Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

One of the greatest men in American history was Nikola Tesla. As of recent his name is coming to fame but I feel like it is 128 years to late. Still, I am glad that we are recognizing this mans accomplishments at last! For those of you that may have heard of this man, some of this may sound repetitive. For those of you who have not, get ready to find out some amazing truths!

Nikola Tesla was born in Austria on July 10, 1856. It was said that he was born during a lighting storm but whether or not there is any truth to that is left in history. I like to think it is true because it makes him much more awesome. Anyways... lets not get off topic here. He went to school in 1873 for physics and mathematics but quickly grew to have a passion for electricity. This is where the magic began.

After he began working as a electrical engineer for a phone company he started thinking of different ways to create electricity. He came up with the idea of a rotating magnetic field, which in turn enabled him to create the Tesla dynamos. Now, at the time they had been using dynamos that used contact points to create a direct current but Tesla envisioned something better. He seen that the current dynamos sparked a ridiculous amount and was maybe even somewhat dangerous. So he made a prototype and surprise... surprise, it worked!

Thomas Edison

Now Tesla made the decision to go and work for Thomas Edison in 1884. At first he did so in Paris but then he moved to New York and worked side by side with him. While working this closely with this great man of science, Tesla tried with all his might to get Edison to look into his idea of alternating current instead of direct current. Edison would not hear of it and so after a long while of working with Edison, Tesla ventured off to do his own thing.

George Westinghouse

He eventually found investors by the name of Charles Peck, an attorney, and Alfred S. Brown, a superintendent at Western Union. It was then that he began his serious work on creating his polyphase induction motor and after some time he was successful. It was time to patent his creation and he filed for seven U.S. patents. Some of these included generators, transformers, lines and lighting. It was then that he caught his biggest investor and true supporter George Westinghouse.

This sparked a war between Edison and Tesla. Who could blame Edison for becoming so angry about this new invention though. If Tesla's AC generator took off it would put Edison as well as J.P. Morgan out of business. As it should have to be honest. I mean, as we all know for sure now, DC current can be very dangerous and not very productive. It took a huge generator to produce only a small portion of electricity. In fact, Edison had to put a generator house about every two miles just to produce electricity for that area. As for AC current, well it took less to produce more so to say. Tesla could produce twice as much electricity for much longer distances using lines and that magical little thing called the polyphase principle. Basically, Tesla was going to recycle energy by sending currents back and forth through lines. Alright, enough with the science aspect of things... let us talk war again.

The Elephant Edison Electrocuted

So Edison launches a smear campaign to discredit Tesla's idea. He actually went around to different places across the Atlantic killing animals such as horses and elephants to prove that AC current was dangerous. Eventually Edison invented the electric chair hoping that it would deter people from using AC current. Try as Edison did, Tesla eventually won the battle because AC current was clearly better. City by City, he began lighting up the United States.

 

 

Tesla invented much more than just AC current electricity however. Here is a list of some of his inventions:

• Tesla coil
• Disk-Turbine Rotary Engine
• Spark-Gap Oscillator
• Magnifying Transmitters (AKA) Wireless
• And my most favorite of them all...Radio!

This great man died on January 7, 1943 pretty much forgotten by the world and completely broke.

Some unknown and really interesting facts about Nikola Tesla are:

• He was actually a really funny guy. He had an extraordinary sense of humor.
• One of his finical backers was killed on the Titanic
• After his death, all of his papers were confiscated by the FBI and labeled TOP SECRET.
• One of his best friends, which is one of my favorite authors of all time, was Samuel Clemens...AKA Mark Twain.
•  He could not stand Pearls.
• He was a germaphobe.

Sources:
www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/famous-inventors/famous-nikola-tesla-inventions.htm

Some really awesome videos to watch:
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla/videos
http://news.discovery.com/tech/videos/nikola-tesla-was-a-badass-inventor-video.htm
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11eom2_my-inventions-nikola-tesla-autobiography_lifestyle