Comprehensive information and links about Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla ""I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive device." - Nikola Tesla; Brooklyn Eagle, July 10, 1931." (July 10, 1856 – c. January 7, 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. Tesla is recognized among the most accomplished scientists of the late 19th and early 20th century. His patents and theoretical work form the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution system and AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Nikola Tesla was of Serbian descent, born in the small town of Smiljan in the Lika region (near Gospić, (Croatia, earlier in Yugoslavia). He was a citizen of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, after 1918, Kingdom of Yugoslavia. While conducting his work in the United States of America, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1891. The surname "Tesla" is a Serbo-Croatian word that means adze.

In the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or in popular culture. After his demonstration of wireless communication in 1893 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as America's greatest electrical engineer. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. Never skilled at handling his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86. In his later years, Tesla was regarded as a .

Tesla's legacy can be seen across modern civilization wherever electricity is used. More recently, Tesla has had a revival of sorts, whereas many of his works and contributions are being rediscovered and more intricately analyzed. Tesla considered his exploration of various questions raised by science as ultimately a means to improve the human condition with the principles of science and industrial progress, and one that was compatible with nature.span However, many of his achievements have been used, sometimes inappropriately and with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and New Age occultism.

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Early years

Tesla was born in Smiljan near Gospić in the Lika regiment of the Croatia. Tesla was baptised in the Serbian Orthodox Church. His baptism certificate reports that he was born on June 28 (Julian calendar; July 10 in the Gregorian calendar) 1856, and christened by the Serbian Orthodox priest, Toma Oklobdžija. His father was Rev. Milutin Tesla, a priest in the Serb Orthodox Church Metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci. His mother was Đuka Mandić, herself a daughter of a Serbian Orthodox Church priest. She was talented in making home craft tools. His godfather, Jovan Drenovac, was a captain in the army protecting the Military Frontier. Tesla was one of five children, having one brother and three sisters. In Tesla's youth, he had a pet cat (named Mačak, which simply means in Serbian language, but has a more endearing connotation). His family moved to Gospić in 1862. Tesla went to school in Karlovac, then studied electrical engineering at the Austria Politechnic in Graz, Austria (1875). While there, he studied the uses of alternating current. Tesla engaged in reading many works, memorizing complete books.

Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration. From an early age Tesla would visualise an invention in his brain in precise form before moving to the construction stage. (This is sometimes known as picture thinking). span

In 1881 he moved to Budapest to work for a telegraph company, the American Telephone Company. There, he met Nebojša Petrovič, then a young inventor from Australia. Although their encounter was brief, they did work on a project together using twin turbines to create continual power. On the opening of the telephone exchange in Budapest, 1881, Tesla became the chief electrician to the company, and was later engineer to the Yugoslav government and the country's first telephone system. He also developed a device that, according to some, was a telephone repeater or amplifier, but according to others could have been the first loudspeaker. span For a while he stayed in Maribor, where he was first employed as an assistant engineer. He suffered a nervous breakdown during this time.

In 1882 he moved to Paris, France to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric equipment. In the same year, Tesla conceived of the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (for which he received patents in 1888).

Soon thereafter, Tesla hastened from Paris to his mother's side as she lay dying, arriving hours before her death in 1882. Her last words to him were, After her death, Tesla fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating in Gospić and the village of near Gračac, the birthplace of his mother.

In 1884, when Tesla first arrived in the US, he had little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, his manager in his previous job. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Charles Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." Edison hired Tesla to work for his company Edison Machine Works. Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving the company's most difficult problems. Tesla was offered to undertake a complete redesign of the Edison company's direct current generators.

After Tesla described the nature of the benefits from his proposed modifications, Edison offered him US$50,000 if they were successfully completed. Tesla worked nearly a year to redesign them and gave the Edison company several enormously profitable new patents in the process. When Tesla inquired about the $50,000, Edison replied to him, "" and reneged on his promise. Edison reportedly offered to raise Tesla's salary by $10 per week as a compromise - at which rate it would have taken almost 100 years to earn the money Edison had originally promised. Tesla resigned on the spot.

table systems for wireless communication (prior art for the invention of radio) and radio frequency oscillators. The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company. Tesla worked in New York as a common laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternate-current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of alternating current electricity over large distances.

In April of 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his 514170). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomena produced from this device is termed the process. He also used Geissler tubes. By 1892, Tesla became aware of what Wilhelm Röntgen later identified as effects of X-rays.

Tesla commented on the hazards of working with "As to the hurtful actions on the skin... I note that they have been misinterpreted... They are not due to the Röntgen rays, but merely to the ozone generated in contact with the skin. Nitrous acid may also be responsible, but to a small extent". (Tesla, in Electrical Review, 30 November 1895). This is incorrect concerning cathodic X-ray tubes. Tesla later observed an assistant severely "burnt" by X-rays in his lab. He performed several experiments (including photographing the bones of his hand; later, he sent these images to Röntgen) but didn't make his findings widely known; much of his research was lost in the 1895 Houston Street lab fire.

On July 30, 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35 and established his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston St. He lit vacuum tubes wirelessly in it, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission. Around this time, Tesla developed a close and lasting friendship with Mark Twain. They spent a lot of time together in Tesla's lab and elsewhere. span Some of Tesla's closest friends were artists. He befriended Century Magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, who adapted several Serbian poems of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (which Tesla translated). Also during this time, Tesla was influenced by the Vedic philosophy teachings of the Swami Vivekananda. span "Nikola Tesla's generation system using AC circuits to transport energy across great distances. It is contained in US390721." 's generation system using AC circuits to transport energy across great distances. It is contained in US390721.

When Tesla was 36 years old, the first patents concerning the polyphase power system were granted. He continued research of the system and rotating magnetic field principles. Tesla served as the vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now part of the IEEE) from 1892 to 1894. From 1893 to 1895, he investigated high frequency alternating currents. He generated AC of one million volts using a conical Tesla coil and investigated the in conductors, designed tuned circuits, invented a machine for inducing sleep, cordless gas discharge lamps, and transmitted electromagnetic energy without wires, effectively building the first radio transmitter. In St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla made a demonstration related to radio communication in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail its principles. Tesla's demonstrations were written about widely through various media outlets.

At the 1893 World's Fair, the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, an international exposition was held which for the first time devoted a building to electrical exhibits. It was an historic event as Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced visitors to AC power by using it to illuminate the Exposition. On display were Tesla's fluorescent lights and single node bulbs. Tesla also explained the principles of the by demonstrating how to make an egg made of copper stand on end in his demonstration of the device he constructed known as the "".

In 1896, according to an interview he gave in 1916, Tesla invented a type of loudspeaker. The sounds were of about the same quality as telephones of that time. The invention was never patented nor released publicly until years later by Tesla himself.

Also in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries in part due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current advocated by Tesla. As a result of the "War of Currents," Edison and Westinghouse were almost bankrupt, so in 1897, Tesla released Westinghouse from contract, providing Westinghouse a break from Tesla's patent royalties. Also in 1897, Tesla researched radiation which led to setting up the basic formulation of cosmic rays. span

When Tesla was 41 years old, he filed the first basic radio patent (U.S. Patent 645576). A year later, he demonstrated a radio controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio controlled torpedoes. Tesla developed the " In 1898, a radio-controlled boat was demonstrated to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. These devices had an innovative coherer and a series of logic gates. Radio remote control remained a novelty until the 1960s. In the same year, Tesla devised an "electric igniter" or spark plug for Internal combustion gasoline engines. He gained U.S. Patent 609250, "Electrical Igniter for Gas Engines", on this mechanical ignition system.

"Publicity photo of Tesla sitting in his laboratory in Colorado Springs with his "Magnifying Transmitter" generating millions of volts of electricity. The arcs are about 7 meters (22 ft) long. (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)" Publicity photo of Tesla sitting in his laboratory in Colorado Springs with his "Magnifying Transmitter" generating millions of volts of electricity. The arcs are about 7 meters (22 ft) long. (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)

In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he could have room for his high-voltage high-frequency experiments. Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla's diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground's telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves. span

Tesla, at his lab, proved that the earth was a conductor and produced artificial lightning (with the discharges consisting of millions of volts and up to 135 feet long). span . Tesla also investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. Reproductions of Tesla's receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity (e.g., distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques). span

In the Colorado Springs lab, he "recorded" signals of what he believed were extraterrestrial radio signals, though these announcements and his data were rejected by the scientific community. He noted measurements of repetitive signals from his receiver which are substantially different from the signals he had noted from storms and earth noise. Specifically, he later recalled that the signals appeared in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks together. Tesla spent the latter part of his life trying to signal Mars. In 1996 Corum and Corum published an analysis of Jovian plasma torus signals which indicate that there was a correspondence between the setting of Mars at Colorado Springs, and the cessation of signals from Jupiter in the summer of 1899 when Tesla was there. span

Tesla left Colorado Springs on January 7, 1900. The lab was torn down and its contents sold to pay debts. The Colorado experiments prepared Tesla for his next project, the establishment of a wireless power transmission facility that would be known as Wardenclyffe. Tesla was granted U.S. Patent 685012 for the means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations. The United States Patent Office classification system currently assigns this patent to the primary Class 178 facility. In June 1902, Tesla's lab operations were moved to Wardenclyffe from Houston Street. The tower was finally dismantled for scrap during wartime. Newspapers of the time labeled Wardenclyffe "Tesla's million-dollar folly." In 1904, the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio, and Tesla began his fight to re-acquire the radio patent. On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 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 100-5000 hp. Later in 1907, Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for radio. Tesla was deeply resentful. In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi attempting, unsuccessfully, to obtain a court injunction against the claims of Marconi. Around 1916, Tesla filed for bankruptcy because he owed so much in back taxes. He was living in poverty.

After Wardenclyffe, Tesla built the Telefunken Wireless Station in Sayville, Long Island. Some of what he wanted to achieve at Wardenclyffe was accomplished with the Telefunken Wireless. In 1917 the facility was seized and torn down by the Marines because it was suspected that it could be used by German spies.

Prior to the World War I, Tesla looked overseas for investors to fund his research. When the war started, Tesla lost funding he was receiving from his European patents. After the war ended, Tesla made predictions regarding the relevant issues of the post-World War I environment in a printed article (December 20, 1914). Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues. Tesla started to exhibit pronounced symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the years following. He became obsessed with the number three. He often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building, demanded a stack of three folded cloth napkins beside his plate at every meal, etc. The nature of OCD was little understood at the time and no treatments were available, so his symptoms were considered by some to be evidence of partial insanity and this undoubtedly hurt what was left of his reputation.

At this time, he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, renting in an arrangement for deferred payments. Eventually, the Wardenclyffe deed was turned over to George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria to pay a $20,000 debt. In 1917, around the time that the Wardenclyffe Tower was demolished by Boldt to make the land a more viable real estate asset, Tesla received AIEE's highest honor, the Edison Medal. The irony of this honor was surely not lost on Tesla.

Tesla, in August 1917, first established principles regarding frequency and power level for the first primitive radar units. span In 1934, Emile Girardeau, working with the first French radar systems, stated he was building radar systems "". By the twenties, Tesla was reportedly negotiating with the United Kingdom government about a ray system. Tesla had also stated that efforts had been made to steal the so called "death ray". The Chamberlain government was removed, though, before any final negotiations occurred. The incoming Baldwin government found no use for Tesla's suggestions and ended negotiations.

On Tesla's seventy-fifth birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him on its cover. span The cover caption noted his contribution to electrical power generation. Tesla received his last patent in 1928 for an apparatus for aerial transportation which was the first instance of VTOL aircraft. In 1934, Tesla wrote to consul Janković of his homeland. The letter contained the message of gratitude to Mihajlo Pupin who initiated a donation scheme by which American companies could support Tesla. Tesla refused the assistance, and chose to live by a modest pension received from Yugoslavia and to continue researching.

When he was eighty-one, Tesla stated he had completed a unified field theory. He stated that it was " The theory was never published, and at the time of his announcement, it was considered by the scientific community to exceed the bounds of reason. Most believe that Tesla never fully developed a unified field theory; his theory is of interest to some historical researchers but is disregarded in the field of physics.

Tesla died of heart failure alone in the New Yorker hotel, some time between the evening of January 5 and the morning of January 8, 1943, at the age of 86. Despite selling his AC electricity patents, Tesla was essentially destitute and died with significant debts. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number 645,576 in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.

Immediately after Tesla's death became known, the Federal Bureau of Investigation instructed the Office of Alien Property to take possession of his papers and property, despite his US citizenship. At the time of his death, Tesla had been working on what he claimed was a . It appears that his proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma. After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. All of his personal effects were seized on the advice of presidential advisors, and J. Edgar Hoover declared the case "most secret", because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and patents. span

Tesla's Serbian-Orthodox family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with American authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually, his nephew, Sava Kosanovich, got possession of some of his personal effects which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbiaspan . Tesla's funeral took place on January 12, 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City. After his funeral, Tesla's was cremated. His ashes were taken to Belgrade Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn was placed in the Nikola Tesla museum, where it resides to this day. In 1976, a bronze statue of Tesla was placed at Niagara Falls, New York. A similar statue was also erected in Tesla's hometown of Gospić in 1981, but was later damaged by Serbian bombing of Gospić and destroyed by Croatian forces during the War of Independence. The statue is in the process of restoration, financed by Croatian Government.

"Nikola Tesla, with Rudjer Boscovich's book Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis, in front of the spiral coil of his high-frequency transformer at East Houston Street, New York."

In the years after, many of his innovations, theories and claims have been used, at times unsuitably and with some controversy, to support various fringe theories that are regarded as unscientific. Most of Tesla's own work conformed with the principles and methods accepted by science, but his extravagant personality and sometimes unrealistic claims, combined with his unquestionable genius, have made him a popular figure among fringe theorists and believers in conspiracies about 'hidden knowledge'. Many contemporary admirers of Dr. Tesla have affectionately deemed him "the man who invented the twentieth century". Tesla's house in Smiljan is currently open for visitors as a memorial museum.

Personal views

Tesla believed that war could not be avoided until the cause for its recurrence was removed, but was opposed to wars in general.span He sought to reduce distance, such as in communication for better understanding, transportation, and transmission of energy, as a means to ensure friendly international relations. span "One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheelwork of the universe... and the very forces that motivate the planets in their orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery," he predicted.

Like many of his era, Tesla became a proponent of a self-imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. In a 1937 interview, he stated,

dlman'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

In 1926, Tesla in an interview, commenting on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward sex equality, indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future. span

Education

Tesla was fluent in eight languages (Serbo-Croatian, English, Czech, Hungarian, French, German, Latin, and Italian).

For his work Tesla received numerous honorary doctoral degrees from a number of universities to include: Columbia University, Graz Polytechnic Institute, Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, University of Belgrade, University of Brno, University of Grenoble, University of Paris, University de Poitiers, University of Prague, University of Sofia, University of Zagreb, Vienna Polytechnic Institute, and Yale University

dl (A Look At His Professional Credentials)". Antenna Measurement Techniques Association, posterpaper, October 22-25, 2001 (PDF)

As the result of his achievements in the development of electricity and radio, Nikola Tesla received many awards and accolades. He was selected as a fellow of the IEEE (at the time the AIEE) and was awarded its most prestigious prize, the Edison Medal. He was also made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and accepted invitations to become a member of the American Philosophical Society, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Because of his research in electrotherapy and his invention of high frequency oscillators, he was also made a fellow of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association.

The scientific compound derived SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field

In 1975 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) created a Nikola Tesla Award via an agreement between the IEEE Power Engineering Society and the IEEE Board of Directors. It is given to individuals or a team that has made outstanding contributions to the generation or utilization of electric power. The Tesla award is considered the most prestigious award in the area of electric power. span

On February 1, the Serbian government approved a plan to officially rename Belgrade International Airport to Nikola Tesla airport. This shall officially occur on July 10, 2006 in honor of his 150th birthday.

Nikola Tesla was featured on the currency of the former Yugoslavia. The current 100 Serbian dinar banknotes issued by the National Bank of Serbia have a picture of a handsome young Tesla on the obverse (front side). On the reverse side there is portion of drawing of an induction motor from his patent application and a photograph of Tesla holding a gas filled tube emitting light as a result of electric induction.

The Tesla crater on the far side of the moon and the minor planet 2244 Tesla are named after Tesla.

Two of the coal fired power stations run by Electric Power Industry of Serbia, TPP Nikola Tesla A and TPP Nikola Tesla B, are named in honor of Teslaspan

Tesla technology is recurring in alternate history works like steampunk, or stories concerning secret pre WWII technology

Tesla is a continuing character in a series of novels by Spider Robinson concerned with Callahan's Crosstime Saloon., Tesla is considered to be the deity of technicians and engineers and can be summoned with a special chant near a reproduction of a Tesla Coil. Clank video game series, the Tesla Claw and Tesla Barrier (the upgraded version of the Shield Charger), use electricity to attack enemiesIn the computer game Red Alert there is a defense weapon which attacks enemy units by electric arc called "Tesla Coil".

The rock band Tesla is named after him. They referenced his life and works a number of times, such as in the song "Edison's Medicine" (and accompanying music video) and the album .

The British pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released a single from their 1984 album Dressed to kill they’re killing me'.

The theatre company, Rude Mechanicals (Rude Mechs) in Austin, Texas, wrote a play about him (2001 2003) Requiem for Tesla. The play included an actual Tesla coil made by Pete Whitfill, as well as many other cool effects provided by The Robot Group and a large chunk of Tesla-philes around Austin.

dl about the life and times of Nikola Tesla. It premiered at the 10 Days on the Island Festival in Hobart, Tasmania in 2003.

There are at least two films describing Tesla's life. In the first, arranged for TV, Tesla was portrayed by Rade Šerbedžija. In 1980, Orson Welles produced a Yugoslavian film named (The Secret of Nikola Tesla), in which Welles himself played the part of Tesla's patron, J.P. Morgan.

A brand new Christopher Nolan directed film (currently in production) called The Prestige will feature rock star and actor David Bowie playing the part of Nikola Tesla.

Nikola Tesla is also referred to in the sketch "Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil" from Jim Jarmusch's film "Coffee and Cigarettes" Featuring Jack White and Meg White of The White Stripes.

", Electrical Experimenter magazine, Feb, June, and Oct, 1919. ISBN 0910077002 (teslaplay.comversion; also the version at rastko.org)A Machine to End War - A Famous Inventor, Picturing Life 100 Years from Now, Reveals an Astounding Scientific Venture Which He Believes Will Change the Course of History", 1944. ISBN 0913022403 (Tesla reportedly said of this biographer "You understand me better than any man alive"; also the version at uncletaz.com with other items at uncletaz's site])Biography of Nikola Tesla, from Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency.Kenneth M. Swezey Papers, 1891-1982, Archives Center, National Musuem of American History, archival resources.