Tesla: the man who helped shape our world world

In 1856, at the stroke of midnight between July 9 and 10, a child was born who would, as a man, change the face of the earth forever. Many who could not accept this genius, in effect, have made him relatively unknown to the public. His inventions are spectacular: the concept of radio, fluorescent lighting, the motor in your ceiling fan, the ignition system in your automobile, the power supplied to your home for lighting and for all the appliances that exist there, and many more. They all came from the incredible inventive mind of Nikola Tesla.

Nikola Tesla was born in Smijlan, Croatia. He had a superb memory. He learned and spoke six languages. He attended a number of colleges in different countries. His prime greatness was his understanding of electricity.

Tesla came to the United States in 1884. A short time after his arrival, he went to work for Thomas Edison. Edison had just gotten a patent on his light bulb and he needed a system to distribute electricity to homes and businesses.

Tesla was impressed with Edison’s attempt to supply power to buildings for the first time using DC, direct current. But he saw how DC could not be transmitted beyond a few thousand feet and so it would require many many power generators to feed power to a complete city. Edison built a power plant in Manhattan and was able to supply power to only two buildings nearby.

u u u

Tesla’s genius mind explored other means for supplying power. He thought of converting the DC into AC, alternating current, using Michael Faraday’s invention from the early 1800s, which used a magnetic field to generate electricity in a nearby wire when the magnets were put in motion. Edison told him that it was a bad idea. Tesla, of course, did not agree and continued to work on that project. Edison continued to oppose his idea, even as George Westinghouse and others developed working systems.

Soon after, Tesla left Edison’s company and set up his own laboratory in New York City.

Edison spent the rest of his life belittling Tesla and covering him up. A large reason for this was Tesla’s embracing AC as a means for transmitting energy and power to all the rest of the world. Edison thought Tesla and others were stupid to even consider AC, which he called a very dangerous electric power. Edison was totally wrong, of course.

We use alternating current systems in our homes today, and that power is used all over the world. By using transformers, AC voltages could be stepped up and transmitted over long distances through thin wires, totally impossible with Edison’s DC power.

Tesla used fluorescent bulbs in his laboratory 40 years before they were "invented" by someone else. At World’s Fairs and other similar exhibitions, Tesla took glass tubes and molded them into the shapes of famous scientists’ names, like the neon signs that we see all around us today.

u u u

Word spread about his AC improvements and after reaching the ears of Westinghouse, Westinghouse hired Tesla, paid him for his patents, and they worked together on a number of projects that were supremely successful. In Chicago in 1893 they powered the World Columbia Exhibition with AC. It had over 20 million visitors. It was a huge success.

Two years later, Tesla and Westinghouse built an innovative AC power plant as a hydroelectric generator, driven by the flowing water of Niagara Falls. (I have been there and have seen that power plant many times.) They were able to supply power to Buffalo, about 25 miles away with ease. This foreshadowed the delivery of power all over the world, easily, using AC.

u u u

Tesla thought of transmitting voice, pictures, electricity through the air. The world thought he was crazy. That was all unheard of then, but this genius made it all possible.

What the world did not really know was that Tesla had already demonstrated the principles behind radio nearly 10 years before Marconi’s supposed invention. In fact, in 1943, the year that Tesla died, the Supreme Court ruled that Marconi’s radio patents were invalid because of Tesla’s previous works. Still, most references do not credit Tesla with the invention of radio.

At the beginning of World War I, the government desperately searched for a way to detect German submarines. Thomas Edison was put in charge of the search for a good method. Tesla proposed the use of what he called energy waves, and what we now know as radar, to detect those ships. Edison rejected Tesla’s idea as ludicrous and the world had to wait another 25 years until it was invented.

His critics, in effect, drove him into exile for nearly 20 years. Lacking capital, he was forced to place his untested theories and ideas into many notebooks. He spent those years living in a two-room apartment at the New Yorker hotel. In 1936, during my senior year at City College, a friend and I were able to meet with Tesla where he lived and have a short lunch with him. It was an exciting and unusual day for us, one that stimulated my own thoughts and ideas about inventing.

Nicola Tesla, the man who helped invent the modern world, died nearly penniless at age 86 on Jan. 7, 1943. Amazingly, more than 2,000 people attended his funeral.

u u u

Scientists today continue to scour through his notes. Many of his far-flung theories are just now being proven by our top scientists. Tesla listed experiments that suggested particles with fractional charges of an electron, something that scientists in 1977 finally discovered, now known as quarks.

Maybe history will finally recognize a true genius like Tesla when it sees one.