Tesla - Inventor of the Modern World Documentary
Tesla - Inventor of the Modern World Documentary
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#Biography #History #Documentary
Content
4.069 -> The man known to history as Nikola Tesla was
born on the 10th of July 1856 in Smiljan,
12.139 -> Lika, which was originally part of the Austro-Hungarian
empire but is now located in Croatia.
19.89 -> His father was Milutin Tesla, a priest of
the Serbian Orthodox Church and the son of
26.07 -> Nikola Tesla’s grandfather who was also
named Nikola. His grandfather had served as
32.07 -> a military officer for the French Empire during
the Napoleonic Wars and had risen to the rank
37.64 -> of sergeant, before marrying Tesla’s grandmother
Ana Kalinic, the daughter of a respected colonel.
44.719 -> Following the defeat of Napoleon, Nikola Tesla
returned to Lika, which was assimilated into
49.79 -> the Austro-Hungarian empire, where he fathered
two sons including Milutin and his brother
55.84 -> Josif, as well as 3 daughters named Stanka,
Janja, and another whose name is unknown.
62.45 -> Milutin Tesla and his brother were sent to
the Austrian Military Officer’s Training
67.909 -> Academy to follow the career path of their
father, and while Josif thrived, eventually
73.259 -> becoming a professor of Mathematics at a military
academy in Austria where he authored several
78.9 -> standard mathematical textbooks, Milutin decided
instead to choose a devotional path, enrolling
86.079 -> in the Orthodox Seminary in Plaski to train
as a priest after being castigated in training
93.38 -> for not maintaining the shininess of his brass
buttons. Nikola Tesla’s mother was Djuka
99.409 -> Mandic, the daughter of a priest from Gracac
called Nikola Mandic, and the sister to three
106.01 -> very successful brothers including Nikolai,
who climbed the ecclesiastical ranks to become
111.63 -> the Archbishop of Sarajevo and the Metropolitan
of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia,
118.009 -> Pajo who became a colonel in the general staff
of the Austrian army, and finally Trifun who
124.29 -> excelled in the business sphere as a respected
hotelier and landowner. In addition to being
129.75 -> a dedicated housewife, Djuka Mandic possessed
a keen intellect and a strong work ethic and
136.79 -> was herself an innovator of her household
appliances which she often modified to make
142.209 -> more efficient. She was “An inventor of
the first order” according to Tesla and
148.01 -> a creative influence on him until her death
in 1892.
152.97 -> Milutin Tesla was a gifted student and graduated
with top honors in 1845, marrying the 25-year-old
161.599 -> Djuka Mandic in 1847 after being delegated
to oversee the parish of Senj on the Adriatic
168.79 -> Coast. Settling into a house perched on top
of a cliff overlooking the ocean, the newlyweds
174.659 -> started a family, with Djuka giving birth
to their eldest son Dane in 1848, a firstborn
181.77 -> daughter Angelina in 1850, and finally another
daughter Milka in 1852. However due to the
189.91 -> poor pay he received and the salty sea air
which caused him health problems, Milutin
195.36 -> Tesla was reassigned to the Church of St Apostles
Peter and Paul in Smiljan, which meant “the
202.47 -> place of sweet basil”, in Lika province,
where he was provided with a picturesque farmhouse,
208.43 -> a parcel of fertile land, and even an Arabian
horse so that he could ride to see his parishioners,
215.34 -> it was given to him by a Turkish pasha based
in Bosnia as a reward for assisting some local
221.769 -> Muslims. As well as being an extremely smart
man who assembled a vast library packed full
227.909 -> of volumes on religion, mathematics, science,
and literary works in many different tongues,
234.36 -> Milutin Tesla was also an arduous reformer
of the Serbian people, regularly writing articles
241.14 -> for a variety of newspapers and tirelessly
promoting the establishment of language schools
246.81 -> where Serbians could learn to read and write.
251.209 -> According to his family, Nikola Tesla was
born at midnight sometime between the ninth
256.37 -> and tenth of July 1856 in the middle of a
terrific thunderstorm. Three days later Nikola
263.139 -> was baptized at his family home, and with
his future seemingly already planned, he was
269.18 -> also enlisted as a member of the First Lika
Regiment of the Ninth Medak Company, a squadron
275.74 -> he was to join when he was 15 years old by
law. By all accounts, Tesla’s childhood
281.5 -> was happy, and one he shared with his older
siblings as well as his younger sister Marica,
287.63 -> born in 1859, who would often accompany him
to the churchyard or the farmyard to play
293.229 -> with the chickens, geese, sheep and other
livestock which his father kept. Tesla was
299.139 -> often joined by his black cat Macak, who first
introduced him to the phenomenon that would
305.23 -> define his life’s work after he set off
a loud spark upon stroking him, an event which
311.58 -> was explained by his father as a secretion
of electricity. In another formative experience
317.8 -> again involving Macak, Tesla noted one day
how a halo of light suddenly surrounded his
324.19 -> dear cat, illuminating briefly, the candlelit
room he was sitting in. Inspired by such marvels,
330.86 -> Tesla devoted much of his energy as a child
to experimenting and encouraged by his mother’s
337.229 -> inventive streak, drew up plans for flying
machines very similar to how a helicopter
342.08 -> would later function, he disassembled clocks
to see how they worked, and even designed
347.55 -> himself a wooden sword so that he could pretend
to be a valiant Serbian warrior. Behind the
354.02 -> fascination however lay a troubled young mind,
as Tesla revealed that as a young boy, he
360.199 -> suffered from a strange affliction whereby
he couldn’t distinguish images from reality
365.66 -> which troubled him greatly. Tesla’s childhood
trauma was exacerbated by the death of his
371.37 -> older brother Dane in 1863, who was killed
in front of Tesla by the family’s Arabian
377.62 -> horse in a traumatic experience that would
endlessly haunt him, and which was also the
383.52 -> reason why his distraught father moved his
family from the idyllic Croatian countryside
389.699 -> to the larger town of Gospić, an unfamiliar
environment where Tesla struggled to adjust
395.729 -> to urban living.
397.8 -> The untimely passing of Dane cast a long shadow
over Tesla’s own relationship with his father
403.8 -> who, mired in grief, always under appreciated
the talents of his youngest son, a neglect
410.449 -> that young Nikola tried to compensate for,
by striving to be perfect in everything he
415.87 -> did so that he could win back the love of
his parents. Blinded by sorrow, Milutin Tesla
423.05 -> treated his young son with contempt, flying
into rages when he caught him reading from
428.4 -> his private library, and on one particularly
hurtful occasion, after Nikola had accidentally
434.819 -> ruined a local noblewomen’s dress by unintentionally
jumping on it as it trailed down the aisle
441.32 -> of a church, he slapped his son across the
face in public as a punishment. As a result
447.819 -> of his strained relations, Tesla developed
a series of peculiar phobias as a child, such
454.319 -> as a repulsion for women who wore earrings
and pearls, a strong aversion to hair, a loathing
460.93 -> for the smell of camphor, as well as a number
of other strange habits, including an obsession
466.9 -> with counting his steps and measuring in volume
the contents of his meals, calculations he
473.15 -> was only satisfied with if they were divisible
by three. Overwhelmed by a plethora of odd
479.83 -> neuroses, Tesla was able to regain some sense
of balance after he came across a novel called
486.01 -> Abafi, published in 1836 by Hungarian author
Miklós Jósika, which featured the story
493.83 -> of Olivér Abafi, a young impulsive nobleman
and hedonist, recast as a valiant national
500.49 -> hero who sacrifices himself for the wellbeing
of the country. Tesla was particularly inspired
507.28 -> by the character of the protagonist, seeing
in his desire to better his moral character
513.159 -> while ignoring frivolous distractions, a masterful
example of self-restraint, which showed Tesla
519.64 -> that it was indeed possible for him to control
his wild emotions. Tesla realized that a good
525.96 -> coping strategy was to work with, rather than
against, the nebulous visions that assaulted
531.62 -> his consciousness, and delving even deeper
into the make-believe world of his imagining,
537.67 -> Tesla began to embark on strange journeys
where he would stumble across fantastical
542.95 -> countries, people, and cities that he dreamed
up.
546.35 -> As Tesla honed that untamed imagination that
would later serve him so well in his profession,
553.72 -> he began theorizing about the nature of reality
itself, coming to the conclusion, that he
559.3 -> could trace all of his mental images back
to something he either saw, smelt, or touched,
565.79 -> in an early echoe of the mechanistic view
of the world he would later espouse. It was
571.48 -> also an idea that had real-life application
for Tesla, who on one occasion was extolled
577.829 -> as a hero by a band of firemen after he spotted
a small kink in a fire hose he instinctively
584.649 -> knew was preventing water from reaching a
burning building, a problem he quickly fixed
589.959 -> by ironing the groove out. Tesla’s ingenuity
would be further fostered at the Real Gymnasium,
596.459 -> the grammar school he attended in Gospić,
where he would amaze his mathematics professors
602.029 -> by demonstrating a natural ability to calculate
numbers, but while he excelled in scientific
608.91 -> pursuits, Tesla was unable to translate his
talents to drawing class, where a preference
615.07 -> for undisturbed contemplation distracted Tesla
heavily, leading to grades that were so extremely
622.3 -> poor, his father had to speak with the principal,
which instilled in a young Nikola a lifelong
628.16 -> aversion to diagrams.
631.329 -> During his schooling at the Real Gymnasium
Tesla began to take invention seriously, devising
637.6 -> the schematics for a flying machine that would
use the pressure of a vacuum to push air molecules,
644.44 -> a concept that a grown-up Tesla would later
go on to disprove. Shortly after he graduated
650.39 -> from the Real Gymnasium in 1870 Tesla, perhaps
because of his overactive imagination, became
657.31 -> very sick with a range of maladies sufficiently
serious enough for the doctors treating him
663.139 -> to nearly give up on his case entirely. Throughout
his recuperation Tesla began voraciously reading,
670.69 -> and it was during this period that he was
first introduced to the tales of Mark Twain.
676.089 -> It was a story he would later recount to Mark
Twain himself, who burst into tears upon hearing
681.95 -> it. After a period of convalescence, Nikola
Tesla was next enrolled at the higher Real
688.31 -> Gymnasium in Karlovac in 1873 where, in accordance
with his father’s wish for Tesla to continue
696.36 -> the family profession, he was enlisted in
classes at the local seminary. However, Tesla’s
702.889 -> true desire was to learn everything he could
about electricity, a passion ignited by an
708.88 -> inspirational physics teacher who taught him
about the radiometer invented by British scientist
714.62 -> William Crookes, a device that powered a vacuum
bulb with energy produced by four rapidly
720.829 -> spinning tinfoil vanes, this roused Tesla
to conduct some of his first experiments with
727.24 -> batteries, induction coils, and electro-static
generators. Yet Tesla would have to put some
733.57 -> of his projects on hold after again falling
seriously ill with cholera upon his return
739.88 -> home to Gospić, causing the young prodigy
to be bedridden for over 9 months and to experience
746.74 -> several close shaves with death. After one
particularly worrying incident, Tesla supposedly
752.99 -> implored his father that if he were to study
engineering instead of entering the priesthood
759.04 -> that he may well recover causing Milutin,
desperate to avoid the unbearable pain of
764.279 -> losing another son, to solemnly promise that
Nikola would go to the best technical institution
770.75 -> in the world.
773.089 -> Having finally been heard, Tesla made a miraculous
recovery, but before he could become a student
779.72 -> he was sent to the Croatian mountains with
nothing but a bundle of books and some hunting
784.85 -> equipment by his father who, worried for his
son’s health, did everything in his power
790.42 -> to hide his son from the authorities, as by
law, Tesla would have to serve in the Austrian
796.66 -> armed forces for 3 years. For nine months
starting in the early fall of 1874, Tesla
803.75 -> wandered the forests and lakes of the eastern
European countryside, becoming stronger physically
809.38 -> and mentally as he thought deeply about invention,
reshaping the vividness of his visions from
815.82 -> a debilitating weakness into a powerful contemplative
tool that could be used to flesh out the contraptions
822.3 -> that flashed across his mind, such as a pipe
installed underwater that could transport
828.16 -> letters and packages placed in capsules using
the principles of hydraulic pressure, and
833.98 -> a ring constructed around the earth’s equator
that could be used as a high-tech transport
839.45 -> network.
841.17 -> When Tesla returned, his father had kept his
promise, securing for him a scholarship at
846.449 -> the Military Frontier Administration Authority
that would enable him to study for three years
852.639 -> at the Polytechnic School in Graz, Austria.
Receiving an embroidered bag made from typical
859.17 -> Serbian materials from his mother which he
would always prize, in 1875 Tesla left Gospić
866.66 -> to start anew in a completely different culture
and environment, in the same way that his
872.3 -> own Serbian relatives had adapted to life
on the Austro-Hungarian border decades prior.
879.24 -> During his freshman year, Tesla proved himself
to be a perfect student, never once missing
885.019 -> a lecture and supposedly studying from 3am
to 7pm every day, a schedule that was thought
892.11 -> so extreme that one professor wrote to Milutin
warning him that unless his son was escorted
897.97 -> out of the school, that he might work himself
to death, while others commended him for his
903.699 -> zeal, such as the Dean of the Technical Faculty
who informed Milutin Tesla that his son was
909.29 -> quote: “a star of first rank.”
913.279 -> In fact, Tesla was keeping himself very busy,
administering his earliest experiments with
919.41 -> alternating current or ‘AC’ that would
later make his name, but during his sophomore
925.66 -> year Tesla would be sidetracked, developing
a destructive gambling habit and wagering
931.709 -> away his entire tuition fund in the process.
Near destitute, Tesla had also neglected his
938.329 -> studies, scoring extremely poorly in the examinations,
and with no marks registered for his final
945.17 -> semester, he was also unable to graduate and
was forced to abandon the university in December
951.269 -> 1878, a failure he made sure to keep secret
from his family as well as his classmates,
958.77 -> as he was riddled with guilt and embarrassment.
In 1879, Tesla would live for a while in self-imposed
966.259 -> exile, first making his way to the city of
Maribor where he became a draughtsman and
972.49 -> was paid 60 florins a month, while in his
free time he continued to play cards and wager
978.87 -> money on the streets with the locals, yet
Tesla’s Slovenian sojourn would be short-lived,
985.339 -> as a couple of months into his stay, he was
seized by the authorities for not possessing
990.3 -> a proper residency permit and returned to
Gospić escorted by armed police. Back home
996.79 -> Tesla’s father would not get much time to
set his son straight, as only a month later,
1003.04 -> on the 17th of April 1879, Milutin died, heartbroken
that his son had been labelled as a ‘vagrant’
1011.579 -> and had chosen to indulge in a life of vice.
Not content to see their talented nephew waste
1017.73 -> his abilities, in January 1880 two of Tesla’s
uncles gave him enough money to start courses
1024.66 -> at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague,
despite Tesla not meeting the language requirement,
1031.92 -> which specified that students had to be fluent
in both Czech and Greek. However, communication
1038.371 -> issues aside, he also arrived too late, and
was unable to enroll in classes, and so for
1045.14 -> the entire time Tesla was only permitted to
attend lectures and received no formal grades.
1052.89 -> In 1881 Nikola Tesla landed his first job
for a telecommunications firm in Budapest
1059.6 -> called The American Telephone Company, where
he was drafted in as an electrical engineer
1065.789 -> by Tivador Puskas, who had previously worked
alongside Thomas Edison, the inventor of the
1072.14 -> lightbulb, at the Edison laboratories in Menlo
Park. Making himself a valuable employee and
1078.42 -> sharing his findings with his work colleague
Anital Szigety, Tesla continued his study
1084.39 -> of the concept of the alternate current in
his spare time, proposing that a motor driven
1090.159 -> by circuits that were out of phase could maintain
power levels to supply a constant stream of
1097.14 -> electricity, but in order to make the system
function, Tesla realized he needed to figure
1102.25 -> out how to rotate magnetic fields. Strolling
in the park with Anital Szigety in February
1108.75 -> 1882, Tesla had a sudden stroke of genius
and solved the rotating magnetic field problem,
1116.58 -> going on to explain the concept of the induction
motor to his friend by drawing its basic blueprints
1122.929 -> in the sand with a stick, outlining a new
type of engine that unlike its Direct Current
1129.1 -> or ‘DC’ counterpart, did not need a commutator,
an inefficient cylindrical device segmented
1135.95 -> with metal that had to be regularly maintained.
Impressed by Tesla’s genius, Tivador Puskas
1143.29 -> recommended that Tesla move to Paris to work
for his old acquaintance Thomas Edison at
1148.679 -> his Continental Edison Company, a firm that
specialized in electrical equipment, where
1154.14 -> he was first assigned by his boss Charles
Batchelor, a manager who had worked for Edison
1159.179 -> since 1870, with designing dynamos, a contraption
that converted mechanical energy into electrical
1166.65 -> energy and which was used most commonly in
direct-current circuits. Off the clock however,
1172.88 -> Tesla continued to advance the AC theory after
he was sent to work on a project in Strasbourg,
1179.98 -> where he built the first induction motor prototype.
1183.679 -> However, Tesla was unable to garner any serious
interest in Alternating Currents. This was
1190.8 -> unfortunate, as alternating current is recognized
today as a better method of electric current
1196.77 -> delivery than direct current. Direct current,
of the kind which came to dominate electricity
1202.01 -> delivery systems in the late nineteenth century,
consistently sends electricity in one direction
1207.85 -> along an electric grid. Alternating current,
by way of contrast, periodically reverses
1213.69 -> and changes direction along a grid or system
as its magnitude alternately reverses course.
1221.09 -> Alternating current is considerably more efficient
than direct current. Tesla’s error, if it
1226.11 -> can be defined as such, is that he was simply
ahead of his time in trying to propose alternating
1231.95 -> current as the better method of energy generation.
He was correct, but the technology available
1238.19 -> at the time simply favoured the more crude
direct current method. Tesla soon found himself
1243.97 -> in another personal finance crisis after spending
all of his wages, yet he had done enough during
1250.27 -> his stint at the company to impress his overseer
Charles Batchelor, who was convinced that
1255.83 -> Tesla had the intellectual fortitude to work
alongside Thomas Edison himself.
1262.57 -> In 1884, after being mistakenly registered
as a migrant from Sweden after the immigration
1268.48 -> officer misheard him say ‘Smiljan’, Nikola
Tesla arrived in America armed with an introductory
1274.51 -> letter penned by his mentor Charles Batchelor,
who stated quote: “I know two great men,
1281.32 -> one is you and the other is this young man.”
Although Tesla fundamentally disagreed with
1287.87 -> the notion of direct-current, he was put to
work improving the DC motors devised by Edison,
1294.38 -> who believed that the AC devices that Tesla
envisioned were too dangerous and unfeasible,
1300.46 -> a divergence of opinion that would become
a lifelong rivalry. Forced to develop an invention
1305.87 -> he had no belief in, Tesla became disillusioned
and began outlining the weaknesses of DC and
1312.76 -> championing the advantages of AC, pointing
out the inefficiency of Edison’s direct
1318.25 -> current which only dimly lit lamps, and proposing
instead that generators should be engineered
1323.83 -> with what he termed the ‘polyphase principle’,
whereby energy would be constantly recycled,
1330.4 -> since he believed in the cyclical nature of
electricity. Tesla also insisted that a huge
1336.25 -> disadvantage of the direct current was its
reliance on costly power stations installed
1342.15 -> at 2 mile intervals, since it was unable to
maintain high levels of voltage over distance,
1348.38 -> in contrast arguing that the alternating current,
in which the direction of energy was changed
1354.07 -> 50 to 60 times per second, was a lot more
effective, since it could flexibly sustain
1359.51 -> varying levels of high voltage power and minimize
power loss over long distances. This is why
1365.94 -> today, the power delivered to consumers via
power grids is AC, which sustains power over
1371.919 -> long distances using transformer substations,
these reduce the AC voltage over a given distance.
1379.11 -> Once the AC power reaches its destination
such as a home, the AC power is used directly
1385.06 -> for electrical appliances such as washing
machines but for other smaller appliances
1390.4 -> it is possible to convert AC power to DC,
via diodes within the appliance’s power
1396.84 -> supply, these only allow the electrical current
to flow in one direction, thus ensuring the
1401.75 -> appliance receives a constant stream of power.
1406.26 -> Disassociating himself from Edison and eager
to spread the AC gospel, Tesla started his
1412.23 -> own company in 1885 called the Tesla Electric
Light Company with the financial backing of
1418.28 -> two rich benefactors, Robert Lane and Benjamin
Vail, who were certain that the alternating
1424.419 -> current was the future. However in a common
issue that would prevent almost all of his
1429.799 -> later endeavors from succeeding, Tesla asked
for too much money from his patrons, who,
1436.23 -> increasingly fearful that AC was too risky,
ejected Tesla from his own company that same
1441.98 -> year, forcing him to eek out a living for
the majority of 1885 as a repairman and even
1448.99 -> as a manual laborer, a job in which he was
paid just 2 dollars a day to dig ditches.
1455.52 -> Having learned from his mistakes, in 1886,
with the aid of philanthropists Alfred S.
1461.02 -> Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and
Charles F. Peck, Tesla established another
1467.65 -> company, this time called the Tesla Electric
Company based in Manhattan, New York, where
1473.36 -> he finalized the designs of the polyphase
induction motor, unveiling it to the amazement
1479.409 -> of the scientific community in 1888, when
he presented a landmark paper to the American
1485.87 -> Institute of Electrical Engineers entitled
'A New System of Alternating Current Motors
1492.48 -> and Transformers.’
1495.13 -> George Westinghouse, an investor most famous
for inventing the railway air brake and head
1500.77 -> of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing
Company, was particularly impressed, and his
1506.77 -> curiosity was piqued in a visit to Tesla’s
lab a few days later where he was shown an
1512.039 -> early polyphase prototype. Convinced that
Tesla’s groundbreaking invention could power
1518.12 -> America, Westinghouse purchased all 40 of
Tesla’s trailblazing patents pertaining
1523.7 -> to the generators, motors, and transformers
necessary to construct a polyphase alternating
1529.58 -> current circuit and recruited Tesla as an
adviser to serve for 12 months at the Westinghouse
1535.659 -> plant in Philadelphia where some of the first
commercially available AC devices would be
1541.33 -> produced. The release of the first AC machine
in 1886 was the harbinger of a bitter conflict
1548.73 -> that erupted between Westinghouse and Edison
known as the ‘War of the Currents’, which
1554.52 -> pitted AC against DC from 1888 to 1892. During
the dispute Edison would try to use his resources
1563.89 -> to sway public opinion in his favor, and despite
the evidence clearly showing that AC was safe
1570.51 -> and more effective over long distances, he
issued a number of articles in the biggest
1575.83 -> publications, warning of the dangers of the
alternating current. Edison was unable, however,
1581.78 -> to convince his largest benefactor of the
superiority of DC, and Wall Street wolf John
1587.95 -> Pierpoint Morgan, who in 1892 merged Edison
General Electric with the AC-focused Thomas
1595.13 -> Houston Company, removed Edison’s name to
create ‘General Electric’ and switched
1600.6 -> entirely to alternating current instruments.
1604.679 -> With Edison sidelined, the alternating current
emerged as the undisputed victor of ‘War
1610.51 -> of the Currents’ as Westinghouse increased
his annual turnover from 800,000 dollars in
1616.55 -> 1887 to 4.2 million in 1890, while Tesla was
paid around 105,000 dollars in royalties by
1626.14 -> the end of 1891, a period that also witnessed
several other personal and professional triumphs
1632.5 -> for Tesla, who officially became a US citizen
in July 1891 at the same time as he established
1639.75 -> two personal laboratories in New York, situated
at South Fifth Avenue and East Houston Street.
1647.49 -> On the other hand, Tesla’s dividend cheques
would come to an abrupt end after Westinghouse’s
1653.519 -> finances were left in disarray, their plans
to expand the company by borrowing heavily,
1659.78 -> falling through in November 1890, after the
collapse of the Baring Brothers brokerage
1664.96 -> firm compelled panicked creditors to call
in their loans. To cover his losses, Tesla
1671.2 -> continued to focus his attention on high-frequency
AC experiments, inventing a lamp that required
1677.62 -> only one wire, an oscillating transformer,
and a high frequency alternator, which he
1683.39 -> exhibited at a lecture in spring 1891 at Columbia
College in New York on behalf of the American
1690.659 -> Institute of Electrical Engineers to a flabbergasted
crowd, who were amazed at the ways that AC
1697.36 -> could be implemented into modern lighting
circuits.
1701.41 -> The Colombia lecture established him as the
leading electricity researcher of his day,
1707.3 -> and in follow-up experiments, Tesla would
consistently show that electricity for light
1712.429 -> and power could be transmitted over long distances.
Before long, Tesla was also sketching out
1718.95 -> the fundamentals of radio technology. In an
1893 lecture at the Franklin Institute, later
1725.86 -> popularized by Century Magazine, illustrating
the concept of telegraphy without wires, he
1732.049 -> first underlined the importance of grounding
the transmitter and receiver to astonished
1737.409 -> onlookers. The same year Tesla’s company
achieved its greatest accomplishment to date,
1743.39 -> after lighting up the Chicago venue hosting
the World’s Columbian Exposition entirely
1748.99 -> with alternating current, an honor that Tesla
procured after outbidding General Electric
1754.86 -> by 1 million dollars. By 1894, Tesla had gained
the admiration of his peers, and was awarded
1761.98 -> honorary doctoral degrees from Columbia and
Yale Universities as well as the Elliot Cresson
1767.6 -> Medal by the Franklin Institute. More good
news followed after the Tesla Electric Company
1773.61 -> was contracted to build the first ever hydroelectric
power-plant at Niagara Falls, a childhood
1780.279 -> dream of Tesla’s that became a reality in
1895 after the first schematics were unveiled.
1787.12 -> The Niagara facility was an accomplishment
that represented the ultimate defeat of the
1792.32 -> direct energy school of thought, and Tesla
was lavished with the highest praise and honors,
1798.85 -> including even the Order of Danilo from King
Nicolas of Montenegro, as his achievement
1804.44 -> was celebrated worldwide as an important step
for the future of humanity.
1810.909 -> Tesla remained unperturbed after a fire in
March 1895 at his laboratory destroyed much
1817.24 -> of his early research, including hundreds
of models, notes, scientific tools and photographs
1823.679 -> that had a combined value of 50,000 dollars.
Despite this, in 1896 he demonstrated some
1831.01 -> of the earliest uses of the x-ray, discovered
around the same time by the German scientist
1836.46 -> Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, and astonished his
contemporaries with the first ever x-ray of
1842.36 -> a man, published in The Electrical Review,
printed using rudimentary x-ray tubes of his
1848.36 -> own design. Having revealed some of the most
innovative functions of the x-ray, Tesla next
1854.24 -> devised the basic elements of the radio transmitter,
and in 1896 built a rudimentary unit that
1861.59 -> received radio waves. He assessed his new
invention at the Gerlach Hotel located on
1867.2 -> 27th Street in Manhattan where he was living,
by sending radio waves to it from his New
1873.36 -> York laboratory on South 5th Avenue. Tesla
presented his insights at an 1898 exhibition
1880.57 -> at Madison Square Gardens, where he demonstrated
a radio-controlled boat he called a Telautomaton,
1887.38 -> to stunned audiences, and by 1901 he had been
awarded with a patent clarifying that he had
1893.789 -> created a system for transmitting electrical
energy.
1898.84 -> Between 1899 and 1900, after being commissioned
by John Jacob Astor to assemble a new lighting
1905.409 -> system in a contract worth 100,000 dollars,
Tesla relocated his laboratory at Colorado
1911.49 -> Springs where, disobeying his patron’s instructions
completely, he decided instead to explore
1917.48 -> ‘terrestrial stationary waves’, which
he regarded as his greatest discovery. At
1922.5 -> this rural outpost located far away from the
humdrum of New York City, Tesla started to
1928.57 -> piece together an enormous transmitter powered
by millions of volts of electricity at an
1934.279 -> experimental facility built on the outskirts
of the town of Knob Hill, keeping inquisitive
1939.75 -> onlookers away with an ominous Dante line
nailed to the front entrance which read quote:
1945.2 -> ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”.
It was here that Tesla first discovered that
1951.07 -> the earth had electric potential, and could
be employed as a finely tuned conductor to
1956.9 -> transfer electrical energy without wires,
while next noticing that when his experimental
1962.51 -> Tesla coil was powered, it emitted sparks
as far as 30 feet that could be detected by
1968.269 -> antennae 10 miles away. Realizing that he
could now wirelessly transmit signals using
1974.12 -> the electromagnetic frequencies of the planet,
Tesla explored the practical applications,
1980.309 -> managing to light up 200 lamps fed by a power
source situated 26 miles away. Exploiting
1987.33 -> the same phenomenon, he was even able to produce
manmade lightning as a result. Tesla noted
1993.419 -> that the discovery of stationary electromagnetic
waves and how they interacted with the earth,
1998.769 -> had far-reaching implications. It was a discovery
which Tesla would spend the majority of the
2004.53 -> rest of his career investigating, as he felt
it had the potential to transmit electrical
2009.84 -> power across large distances without the need
for wires, indeed he hoped that his work could
2015.99 -> one day provide the whole world with clean
and free electrical power, however as with
2022.399 -> so many of Tesla’s ideas, it was funded
by investors, such as J.P Morgan who intended
2028.49 -> to market his inventions for profit and were
only prepared to fund research which would
2033.76 -> garner a return on their investments, thus
it would be the all-powerful market forces,
2039.96 -> that would eventually scupper so many of Tesla’s
imaginings.
2044.64 -> It was during this fertile period of discovery,
that Tesla also made some more unorthodox
2050.21 -> assertions, claiming that he had made contact
with extraterrestrial beings, that had triggered
2055.57 -> a series of ominous beeps that sounded from
one of his receivers. Tesla had first heard
2061.25 -> this strange combination of noise from the
device in the middle of the night, and interpreted
2066.44 -> the regularity of the beeps as a sign that
they were being manipulated by an intelligent
2072.02 -> entity, a theory he publicly advanced in a
letter to the American Red Cross in January
2078.129 -> 1901. Although Tesla’s story was discounted
by many skeptics there were still some who
2084.109 -> believed him. Influenced by the notion of
an intergalactic race of Martians, first popularized
2090.21 -> in 1895 with the release of a book called
‘Mars’ penned by the American astronomer
2095.95 -> Percival Lowell, Tesla’s supporters pointed
out that he may have established contact with
2101.849 -> aliens from the Red Planet. Nevertheless,
convinced of the revolutionary potential of
2107.49 -> terrestrial stationary waves, Tesla returned
to New York in January 1900 eager to secure
2114.74 -> funding for a major invention that would eclipse
his scientific rivals who were also investigating
2121.089 -> wireless systems, such as Reginald Fessenden,
Lee de Forest, and in particular Guglielmo
2127.48 -> Giovanni Maria Marconi, an Italian inventor
who became Tesla’s next arch-nemesis after
2134.099 -> Edison.
2135.119 -> Eager to keep his May 1899 promise in which
he vowed to wirelessly communicate with Paris
2142.28 -> by 1900, Tesla hunted for a source of funding
after patenting the magnifying transmitter
2149.05 -> he had constructed at Colorado Springs. Since
the device he envisioned had to generate enormous
2155.3 -> volumes of electricity from AC equipment,
Tesla first approached his old ally George
2161.14 -> Westinghouse who declined to become involved
but loaned him the necessary machinery, while
2167.211 -> the majority of the project’s funding came
from the coffers of Wall Street whizz J.P.
2172.319 -> Morgan, who signed a deal with Tesla after
negotiations discussing the purchase of Marconi’s
2178.41 -> wireless patents broke down. After convincing
him that the wireless transfer of information
2184.46 -> would make the expensive underwater cables
his company used to send transatlantic messages
2190.5 -> obsolete, Morgan informed Tesla he was willing
to support him with a 150,000 dollar investment
2198.14 -> on the condition that he would own a 51% stake
of the inventor’s patents.
2205.01 -> Between 1901 and 1905, with the backing of
the biggest financial titan in the world,
2211.22 -> Nikola Tesla constructed the 187-foot-high
transmission tower at Wardenclyffe laboratory,
2218.71 -> topped with a 68 foot copper dome, which was
the first wireless broadcasting system ever
2224.16 -> built, and was largely powered by a gigantic
magnifying transmitter designed to channel
2229.69 -> large concentrations of electricity to any
destination conceivable. Assured that by setting
2236.26 -> up receivers attached to the ground, he could
pick up the electromagnetic waves emitted
2240.93 -> by the tower anywhere, Tesla was desperate
to overshadow his rival Marconi, who in December
2247.16 -> 1901 at St Johns in Newfoundland was hailed
as the inventor of wireless telegraphy by
2253.26 -> the world’s press, after reporting triumphantly,
that he had successfully received the first
2259.04 -> transatlantic signal sent by colleagues at
Poldhu in Cornwall, England.
2265.05 -> With a jaded Tesla making it explicitly clear
in newspaper interviews that he believed Marconi
2270.859 -> had stolen many of his ideas from the 1890s,
and wishing to keep his benefactor onside,
2277.29 -> he next announced that he was going to create
a World Telegraphy System, a cutting-edge
2282.859 -> communication array similar to the World Wide
Web of the 1990s, in which individual receivers
2289.3 -> would pick up messages and news broadcasted
by transmitting facilities. Tesla pictured
2295.369 -> several different types of receiver, one that
anticipated the fax machine, by acting as
2301.43 -> a printer and publishing daily newspapers,
one that was a loudspeaker that could play
2306.869 -> voice messages, and another that was a handheld
contraption attached to a vertical wire on
2313.37 -> a short pole, that could decode radio waves,
foreshadowing the modern cellphone. By the
2319.619 -> summer of 1902, Tesla had moved permanently
to Wardenclyffe laboratory and was focusing
2325.88 -> exclusively on amping up the power levels.
On the other hand, after setting up a company
2332 -> with Morgan to assist the enterprise, Tesla
found it hard to sell shares to the moneyed
2337.369 -> New York elite, who believed the investment
was too risky, an appraisal not shared by
2342.98 -> Tesla, who sold 33,000 dollars of his personal
property and borrowed a further 10,000 dollars
2349.68 -> to realize his dream.
2352.39 -> Faced with an additional 30,000 dollar bill
from Westinghouse for the equipment, a lawsuit
2357.94 -> from the landlord James Warden, who was taking
Tesla to court for not paying property tax,
2363.71 -> as well as another bill from the phone company
who had installed a special line out of the
2368.92 -> laboratory, Tesla struggled financially. Tesla’s
promise to extend the coverage of his system
2374.58 -> so that it could be detected as far away as
Australia failed to persuade Morgan, who in
2380.381 -> July 1903 let Tesla know that he was unwilling
to invest any more capital, a mortal and unexpected
2387.91 -> blow to the World Telegraphy System that enraged
Tesla, who in true mad scientist fashion furiously
2395.1 -> cranked up the voltage of the magnifying transmitter
at Wardenclyffe to the maximum level and hurled
2401.72 -> lightning bolts into the New York sky. From
a risk perspective Morgan’s decision was
2407.44 -> quite understandable, since after 2 and a
half years Tesla had failed to fulfill his
2413.05 -> pledge to provide a transatlantic system in
6 to 8 months and a Pacific branch a year
2420 -> later, yet others have postulated that Morgan
abandoned Wardenclyffe because he was worried
2425.87 -> that Tesla was going to make the energy completely
free for everyone and thus deprive his firm
2432.26 -> of a lucrative paycheck, while another interpretation
contests that Morgan was growing increasingly
2438.69 -> less confident in the wireless industry, which
had been mired in scandal by the actions of
2444.25 -> Lancelot E. Pike. He was a conman who had
stolen investor money after promising to create
2450.79 -> a wireless service between Philadelphia and
New York. Moreover, Morgan felt more inclined
2457.119 -> to invest in Deforest Wireless automobiles,
a company founded by another of Tesla’s
2463.079 -> rivals that was projected to make 5 million
dollars a year, and which had already secured
2468.48 -> for itself a major contract with the US Navy
by February 1903 supplying wireless De Forest
2476.25 -> transmitters.
2477.98 -> After this, Tesla, no longer the darling of
electrical engineering, continued to have
2483.05 -> no luck attracting investors as the breakdown
of his Wardenclyffe project had turned academic
2489.18 -> and public opinion against him, with the once
celebrated genius, now painted as a man who
2495.28 -> could never quite fulfill his promises. Determined
to restore his credibility to investors by
2501.55 -> putting out a commercial product, Tesla devised
a scheme to sell small Tesla coils to laboratories
2508.119 -> around the country, via a company called the
Tesla Electric and Manufacturing Company but
2514.69 -> this ultimately went under because of a lack
of investment. Downtrodden and defamed in
2520.39 -> the US, Tesla would learn that even his reputation
in his homeland could not save him, after
2526.88 -> Serbian bankers declined to fund him, while
his old business partner John Jacob Astor,
2533.609 -> still annoyed that Tesla had spent his 1899
loan researching terrestrial stationary waves
2540.329 -> instead of wireless lighting, politely refused
to get involved. By early 1904, Tesla was
2546.96 -> hiring out his services as a consultant and
had embarked on a new project that aimed to
2552.86 -> harness the power of Niagara Falls in partnership
with the businessman William B. Rankine, yet
2559.16 -> Tesla’s real desire was always to restart
his experiments at Wardenclyffe, a prospect
2565 -> that was becoming increasingly unlikely since
investors were discouraged by the fact that
2570.71 -> Morgan still owned 51% of Tesla’s patents,
meaning that business partners would always
2576.35 -> have to consult him to reap any financial
benefit from Tesla’s inventions. In response,
2582.76 -> Tesla bombarded Morgan with impassioned appeals
to take him back on, in a series of letters
2588.68 -> that could come in many forms, with some carefully
prepared proposals promising Morgan unrealistically
2594.91 -> high profit margins, while in others Tesla
desperately scribbled emotional outbursts
2601.16 -> decrying his unfair treatment.
2604.8 -> Unable to drum up financial backing and still
struggling to get the Wardenclyffe tower functioning,
2610.099 -> Tesla was in a dark place and began spiraling
into a true nervous breakdown after the untimely
2616.44 -> death of his business associate Rankine and
the collapse of Canadian Niagara Power in
2621.839 -> the fall of 1905. A man who was always fascinated
with human psychology, in the 1920s Tesla
2628.849 -> shared his experience of emotional collapse
with author George Sylvester Viereck in a
2634.33 -> well-publicized book on Freudian theory, explaining
how in his delirium, he was haunted by images
2640.95 -> of his deceased brother Dane as well as their
mother. Tesla would recover from his breakdown
2646.72 -> in 1906, and with a new determination to prove
himself as a valuable asset, he switched his
2653.64 -> focus from electrical to mechanical engineering,
delving into the science of flight in a bid
2659.7 -> to raise money so that he could continue his
work at Wardenclyffe, which in 1904, due to
2666.27 -> lack of funds, he had mortgaged to George
C. Boldt, the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria
2671.44 -> Hotel where Tesla lived for many years. The
result was the invention of a turbine that
2677.15 -> worked without blades, but Tesla’s contraption
was met less than enthusiastically by John
2683.869 -> James Astor, who refused to invest in the
idea in 1909, yet Tesla still remained highly
2690.39 -> confident in his design, issuing two patents
for a pump and a turbine in October and even
2696.92 -> starting a new company, the Tesla Propulsion
Company. However, after Tesla again failed
2702.76 -> to impress at a demonstration at the Waterside
Power Station in New York, and still daydreaming
2708.869 -> about restarting his research into wireless
power, he approached the son of J.P Morgan,
2714.97 -> Jack Morgan, in 1913 about him becoming a
potential investor. More interested in his
2721.35 -> turbine designs, Jack Morgan allocated Tesla
20,000 dollars, who instead of using the money
2728.369 -> in the way it was intended, spent it all trying
to persuade Sigmund Bergmann, a German industrialist,
2734.73 -> to finance his project, which was discontinued
after the outbreak of World War One.
2741.579 -> Over the next 10 years, as his personal wealth
began to evaporate, Tesla continued to assess
2747.48 -> his turbine and to work in conjunction with
manufacturers such as Pyle National in Chicago,
2753.67 -> Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee, and the Budd
company in Philadelphia, but he was unable
2758.93 -> to fix a recurring problem that ultimately
spelled the project’s doom, as if operated
2764.54 -> at over 10,000 rpm, the thin disks of the
internal machinery would start to deform,
2771.2 -> and there were no stronger materials available.
Tesla’s inability to secure funding for
2776.28 -> any of his pursuits, and his penchant for
overspending, led to the near emptying of
2781.53 -> his bank accounts and from 1916, he was forced
to file for bankruptcy. Tesla admitted that
2787.92 -> his monthly income was no more than 350 to
400 dollars after declaring he was unable
2794.54 -> to pay 935 dollars in taxes to the New York
treasury, and although he was still technically
2801.29 -> the president and treasurer of the Nikola
Tesla Company, over 90% of the company’s
2806.77 -> stock was owned by friends, bankers, and creditors,
and many of his patents by then had expired,
2813.47 -> leaving Tesla virtually penniless. In a bid
to save himself from financial ruin, Tesla
2819.569 -> launched a lawsuit against Marconi in August
1915, accusing the Italian of illegally patenting
2826.78 -> radio technology in 1904, but the case went
nowhere and Marconi remained the official
2833.51 -> owner for the time being, with the decision
later overturned by the Supreme Court in 1943
2840.93 -> only a few months after Tesla’s death.
2844.18 -> Consequently, Tesla was forced to earn a living
by creating minor inventions and registering
2849.85 -> several improvements in automobile speedometers,
frequency meters, and flow meters which he
2856.01 -> licensed to Waltham Watch Company in 1918.
The company used Tesla’s name as a marketing
2862.809 -> ploy to sell ‘scientifically built speedometers’,
as despite Tesla’s changing circumstances,
2869.089 -> his name still carried a certain gravitas,
and Tesla’s opinions and thoughts still
2874.369 -> garnered much press interest, such as in 1917
when, presaging the advent of radar technology
2881.52 -> in the 1930s, he forecast that microwave radiation
could be employed to detect ships. In the
2888.29 -> midst of his financial troubles, Tesla still
had his admirers, and in 1915 it was reported
2894.829 -> by the New York Times that he had jointly
won the Nobel Prize for Physics, an honor
2900.47 -> he was to share with his one-time ally and
now bitter enemy Thomas Edison, but when it
2906.369 -> was presented at the awards ceremony it was
instead given to William H. Bragg and his
2911.79 -> son, as Tesla refused to share the award with
his nemesis nor had he forgiven the institute
2918.18 -> for recognizing Marconi as the pioneer of
radio communication technology after they
2923.73 -> had awarded him the same accolade in 1909.
Two years later in 1917 however, Tesla’s
2931.47 -> individual efforts would be recognized when
he accepted the Edison Medal from the American
2936.46 -> Institute of Electrical Engineers, the most
prestigious prize in electronic engineering,
2942.89 -> where his life’s work was praised in an
address by the vice-president of the organization,
2948.44 -> who said:
2949.44 -> “Were we to seize and eliminate from our
industrial world the result of Mr. Tesla's
2954.88 -> work, the wheels of industry would cease to
turn, our electric cars and trains would stop,
2961.44 -> our towns would be dark and our mills would
be idle and dead. His name marks an epoch
2968.339 -> in the advance of electrical science.”
2971.43 -> Yet Tesla cared very little for the decoration,
opting to leave the Engineer’s Club where
2976.77 -> the awards ceremony was taking place shortly
before he was presented with the medallion,
2982.5 -> forcing his friend and the person who had
nominated him, B.A Behrend to embark on a
2987.51 -> frantic search that ended in Bryant Park,
across from the venue, where Tesla was busy
2993.3 -> feeding pigeons. Tesla particularly loathed
the fact that the award was in his rival’s
2999.73 -> name. Despite being lauded for his work in
electricity, Nikola Tesla remained poor throughout
3005.35 -> the 1920s, and because he made only a small
income from the royalties he received from
3010.88 -> licensing his minor inventions he became embroiled
in a string of legal disputes, such as in
3017.35 -> June 1925 when he was sued by the attorney
Ralph J. Hawkins for failing to pay 913 dollars
3025.26 -> in fees. It was during this decade that Tesla
started to retreat from the public eye, living
3031.93 -> hotel to hotel as an eccentric recluse and
spending so much of his time feeding the pigeons
3037.599 -> in Bryant Park behind the New York Public
Library, that one end of the park, Nikola
3043.69 -> Tesla Corner, now honors his name.
3046.89 -> However, on his 75th birthday in 1931 Nikola
Tesla was suddenly back in the spotlight,
3054.549 -> appearing on the front cover of Time magazine,
and thanks to the efforts of a young science
3059.26 -> writer called Kenneth Swezey, he received
over 70 letters of congratulation published
3064.579 -> in a testimonial volume from some of the most
esteemed scientists of the day, including
3070.339 -> Albert Einstein. Interviewed by Time magazine,
Tesla outlined many of his future plans, and
3077.15 -> confidently disclosed how he was going to
disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity,
3082.91 -> how he was unconvinced that energy was released
from a split atom, as well as espousing the
3088.62 -> possibility of interplanetary communications
in a conversation he enjoyed so much that
3094.25 -> every year thereafter, Tesla would organize
a press conference on his birthday, usually
3100 -> a 6 hour affair where Tesla would speak to
a number of reporters and update them about
3105.7 -> his scientific and personal progress. For
example, in 1932, he informed the general
3111.64 -> public about his desire to build a motor propelled
by cosmic rays, and in 1936 he told journalists
3119.569 -> that he wiggled his toes hundreds of times
before he went to bed, an exercise he believed
3125.68 -> would tone his body and enable him to live
until he was 135 years old. The 1934 party
3132.94 -> was a particular highlight, where Tesla first
revealed he was in the process of creating
3138.74 -> a particle beam weapon, claiming in the New
York Times that it could:
3144.01 -> “…send concentrated beams of particles
through the free air, of such tremendous energy
3150.01 -> that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000
enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles
3156.71 -> from a defending nation’s border and will
cause armies of millions to drop dead in their
3162.119 -> tracks.”
3163.15 -> Anticipating the later doctrine of ‘Mutually
Assured Destruction’ and the concept of
3168.049 -> nuclear stalemate, Tesla believed his laser
beam could end war completely since it was
3174.46 -> so devastating that every conceivable defensive
measure would be useless against it. Although
3180.61 -> Tesla was susceptible to flights of fancy
on occasion, the death beam was a real project,
3187.27 -> and was the subject of a Tesla study rediscovered
in 1984 entitled ‘The New Art of Projecting
3194.34 -> Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through
Natural Media’, which laid out the fundamentals
3200.31 -> of a weapons system that discharged tungsten
and mercury particles at 48 times the speed
3207.03 -> of sound to produce devastating projectiles.
3212.08 -> Despite Tesla’s invention being impossible,
it elicited a great deal of publicity, motivating
3217.24 -> Tesla to recruit Hungarian architect Titus
deBobula to design a new tower to evaluate
3223.63 -> the death beam, yet the project would never
get off the ground, as by 1935, Tesla was
3230.24 -> no longer working with deBobula, who had proven
himself a slippery character after attempting
3236.27 -> to borrow money from Tesla and trying to get
him involved in an illegal arms deal in Paraguay.
3242.79 -> Nevertheless Tesla, ever wily, was still able
to use the furore that surrounded him to his
3248.81 -> advantage in some situations, offering up
a working prototype of the laser beam, valued
3255.18 -> at 10,000 dollars, to the managers of the
Governor Clinton Hotel as compensation for
3261.13 -> the 400 dollars that he owed them, while warning
them that the box he gave them supposedly
3266.86 -> containing the weapon would explode if improperly
handled, resulting in terrified staff depositing
3273.53 -> it at the back end of the hotel vault. The
laser beam also came to the attention of the
3279.56 -> international community, and Tesla soon found
himself entering negotiations with the League
3285.109 -> of Nations, the UK government, and even the
Soviet Union, who signed a contract in April
3291.119 -> 1935 stipulating that Tesla was to supply
them with the information necessary to construct
3297.47 -> the weapon, although it is unknown if Soviet
scientists actually carried out the research.
3303.68 -> The project however would start to disintegrate
from January 1938, after the British concluded
3309.91 -> negotiations with Tesla, while the final nail
in the coffin would occur in 1940, after he
3316.49 -> was left empty-handed following a desperate
attempt to persuade the US government that
3321.849 -> the laser beam could be a viable World War
Two weapon.
3326.74 -> Hampering Tesla in his last ditch attempts
to liaise with international governments,
3331.589 -> was his declining health, which had started
to deteriorate in 1937 after he was run over
3337.589 -> by a taxi and refused to get medical treatment
for injuries that he would never recover from.
3343.97 -> Subsisting on a meager diet of boiled vegetables
and warm milk, and making sure to keep three
3349.66 -> feet away from everyone to avoid catching
germs, Tesla’s personal health choices led
3355.78 -> to no improvements, and by 1942 he was spending
the majority of his days confined to his bed
3363.47 -> where his grip on reality started to loosen,
when in July, for example, Tesla tried to
3368.69 -> send money to Mark Twain who had died in 1913.
Opting to see only a select few visitors,
3376.6 -> including the exiled prince of Yugoslavia
Peter II and a young scientist called Bloyce
3382.24 -> Fitzgerald, the creator of an anti-tank gun
who would come to discuss inventions, Tesla
3388.1 -> isolated himself from the world as he deteriorated.
3391.8 -> Nikola Tesla died of a heart attack in his
sleep on the 7th of January 1943 at his executive
3398.38 -> suite in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker,
where he had been living for the previous
3405.13 -> 10 years. Inundated with letters of condolence
from major scientific and political figures
3411.22 -> all over the world, such as Eleanor Roosevelt,
the wife of the US President, the vice-president
3416.72 -> Henry Wallace, and a host of nobel laureates,
Tesla’s funeral took place at St John the
3422.29 -> Divine Cathedral in New York City on the 12th
of January, where it was attended by over
3428.54 -> 2000 people and presided over by members of
the Serbian Orthodox Church. Afterwards Nikola
3435.16 -> Tesla, who by the end of his life boasted
over 700 patents to his name, was cremated
3441.63 -> and his ashes were placed inside a golden
sphere, which is still exhibited at the Tesla
3447.609 -> Museum in Belgrade.
3449.799 -> Following his death, the US government were
curious as to whether among Tesla’s surviving
3455.22 -> notes there could be information to help them
in the war effort, and so they investigated
3460.13 -> his documents but found nothing of profound
importance, and by 1951 they had been repatriated
3467.089 -> to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade and were accompanied
a few years later in 1957 by Tesla’s ashes.
3474.569 -> For decades after though, the mystery surrounding
the laser beam gun persisted, as the US government
3481.069 -> consistently denied they had in their possession
one of Tesla’s microfilms, which according
3486.4 -> to official records had been intensively reviewed
for over a month sometime after his death
3492.349 -> - the truth of these claims however remains
unproven.
3497.39 -> Born to Serbian parents on the Austro-Hungarian
borderlands, Nikola spent his early childhood
3503.059 -> in pastoral paradise, playing for hours in
the farmyard and the churchyard with his siblings
3509.18 -> and his cat Macack, who first set in motion
Tesla’s lifelong obsession after showing
3515.16 -> him the strange ways that electric phenomena
interacted with the material world. As a youngster,
3521.69 -> Tesla was besieged by a catalogue of perplexing
illnesses, including an oversensitivity to
3527.45 -> mental images which made the products of his
imagination seem real as well as a fixation
3533.53 -> with quantifying everything he saw and experienced.
Tesla was a classic eccentric genius, possessing
3540.5 -> an irrepressible self-belief in his own ability
to devise fresh and original concepts, which
3547.349 -> he presented with the flamboyance and performance
flair of a showman, as onstage he was equally
3553.49 -> as electric as his subject matter, coming
across, in the words of New York World reporter
3559.71 -> Arthur Brisbane, as:
3561.19 -> “A most radiant creature, with light flaming
at every pore of his skin, from the tips of
3567.46 -> his fingers and from the end of every hair
on his head”
3572.66 -> By the middle of the 1890s Tesla was at the
apex of his power and making major contributions
3579.15 -> to a number of other academic fields, but
Tesla, who prioritized his intellectual pursuits
3585.48 -> and never took a wife or started a family,
also had his fair share of anxieties, the
3591.42 -> pressure of his line of work making him particularly
susceptible to emotional outbursts of despair
3597.5 -> and anger when things were not going his way.
Tesla’s misfortunes often arose because
3603.63 -> he was overly confident in his outlook, produced
only a few tangible commercial results from
3609.38 -> his experiments, and had no qualms about irresponsibly
spending all of his investor’s money while
3615.53 -> still asking for more, a habit that would
irreparably damage his reputation in his later
3620.9 -> years and transform him into an impoverished
recluse who hid away in New York hotels.
3628.319 -> As he began to ail in the 1930s, Tesla enjoyed
a renewed wave of international popularity
3634.849 -> when he revealed that he was planning to assemble
a laser gun that he anticipated would be so
3640.599 -> powerful that it would end all conflict, yet
like many of his schemes it would never come
3646.96 -> to fruition, fizzling out by 1940 after his
last effort to interest the US government
3653.67 -> failed, although many decades after, curiosity
about the death ray would still persist. Following
3659.431 -> a period of mental and physical deterioration
in 1942, Nikola Tesla died at his room at
3666.26 -> the Hotel New Yorker on the 7th of January
1943, but was immortalized for his foundational
3672.799 -> contributions to science.
3675.93 -> Today one of the world’s most prominent
and valuable companies is called Tesla Inc.
3680.64 -> It is a company which seeks to revolutionize
transport systems and how energy is delivered
3685.859 -> across the world and while it has no direct
connections to Nikola Tesla the man, it is
3691.5 -> fitting that his life’s work has been remembered
in this way. Tesla, an ethnic Serb, hailed
3697.53 -> from Croatia in the mid-nineteenth century
at a time when the Balkans was very far from
3702.68 -> the centre of technological and industrial
development and formed part of the Austro-Hungarian
3708.51 -> Empire, a backwards power which did not contribute
greatly to wider societal development at the
3714.43 -> time. And yet, despite these impediments,
he made enormous breakthroughs during his
3719.819 -> lifetime in a wide range of different fields.
It was Tesla who first pioneered alternating
3725.92 -> current, who made major advances in radio
technology and who first devised many of the
3731.76 -> systems which are used today in renewable
energy systems. Perhaps most impressively,
3737.46 -> he devised the entire concept of wireless
technology and communication. In this respect
3743.7 -> he stands in a small line of individuals in
modern history which includes Galileo Galilei,
3749.38 -> Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein
whose life’s work have transformed our understanding
3756.76 -> of modern science and how society functions.
3761.02 -> Given all of this, we might ask why Tesla
was not credited as much as he should have
3765.92 -> been in his own lifetime for his successes?
The answer to this conundrum is relatively
3771.539 -> clear. Tesla’s ideas and the systems he
came up with, were simply ahead of their time
3777.39 -> and he was overshadowed by the innovations
introduced into western society by Thomas
3781.97 -> Edison, a similar genius whose designs around
electricity were more suitable for the level
3787.59 -> of technological development which prevailed
in Europe and North America in the second
3792.369 -> half of the nineteenth century. But while
many of Edison’s inventions and pioneering
3797.66 -> work around electricity generation are now
viewed as being somewhat archaic and inefficient,
3804.089 -> Tesla’s designs and ideas are still widely
praised. Perhaps in this respect it should
3809.799 -> be left to Edison to have the last word on
Tesla. While he dismissed the Serb’s idea
3815.16 -> of alternating current as being impractical
at the time, in the end Edison concluded that
3820.7 -> Tesla was one of the truly great figures in
the development of our electric world. Edison
3826.22 -> was entirely correct in this assessment. While
Edison won the contest to become the leading
3831.17 -> figure in electrification in North America
at the end of the nineteenth century, when
3836.251 -> you boil a kettle or use many other electrical
appliances today you are most likely using
3841.94 -> an alternating current device rather than
the direct current which Edison championed.
3847.76 -> As such, while Tesla lost the current war
in the nineteenth century, he was a prophet
3853 -> of twentieth and even twenty-first-century
technology and energy efficiency.
3859.279 -> Although Nikola Tesla did not invent or rather
discover AC power, his genius lies in his
3865.01 -> ability to find far-reaching real-world applications
to new discoveries and natural phenomena.
3871.42 -> He possessed a vision which few of his contemporaries
could match, even Thomas Edison, and there
3877.3 -> is no doubt that he changed the world, just
as much as his former employer, as the light
3882.9 -> bulb would be next to useless without a reliable
and safe means of power delivery over long
3888.589 -> distances. Indeed, there are few people whose
work has impacted more on modern day society
3894.849 -> than Nikola Tesla, with electric power now
being available to the majority of the human
3899.859 -> race, largely thanks to his work. He even
tried to work out a way in which, power could
3905.5 -> be delivered freely to consumers, which perhaps
both explains why he is today so highly regarded,
3912.77 -> but also why, he never managed to monetise
his work in the same manner as people like
3917.75 -> Edison. Perhaps what most endears us to people
like Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein and the
3923.98 -> breed of latter-day inventors and scientists
who with little or no formal education revolutionised
3930.25 -> their respective fields, is the image of the
eccentric, mad scientist, working alone on
3935.609 -> experiments and calculations. In an age in
which the discoveries and achievements of
3941.809 -> individual scientists are today subsumed by
the multinational corporations they work for,
3947.33 -> even the one that bears Tesla’s name, there
is something romantic and inspiring about
3950.71 -> one human being having such a positive impact
on human civilization through their own endeavour.
3957.39 -> Nikola Tesla is one of these people and despite
the fact that he did not perhaps receive the
3962.369 -> money or recognition he deserved in his lifetime,
he has since his death been immortalised,
3969.14 -> as one of the greatest and most important
inventors to have ever lived.
3975.539 -> What do you think of Nikola Tesla? Do you
believe he was a more brilliant scientist
3980.099 -> than Einstein? Please let us know in the comment
section and in the meantime thank you very
3986.059 -> much for watching.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEH3qLofMaU