Tesla Biography

NIKOLA TESLA
THE GENIUS WHO LIT THE WORLD

Nikola Tesla symbolizes a unifying force and inspiration for all nations in the name of peace
and science. He was a true visionary far ahead of his contemporaries in the field of scientific
development. New York State and many other states in the USA proclaimed July 10, Teslas
birthday- Nikola Tesla Day.
Many United States Congressmen gave speeches in the House of Representatives on July 10,
1990 celebrating the 134th anniversary of scientist-inventor Nikola Tesla. Senator Levine
from Michigan spoke in the US Senate on the same occasion.
The street sign Nikola Tesla Corner was recently placed on the corner of the 40th
Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. There is a large photo of Tesla in the Statue of Liberty
Museum. The Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey has a daily science
demonstration of the Tesla Coil creating a million volts of electricity before the spectators
eyes. Many books were written about Tesla : Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by
John J. ONeill and Margaret Cheneys book Tesla: Man out of Time has contributed
significantly to his fame. A documentary film Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World,
produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, The
Secret of Nikola Tesla (Orson Welles), BBC Film Masters of the Ionosphere are other tributes
to the great genius.

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika, which was then part of the
Austo-Hungarian Empire, region of Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla was a Serbian
Orthodox Priest and his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor in her own right of household
appliances. Tesla studied at the Realschule, Karlstadt in 1873, the Polytechnic Institute in
Graz, Austria and the University of Prague. At first, he intended to specialize in physics and
mathematics, but soon he became fascinated with electricity. He began his career as an
electrical engineer with a telephone company in Budapest in 1881. It was there, as Tesla was
walking with a friend through the city park that the elusive solution to the rotating magnetic
field flashed through his mind. With a stick, he drew a diagram in the sand explaining to his
friend the principle of the induction motor. Before going to America, Tesla joined Continental
Edison Company in Paris where he designed dynamos. While in Strassbourg in 1883, he
privately built a prototype of the induction motor and ran it successfully. Unable to interest
anyone in Europe in promoting this radical device, Tesla accepted an offer to work for
Thomas Edison in New York. His childhood dream was to come to America to harness the
power of Niagara Falls.
Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an introduction letter from
Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison: I know two great men, wrote Batchelor, one is you
and the other is this young man. Tesla spent the next 59 years of his productive life living in
New York. Tesla set about improving Edisons line of dynamos while working in Edisons lab
in New Jersey. It was here that his divergence of opinion with Edison over direct current
versus alternating current began. This disagreement climaxed in the war of the currents as
Edison fought a losing battle to protect his investment in direct current equipment and
facilities.
Tesla pointed out the inefficiency of Edisons direct current electrical
powerhouses that have been build up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The secret, he felt, lay
in the use of alternating current ,because to him all energies were cyclic. Why not build
generators that would send electrical energy along distribution lines first one way, than
another, in multiple waves using the polyphase principle?
Edisons lamps were weak and inefficient when supplied by direct current. This
system had a severe disadvantage in that it could not be transported more than two miles due
to its inability to step up to high voltage levels necessary for long distance transmission.
Consequently, a direct current power station was required at two mile intervals.
Direct current flows continuously in one direction; alternating current changes
direction 50 or 60 times per second and can be stepped up to vary high voltage levels,
minimizing power loss across great distances. The future belongs to alternating current.
Nikola Tesla developed polyphase alternating current system of generators, motors
and transformers and held 40 basic U.S. patents on the system, which George Westinghouse
bought, determined to supply America with the Tesla system. Edison did not want to lose his
DC empire, and a bitter war ensued. This was the war of the currents between AC and DC.
Tesla -Westinghouse ultimately emerged the victor because AC was a superior technology. It
was a war won for the progress of both America and the world.
Tesla introduced his motors and electrical systems in a classic paper, A New System
of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers which he delivered before the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. One of the most impressed was the industrialist and

inventor George Westinghouse. One day he visited Teslas laboratory and was amazed at
what he saw. Tesla had constructed a model polyphase system consisting of an alternating
current dynamo, step-up and step-down transformers and A.C. motor at the other end. The
perfect partnership between Tesla and Westinghouse for the nationwide use of electricity in
America had begun.
In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental
principle in physics and the basis of nearly all devices that use alternating current. Tesla
brilliantly adapted the principle of rotating magnetic field for the construction of alternating
current induction motor and the polyphase system for the generation, transmission,
distribution and use of electrical power.
Teslas A.C. induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry
and household appliances. It started the industrial revolution at the turn of the
century. Electricity today is generated transmitted and converted to mechanical
power by means of his inventions. Teslas greatest achievement is his polyphase
alternating current system, which is today lighting the entire globe.
Tesla astonished the world by demonstrating. the wonders of alternating current
electricity at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Alternating current
became standard power in the 20th Century. This accomplishment changed the world. He
designed the first hydroelectric powerplant in Niagara Falls in 1895, which was the final
victory of alternating current. The achievement was covered widely in the world press, and
Tesla was praised as a hero world wide. King Nikola of Montenegro conferred upon him the
Order of Danilo.
Tesla was a pioneer in many fields. The Tesla coil, which he invented in 1891, is
widely used today in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment. That year also
marked the date of Tesla's United States citizenship. His alternating current induction motor
is considered one of the ten greatest discoveries of all time. Among his discoveries are the
fluorescent light , laser beam, wireless communications, wireless transmission of electrical
energy, remote control, robotics, Teslas turbines and vertical take off aircraft. Tesla is the
father of the radio and the modern electrical transmissions systems. He registered over 700
patents worldwide. His vision included exploration of solar energy and the power of the sea.
He foresaw interplanetary communications and satellites.
The Century Magazine published Tesla's principles of telegraphy without wires,
popularizing scientific lectures given before Franklin Institute in February 1893.
The Electrical Review in 1896 published X-rays of a man, made by Tesla, with X-ray
tubes of his own design. They appeared at the same time as when Roentgen announced his
discovery of X-rays. Tesla never attempted to proclaim priority. Roentgen congratulated
Tesla on his sophisticated X-ray pictures, and Tesla even wrote Roentgen's name on one of
his films. He experimented with shadowgraphs similar to those that later were to be used by
Wilhelm Rontgen when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Tesla's countless experiments
included work on a carbon button lamp, on the power of electrical resonance, and on various

types of lightning. Tesla invented the special vacuum tube which emitted light to be used in
photography.
The breadth of his inventions is demonstrated by his patents for a bladeless steam
turbine based on a spiral flow principle. Tesla also patented a pump design to operate at
extremely high temperature.
Nikola Tesla patented the basic system of radio in 1896. His published schematic
diagrams describing all the basic elements of the radio transmitter which was later used by
Marconi.
In 1896 Tesla constructed an instrument to receive radio waves. He experimented
with this device and transmitted radio waves from his laboratory on South 5th Avenue. to the
Gerlach Hotel at 27th Street in Manhattan. The device had a magnet which gave off intense
magnetic fields up to 20,000 lines per centimeter. The radio device clearly establishes his
piority in the discovery of radio.
The shipboard quench-spark transmitter produced by the Lowenstein Radio Company
and licensed under Nikola Tesla Company patents, was installed on the U.S. Naval vessels
prior to World War I.
In December 1901, Marconi established wireless communication between Britain and
the Newfoundland, Canada, earning him the Nobel prize in 1909. But much of Marconi's
work was not original. In 1864, James Maxwell theorized electromagnetic waves. In 1887,
Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell's theories. Later, Sir Oliver Logde extended the Hertz
prototype system. The Brandley coherer increased the distance messages could be
transmitted. The coherer was perfected by Marconi.
However, the heart of radio transmission is based upon four tuned circuits for
transmitting and receiving. It is Tesla's original concept demonstrated in his famous lecture at
the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1893. The four circuits, used in two pairs, are still a
fundamental part of all radio and television equipment.
The United States Supreme Court, in 1943 held Marconi's most important patent
invalid, recognizing Tesla's more significant contribution as the inventor of radio technology.
Tesla built an experimental station in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1899, to
experiment with high voltage, high frequency electricity and other phenomena.
When the Colorado Springs Tesla Coil magnifying transmitter was energized, it
created sparks 30 feet long. From the outside antenna, these sparks could be seen from a
distance of ten miles. From this laboratory, Tesla generated and sent out wireless waves
which mediated energy, without wires for miles.
In Colorado Springs, where he stayed from May 1899 until 1900, Tesla made what he
regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he
proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning
fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires
from a distance of 25 miles( 40 kilometers) and created man-made lightning. At one time he

was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory, a claim
that was met with disbelief in some scientific journals.
The old Waldorf Astoria was the residence of Nikola Tesla for many years. He lived
there when he was at the height of financial and intellectual power. Tesla organized
elaborate dinners, inviting famous people who later witnessed spectacular electrical
experiments in his laboratory.
Financially supported by J. Pierpont Morgan, Tesla built the Wardenclyffe laboratory
and its famous transmitting tower in Shoreham, Long Island between 1901 and 1905. This
huge landmark was 187 feet high, capped by a 68-foot copper dome which housed the
magnifying transmitter. It was planned to be the first broadcast system, transmitting both
signals and power without wires to any point on the globe. The huge magnifying transmitter,
discharging high frequency electricity, would turn the earth into a gigantic dynamo which
would project its electricity in unlimited amounts anywhere in the world.
Tesla's concept of wireless electricity was used to power ocean liners, destroy
warships, run industry and transportation and send communications instantaneously all over
the globe. To stimulate the public's imagination, Tesla suggested that this wireless power
could even be used for interplanetary communication. If Tesla were confident to reach Mars,
how much less difficult to reach Paris. Many newspapers and periodicals interviewed Tesla
and described his new system for supplying wireless power to run all of the earth's industry.
Because of a dispute between Morgan and Tesla as to the final use of the
tower. Morgan withdrew his funds. The financier's classic comment was, "If anyone can
draw on the power, where do we put the meter?"
The erected, but incomplete tower was demolished in 1917 for wartime security
reasons. The site where the Wardenclyffe tower stood still exists with its 100 feet deep
foundation still intact. Tesla's laboratory designed by Stanford White in 1901 is today still in
good condition and is graced with a bicentennial plaque.
Tesla lectured to the scientific community on his inventions in New York,
Philadelphia and St. Louis and before scientific organizations in both England and France in
1892. Teslas lectures and writings of the 1890s aroused wide admiration among
contemporaries popularized his inventions and inspired untold numbers of younger men to
enter the new field of radio and electrical science.
Nikola Tesla was one of the most celebrated personalities in the American press, in
this century. According to Life Magazine's special issue of September, 1997, Tesla is among
the 100 most famous people of the last 1,000 years. He is one of the great men who divert
the stream of human history. Tesla's celebrity was in its height at the turn of the century. His
discoveries, inventions and vision had widespread acceptance by the public, the scientific
community and American press. Tesla's discoveries had extensive coverage in the scientific
journals, the daily and weekly press as well as in the foremost literary and intellectual
publications of the day. He was the Super Star.
Tesla wrote many autobiographical articles for the prominent journal Electrical
Experimenter, collected in the book, My Inventions. Tesla was gifted with intense powers of

visualization and exceptional memory from early youth on. He was able to fully construct,
develop and perfect his inventions completely in his mind before committing them to paper.
According to Hugo Gernsback, Tesla was possessed of a striking physical appearance
over six feet tall with deep set eyes and a stately manner. His impressions of Tesla, were of a
man endowed with remarkable physical and mental freshness, ready to surprise the world
with more and more inventions as he grew older. A lifelong bachelor he led a somewhat
isolated existence, devoting his full energies to science.
In 1894, he was given honorary doctoral degrees by Columbia and Yale University
and the Elliot Cresson medal by the Franklin Institute. In 1934, the city of Philadelphia
awarded him the John Scott medal for his polyphase power system. He was an honorary
member of the National Electric Light Association and a fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. On one occasion, he turned down an invitation from Kaiser
Wilhelm II to come to Germany to demonstrate his experiments and to receive a high
decoration.
In 1915, a New York Times article announced that Tesla and Edison were to share the
Nobel Prize for physics. Oddly, neither man received the prize, the reason being unclear. It
was rumored that Tesla refused the prize because he would not share with Edison, and
because Marconi had already received his.

(Tesla's friend Mark Twain, famous American writer)

Tesla died on January 7th, 1943 in the Hotel New Yorker, where he had lived for the
last ten years of his life. Room 3327 on the 33rd floor is the two-room suites he occupied.
A state funeral was held at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City.
Telegrams of condolence were received from many notables, including the first lady Eleanor
Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace. Over 2000 people attended, including several Nobel
Laureates. He was cremated in Ardsley on the Hudson, New York. His ashes were interned in
a golden sphere, Teslas favorite shape, on permanent display at the Tesla Museum in
Belgrade along with his death mask.
In his speech presenting Tesla with the Edison medal, Vice President Behrend of the
Institute of Electrical Engineers eloquently expressed the following: "Were we to seize and
eliminate from our industrial world the result of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry
would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark and our
mills would be idle and dead. His name marks an epoch in the advance of electrical
science." Mr. Behrend ended his speech with a paraphrase of Pope's lines on
Newton: "Nature and nature's laws lay hid by night. God said 'Let Tesla be' and all was
light."

The world will wait a long time for Nikola Teslas equal in
achievement and imagination. E. ARMSTRONG

Nikola Teslas Awards and Recognition

In 1917, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal, the most coveted electrical prize in the United
States.
Nikola Teslas name has been honored with an International Unit of Magnetic Flux Density
called Tesla."
The United States Postal Service honored Tesla with a commemorative stamp in 1983.
Tesla was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 1975.
The Nikola Tesla Award is one of the most distinguished honors presented by the Institute of
Electrical Engineers. The award has been given annually since 1976.
The Nikola Tesla Statue is located on Goat Island to honor the man whose inventions were
incorporated into the Niagara Falls Power Station in 1895. Tesla is known as the inventor of
polyphase alternating current.
The Nikola Tesla Corner Sign, located at the intersection of 40th Street and 6th Avenue in
Manhattan, is a constant reminder to all New Yorkers of the greatness of this genius.

New York, July 10, 1998