Mr. Nikola Tesla, a world renowned physicist, is responsible for most of the things that make modern life so modern, He was awarded 111 patents over the course of his lifetime. Nikola Tesla was a man of considerable genius and visionary in science and Technology in the 20th century. Without him our radio and television, auto ignition, telephone, alternating current power would all have been impossible. Mr. Tesla was born in Croatia which was part of Austria-Hungary back then on July 9, 1856. He was the electrical engineer who invented the AC motor.
Tesla was an avid reader and was very passionate about mathematics and science. His father Milutin was a Serbian Orthodox priest. His mother descended from eight generations of Serbian Orthodox priests. He credited his incredible imagination to his mother Duka, who often invented appliances, including a mechanical eggbeater to help her with home and farm work. (Huso) Nikola persuaded his father to allow him to attend the Austrian Polytechnic School to study engineering.
After graduating he worked for the National Telegraph Co. in Budapest, then he moved to Paris and began work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Co. an overseas company of Thomas Edison. Harris page 2 Nikola Tesla was so passionate about discovering and inventing that he was awarded many patents for his inventions. After working in Paris Tesla decided to go to the USA and work for Thomas Edison. He became determined to meet the man considered the greatest electrical engineer in the world, Thomas Edison. He was hoping to find a partner and supporter in the very respected and well known inventor. At age 28, Tesla set off for New York City, with very little money in his pocket. In 1884 he started working for The Edison Machine Works Corp.
Tesla tried to convince Edison of the advantages of using alternating current rather than direct current in many electrical devices. (UXL Science) He found New York City an ugly and dangerous place, with wires everywhere carrying the DC current that had begun to power the city in the 1870s. Tesla felt there was a better and safer way to generate electricity, but when he walked into Edison’s office, the older engineer considered Tesla’s ideas a big competition for him. He did, however, take Tesla up on his offer to improve Edison’s DC generation plants. Tesla said Edison offered him $50,000 if he could do it.
When Tesla completed the DC plant improvements, The $50,000 dollar offer had been a complete joke by Edison. Tesla was so mad that he promptly resigned and set out on his own. (Huso) Tesla experimented with radio technology, X-rays, invented the first remote controlled boat and was a great promoter of wireless communication. By selling his rights to the polyphase alternating current power system to George Westinghouse, Tesla did little for Edison to like him. Harris page 3 The Westinghouse Electric Company quickly began promoting the AC system, competing against Edison’s older DC system.
To gain acceptance for AC power, Westinghouse and Tesla carried out numerous demonstrations, including using it to power an electrical exhibition event in the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. They were rivals but the Tesla-Westinghouse approach gradually became the dominant means of providing power throughout the country. (Magnet Academy) Tesla had many inventions. Money he earned from his involvement with Westinghouse allowed Tesla to set up his own laboratory, where he carried out studies in many areas and invented a variety of novel devices.
Some of his most famous ones were Rotating Magnetic Field, the AC motor, the Tesla Coil, and the Radio. Tesla’s was first challenged when a professor in his native country told him it was impossible to create a motor powered by alternating current instead of direct current. Tesla was very intrigued and after two years of experimenting in his mind, the solution came to him like a bolt of lightning: a rotating magnetic field that would allow alternating current to power an engine without being first converted to direct current. (Wilson, Tracy V. How Stuff Works.
Tesla was planning in his head the AC motor until he could actually build one in the future. The alternating current created magnetic poles that reversed themselves without mechanical aid, as DC motors required, and caused the revolving part of any electromechanical device to whirl around the motor. This was his rotating magnetic field put into practice as a motor. ; Two years passed and he was able to use it in AC generators and transformers as well. (Wilson, Tracy V. How Stuff Works. ) Harris page 4 The Tesla coil that he named after himself was used in demonstrations held in his New York City lab.
The coil used polyphase alternating currents, another of Tesla’s discoveries, to create a transformer capable of producing very high voltages. It brought forth impressive crackling sparks and sheets of electric flame that impressed society. They are primarily used for entertainment today. (Wilson, Tracy V. How Stuff Works. ) Tesla first sent a wireless Radio transmission from his lab at Houston Street in New York City to a boat on the Hudson River — 25 miles (40 km) away — in 1897. Tesla invented everything we associate with radio; antennas, tuners and related.
Tesla built on these discoveries and inventions to create the first wireless remote control boat, fluorescent and neon lights which he actually bend into letters, wireless bulbs that were lit by energy from the earth, and an AC power plant that harnessed the hydroelectric power of Niagara Falls. He even had a hand in the creation of robotics. His system of delivering power to homes and businesses using AC overpowered the DC power promoted by his former employer Thomas Edison. Till this day we still receive AC power in our homes.
By the time Tesla died in 1943 his inventions and discoveries had made much of our current technology possible. Harris Page 5 Many of Tesla’s ideas were ahead of their time. In 1898 he introduced a ‘teleautomaton’ aquatic vehicle at an exhibition at Madison Square Garden that seemed to respond to commands to move, stop or turn. It was so incredible and unbelievable that Tesla had installed a battery, motor and the necessary circuitry in the boat to radio-control its movement. A submarine version was later demonstrated but Tesla received little commercial or military interest in either version.
More than a century later, with the advances in drone technology, Tesla is now being called “the father of unmanned vehicle technology. ”. (NATURE PHOTONICS ) Besides his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla has contributed to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar, and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics and theoretical physics. Here is how Tesla explained his creative process: “Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally. In my mind I change the onstruction, make improvements, and even operate the device. ” (Lucidcafe Library)
Nikola Tesla’s life story is one of the most vivid examples of a great genius and a true passion for science. Tesla made a huge contribution to American society in science and technology. A day does not pass by that we should not think of him. Everytime we see a neon sign in a window, hold a remote control, play with a remote controlled toy, and use our electricity in our homes and schools and what the future is showing in Drone technology know that he was a grand part of it
