Nikola Tesla

(July 10, 1856 – January 7,1943), was an American electrical engineer, physicist, scientist, and was a world-renowned inventor in groundbreaking technological discoveries. He made revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Tesla helped ushered in the Second Industrial Revolution. Tesla’s patents on alternating current (AC), including the polyphase system, electric motor, radio, and the Tesla coil, with major contributions in establishing radar, remote control, robotics, and adding to the expansion of theoretical physics and nuclear physics. Tesla’s inventions included the AC hydroelectric power system, fluorescent lighting, and wireless communication.

Nikola Tesla

Tesla was born in a village of Smiljan, part of the Austrian Empire of 1856 known as Croatia, today in southeast Europe. Ever since he was a child, Tesla was very fascinated by electricity and nature. He often studied both subjects greatly. His father was a priest and he was the fourth of five children. He was often sick and suffered from depression. Tesla studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz. He went to several universities in Europe and excelled as a top student. He proclaimed to have photographic memory and was constantly receiving flashes of inspiration and was able to visualize in detail how things really worked. Tesla was fluent in many languages: Serbian, English, Hungarian, Czech, German, Latin, French, and Italian.

Tesla was becoming famous in Europe before coming to America in 1884. In Budapest, Tesla became the chief electrician to the National Telephone Company in 1881. While there he developed a device as a telephone amplifier, making this the first loudspeaker. In Paris, France by 1882, Tesla was working for the Continental Edison Company, as an engineer making improvements to Edison’s ideas on the electric equipment brought from America overseas. Tesla also conceived and held patents on the makings of the “induction motor” and the machines that could benefit from using rotating magnetic fields. In 1884, Tesla arrived in New York City. Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works. Tesla’s work greatly improved many of the Edison’s company most complicated electrical engineering problems. Tesla was a total visionary and his work was groundbreaking.

Edison was intimidated by Tesla. Edison’s inventions were the light bulb, phonograph, and the microphone in telephones. Tesla’s ideas of AC power were shout down by Edison (who didn’t know how to create AC), especially when Tesla noticed how inefficient Edison’s direct current (DC) power system could not be sent out to the masses without hundreds of electrical generators every few miles. Tesla redesigned Edison’s inefficient motor and generators, and gave the Edison Company quite a few profitable new patents that both improved and benefited the company. In 1885 when Edison refused to pay Tesla the extra money owed to him for his tireless work, Tesla quickly resigned. Out of a job Tesla tried to form his own company but investors didn’t believe his AC ideas. He fell on hard times and tried to raise capital for his electrical innovations.