By
Joy Neighbors
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| Nikola Tesla |
Nikola
Tesla is considered one of the greatest inventors of all time. He is
best known for his work in designing the modern alternating current (AC)
electric supply system.
Tesla
worked for Continental Edison Company in 1882, and immigrated from Austria to
the U.S. in 1884 to work with Thomas Edison. He redesigned Edison’s direct
current (DC) generator after Edison offered him $50,000. When
Tesla approached him for payment, Edison replied that it had been a joke and
offered him an extra $10 per week. Tesla resigned.
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| AC Patent |
Tesla later licensed his induction motor and sold his AC current patent to George
Westinghouse. In1888, the “War of the Currents” began with Tesla and
Westinghouse on the AC side, and Edison supporting the DC side. Over time, Westinghouse
lost control of his company and Tesla was left to fight for his royalties from
the bankers that took over the company. Westinghouse then convinced Tesla to
accept a lump sum of $216,000 for the AC patents.
Tesla
was brimming with ideas and gained the reputation as a “mad scientist” during
the latter 1890s with his work in wireless communications, electrical discharge
tubes, remote control, the rotating magnetic field, and x-ray machines.
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| Wardenclyffe Tower |
In
1900, Tesla received funding from J. Pierpont Morgan to establish a trans-Atlantic
wireless telecommunications facility at Shoreham, New York. The facility was called Wardenclyffe. Due to the Panic of 1901, which Morgan had started,
Tesla could not build his transmitter and in December 1901, Guglielmo Marconi
was the first to transmit across the Atlantic.
But
Tesla was never one to give up. He invented a bladeless turbine, and a
steam-powered mechanical oscillator during the next decade. In November 1915,
Reuters reported that Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla had won the Nobel Prize in
Physics. But the prize was awarded to two other men with rumors circulating
that Edison and Tesla had been “over-looked” because of their intense feud. In
1917, Tesla received the Edison Medal.
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| Allis-Chalmers Turbine |
From
1919 to 1922, Tesla worked with Allis-Chalmers on a turbine, and in 1928, he
received his last patent for a bi-plane that could take off vertically. In all,
Tesla had well over 300 patents for his inventions in the U.S., Canada, and
Britain.
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| Nikola Tesla |
Tesla
kept a regular work schedule throughout his life. He would begin work at 9am and continue until
6pm each day, then break for dinner at 8:00. He then resumed his
experiments until 3am when he would retire. He claimed not to sleep
over 2 hours at any one time.
He
retired in the 1930s and began working as a consultant but his ideas became more outlandish
as he became more eccentric. Tesla
died alone in his hotel room in New York City of a blood clot to the heart. His
body was discovered on January 7, 1943. Nikola Tesla was 86 years old.
