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Nikola Tesla

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For other uses of the name Tesla, please see Tesla (disambiguation)
Pioneer of electromechanics
"I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive device." - Nikola Tesla
Born :


July 10, 1856
Smiljan, Gospić, Military Frontier, Habsburg Monarchy (now Croatia)
Died :

January 7, 1943
New York City, New York, USA

Nikola Tesla was an inventor, physicist, and electrical engineer. Tesla is often regarded as one of the greatest engineers of the 19th century and 20th century. Tesla was of Aromanian descent and, while conducting his work in the United States, became an American citizen in 1891. His patents and theoretical work still form the basis for modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems including the polyphase power distribution system. Tesla helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution. After Tesla's demonstration of wireless communication in 1893 and winning the "War of Currents", Tesla became world-famous.

Biography

Wikibooks has an expanded biography : Biography of Nikola Tesla


Electromechanical devices and principles developed by Nikola Tesla:

Early years

Tesla was born in 1856 at the village of Smiljan (near Gospić) in Croatia at midnight (the first moment of July 10). His baptismal name was Николай (Nikola). His father, the Rev. Milutin Tesla, was a priest in the Vlach Orthodox Metropolitanate of Karlovci. His mother, Đuka Mandić, made home craft tools. Tesla was one of five children, having one brother and three sisters. In 1882 he moved to Paris to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company on designing improvements to electric equipment. In the same year, Tesla conceived the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (for which he received patents in 1888). Tesla hastened from Paris to his mother's side as she lay dying, arriving hours before her death in 1882. After her death, Tesla fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating at home near Gospić.

Middle years

In 1884 Tesla moved to the United States of America to accept a job with the Edison Company in New York City. He arrived in the US with 4 cents to his name, a book of poetry, and a letter of recommendation (from Charles Batchelor, his manager in his previous job).

Early employment

When Tesla first arrived in the United States, he was offered a job by Thomas Edison when the latter saw his letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor which read simply "I know two great men, and you are one of them. This young man is the other". Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering.

As he served with Edison, Tesla earned the respect of Edison and offered to undertake a complete re-design of the Edison company's DC dynamos. After Tesla described the nature of the benefits from his proposed modifications, Edison offered him US$50,000 if they were successfully completed. Tesla worked nearly a year to redesign them and gave the Edison company several enormously profitable new patents in the process. When Tesla inquired about the $50,000, Edison replied to him, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor", and reneged on his agreement, offering a raise in Tesla's salary of $10 per week as a compromise - at which rate it would have taken almost 100 years to earn the money Edison had originally promised. Tesla resigned on the spot.

Tesla worked in New York as a common laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternate-current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse's Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of AC electricity over large distances.

X-rays and friendships

Experimental observations:

Tesla commented on the hazards of working with single node X-ray producing devices, attributing the skin-damage to ozone rather than the radiation: "As to the hurtful actions on the skin... I note that they have been misinterpreted... They are not due to the Röntgen rays, but merely to the ozone generated in contact with the skin. Nitrous acid may also be responsible, but to a small extent". (Tesla, in Electrical Review, 30 November 1895). This is incorrect concerning cathodic X-ray tubes. Tesla later observed an assistant severely "burnt" by X-rays in his lab.

In April 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his U.S. patent 514,170). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomena produced from this device is termed the bremsstrahlung process. He also used Geissler tubes.

On July 30, 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and established his Houston Street laboratory in New York. He lit vacuum tubes wirelessly in it, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission. Around this time, Tesla developed a close and lasting friendship with Mark Twain. They spent a lot of time together in Tesla's lab and elsewhere. Tesla's closest friends were artists. He also befriended Century Magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, who adapted several Serbian poems of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (which Tesla translated). Also during this time, according to Toby Grotz and the PBS documentary film, Telsa was influenced by the Vedic philosophy teachings of the Swami Vivekananda.[5]

When he was 36 years old, the first patents concerning the polyphase power system were granted. He continued research of the system and rotating magnetic field principles. By 1892, Tesla became aware of what Wilhelm Röntgen later identified as effects of X-rays. He performed several experiments (including photographing the bones of his hand; later, he sent these images to Röntgen) but didn't make his findings widely known; much of his research was lost in the 1895 Houston Street lab fire.

Wireless and the AIEE

Tesla served as the Vice-President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now part of the IEEE) from 1892 to 1894. From 1893 to 1895, he investigated high frequency alternating currents. He generated AC of one million volts using a conical Tesla coil and investigated the skin effect in conductors, designed tuned circuits, invented a machine for inducing sleep, cordless gas discharge lamps, and transmitted electromagnetic energy without wires, effectively building the first radio transmitter. In St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla made a demonstration related to radio communication in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail its principles.

Some have posited that Heinrich Hertz had made similar demonstrations (a few years previously). Hertz' demonstrations were not public (they were conducted during his physics lectures) and his recievers were not really sensitive. Strictly speaking, Tesla's were not open either (the Franklin Institute didn't open to the general public until 1934), but Tesla's demonstration were written about widely through various media outlets. Telsa also used sensitive electromagnetic receivers [6], unlike less responsive coherers used by other early experimenters.

World's Fair Exposition

At the 1893 World's Fair, the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, an international exposition was held which for the first time devoted a building to electrical exhibits. It was a historic event as Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced visitors to AC power by using it to illuminate the Exposition. In protest, Edison would not allow use of any of his lightbulbs for this event (Westinghouse designed a double-stopper bulb to sidestep Edison's patent). On display were Tesla's fluorescent lights and single node bulbs. As if lighting the Exposition was not enough, Tesla explained the principles of the rotating magnetic field and induction motor by demonstrating how to make an egg (made of copper) stand on end in his demonstration of the device he constructed known as the "Egg of Columbus". It was used to demonstrate and explain the principles of the rotating magnetic field model and the induction motor.

War of currents

Main article: War of Currents

In the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current (AC) advocated by Tesla.

1896-1899

When Tesla was 41 years old, he filed the first basic radio patent (No. US645576). A year later, he demonstrated a radio controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio controlled torpedoes. In 1898 an RC boat was also demonstrated to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. These devices had an innovative coherer and a series of logic gates. Radio remote control remained a novelty until the Space Age. In the same year, Tesla devised an electric igniter (spark plug) for gasoline engines which was nearly identical to ideas about the same process used by modern internal combustion engines.

In 1896, according to an interview he gave in 1916, Tesla invented a type of loudspeaker. The sounds were of the quality of the telephones of that time. The invention was never patented nor released publicly (until years later by Tesla himself). As a result of the "War of Currents" Edison and Westinghouse were almost bankrupt, so in 1897 Tesla released Westinghouse from contract providing Westinghouse a break from Tesla's AC motor royalties.

Colorado Springs


Colorado's geomagnetism
(Larger)

In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he could have room for his high-voltage high-frequency experiments. Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla kept a diary of his experiments in the Colorado Springs lab where he spent nearly nine months. He was developing a system for wireless telegraphy, telephony and the transmission of power, experimented with high-voltage electricity and the possibility of wireless transmitting and distributing large amounts of electrical energy over long distances. He also conceived a system for geophysical exploration — seismology — which he called telegeodynamics. He did not experiment with this as he felt there would not be "a desirable outcome". Some of what Tesla discovered while in this lab has been lost to history and Tesla's own secrecy. Tesla's time at this lab has been a wellspring for urban legends about him.

Magnifying transmitter
Main article: Magnifying Transmitter
File:Tesla colorado 444px.jpg
Publicity photo of Tesla sitting in his laboratory in Colorado Springs with his "magnifying transmitter" generating millions of volts of electricity. The arcs are about 22 feet (7 m) long. (According to Tesla's notes, this was a Double exposure.)
Propagation and resonance

Tesla also constructed many smaller resonance transformers and discovered the concept of tuned electrical circuits. He also developed a number of coherers for separating and perceiving electromagnetic waves. Several transceivers were constructed to demonstrate how signals could be "tuned in". These air core high-frequency resonate coils were the predecessors of systems from radio to radar and medical magnetic resonance imaging devices. On July 3, 1899, Tesla discovered terrestrial stationary waves within the earth. He demonstrated that the Earth behaves as a smooth polished conductor and possesses electrical vibrations. He experimented with waves characterized by a lack of vibration at points, between which areas of maximum vibration occur periodically. Tesla conducted experiments contributing to the understanding of electromagnetic propagation and the Earth's resonance. It is well documented (from various photos from the time) that he lit hundreds of lamps wirelessly at a distance of up to twenty-five miles (40 km). He transmitted signals several kilometres and lit neon tubes conducting through the ground. He researched ways to transmit energy wirelessly over long distances (utilizing the ionosphere and the ground via transverse waves, to a lesser extent, and, more readily, longitudinal waves).

Cosmic waves

In the Colorado Springs lab, Tesla recorded what he concluded were extraterrestrial radio signals and announced his findings in some of the scientific journals of the time. [7] Specifically, he later recalled that the signals appeared in groups of clicks 1, 2, 3, and 4 clicks together. Tesla felt the signal groups originated on the planet Mars. Analysis of Jovian plasma torus signals indicate that there was a correspondence between the setting of Mars at Colorado Springs, and the cessation of signals from Jupiter in the summer of 1899 when Tesla was there. Further analysis indicate that Tesla's transceiver would have allowed that reception from planets. Therefore, there is evidence the signals Tesla noticed came from Jupiter, among other possible sources. Tesla spent the latter part of his life trying to signal Mars. It is important to recognize that when he says he "recorded" these signals, it is meant that he wrote down the data and his impressions of what he had heard. He did release reports at the time. All this was met with resistance and disbelief by his contemporaries.

Colorado departure

Tesla left Colorado Springs on January 7, 1900. The lab was torn down, broken up, and its contents sold to pay debts. The Colorado experiments prepared Tesla for his next project, the establishment of a wireless power transmission facility that would be known as Wardenclyffe. On March 21, 1900, Tesla was granted US685012 patent for the means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations. The United States Patent Office classification system currently denotes that this patent pretains to superconductivity technology (Class 505/825).

Wardenclyffe

Wardenclyffe Tower located in Shoreham, Long Island, New York. The 94 ft. by 94 ft. brick building was designed by architect Stanford White. The tower structure was completed in 1904. The transceiver was never fully built due to economic problems.
Main article: Wardenclyffe Tower

In 1900, with $150,000 (51%) from J. Pierpont Morgan, Tesla began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility. In June 1902, Tesla's lab operations were moved to Wardenclyffe from Houston Street. Among the various application of the patents accumulated by Tesla, the most controversial today is his Wardenclyffe Tower. The tower was billed as the start of a global system for wireless telecommunications but was also intended by Tesla as a demonstration of wireless electrical power distribution. In 1903, upon hearing of Tesla's plans for wireless power transmission, Morgan refused any more funding to support the Wardenclyffe Tower project. The tower was finally dismantled for scrap during wartime. Newspapers of the time labeled Wardenclyffe "Tesla's million-dollar folly."

Fight for radio patent
Main article: History of radio

In 1904, the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio. Tesla began his fight to re-acquire his radio patent. Later in 1907, Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for radio. Tesla was deeply resentful. So in 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi. Tesla always disputed the claim that Marconi invented radio. An ongoing lawsuit regarding the patent battle was finally resolved in Tesla's favor in 1944, one year after his death. This decision was based on the facts of the prior work existing before the establishment of Marconi's patent. At the time, the United States Army was involved in a patent infringement lawsuit with Marconi regarding radio, leading some to posit that the government granted Tesla and others the formal recognition in order to nullify any claims Marconi would have to compensation (as the earlier award to Marconi nullified any claims Tesla would have for compensation).

Bladeless turbine
Main article: Tesla turbine

On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 16,000 rpm Bladeless Turbine. During 1910-1911 at the Waterside Power Station in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100-5000 hp.

Later years

Prior to the First World War, Tesla looked overseas for investors to fund his research. When the war started, Tesla lost funding he was receiving from his European patents. Wardenclyffe Tower was also demolished towards the end of WWI. In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi attempting, unsuccessfully, to obtain a court injunction against the claims of Marconi. Around 1916, Tesla filed for bankruptcy because he owed so much in back taxes. He was living in poverty. At this time, he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, renting in an arrangement for deferred payments. Eventually, the Wardenclyffe deed was turned over to George Boldt. In 1917, Tesla received AIEE's highest honor, the Edison Medal. The irony of this honor was probably not lost on Tesla.

Radar development

Main article: History of radar

Tesla, in August 1917, first established principles regarding frequency and power level for the first primitive radar units in 1934. In the 1917 The Electrical Experimenter, he stated the principles of modern military radar in detail. His study of high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current led to this development. Tesla proposed to use electromagnetic waves to determine the relative position, speed, and course of a moving object and other modern concepts of radar. Emile Girardeau, working with the first French radar systems, stated he was building radar systems "conceived according to the principles stated by Tesla".

1930s

On Tesla's seventy-fifth birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him on its cover. [8] The cover caption noted his contribution to electrical power generation. In 1935, many of Marconi's patents relating to the radio were declared invalid by the United States Court of Claims. The Court of Claims decided that the prior work of Tesla (specifically US645576 and US649621) had anticipated Marconi's later works. Tesla got his last patent in 1928 on January 3, an apparatus for aerial transportation which was the first instance of VTOL aircraft.

Field theories

Main article: Dynamic theory of gravity

When he was eighty-one, Tesla stated he had completed a Dynamic Theory of Gravity. He stated that it was "worked out in all details" and hoped to give to the world the theory soon. [9] The theory was never published. At the time of his announcement, it was considered by the scientific community to exceed the bounds of reason. Some believe that Tesla never fully developed the Unified Field Theory, nor that any physicist in the years since it was first postulated. Tesla's theory is of interest to some researchers (but, mainly disregaurded in the field of physics).

Nikola Tesla Monument in front of University in Belgrade

Death and afterwards

Tesla died alone in the hotel New Yorker of heart failure, some time between the evening of January 5 and the morning of January 8, 1943. At the time of his death, Tesla had been working on some form of teleforce weapon, or death ray, the secrets of which he had offered to the United States War Department on the morning of 5 January. It appears that his proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma. He was found dead three days later and, after the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret.

Immediately after Tesla's death became known, the Federal Bureau of Investigation instructed the Office of Alien Property to take possession of his papers and property, despite his US citizenship. All of his personal effects were seized on the advice of presidential advisors. J. Edgar Hoover declared the case "most secret", because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and patents. Eventually, his nephew, Sava Kosanovich, got possession of some of his personal effects (which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Yugoslavia). Tesla's funeral took place on January 12, 1943 at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City.

Tesla and public opinion

In his early years, his fame exceeded that of any other inventor or scientist in history and in popular culture. Tesla had become a byword for innovation and practical achievement. His name was one of the most recognizable in the world, a magician who conjured up technical feats. Tesla's vision was to find a means to provide humanity the means for unlimited energy. Tesla gave his life to make real these plans, while others made fortunes with his inventions. In his later years, Tesla was regarded as a mad scientist. At the end of his life, Tesla was mocked by his contemporaries and he wound up broke and forgotten. Tesla was ahead of his time, many of Tesla's ideas and concepts are just only recently coming to fruition. His legacy can been seen across modern civilization.

Education

Tributes and honors

File:Serbia100Dinara.jpg
Tesla on 100 Serbian Dinars in 2004. Photo courtesy of National bank of Serbia (www.nbs.org.yu)

The scientific compound derived SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field B), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960).

Nikola Tesla was:

Life magazine, in a special double issue, listed Tesla in the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years". He occupied the 57th position, cited as "[one of] the most farsighted inventors of the electrical age". They state his work on the rotating magnetic field and alternating currents helped electrify the world. [10]

Tesla monuments

File:Tesla Memorial NF small.jpg
Tesla Memorial at Niagara Falls

Other tributes

In addition, a number of things have been named after him or dedicated to him:

Fictions and games

Tesla is a continuing character in a series of novels by Spider Robinson concerned with Callahan's. The Tesla Coils of the PC games Red Alert and Red Alert 2 are named in his honor. The super person Nikola Tesla is a Japanese comic (manga). The Tesla Cannon in the computer game Blood is a weapon that shoots electric projectiles.

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Nikola Tesla.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nikola Tesla.
English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Further readings and films

  • "Tesla: Master of Lightning". 1999. ISBN 0760710058 (Book) ISBN 0793635497 (PBS Video)
  • Anderson, Leland I., "Dr. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)", 2d enl. ed., Minneapolis, Tesla Society. 1956. LCCN 56047430 /L
  • Childres, David H., "The Fantasic inventions of Nikola Tesla". ISBN 0-932813-19-4
  • Glenn, Jim, "The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla", ISBN 1-566192-66-8
  • Martin, Thomas C., "The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla". ISBN 0-880298-12-X
  • O'Neill, John H., "Prodigal Genius". ISBN 0-914732-33-1
  • Seifer, Marc J., "Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla". ISBN 1-559723-29-7 (HC), ISBN 0-806519-60-6 (SC)
  • Tesla, Nikola, "Colorado Springs Notes, 1899-1900", ISBN 0-899187-82-X
  • Tesla, Nikola, "My Inventions'", ISBN 0-760700-85-0
  • Valone, Thomas, "Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature". ISBN 1-931882-04-5
  • Carlson, W. Bernard, "Inventor of dreams". Scientific American, March 2005 v292 i3 p78(7).
  • Jatras, Stella L., "The genius of Nikola Tesla". The New American, July 28, 2003 v19 i15 p9(1)
  • Rybak, James P., "Nikola Tesla: Scientific Savant". Popular Electronics, 1042170X, Nov99, Vol. 16, Issue 11.
  • Lawren, B., "Rediscovering Tesla". Omni, Mar88, Vol. 10 Issue 6.
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