Interesting Anecdotes of Nikola Tesla

 

‘He would be a child of darkness’ the midwife said. ‘No, he will be a child of light’, his mother replied. Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia during a lightning storm and was already claimed as a child of darkness by the midwife.

One of history’s greatest inventors, Nikola Tesla is famously known for inventing the first AC (alternating current) motor and developing AC-powered devices and generators. In the early 1900s, Tesla was believed to get a Nobel prize, but he never did due to lack of fame. There are still many people and scientists who do not recognize him.

                                             Nikola Tesla (reference: Wikimedia Commons)

Nikola Tesla got interested in inventing things from an early age as he used to watch his mother make small household appliances when she was free. His father was a priest who did not let Tesla continue engineering, but when Tesla’s conditions became extremely bad, his father promised him that he would let him continue engineering if he got healthy back again. Miraculously Tesla got well and joined the Graz University of Technology in Austria in 1875. Tesla is said to have a photographic memory that would let him memorize everything he had in his books.

In 1882, Tesla moved to Paris and joined the French branch of Edison’s electric company. There he started by setting up indoor lighting and when his seniors saw his passion and talent, they started giving him some higher work like fixing generators. In 1884, when the manager of Edison Machine Works, who had been supervising Paris installations knew about Tesla’s talent, he called him to join Edison Machine Works in New York. From the start, Tesla had a good impression on Edison. There were some machines of Edison, which he thought would be impossible to fix so he offered Tesla 50,000 USD for fixing those machines. Edison did not expect Tesla to fix those machines, and Tesla spent the next few months fixing those machines. Edison was surprised when Tesla fixed his machines, and when Tesla asked for his money, Edison laughed and said, ‘You don’t understand our American humor.’ And added 10 dollars to his weekly salary, making one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Tesla was furious and left the company.

                      Thomas Edison (reference: Wikimedia Commons)

Betrayed by the man he trusted; Tesla started to work as a ditch digger for 2 dollars per day. Word slowly spread among Manhattan’s elites that an incomparable genius was working as a ditch digger for 2 dollars per day. Eventually, a group of wealthy investors approached Tesla to develop a system of lighting. They were ready to finance the Tesla Electric Company, so he agreed. Once his company started gaining profit, he was thrown out of it and realized he was scammed.

In 1886, George Westinghouse hired Nikola Tesla believing that AC would be the future of the world and long-distance communication. He bought several patents of Nikola Tesla. With that money, Tesla became rich enough to live independently and made his own laboratory. In 1891, he became a US citizen and in the same year, he patented Tesla coil.

                     George Westinghouse (reference: Wikimedia Commons)

An alternating current system was installed in various cities, providing electricity on a large scale, unlike direct current which only provided electricity in areas lying under a 2 km radius. This made Edison furious. In the late 1880s, Edison and his workers started publicly electrocuting animals to show how dangerous alternating current was. And to prove his point, he once even electrocuted an elephant.

Despite Edison’s schemes, many good things were happening to Tesla and Westinghouse. They won a bid to light the entire World’s Columbian Exposition for the 400^th anniversary of the discovery of America using Tesla’s AC system. 27 million people there witnessed the power of AC and to them, it was clear that AC will power the world in future. The duo of Tesla and Westinghouse got success again when they build the world’s first AC-powered hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls in 1896.

Though they won the war of the currents against Edison, Westinghouse’s company was having a loss. His company had a debt of 10 million dollars, and he was not able to pay it. He asked Tesla to lower his royalties so that he could save the company. Tesla was grateful to him and gently said, ‘You trusted me when no one did.’ And ripped the contract. If he had held to the royalties, he would have become the first billionaire.

Tesla made his own lab and continued his research. A fire once struck his lab and burning most of his work. That incident had a negative impact on Tesla’s life. Tesla was obsessed with wireless transmission and started working on wireless signals. And during the same time, an Italian scientist named Guglielmo Marconi was working on it too. Marconi sent the first radio signal in 1901 using 17 patents of Nikola Tesla. In 1904, the patent office patented the radio in Marconi’s name and news spread that Marconi was going to receive the Noble Prize in Physics for the invention of the radio. Tesla did not get any credit even though Marconi used 17 of his patents and was furious. He sued Marconi and the case settled in Tesla’s favor six months after his death.

Guglielmo Marconi (reference: Wikimedia Commons)

As time passed, Nikola Tesla’s health became worse. He lived his last few years in the New Yorker Hotel and died on 7 January 1943.