This web page is deducated to the life and legacy of Nikola Tesla. Here are presented some of the main facts about Tesla. In every section you can find links towards more material. Scroll down, explore and findout more about this great inventor and humanitarian.
Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 into a Serb family in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia).His father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox priest. Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla, whose father was also an Orthodox priest, had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Nikola credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Gymnasium Karlovac, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreIn 1875, Tesla enrolled at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria, on a Military Frontier scholarship. During his first year, Tesla never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams (nearly twice as many required), started a Serbian culture club, and even received a letter of commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated, "Your son is a star of first rank." Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted. He was "mortified when [his] father made light of [those] hard won honors." After his father's death in 1879, Tesla found a package of letters from his professors to his father, warning that unless he were removed from the school, Tesla would be killed through overwork. During his second year, Tesla came into conflict with Professor Poeschl over the Gramme dynamo, when Tesla suggested that commutators weren't necessary.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Graz University of Technology, Tesla's Early Years
Read moreTesla's father has a stroke and dies shortly thereafter. Tesla is forced to drop out of school due to lack of funds. Tesla learns to speak 5 languages. Tesla suffers a nervous breakdown.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Tesla's Early Years, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreIn 1882 Tesla moved to Paris, to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric equipment brought overseas from Edison's ideas.
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Read moreAccording to his autobiography, in the same year he conceived the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields for which he received patents in 1888.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Tesla's Early Years, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreIn 1882, Nikola Tesla identified the rotating magnetic induction field principle used in alternators and pioneered the use of this rotating and inducting electromagnetic field force to generate torque in rotating machines. He exploited this principle in the design of a poly-phase induction motor in 1883. In 1885, Galileo Ferraris independently researched the concept. In 1888, Ferraris published his research in a paper to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Turin.
Introduction of Tesla's motor from 1888 onwards initiated what is sometimes referred to as the Second Industrial Revolution, making possible both the efficient generation and long distance distribution of electrical energy using the alternating current transmission system, also of Tesla's invention (1888). Before widespread use of Tesla's principle of poly-phase induction for rotating machines, all motors operated by continually passing a conductor through a stationary magnetic field (as in homopolar motor).
Initially Tesla suggested that the commutators from a machine could be removed and the device could operate on a rotary field of electromagnetic force. Professor Poeschel, his teacher, stated that would be akin to building a perpetual motion machine. This was because Tesla's teacher had only understood one half of Tesla's ideas. Professor Poeschel had realized that the induced rotating magnetic field would start the rotor of the motor spinning, but he did not see that the counter electromotive force generated would gradually bring the machine to a stop.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla" AC motor, Induction motors, Introduction to AC Motors
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Read moreIn the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreTesla was offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company's direct current generators. In 1885, he said that he could redesign Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy. According to Tesla, Edison remarked, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it." This has been noted as an odd statement from an Edison whose company was stingy with pay and who did not have that sort of cash on hand. After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, saying that he was only joking, replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla's US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreOne of the things Tesla developed at that laboratory in 1887 was an induction motor that ran on alternating current, a power system format that was starting to be built in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882)
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla" AC motor, Induction motors, Introduction to AC Motors, Coming to America
Read moreIn April 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single terminal vacuum tubes (similar to his patent #514,170). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that it had no target electrode.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla" Tesla and X-rays, Tesla Memorial Society of New York, "Roentgen Rays or Streams" by Nikola Tesla, Nikola Tesla and the Discovery of X-rays
Read moreDuring the initial years of electricity distribution, Edison's direct current was the standard for the United States and Edison was not inclined to lose all his patent royalties.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla" War of Currents, Tesla Memorial Society of New York, "AC/DC
Read moreIn 1888, the editor of Electrical World magazine, Thomas Commerford Martin (a friend and publicist), arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his alternating current system, including his induction motor, at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Once thought impossible, Tesla demonstrates a brushless 2 phase 1/5 HP AC motor to the foremost group of Electrical Engineers in the USA.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Transcript of Nikola's Lecture to the American Society of Electrical Engineers
Read moreTesla lights evacuated tubes with no wires, demonstrating possibility of wireless power transmission.
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Read moreOn 30 July 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35.
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Read moreTesla demonstrates system in St. Louis 2 years before Marconi's first demonstration…
Find out more: The Future of the Wireless Art, Possibilities of "Wireless", The True Wireless, Mr. Tesla on the Wireless Transmission of Power,World System of Wireless Transmission of Energy, Nikola Tesla Sees A Wireless Vision, Tesla on Wireless, Nikola Tesla's Plan to Keep "Wireless Thumb" on Ships at Sea, The Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation on the Wireless Transmission of Energy Tesla's Wireless Torpedo, The original Tesla coil, Wireless Electric Lamps, Tesla's Fuelless Generator and Wireless Power Transmission
Read more"Within the room was suspended two hard-rubber plates covered with tin foil. These were about fifteen feet apart, and served as terminals of the wires leading from the transformers. When the current was turned on, the lamps or tubes, which had no wires connected to them, but lay on a table between the suspended plates, or which might be held in the hand in almost any part of the room, were made luminous." - John Patrick Barrett
Find out more: The World's Columbian Exposition
Read moreUsing a conical air-core Tesla Coil, Tesla later achieves 16 foot discharges in his New York City lab
Read moreA fire broke out in the basement of 33-35 South 5th Ave. (now West Broadway) and swept through the entire structure, including Tesla's laboratory, which occupied the entire fourth floor of the six-story building. All of his hundreds of invention models, plans, notes, laboratory data, tools, photographs, valued at $50,000, were destroyed. Tesla is quoted by "The New York Times" as saying, "I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?"
Read moreThe first large generator of the Niagara Falls Power Plant, which bore Tesla's name and patent numbers, was ran at full speed, 250 revolutions per minute, and proved quite satisfactory.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla"
Read moreThe new A.C. power system enjoyed a flawless inauguration, transmitting electricity to Buffalo, New York 22 miles away. It came first to the Buffalo Railway Company - 1,000 horsepower, switched into the company's powerhouses at exactly midnight with a signaling of the event to the city by the firing of cannons, the blowing of steam whistles and the ringing of bells.
The first large generator of the Niagara Falls Power Plant, which bore Tesla's name and patent numbers, was ran at full speed, 250 revolutions per minute, and proved quite satisfactory.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla", Tesla Universe Timeline
Read moreTesla's patents stand the test of time - he is indeed the Father of Radio. Is he?!
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Who invented Radio?, Tesla Invented Radio, Not Marconi!
Read moreThe "War of the Currents" between DC and AC nearly bankrupts Edison and Westinghouse. Tesla gives Westinghouse a break on AC motor royalties, saving the company from bankruptsy.
Read moreTesla publically demonstrates his "automaton" technology by wirelessly controlling a model boat at the Electrical Exposition held at Madison Square Garden in New York City during the height of the Spanish-American War.
Find out more: The Future of the Wireless Art, Possibilities of "Wireless", The True Wireless, Mr. Tesla on the Wireless Transmission of Power,World System of Wireless Transmission of Energy, Nikola Tesla Sees A Wireless Vision, Tesla on Wireless, Nikola Tesla's Plan to Keep "Wireless Thumb" on Ships at Sea, The Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation on the Wireless Transmission of Energy Tesla's Wireless Torpedo, The original Tesla coil, Wireless Electric Lamps, Tesla Universe Timeline
Read moreBasically the same approach that's used in today's internal combustion engines.
Read moreIn 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments.
Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla's diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground's telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves. At his lab, Tesla proved that the earth was a conductor, and he produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts, and up to 135 feet long). Tesla also investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. Reproductions of Tesla's receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity (e.g., distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques). Tesla stated that he observed stationary waves during this time.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, From Colorado to Long Island: Research Notes
Read more"As soon as [the Wardenclyffe facility is] completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment." - Nikola Tesla
Wardenclyffe 200 kW system is funded by $150,000 from J. Pierpont Morgan (51%) - Morgan is told that the system is for radio communication.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Tower of Dreams, Tesla, a Little-Recognized Genius, Left Mark in Shoreham, Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower, Tesla Science Center at Wandenclyffe
Read moreApril 8, 1903 “. . . you have raised great waves in the industrial world and some have struck my little boat. Prices have gone up in consequence twice, perhaps three times higher than they were. . .”
Morgan was not agreeable to advancing additional funds.
April 22, 1903 “. . . You have extended me a noble help at a time when Edison, Marconi, Pupin, Fleming, and many others openly ridiculed my undertaking and declared its success impossible. . .”
No change in Morgan’s position. Tesla must now be candid to the point that his true aim was a mark much higher than that originally presented — that is, the wireless transmission of power.
July 3, 1903 “. . . If I would have told you such as this before, you would have fired me out of your office. . . Will you help me or let my great work — almost complete — go to pots? . . .”
The answer — July 14, 1903 N. Tesla, Esq. “I have received your letter . . . and in reply would say that I should not feel disposed at present to make any further advances.” J. P. Morgan
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Wardenclyffe — A Forfeited Dream, Wardenclyffe Today!, Tesla Science Center at Wandenclyffe
Read moreThe US Patent Office reverses itself, wrongly awarding Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio! Tesla begins his fight as the inventor of radio.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla, Who invented Radio?, Tesla Invented Radio, Not Marconi!
Read moreTesla made great efforts to obtain funding for the Wardenclyffe project after J.P. Morgan withdrew his support, but was unsuccessful. Unable to pay his employees, he was forced to lay them off and construction of the tower ceases.
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Read moreIn an article published on his 50th birthday, Tesla announced his bladeless turbine to the world. The invention was based on adhesion and viscosity, two fundamental properties of all fluids.
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Read moreIt had been just over ten years since Tesla lectured on X-rays before the New York Academy of Sciences when they elected him as an active member.
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Read moreEager to locate alternate funding for the Wardenclyffe project, Tesla opens an office at 165 Broadway, which is now 1 Liberty Plaza, and begins work on other inventions such as propulsion systems and the vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
Find out more: The Electric Wizard, Nikola Who?
Read moreThe 1909 Nobel Prize for physics is shared between Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." Tesla is furious and intensifies his long battle to correct the injustice.
Read moreOver a period of several months, Tesla tests numerous models of steam turbines at the Waterside Station of the New York Edison Company. When interviewed about the tests, Tesla stated, "In one of them the disks are only nine inches in diameter and the whole working part is two inches thick. With steam as the propulsive fluid it develops 110 horse power, and could do twice as much.".
Read moreWesthinghouse, Church, Kerr & Company removed the machinery from the building, as part of their judgment of $23,500.
Read more"The New York Times," followed by other prominent news sources, carried a story, based upon a Reuters dispatch from London, stating that Tesla and Edison were to share the Nobel Prize in physics. Both Tesla and Edison told reporters they had received no official notification of the award. A few days later the Nobel Committee announced that the prize for physics would, in fact, be shared by Professor William Henry Bragg of the University of Leeds, England and his son. The committee did not deny that Tesla and Edison were the first choices, but never made public the true reason for the change. Some speculate that either Tesla or Edison or both refused to share the prize with the other.
Find out more: Nikola Tesla: Scientific Savant, The Man Who Invented Tomorrow, Project Tesla - In Search of an Answer to Our Energy Needs
Read moreIn order to keep a roof over his head, Tesla had given two mortgages on Wardenclyffe to George C. Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria, to secure payment of hotel bills amounting to almost $19,000.00. Tesla requested that they not be recorded, fearing that all his projects would be destroyed if the matter became public. He was unable to make any payments at all, and was forced to sign the deed over to Waldorf-Astoria, Inc., through a silent intermediary.
Read moreEven though Tesla had some minor successes, he continued to fall deeper and deeper into debt primarily due to his high overhead. He was called into the state supreme court for $935.00 in unpaid taxes on the Wardenclyffe property. Under oath before Justice Finch, Tesla revealed that he was essentially penniless and owned no real assets. "New York World" ran an embarrassing article exposing Tesla's financial crisis.
Read moreOriginally rejecting the offer of the AIEE's highest award, Tesla reconsiders and accepts after being encouraged by Bernard A. Behrend. During the introduction, Tesla disappears and is later found at the library feeding his beloved pigeons. He is persuaded to return and gives his acceptance speech.
Read moreReported in the media as being suspected of being used by German spies, the tower was actually ordered to be destroyed to cover debts incurred by Tesla at the Waldorf Astoria where he lived for almost 20 years.
Find out more: A History of Tesla's Laboratory
Read moreIn the August 1917 edition of "Electrical Experimenter" magazine, Tesla stated, "For instance, by their (standing electromagnetic waves) use we may produce at will, from a sending station, an electrical effect in any particular region of the globe; (with which) we may determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the same, or its speed."
Find out more: The Greatest Hacker of All Time (Parts 1 & 2), Tesla: a scientific saint, wizard or carnival sideman?
Read more"Electrical Experimenter" magazine began a series of articles entitled "My Inventions" by Tesla. An illustration of Tesla was also featured on the cover of the issue with the initial article. To persuade the great Tesla to write his own autobiography was no small feat, and editor Hugo Gernsback considered it one of his greatest journalistic achievements. The articles were later converted into the book with the same title.
Read moreTesla, on his 75th birthday, received many congratulatory letters from prominent scientists, including Albert Einstein. "Time" magazine honored the great inventor by placing his portrait on the cover.
Read moreAn article by Tesla called "Possibilities of Electro-Static Generators" is published in "Scientific American" which features "Colossus," a two-million volt Van de Graff generator which is now on display at the Boston Museum of Science.
Read moreThe City of Philadelphia awarded Nikola Tesla with the John Scott Medal for the invention of the rotating magnetic field and induction motor.
Find out more: A Machine to End War, Tesla: a scientific saint, wizard or carnival sideman?
Read moreThe headline on the front page of "The New York Times" read, "TESLA, AT 78, BARES NEW 'DEATH BEAM.'" The article reported that the new invention "will send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles..." Tesla stated that the death beam would make war impossible by offering every country an "invisible Chinese wall."
Read moreIn a "Liberty" magazine article entitled "A Machine to End War," G.S. Viereck, a friend of Tesla's and a Nazi spokesperson, reported on what Tesla believed the world would be like in the years 2035 and 2100.
Read moreTesla died quietly and alone in room #3327 on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker in New York City. The coroner would later estimate the time of death at 22:30 EST. Tesla was 86 years old.
Find out more: 2,000 Are Present At Tesla Funeral, 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Nikola Tesla
Read moreThe first true glimpse into Tesla's life came to most of us through this book. Although there are many known errors, mistakes, etc. the book portrays Tesla very accurately. Author John J. O'Neill originally met Tesla as a boy and knew him for many years. Tesla is quoted as saying, "John O'Neill understands me better than any man alive."
Read moreJust after World War II, there was a renewed interest in beam weapons. Copies of Tesla's papers on particle beam weaponry were sent to Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. An operation code-named "Project Nick" was heavily funded and placed under the command of Brigadier General L. C. Craigie to test the feasibility of Tesla's concept. Details of the experiments were never published, and the project was apparently discontinued. But something peculiar happened. The copies of Tesla's papers disappeared, and no one knows what happened to them.
Find out more: The Missing Papers, HAARP: Wooden Lightning, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
Read moreMinor planet #2244 was discovered and named after Tesla by M.B. Protitch in Belgrade.
Read moreThe Nikola Tesla Museum was founded on December 5, 1952 under the Decision of Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia. The museum preserves around 160,000 original documents and around 5,700 other items. The person most responsible for establishing the museum was Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanović, who was also a diplomat and lobbied to obtain Tesla's estate after his death."
Read moreThe Nikola Tesla Museum was founded on December 5, 1952 under the Decision of Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia. The museum preserves around 160,000 original documents and around 5,700 other items. The person most responsible for establishing the museum was Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanović, who was also a diplomat and lobbied to obtain Tesla's estate after his death."
Read moreTesla was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of the Electro-magnetic Motor / Alternating Current.
Read moreThe IEEE Nikola Tesla Award is an annual award given to a team or to an individual that has made an outstanding contribution to the generation or utilization of electric power. It is awarded by a Technical Field Awards Council of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The award was established in 1975, and its first recipient was Leon T. Rosenberg, who was given the award in 1976 "for his half-century of development and design of large steam turbine-driven generators and his important contributions to literature." The actual award is a plaque and honorarium.
Read moreDiscover more about Nikola Tesla: TeslaUniverse, The Oatmeal, , Tesla Science Center