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity Westport CT Praeger pp 24 42 ISBN 978 0 275 98740 4 Quentin R Skrabec 2007 George Westinghouse Gentle Genius Algora Publishing pp 119 121 Robert L Bradley Jr 2011 Edison to Enron Energy Markets and Political Strategies John Wiley amp Sons pp 55 58 Quentin R Skrabec 2007 George Westinghouse Gentle Genius Algora Publishing pp 118 120 Seifer 1998 p 47 a b Skrabec Quentin R 2007 George Westinghouse gentle genius New York Algora Pub ISBN 978 0 87586 506 5 a b c Carlson 2013 p 130 Carlson 2013 p 131 Jonnes 2004 p 29 Thomas Parke Hughes Networks of Power Electrification in Western Society 1880 1930 1983 p 119 a b Jonnes 2004 p 228 Carlson 2013 pp 130 131 Cheney 2001 pp 48 49 Christopher Cooper The Truth About Tesla The Myth of the Lone Genius in the History of Innovation Race Point Publishing 2015 p 109 Electricity a Popular Electrical Journal Volume 13 No 4 4 August 1897 Electricity Newspaper Company pp 50 Google Books Archived 28 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine James P Rybak November 1999 Nikola Tesla Scientific Savant from the Tesla Universe Article Collection Popular Electronics 40 48 amp 88 Archived from the original on 26 February 2019 Retrieved 21 January 2017 Carlson W Bernard 2013 Tesla Inventor of the Electrical Age Princeton University Press p 218 Laboratories in New York 1889 1902 Open Tesla Research Archived from the original on 20 August 2018 Retrieved 21 January 2017 Carlson 2013 p 120 Carlson 2013 p 122 Tesla coil Museum of Electricity and Magnetism Center for Learning National High Magnetic Field Laboratory website Florida State Univ 2011 Archived from the original on 23 September 2015 Retrieved 12 September 2013 Carlson 2013 p 124 Burnett Richie 2008 Operation of the Tesla Coil Richie s Tesla Coil Web Page Richard Burnett private website Archived from the original on 20 July 2015 Retrieved 24 July 2015 Naturalization Record of Nikola Tesla 30 July 1891 Archived from the original on 24 October 2021 Retrieved 24 October 2021 Naturalization Index NYC Courts referenced in Carlson 2013 Tesla Inventor of the Electrical Age p H 41 Carlson 2013 p 138 Uth Robert 12 December 2000 Tesla coil Tesla Master of Lightning PBS org Archived from the original on 5 September 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Chapter XLII page 485 3 Cheney 2001 p 76 Cheney 2001 p 79 Barrett John Patrick 1894 Electricity at the Columbian Exposition Including an Account of the Exhibits in the Electricity Building the Power Plant in Machinery Hall R R Donnelley pp 268 269 Retrieved 29 November 2010 Carlson 2013 p 182 Carlson 2013 pp 181 185 Reciprocating Engine U S patent 514 169 6 February 1894 Carlson 2013 pp 167 173 Carlson 2013 pp 205 206 Mr Tesla s Great Loss All of the Electrician s Valuable Instruments Burned WORK OF HALF A LIFETIME GONE New York Times 14 March 1895 archived at teslauniverse com Archived 28 June 2022 at the Wayback Machine Tesla Nikola 2007 X ray vision Nikola Tesla on Roentgen rays 1st ed Radford VA Wiilder Publications ISBN 978 1 934451 92 2 Cheney 2001 p 134 RADIOGRAPHY EXPERIMENTS MADE BY NIKOLA TESLA Shoulder of a Man Taken Through His Clothing Chalky Deposits Infallibly Detected The Constitution Atlanta Georgia Friday 13 March 1896 p 9 online archive Archived 4 October 2013 at the 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313 Carlson 2013 p 389 The Missing Papers PBS Archived from the original on 24 January 2001 Retrieved 5 July 2012 Childress 1993 p 249 Urn with Tesla s ashes Tesla Museum Archived from the original on 25 August 2012 Retrieved 16 September 2012 a b Sarboh Snezana 18 20 October 2006 Nikola Tesla s Patents PDF Sixth International Symposium Nikola Tesla Belgrade Serbia p 6 Archived from the original PDF on 30 October 2007 Retrieved 8 October 2010 Cheney 2001 p 62 a b c Brisbane Arthur 22 July 1894 OUR FOREMOST ELECTRICIAN The World O Neill 1944 p 292 a b O Neill 1944 p 289 a b c d e f Cheney 2001 p 33 O Neill 1944 p 282 Cheney Uth amp Glenn 1999 Preface McNichol Tom 2011 AC DC The Savage Tale of the First Standards War John Wiley amp Sons pp 163 64 ISBN 978 1 118 04702 6 Tesla s peculiar nature made him a solitary man a loner in a field that was becoming so complex that it demanded collaboration Seifer 2001 p 130 Cheney 2001 p 80 a b Famous Friends Tesla Memorial Society of NY Archived from the original on 28 November 2010 Retrieved 4 July 2012 Stanford White Tesla Memorial Society of NY Archived from the original on 28 November 2010 Retrieved 4 July 2012 Swezey Kenneth M Papers 1891 1982 vol 47 National Museum of American History archived from the original on 5 May 2012 retrieved 4 July 2012 Tribute to Nikola Tesla Tesla Memorial Society of NY Archived from the original on 13 June 2011 Retrieved 4 July 2012 Nikola Tesla at Wardenclyffe Tesla Memorial Society of NY Archived from the original on 29 November 2010 Retrieved 4 July 2012 Nikola Tesla The patron saint of geeks News Magazine BBC 10 September 2012 Archived from the original on 10 September 2012 Retrieved 10 September 2012 Kak S 2017 Tesla wireless energy transmission and Vivekananda Current Science vol 113 2207 2210 Paranjape Makarand R 12 June 2015 Swami Vivekananda A Contemporary Reader edited by Makarand R Paranjape Routledge ISBN 978 1 317 44636 1 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 4 May 2021 Nikola Tesla and Swami Vivekananda www teslasociety com Archived from the original on 20 December 2022 Retrieved 20 December 2022 The Influence Vedic Philosophy Had on Nikola Tesla s Idea of Free Energy SAND The Influence Vedic Philosophy Had on Nikola Tesla s Idea of Free Energy SAND Archived from the original on 20 December 2022 Retrieved 20 December 2022 PDF Tesla 1930 Man s Greatest Achievement pdf dokumen tips Archived from the original on 20 December 2022 Retrieved 20 December 2022 Cheney Margaret amp Uth Robert 2001 Tesla Master of Lightning Barnes amp Noble Books p 137 Johnson Neil M George Sylvester Viereck Poet and Propagandist Neil M Johnson Cheney 2001 p 110 Biographiq 2008 Thomas Edison Life of an Electrifying Man Filiquarian Publishing LLC p 23 ISBN 978 1 59986 216 3 Tesla says Edison was an empiricist New York Times 19 October 1931 p 27 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 15 January 2024 O Neill 1944 p 46 a b c Seifer 2001 p 413 O Neill 1944 pp 43 301 O Neill 1944 p 208 O Neill 1944 pp 283 286 Gitelman Lisa 1 November 1997 Reconciling the Visionary with the Inventor Wizard The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla technology review MIT Archived from the original on 22 September 2020 Retrieved 3 June 2012 Uth Robert 2000 Tesla Master of Lightning O Neill 1944 p 249 The Prophet of Science Looks Into The Future Popular Science November 1928 p 171 November 1928 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 18 March 2013 Seifer 2001 p 1745 a b O Neill 1944 p 247 New York Herald Tribune 11 September 1932 Tesla 79 Promises to Transmit Force Open Tesla Research Archived from the original on 1 July 2022 Retrieved 6 July 2022 Prepared Statement by Nikola Tesla Archived 24 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine downloadable from http www tesla hu Archived 25 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine Cheney 2001 p 309 Jonnes 2004 p 154 Belohlavek Peter Wagner John W 2008 Innovation The Lessons of Nikola Tesla Blue Eagle p 43 ISBN 978 987 651 009 7 This was Tesla a scientist philosopher humanist and ethical man of the world in the truest sense A Machine to End War Public Broadcasting Service February 1937 Archived from the original on 20 January 2022 Retrieved 23 November 2010 Kennedy John B When woman is boss Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine An interview with Nikola Tesla Colliers 30 January 1926 Tesla Nikola Science and Discovery are the great Forces which will lead to the Consummation of the War Rastko Archived from the original on 2 April 2015 Retrieved 17 July 2012 a b Tesla Nikola February 1937 George Sylvester Viereck ed A Machine to End War PBS org Archived from the original on 20 January 2022 Retrieved 27 July 2012 Nikola Tesla Bibliography 21st Century Books Archived from the original on 27 September 2015 Retrieved 21 April 2011 Selected Tesla writings Nikola Tesla Information Resource Archived from the original on 30 January 2009 Retrieved 15 March 2008 THE PROBLEM OF INCREASING HUMAN ENERGY Twenty First Century Books Archived from the original on 20 November 2019 Retrieved 21 April 2011 Tesla Nikola The Project Gutenberg eBook Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency by Nikola Tesla Project Gutenberg Archived from the original on 16 September 2011 Retrieved 21 April 2011 Tesla Nikola EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATE CURRENTS OF HIGH POTENTIAL AND HIGH FREQUENCY Twenty First Century Books Archived from the original on 19 September 2015 Retrieved 21 April 2011 ReferencesBurgan Michael 2009 Nikola Tesla Inventor Electrical Engineer Mankato Minnesota Capstone ISBN 978 0 7565 4086 9 Carlson W Bernard 2013 Tesla Inventor of the Electrical Age Princeton University Press ISBN 978 1 4008 4655 9 Archived from the original on 5 August 2023 Retrieved 2 June 2015 Cheney Margaret 2011 Tesla Man Out of Time Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 1 4516 7486 6 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Cheney Margaret 2001 1981 Tesla Man Out of Time Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 7432 1536 7 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 14 May 2020 Cheney Margaret Uth Robert Glenn Jim 1999 Tesla Master of Lightning Barnes amp Noble Books ISBN 978 0 7607 1005 0 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 21 June 2015 Cooper Christopher 2015 The truth about Tesla the myth of the lone genius in the history of innovation New York Race Point Publishing ISBN 978 1 63106 030 4 Dommermuth Costa Carol 1994 Nikola Tesla A Spark of Genius Twenty First Century Books ISBN 978 0 8225 4920 8 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Jonnes Jill 2004 Empires of Light Edison Tesla Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World Random House Trade Paperbacks ISBN 978 0 375 75884 3 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Klooster John W 2009 Icons of Invention The Makers of the Modern World from Gutenberg to Gates ABC CLIO ISBN 978 0 313 34743 6 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 O Neill John J 1944 Prodigal Genius The Life of Nikola Tesla Ives Washburn ISBN 0 914732 33 1 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 14 May 2020 reprinted 2007 by Book Tree ISBN 978 1 60206 743 1 Pickover Clifford A 1999 Strange Brains and Genius The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 688 16894 0 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Petesic Ciril 1976 Genij s naseg kamenjara zivot i djelo Nikole Tesle The genius from our rocks life and work of Nikola Tesla in Croatian Zagreb Skolske novine OCLC 36439558 Seifer Marc J 2001 Wizard the life and times of Nikola Tesla biography of a genius Citadel ISBN 978 0 8065 1960 9 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 13 December 2015 Seifer Marc J 1998 Wizard The Life And Times Of Nikola Tesla Citadel ISBN 978 0 8065 3556 2 Archived from the original on 23 March 2024 Retrieved 16 March 2016 Van Riper A Bowdoin 2011 A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists and Inventors in American Film and TV since 1930 Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0 8108 8128 0 Further readingLibrary resources about Nikola Tesla Resources in your library Resources in other libraries By Nikola Tesla Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Books 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 Archived 2 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine et cetera Archived 26 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine as My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla 1919 ISBN 978 0 910077 00 2 Carlson W Bernard 2013 Tesla Inventor of the Electrical Age Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 6910 5776 7 Glenn Jim 1994 The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla ISBN 978 1 56619 266 8 John Joseph O Neil 1944 Prodigal Genius The Life of Nikola Tesla ISBN 1 59605 713 0 Lomas Robert 1999 The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century Nikola Tesla forgotten genius of electricity London Headline ISBN 978 0 7472 7588 6 Martin Thomas C editor 1894 1996 reprint copyright expired The Inventions Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla includes some lectures Montana Kessinger ISBN 978 1 56459 711 3 McNichol Tom 2006 AC DC The Savage Tale of the First Standards War Jossey Bass ISBN 978 0 7879 8267 6 Peat F David 2002 In Search of Nikola Tesla Revised ed Bath Ashgrove ISBN 978 1 85398 117 3 Trinkaus George 2002 Tesla The Lost Inventions High Voltage Press ISBN 978 0 9709618 2 2 Valone Thomas 2002 Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature Tesla s Science of Energy ISBN 978 1 931882 04 0 Publications A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers American Institute of Electrical Engineers May 1888 Selected Tesla Writings Scientific papers and articles written by Tesla and others spanning the years 1888 1940 Light Without Heat Archived 16 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine The Manufacturer and Builder January 1892 Vol 24 Biography Nikola Tesla Archived 9 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine The Century Magazine November 1893 Vol 47 Tesla s Oscillator and Other Inventions Archived 9 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine The Century Magazine November 1894 Vol 49 The New Telegraphy Recent Experiments in Telegraphy with Sparks Archived 16 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine The Century Magazine November 1897 Vol 55 Journals Pavicevic Aleksandra 2014 From lighting to dust death funeral and post mortem destiny of Nikola Tesla Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 62 2 125 139 doi 10 2298 GEI1402125P Carlson W Bernard Inventor of dreams Scientific American March 2005 Vol 292 Issue 3 p 78 7 Jatras Stella L The genius of Nikola Tesla Archived 30 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine The New American 28 July 2003 Vol 19 Issue 15 p 9 1 Lawren B Rediscovering Tesla Omni March 1988 Vol 10 Issue 6 Rybak James P Nikola Tesla Scientific Savant Popular Electronics 1042170X November 1999 Vol 16 Issue 11 Thibault Ghislain The Automatization of Nikola Tesla Thinking Invention in the Late Nineteenth Century Configurations Archived 28 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine Volume 21 Number 1 Winter 2013 pp 27 52 Martin Thomas Commerford The Inventions Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla New York The Electrical Engineer 1894 3rd Ed reprinted by Barnes amp Noble 1995 Anil K Rajvanshi Nikola Tesla The Creator of Electric Age Resonance March 2007 Roguin Ariel Historical Note Nikola Tesla The man behind the magnetic field unit J Magn Reson Imaging 2004 19 369 374 2004 Wiley Liss Inc Sellon J L The impact of Nikola Tesla on the cement industry Behrent Eng Co Wheat Ridge Colorado Cement Industry Technical Conference 1997 XXXIX Conference Record 1997 IEEE PC Page s 125 133 Valentinuzzi M E Nikola Tesla why was he so much resisted and forgotten Inst de Bioingenieria Univ Nacional de Tucuman Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine IEEE July August 1998 17 4 pp 74 75 Secor H Winfield Tesla s views on Electricity and the War Electrical Experimenter Volume 5 Number 4 August 1917 Florey Glen Tesla and the Military Engineering 24 5 December 2000 Corum K L J F Corum Nikola Tesla Lightning Observations and Stationary Waves 1994 Corum K L J F Corum and A H Aidinejad Atmospheric Fields Tesla s Receivers and Regenerative Detectors 1994 Meyl Konstantin H Weidner E Zentgraf T Senkel T Junker and P Winkels Experiments to proof the evidence of scalar waves Tests with a Tesla reproduction Institut fur Gravitationsforschung IGF Am Heerbach 5 D 63857 Waldaschaff Anderson L I John Stone Stone on Nikola Tesla s Priority in Radio and Continuous Wave Radiofrequency Apparatus The AWA Review Vol 1 1986 pp 18 41 Anderson L I Priority in Invention of Radio Tesla v Marconi Antique Wireless Association monograph March 1980 Marincic A and D Budimir Tesla s contribution to radiowave propagation Dept of Electron Eng Belgrade Univ 5th International Conference on Telecommunications in Modern Satellite Cable and Broadcasting Service 2001 TELSIKS 2001 pp 327 331 vol 1 Video Nikola Tesla Archived 17 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine 1977 ten episode TV series featuring Rade Serbedzija as Tesla Tajna Nikole Tesle The Secret of Nikola Tesla Archived 5 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine 1980 Documentary directed by Krsto Papic featuring Petar Bozovic as Tesla and Orson Welles as J P Morgan Tesla Master of Lightning Archived 19 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine 2003 Documentary by Robert Uth featuring Stacy Keach as the voice of Tesla Tesla a 2016 documentary film by David Grubin presented on the American Experience series Tesla a 2020 biographical film by Michael Almereyda presented at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival External linksExternal videos nbsp Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light 26 October 2003 C SPAN Nikola Tesla at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Texts from Wikisource nbsp Textbooks from Wikibooks Listen to this article 2 parts 1 hour and 42 minutes source source source source nbsp These audio files were created from a revision of this article dated 19 June 2021 2021 06 19 and do not reflect subsequent edits Audio help More spoken articles Nikola Tesla Museum Tesla memorial society by his grand nephew William H Terbo Tesla References in European newspapers Online archive of many of Tesla s writings articles and published papers FBI Nikola Tesla PDF Main Investigative File FBI Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe Works by Nikola Tesla at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Nikola Tesla at Internet Archive Works by Nikola Tesla at LibriVox public domain audiobooks nbsp Thomas H White Nikola Tesla The Guy Who DIDN T Invent Radio Debunking the Tesla Myth opinion piece Tesla s pigeon Amanda Gefter Portals nbsp Electronics nbsp Energy nbsp Engineering nbsp Physics nbsp Technology nbsp United States nbsp Serbia nbsp Biography Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Nikola Tesla amp oldid 1221326577 Birthday press conferences, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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