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Nikola Tesla

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Astronomers and
physicists; Engineers and inventors

   CAPTION: Nikola Tesla
   Никола Тесла

   I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive
   device.
      Born:    10 July 1856
               Smiljan, Military Frontier, Austrian Empire
      Died:    January 7, 1943
               New York City, New York, USA
   Occupation: inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical
               engineer

   Nikola Tesla ( Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла) ( 10 July 1856 - 7
   January 1943) was a world-renowned Serb-American inventor, physicist,
   mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. Tesla is regarded as one
   of the most important inventors in history. He is well known for his
   contributions to the discipline of electricity and magnetism in the
   late 19th and early 20th century. Tesla's patents and theoretical work
   form the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC)
   systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC
   motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.

   In the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor
   or scientist in history or popular culture. After his demonstration of
   wireless communication in 1893 and after being the victor in the " War
   of Currents", he was widely respected as America's greatest electrical
   engineer. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical
   engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking
   importance. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited
   him as being the inventor of the radio. Never putting much focus on his
   finances, Tesla died impoverished and forgotten at the age of 86.

   His contribution was recognised and the derived SI unit measuring
   magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the
   magnetic field B\, ), the tesla, was named in his honour (at the
   Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960).

   Tesla's legacy can be seen across the modern world wherever electricity
   is used. Aside from his work on electromagnetism and engineering, Tesla
   is said to have contributed in varying degrees to the fields of
   robotics, ballistics, computer science, nuclear physics, and
   theoretical physics. In his later years, Tesla was regarded as a mad
   scientist and became noted for making bizarre claims about possible
   scientific developments. Many of his achievements have been used, with
   some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and
   New Age occultism. Contemporary admirers of Tesla have deemed him "the
   man who invented the twentieth century."

Early years

   According to legend, Tesla was born precisely at midnight during an
   electrical storm, to a Serb family in the village of Smiljan near
   Gospić, in the Lika region of the Austrian Empire, located in
   present-day Croatia. His baptism certificate reports that he was born
   on June 28 [ N.S. July 10], 1856, and christened by the Serbian
   Orthodox priest Toma Oklobdžija. His father was Rev. Milutin Tesla, a
   priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitanate of Sremski
   Karlovci. His mother was Đuka Mandić, herself a daughter of a Serbian
   Orthodox Church priest. She was talented in making home craft tools.
   She memorized many Serbian epic poems, but never learned to read. His
   godfather, Jovan Drenovac, was a captain in the army protecting the
   Military Frontier. Tesla was one of five children, having one brother
   (Dane, who was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five)
   and three sisters (Milka, Angelina and Marica). His family moved to
   Gospić in 1862. Tesla went to school in Karlovac, Croatia then studied
   electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria
   (1875). While there, he studied the uses of alternating current. He
   attended only through the first semester of his junior year and did not
   graduate. He then attended the Charles-Ferdinand branch of the
   University of Prague for one summer term where he studied physics and
   higher mathematics.
   Nikola Tesla as a young man
   Enlarge
   Nikola Tesla as a young man

   Tesla engaged in reading many works, memorizing complete books. He had
   a photographic memory. Tesla related in his autobiography that he
   experienced detailed moments of inspiration. During his early life,
   Tesla was stricken with illness time and time again. He suffered a
   peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light would appear
   before his eyes, often accompanied by hallucinations. Much of the time
   the visions were linked to a word or idea he might come across; just by
   hearing the name of an item, he would involuntarily envision it in
   realistic detail. Modern-day synesthetes report similar symptoms. Tesla
   would visualise an invention in his brain in precise form before moving
   to the construction stage; a technique which is sometimes known as
   picture thinking. Tesla also often had flashbacks to events that had
   happened previously in his life, this began to happen during childhood.

Hungary and France

   In 1881 he moved to Budapest, Hungary, to work for a telegraph company,
   the American Telephone Company. There, he met Nebojša Petrović, then a
   young inventor from Austria. Although their encounter was brief, they
   did work on a project together using twin turbines to create continual
   power. On the opening of the telephone exchange in Budapest, 1881,
   Tesla became the chief electrician to the company, and was later
   engineer for the country's first telephone system. He also developed a
   device that, according to some, was a telephone repeater or amplifier,
   but according to others could have been the first loudspeaker. For a
   while he stayed in Maribor, Slovenia, where he was first employed as an
   assistant engineer. He suffered a nervous breakdown during this time.
   In 1882 he moved to Paris, France to work as an engineer for the
   Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric
   equipment. In the same year, Tesla conceived of the induction motor and
   began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (for
   which he received patents in 1888).

   Soon thereafter, Tesla hastened from Paris to his mother's side as she
   lay dying, arriving hours before her death in 1882. Her last words to
   him were, "You've arrived, Nidžo, my pride." After her death, Tesla
   fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating in Gospić and the
   village of Tomingaj near Gračac, Croatia, the birthplace of his mother.

United States

   In 1884, when Tesla first arrived in the US, he had little besides a
   letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, his manager in his
   previous job. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Charles
   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 company
   Edison Machine Works. Tesla's work for Edison began with simple
   electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving the company's
   most difficult problems. Tesla was offered the task of a complete
   redesign of the Edison company's direct current generators.

   In 1919 Tesla wrote that Edison offered him the then-staggering sum of
   $50,000 (almost $1 million today, adjusted for inflation ) if he
   completed the motor and generator improvements. Tesla said he 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 reportedly replied to him, "Tesla, you don't
   understand our American humor," and reneged on his promise. Tesla
   resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week. At Tesla's salary
   of $18 per week the bonus would have amounted to over 53 years pay, and
   the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company. He
   eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time--
   ironically for the Edison company. Edison had also never wanted to hear
   about Tesla's AC polyphase designs, believing that DC electricity was
   the future. Tesla focused intently on his AC polyphase system, even
   while digging ditches.
   Electromechanical devices and principles developed by Nikola Tesla :
     __________________________________________________________________

     * Various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (1882)
     * The Induction motor, rotary transformers, and "high" frequency
       alternators
     * The Tesla coil, his magnifying transmitter, and other means for
       increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations (including
       condenser discharge transformations and the Tesla oscillator)
     * Alternating current long-distance electrical transmission system
       (1888) and other methods and devices for power transmission
     * Systems for wireless communication ( prior art for the invention of
       radio) and radio frequency oscillators
     * Robotics and the "AND" logic gate
     * Electrotherapy Tesla currents
     * Tesla impedance phenonomena
     * Tesla effect and the Tesla electro static field
     * Tesla principle
     * Bifilar coil
     * Telegeodynamics
     * Tesla insulation
     * Forms of commutators and methods of regulating third brushes
     * Tesla turbines (eg., bladeless turbines) for water, steam, and gas
     * Tesla pumps
     * Tesla igniter
     * Tesla compressor
     * X-rays Tubes using the bremsstrahlung process
     * Devices for ionized gases
     * Devices for high field emission
     * Devices for charged particle beams
     * Arc light systems
     * Methods for providing extremely low level of resistance to the
       passage of electrical current (predecessor to superconductivity)
     * Voltage multiplication circuitry
     * Devices for high voltage discharges
     * Devices for lightning protection
     * VTOL aircraft
     * Dynamic theory of gravity
     * Concepts for electric vehicles
     * Polyphase systems

Middle years

   In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light &
   Manufacturing. The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on
   his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him
   of his duties at the company. 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 alternating
   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 Electric & Manufacturing Company's
   Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase
   systems which would allow transmission of alternating current
   electricity over large distances.

   In April of 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called
   X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his patent
   #514170). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that
   they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomenon
   produced by this device is bremsstrahlung (or braking radiation). We
   now know that this device operated by emitting electrons from the
   single electrode through a combination of field emission and thermionic
   emission. Once liberated, electrons are strongly repelled by the high
   electric field near the electrode during negative voltage peaks from
   the oscillating HV output of the Tesla Coil, generating X-rays as they
   collide with the glass envelope. He also used Geissler tubes. By 1892,
   Tesla became aware of what Wilhelm Röntgen later identified as effects
   of X-rays.

   Tesla commented on the hazards of working with single node X-ray
   producing devices, incorrectly 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). Tesla later observed
   an assistant severely "burnt" by X-rays in his lab. He performed
   several experiments prior to Röntgen's discovery (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 5th Avenue lab fire of March 1895.

   On July 30, 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States
   at the age of 35. Tesla established his 35 South Fifth Avenue
   laboratory in New York during this same year. Later, Tesla would
   establish his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston
   Street. He lit vacuum tubes wirelessly at both of the New York
   locations, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power
   transmission. Some of Tesla's closest friends were artists. He
   befriended Century Magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, who
   adapted several Serbian poems of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (which Tesla
   translated). Also during this time, Tesla was influenced by the Vedic
   philosophy teachings of the Swami Vivekananda.
   Nikola Tesla's generation system using AC circuits to transport energy
   across great distances. It is contained in US390721.
   Enlarge
   Nikola Tesla's generation system using AC circuits to transport energy
   across great distances. It is contained in US390721.

   When Tesla 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. 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. Tesla's
   demonstrations were written about widely through various media outlets.

   At the 1893 World's Fair, the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago,
   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. On display were Tesla's fluorescent lights
   and single node bulbs. Tesla also 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".

   Also in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries in part due
   to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power
   distribution over the more efficient alternating current advocated by
   Tesla and Westinghouse. Until Tesla invented the induction motor, AC 's
   advantages for long distance high voltage transmission were
   counterbalanced by the inability to operate motors on AC. 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 patent royalties. Also in
   1897, Tesla researched radiation which led to setting up the basic
   formulation of cosmic rays.

   When Tesla was 41 years old, he filed the first basic radio patent (
   U.S. Patent 645576). 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. Tesla developed the "Art of
   Telautomatics", a form of robotics. In 1898, a radio-controlled boat
   was 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 1960s. In the same year, Tesla devised an "electric igniter" or
   spark plug for Internal combustion gasoline engines. He gained U.S.
   Patent 609250, "Electrical Igniter for Gas Engines", on this mechanical
   ignition system. Tesla lived in the former Gerlach Hotel, renamed The
   Radio Wave building, at 49 W 27th St. (between Broadway and Sixth
   Avenue), Lower Manhattan, before the end of the century where he
   conducted the radio wave experiments. A commemorative plaque was placed
   on the building in 1977 to honour his work.

Colorado Springs

   Publicity picture of a participant sitting in his laboratory in
   Colorado Springs with his "Magnifying Transmitter" generating millions
   of volts of electricity. The arcs are about 7 meters (22 ft) long.
   (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)
   Enlarge
   Publicity picture of a participant sitting in his laboratory in
   Colorado Springs with his " Magnifying Transmitter" generating millions
   of volts of electricity. The arcs are about 7 meters (22 ft) long.
   (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)

   In 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. In the Colorado Springs
   lab, he "recorded" signals of what he believed were extraterrestrial
   radio signals, though these announcements and his data were rejected by
   the scientific community. He noted measurements of repetitive signals
   from his receiver which are substantially different from the signals he
   had noted from storms and earth noise. Specifically, he later recalled
   that the signals appeared in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks
   together. Tesla spent the latter part of his life trying to signal
   Mars. In 1996 Corum and Corum published an analysis of Jovian plasma
   torus signals which 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.

   Tesla left Colorado Springs on January 7, 1900. The lab was torn down
   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. Tesla was
   granted U.S. Patent 685012 for the means of increasing the intensity of
   electrical oscillations. The United States Patent Office classification
   system currently assigns this patent to the primary Class 178/43
   ("telegraphy/space induction"), although the other applicable classes
   include 505/825 ("low temperature superconductivity-related
   apparatus").

Later years

   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. The tower
   was finally dismantled for scrap during World War One. Newspapers of
   the time labeled Wardenclyffe "Tesla's million-dollar folly." In 1904,
   the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo
   Marconi the patent for radio, and Tesla began his fight to re-acquire
   the radio patent. 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.

   Since the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marconi for radio in
   1909, Thomas Edison and Tesla were mentioned as potential laureates to
   share the Nobel Prize of 1915 in a press dispatch, leading to one of
   several Nobel Prize controversies. Some sources have claimed that due
   to their animosity toward each other neither was given the award,
   despite their enormous scientific contributions, and that each sought
   to minimize the other one's achievements and right to win the award,
   that both refused to ever accept the award if the other received it
   first, and that both rejected any possibility of sharing it. In the
   following events after the rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the
   prize (although Edison did receive one of 38 possible bids in 1915, and
   Tesla did receive one bid out of 38 in 1937). Earlier, Tesla alone was
   rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize of 1912. The rumored
   nomination was primarily for his experiments with tuned circuits using
   high-voltage high-frequency resonant transformers.

   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. After Wardenclyffe, Tesla
   built the Telefunken Wireless Station in Sayville, Long Island. Some of
   what he wanted to achieve at Wardenclyffe was accomplished with the
   Telefunken Wireless. In 1917, the facility was seized and torn down by
   the Marines, because it was suspected that it could be used by German
   spies.

   Prior to World War I, Tesla looked overseas for investors to fund his
   research. When the war started, Tesla lost the funding he was receiving
   from his European patents. After the war ended, Tesla made predictions
   regarding the relevant issues of the post-World War I environment, in a
   printed article ( December 20, 1914). Tesla believed that the League of
   Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues. Tesla started to
   exhibit pronounced symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the
   years following. He became obsessed with the number three; he often
   felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a
   building, demanded a stack of three folded, cloth napkins beside his
   plate at every meal, etc. The nature of OCD was little understood at
   the time and no treatments were available, so his symptoms were
   considered by some to be evidence of partial insanity, and this
   undoubtedly hurt what was left of his reputation.

   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, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria to
   pay a $20,000 debt. In 1917, around the time that the Wardenclyffe
   Tower was demolished by Boldt to make the land a more viable real
   estate asset, Tesla received AIEE's highest honour, the Edison Medal.

   Tesla, in August 1917, first established principles regarding frequency
   and power level for the first primitive RADAR units. In 1934, Émile
   Girardeau, working with the first French RADAR systems, stated he was
   building RADAR systems "conceived according to the principles stated by
   Tesla". By the twenties, Tesla was reportedly negotiating with the
   United Kingdom government about a ray system. Tesla had also stated
   that efforts had been made to steal the so called "death ray". It is
   suggested that the removal of the Chamberlain government ended
   negotiations.
   Nikola Tesla, with Rudjer Boscovich's book Theoria Philosophiae
   Naturalis, sits in front of the spiral coil of his high-frequency
   transformer at East Houston Street, New York.
   Enlarge
   Nikola Tesla, with Rudjer Boscovich's book Theoria Philosophiae
   Naturalis, sits in front of the spiral coil of his high-frequency
   transformer at East Houston Street, New York.

   On Tesla's seventy-fifth birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him on its
   cover. The cover caption noted his contribution to electrical power
   generation. Tesla received his last patent in 1928 for an apparatus for
   aerial transportation which was the first instance of VTOL aircraft. In
   1934, Tesla wrote to consul Janković of his homeland. The letter
   contained the message of gratitude to Mihajlo Pupin who initiated a
   donation scheme by which American companies could support Tesla. Tesla
   refused the assistance, and chose to live by a modest pension received
   from Yugoslavia and to continue researching.

Field theories

   When he was 81, Tesla stated he had completed a dynamic theory of
   gravity. He stated that it was "worked out in all details" and that he
   hoped to soon give it to the world. The theory was never published. At
   the time of his announcement, it was considered by the scientific
   establishment to exceed the bounds of reason. Most believe that Tesla
   never fully developed the Unified Field Theory.

   The bulk of the theory was developed between 1892 and 1894, during the
   period that he was conducting experiments with high frequency and high
   potential electromagnetism and patenting devices for their utilization.
   It was completed, according to Tesla, by the end of the 1930s. Tesla's
   theory explained gravity using electrodynamics consisting of transverse
   waves (to a lesser extent) and longitudinal waves (for the majority).
   Reminiscent of Mach's principle, Tesla stated in 1925 that,

          There is no thing endowed with life - from man, who is enslaving
          the elements, to the nimblest creature - in all this world that
          does not sway in its turn. Whenever action is born from force,
          though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance is upset and the
          universal motion results.

   Tesla, concerning Albert Einstein's relativity theory, stated that
   '...the relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present
   proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious
   countryman Ruđer Bošković, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding
   other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of excellent
   literature on a vast variety of subjects. Bošković dealt with
   relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum...'.

   Tesla was critical of Einstein's relativity work,

          ...[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles
          and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is
          like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a
          king...., its exponents are brilliant men but they are
          metaphysicists rather than scientists....

   Tesla also stated that:

          I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that
          it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has
          properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our
          own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with
          matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large
          bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that
          something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe
          to such a view.

Directed-energy weapon

   Later in life, Tesla made some remarkable claims concerning a "
   teleforce" weapon The press called it a "peace ray" or death ray. In
   total, the components and methods included:
    1. An apparatus for producing manifestations of energy in free air
       instead of in a high vacuum as in the past. This, according to
       Tesla in 1934, was accomplished.
    2. A mechanism for generating tremendous electrical force. This,
       according to Tesla, was also accomplished.
    3. A means of intensifying and amplifying the force developed by the
       second mechanism.
    4. A new method for producing a tremendous electrical repelling force.
       This would be the projector, or gun, of the invention.

   Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon between the early
   1900s till the time of his death. In 1937, Tesla composed a treatise
   entitled "The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy
   through the Natural Media" concerning charged particle beams. Tesla
   published the document in an attempt to expound on the technical
   description of a " superweapon that would put an end to all war". This
   treatise of the particle beam is currently in the Nikola Tesla Museum
   archive in Belgrade. It described an open ended vacuum tube with a gas
   jet seal that allowed particles to exit, a method of charging particles
   to millions of volts, and a method of creating and directing
   nondispersive particle streams (through electrostatic repulsion).

   Records of his indicate that it was based on a narrow stream of atomic
   clusters of liquid mercury or tungsten accelerated via high voltage (by
   means akin to his magnifying transformer). Tesla gave the following
   description concerning the particle gun's operation:

          [The nozzle would] "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 200
          miles from a defending nation's border and will cause armies to
          drop dead in their tracks". The weapon could be used against
          ground based infantry or for antiaircraft purposes.

   Tesla tried to interest the US War Department in the device. He also
   offered this invention to European countries. None of the governments
   purchased a contract to build the device. He was unable to act on his
   plans.

Theoretical inventions

   Tesla began to theorize about electricity and magnetism's power to
   warp, or rather change, space and time and the procedure by which man
   could forcibly control this power. Near the end of his life, Tesla was
   fascinated with the idea of light as both a particle and a wave, a
   fundamental proposition already incorporated into quantum physics. This
   field of inquiry led to the idea of creating a "wall of light" by
   manipulating electromagnetic waves in a certain pattern. This
   mysterious wall of light would enable time, space, gravity and matter
   to be altered at will, and engendered an array of Tesla proposals that
   seem to leap straight out of science fiction, including anti-gravity
   airships, teleportation, and time travel. The single strangest
   invention Tesla ever proposed was probably the "thought photography"
   machine. He reasoned that a thought formed in the mind created a
   corresponding image in the retina, and the electrical data of this
   neural transmission could be read and recorded in a machine. The stored
   information could then be processed through an artificial optic nerve
   and played back as visual patterns on a viewscreen.

   Another of Tesla's theorized inventions is commonly referred to as
   Tesla's Flying Machine. Tesla claimed that one of his life goals was to
   create a flying machine that would run without the use of an airplane
   engine, wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source.
   Initially, Tesla pondered about the idea of a flying craft that would
   fly using an electric motor powered by grounded base stations. As time
   progressed, Tesla suggested that perhaps such an aircraft could be run
   entirely mechanically. The theorized appearance would typically take
   the form of a cigar or saucer. This fact later enticed UFO conspiracy
   theorists.

Death and afterwards

   Tesla died of heart failure alone in the New Yorker Hotel, some time
   between the evening of January 5 and the morning of January 8, 1943, at
   the age of 86. Despite selling his AC electricity patents, Tesla was
   essentially destitute and died with significant debts. Later that year
   the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number 645,576 in effect
   recognizing him as the inventor of radio.

   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. His
   safe at the hotel was also opened. At the time of his death, Tesla had
   been continuing work on the teleforce weapon, or death ray, that he had
   unsuccessfully marketed to the US War Department. It appears that his
   proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and
   plasma and was composed of a particle beam weapon. The US government
   did not find a prototype of the device in the safe. After the FBI was
   contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top
   secret. The so-called "peace ray" constitutes a part of some conspiracy
   theories as a means of destruction. The personal effects were seized on
   the advice of presidential advisors, and J. Edgar Hoover declared the
   case "most secret", because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and
   patents. One document states that "[he] is reported to have some 80
   trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to
   do with his experiments [...]". Charlotte Muzar reported that there
   were several "missing" papers and property.
   Statue of Nikola Tesla in Niagara Falls State Park
   Enlarge
   Statue of Nikola Tesla in Niagara Falls State Park

   Tesla's family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American
   authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential
   significance of some of his research. Eventually, his nephew, Sava
   Kosanoviċ, got possession of some of his personal effects which are now
   housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Tesla's funeral
   took place on January 12, 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the
   Divine in Manhattan, New York City. After the funeral, his body was
   cremated. His ashes were taken to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn
   was placed in the Nikola Tesla Museum, where it resides to this day.

   Tesla did not like to pose for portraits. He did it only once for
   princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, but that portrait is lost. His wish was
   to have a sculpture made by his close friend, Croat, Ivan Meštrović,
   who was at that time in United States, but he died before getting a
   chance to see it. Meštrović made a bronze bust (1952) that is held in
   the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and a statue (1955/56) placed at
   the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb. This statue was moved to Nikola
   Tesla Street in Zagreb's city centre on the 150th anniversary of
   Tesla's birth, with the Ruđer Bošković Institute to receive a
   duplicate. In 1976, a bronze statue of Tesla was placed at Niagara
   Falls, New York. A similar statue was also erected in his hometown of
   Gospić in 1986.

   The year of 2006 was proclaimed by UNESCO, as well as the governments
   of Croatia and Serbia, to be the year of Nikola Tesla. At the 150th
   anniversary of Tesla's birth, July 10th 2006, the renovated village of
   Smiljan (which had been demolished during the wars of the 1990s) was
   opened to the public along with Tesla's house (as a memorial museum)
   and a new multimedia center dedicated to the life and work of Nikola
   Tesla. The parochial church of St. Peter and Paul, where Tesla's father
   had held services, was renovated as well. The museum and multimedia
   centre are filled with replicas of Tesla's work. The museum has
   collected almost all of the papers ever published by, and about, Nikola
   Tesla, most of these provided by Ljubo Vujovic from the Tesla Memorial
   Society in New York. Alongside Tesla's house, a monument created by
   sculptor Mile Blazevic has been erected. In the nearby city of Gospić,
   on the same date as the reopening of the renovated village and museums,
   a higher education school named Nikola Tesla was opened, and a replica
   of the statue of Tesla made by Frano Krsinic (the original is in
   Belgrade) was presented.

   In the years after, many of his innovations, theories and claims have
   been used, at times unsuitably and with some controversy, to support
   various fringe theories that are regarded as unscientific. Most of
   Tesla's own work conformed with the principles and methods accepted by
   science, but his extravagant personality and sometimes unrealistic
   claims, combined with his unquestionable genius, have made him a
   popular figure among fringe theorists and believers in conspiracies
   about ' hidden knowledge'. Some conspiracy theorists even in his time
   believed that he was actually an angelic being from Venus sent to Earth
   to reveal scientific knowledge to humanity.

Relations and friendships

   Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, spring of 1894
   Enlarge
   Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, spring of 1894

   In his middle life, Nikola Tesla became very close friends with Mark
   Twain. They spent a lot of time together in his lab and elsewhere.
   Tesla was also friends with Robert Underwood Johnson. He had amicable
   relations with, among others, Francis Marion Crawford, Stanford White,
   Fritz Lowenstein, George Scherff, and Kenneth Swezey. He remained
   bitter in the aftermath of his incident with Edison. The day after
   Edison died the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's
   life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted
   as saying, "He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind
   and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene"
   and that, "His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense
   ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance
   intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings,
   knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him
   90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book
   learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his
   inventor's instinct and practical American sense." Tesla never married.
   He was celibate and asexual and claimed that his chastity was very
   helpful to his scientific abilities.

Personal views

   Tesla believed that war could not be avoided until the cause for its
   recurrence was removed, but was opposed to wars in general. He sought
   to reduce distance, such as in communication for better understanding,
   transportation, and transmission of energy, as a means to ensure
   friendly international relations.

   "One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheelwork of the
   universe... and the very forces that motivate the planets in their
   orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery," he
   predicted.

   Like many of his era, Tesla, a life-long bachelor, became a proponent
   of a self-imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. In a 1937
   interview, he stated,

          [...] man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the
          ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our
          notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding
          of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the
          mating instinct [...]. The trend of opinion among eugenists is
          that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who
          is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce
          progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal
          person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a
          habitual criminal.

   In 1926, Tesla in an interview, commenting on the ills of the social
   subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality,
   indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He
   believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future.

Education

   Tesla was fluent in many languages. Along with Serbian and Croatian, he
   also spoke seven other foreign languages: Czech, English, French,
   German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.

   Degrees and graduate studies

   Tesla studied mathematics, physics and engineering at the Polytechnic
   School in Graz, Austria, now the Technische Universität Graz. Two
   sources say he received Baccalaureate degrees from the university at
   Graz. The University denies that he received a degree and says that he
   did not continue beyond the first semester of his third year, during
   which he stopped attending lectures. Others have stated that he was
   discharged without a degree for nonpayment of his tuition for the first
   semester of his junior year. According to a college roommate of Tesla,
   he did not graduate. Tesla was later persuaded by his father to attend
   the Charles-Ferdinand branch of the University of Prague, which he
   attended for the summer term of 1880. After his father died, Tesla
   moved to Budapest in January 1881 where he found work as a draftsman at
   the Central Telegraph office.

   Doctor Honoris Causa

   For his work Tesla received numerous honorary doctoral degrees from a
   number of universities to include: Columbia University, Graz
   Polytechnic Institute, University of Zagreb, Polytechnic Institute of
   Bucharest, University of Belgrade, University of Brno, University of
   Grenoble, University of Paris, University de Poitiers, Charles
   University in Prague, University of Sofia, Vienna Polytechnic
   Institute, and Yale University

   Further reading
          For more information on Dr. Tesla's education and
          certifications, see:
          * W.C. Wysock, J.F. Corum, J.M. Hardesty and K.L. Corum, " Who
          Was The Real Dr. Nikola Tesla? (A Look At His Professional
          Credentials)". Antenna Measurement Techniques Association,
          posterpaper, October 22–25, 2001 ( PDF)

Recognition and honours

   Scientific societies

   As the result of his achievements in the development of electricity and
   radio, Nikola Tesla received many awards and accolades. He was selected
   as a fellow of the IEEE (at the time the AIEE) and was awarded its most
   prestigious prize, the Edison Medal. He was also made a fellow of the
   American Association for the Advancement of Science, and accepted
   invitations to become a member of the American Philosophical Society,
   and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Because of his research
   in electrotherapy and his invention of high frequency oscillators, he
   was also made a fellow of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association.

   SI Unit

   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 honour (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et
   Mesures, Paris, 1960).

   IEEE Nikola Tesla Award

   In 1975 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
   created a Nikola Tesla Award via an agreement between the IEEE Power
   Engineering Society and the IEEE Board of Directors. It is given to
   individuals or a team that has made outstanding contributions to the
   generation or utilization of electric power. The Tesla award is
   considered the most prestigious award in the area of electric power.

   Belgrade airport

   On July 10, 2006 in honour of his 150th birthday the biggest airport in
   Serbia ( Belgrade) was renamed Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.

   Yugoslavian/Serbian currency

   100 Serbian dinar banknote obverse. Photo courtesy of National Bank of
   Serbia.
   Enlarge
   100 Serbian dinar banknote obverse. Photo courtesy of National Bank of
   Serbia.
   100 Serbian dinars banknote reverse. Note the drawing of the electric
   motor.
   Enlarge
   100 Serbian dinars banknote reverse. Note the drawing of the electric
   motor.

   Nikola Tesla was featured on the currency of the former Yugoslavia. The
   current 100 Serbian dinar banknotes issued by the National Bank of
   Serbia have a picture of a handsome young Tesla on the obverse (front
   side). On the reverse side there is portion of drawing of an induction
   motor from his patent application and a photograph of Tesla holding a
   gas filled tube emitting light as a result of electric induction.

   Cosmological objects

   The Tesla crater on the far side of the moon and the minor planet 2244
   Tesla are named after Tesla.

   Electric power stations

   Two of the coal fired power stations run by Electric Power Industry of
   Serbia, TPP Nikola Tesla A and TPP Nikola Tesla B, are named in honour
   of Tesla.

   Commerce

   The Croatian subsidiary of Ericsson is named Ericsson Nikola Tesla d.d.
   (Nikola Tesla was a phone hardware company in Zagreb before Ericsson
   bought it in 1990s) in honour of Nikola Tesla's pioneering work in
   wireless communication.

   Train

   Silverlink Metro in London has a train named "Nikola Tesla", which,
   like the rest of the rollingstock, is an electrically powered train
   that can take power from either trackside and overhead power lines
   within the same journey on the North London Line.

   Sports car

   Tesla Motors states, "The namesake of our Tesla Roadster is the genius
   Nikola Tesla [...] We‘re confident that if he were alive today, Nikola
   Tesla would look over our car and nod his head with both understanding
   and approval."

   Film

   Tesla is a featured character in the 2006 film The Prestige and the
   1995 novel by the same name by Christopher Priest.

Further material

Articles (pre-1900)

     * Selected Tesla Writings, Written by Tesla and others,.

     * Light Without Heat, The Manufacturer and Builder, January 1892,
       Vol. 24

     * Biography - Nikola Tesla, The Century Magazine, November 1893, Vol.
       47

     * Tesla's Oscillator and Other Inventions, The Century Magazine,
       November 1894, Vol. 49

     * The New Telegraphy. Recent Experiments in Telegraphy wih Sparks,
       The Century Magazine, November 1897, Vol. 55

Books

     * Anderson, Leland I., "Dr. Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)", 2d enl. ed.,
       Minneapolis, Tesla Society. 1956. LCCN /L
     * Cheney, Margaret, "Tesla: Man Out of Time", 1979. ISBN
     * Childress, David H., "The Fantastic inventions of Nikola Tesla,"
       1993. ISBN
     * Glenn, Jim, "The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla," 1994. ISBN
     * Jonnes, Jill "Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and
       the Race to Electrify the World". New York: Random House, 2003.
       ISBN
     * Martin, Thomas C., "The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of
       Nikola Tesla," 1894 . ISBN-X
     * O'Neill, John H.," Prodigal Genius," 1944. ISBN
     * Seifer, Marc J., "Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla,"
       1998. ISBN (HC), ISBN (SC)
     * Tesla, Nikola, "Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900", ISBN-X
     * Tesla, Nikola, "My Inventions" Parts I through V published in the
       Electrical Experimenter monthly magazine from February through
       June, 1919. Part VI published October, 1919. Reprint edition with
       introductory notes by Ben Johnson, New York: Barnes and Noble,1982,
       ISBN; also online at " My Inventions'", 1919. ISBN
     * Valone, Thomas, "Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature," 2002. ISBN

Magazines

     * 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.

Documentary and biographical films

     * There are at least two films describing Tesla's life. In the first,
       filmed in 1977, arranged for TV, Tesla was portrayed by Rade
       Šerbedžija. In 1980, Orson Welles produced a Yugoslavian film named
       Tajna Nikole Tesle (The Secret of Nikola Tesla), in which Welles
       himself played the part of Tesla's patron, J.P. Morgan.
     * " Tesla: Master of Lightning". 1999. ISBN (Book) ISBN (PBS Video)

Fictional Portrayal

     * Tesla is a protagonist in Wonder of the Worlds, Sesh Heri's 2005
       fantastic-realism novel in which Tesla, Mark Twain and Harry
       Houdini pursue Martian agents to the Red Planet in order to
       retrieve a stolen crystal.

     * Tesla is a minor character in director Christopher Nolan's 2006
       film The Prestige, in which the main characters, played by Hugh
       Jackman and Christian Bale, explore the use of his inventions to
       make their magic tricks more spectacular. In the film, he is
       portrayed by David Bowie.

     * Tesla also appears as a character in several of science fiction
       author Spider Robinson's series of novels set in a Cheers-style bar
       filled with time-travellers and aliens; the inventor has been
       rescued from his deathbed in 1943, rejuvenated and recruited by the
       Callahan bar-buddies in their quest to save the universe.

     * A recent novel by Australian author Robert G. Barrett uses Nikola
       Tesla as one of the main characters in his book The Tesla Legacy.
       Tesla apparrently built a 'doomsday machine' that is hidden in the
       New South Wales Hunter Valley that could destroy Australia if not
       the earth itself.

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