Nikola Tesla
Rivalry with Thomas Edison:
Tesla worked as Edison’s assistant when he came to America. Edison didn’t pay Tesla the bonus he promised he’d pay. So Tesla quit working for him, and went solo and started work on the alternating current transmission development. It was later reported that the Nobel Prize for physics was to be shared between Tesla and Edison, though their hostility towards each other was too deep that the prize was refused to be accepted in such a way from either scientists. Instead, the prize was given to two other researchers that year for their work on X-ray crystallography.
The biggest controversy associated with the discovery of the radio involves Tesla and another contemporary scientist Guglielmo Marconi. At that time, Marconi was credited for the invention of the radio, while Tesla actually had the basic idea and prototype of the patent.
Colorado Springs:
Gathering money for research wasn’t easy for Tesla, but in 1899 he received an offer of free land and services in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He stayed there till 1900, and made what was regarded his most significant discovery – terrestrial stationary waves. This discovery proved that the Earth can act as a conductor and would respond similarly to how a tuning fork responds to electrical vibrations of certain frequencies. He once claimed that he was able to receive extra-terrestrial signals, but was later derided. On returning to New York in 1900, he wrote and published the land-mark treatise “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy” in Century magazine. It contained remarkable photographs of his high voltage work in Colorado Springs, and a long discourse on the use of alternative energy sources such as solar, wind power, and of course his wireless power transmission system.
The World System:
Tesla convinced the industrialist J. P. Morgan to provide $150,000 for further research. In 1901, at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island, New York, Tesla constructed a large workshop and a 57 meter high wooden tower which was to be the first “magnifying transmitter” in his “world system”. Unfortunately, the money ran out after a couple of years and Morgan withdrew his financial support when coming to the realization that unaccounted “free” power would compromise his other interests. Tesla conducted some experiments, but the transmitter was never completed. The site was sold in 1915 to cover debts and the tower was finally salvaged in 1917. This was one of Tesla’s greatest defeats.
Fun facts about Tesla:
-Tesla used to memorize complete books, and supposedly had eidetic memory.
– During the early years of his life, Tesla was badly stricken by an illness which caused him to perceive “visions” afterwards. The fun thing is, the visions he used to see were all somehow linked to solutions of problems he was facing.
– Tesla demonstrated how safe AC current was by passing high frequency AC power through his body to power light bulbs. He then was able to shoot large lightning bolts from his Tesla coils to in front of an audience without doing them any harm.
– He was personal friends with Einstein.
– He was also close friends with famous American author and humorist Mark Twain.
– He had a queer obsession with anything that was associated with the number 3 in it. He would only stay in hotel room numbers that were divisible by 3. In the last ten years of his life, he lived in room 3327 on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker.
– He never married and claimed that his celibacy somehow reinforced his scientific abilities.
– He made his first million at the age of 40, but was apathetic towards material things and gave away nearly all of his riches afterwards.
– He found jewelry disgusting, especially pearl earrings.
– He spoke eight languages.
-Tesla was cremated after his death, and his ashes remain encased in a golden sphere, his favorite geometrical shape, in the Tesla Museum, Belgrade.
Tesla was rather critical towards Einstein’s relativity theory, and stated:
“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 was passionate about discovering life in other planets, and was obsessed with finding clues and scientific evidence and rational arguments for this. He set statements such as “How to Send Signals to Mars” and “The Breaking of Tornadoes”, which rather lowered his reputation. In those days, such ideas were only considered imaginative instead of something holding true scientific value.
In January 1943, Nikola Tesla had no money and was completely penniless during his time of death. He wasn’t able to pay any bills of the hotel he stayed in. With the help of the FBI, the US Government seized all of his research papers on electricity and other projects and was never disclosed afterwards.
Why I chose Nikola Tesla for this assignment:
From the details of Tesla mentioned above, a general reader can deduce that he indeed was an underrated scientist of the time, and didn’t receive the recognition he really deserved. My main reason of choosing Nikola Tesla for this subject of writing is to point out how pitiful and unfortunate it is of us for knowing false history all these years, where such a visionary scientist’s fame, limelight, and credit for hard work was hogged and wrongly presented to other contemporary scientists who, for which would be fair enough to say, stole Tesla’s ideas and committed unfair acts of plagiarism.
stigmatadiaboli 