Nikola Tesla: The Silent Architect of Modern Electricity

Nikola Tesla was the mysterious and greatest scientist in world history. He was an incredibly talented and hardworking person. Nikola Tesla was born on a very stormy and thundery night in the middle of 9 July and 10 July in 1856. He was a Serbian inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and physicist.

Childhood and Education:

When he was 5, his older brother died in a riding accident. He was worried about the Tesla family tradition to become a priest. But he was passionate about physics, mathematics, and engineering.

Tesla studied German, arithmetic, and religion at primary school in Smiljan. After finishing primary school, Tesla moved on to middle school. Then he was admitted to the higher Real Gymnasium in Karlovac and completed his higher school degree. After graduating from high school, Tesla returned to Smiljan to see his family. Once he returned to the home, he was affected by cholera. He felt was like dying of cholera. He asked his father if he could survive; he wanted to study engineering, and his father promised to send him to the best school in the world. After a quick recovery, his father sent him to study electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute Graz in Austria. He also studied about Philosophy at the University of Prague.

Career (Working at Budapest):

In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, to work for the telegraph company under Tivadar Puskas. The company was under construction when he joined, and the company was not too effective. So, he joined the central Telegraph office as a draftsman instead of the Budapest Telegraph Exchange. When the Budapest telephone exchange became operational, Tesla was assigned as a chief electrician. He improved his skills while working in Budapest. One day, while he was walking, he got the idea of a brushless AC motor and made sketches of its rotating electromagnets in the sand. It was the first step to the successful utilization of alternating current.

War of currents: Tesla vs Edison

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison were one of greatest and productive scientists in history. They fought for the dominance with their power transmission system. Edison developed a DC system while Tesla developed an AC system.

In 1884, Tesla came to the United States with four cents in his pocket and some clothes on his back. Tesla came with a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor who was a former employer of Thomas Edison and meet with Edison. Edison appointed Tesla as an engineer in his company. Then they worked together tirelessly and improved Edison’s invention. One day Edison offered $50,000 to Tesla for an improved design for his DC dynamos. Tesla agreed and started working. After a few months of hard work, Tesla presented a solution to Edison and asked for the money. Edison disagreed to give him and said it was a joke. Then the conflict begins and Tesla quit Edison company and took a job digging ditches for $2 a day.

Tesla Electric Light Company:

Shortly after leaving the Edison company, Tesla was working to patent an arc lighting system that he had developed in the Edison company. In 1885, Tesla created an arc lighting manufacturing and utility company named ‘Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing.' Tesla worked hard to obtain patents for improving DC generators. His first patent was issued in the USA for building and installing a system in Rahway, New Jersey.

After a few months, investors show less interest in the Tesla Company for the new ideas of Tesla. They formed a new utility company and left Tesla. Tesla even lost control of the patents that he developed, as he assigned all the patents to the company in exchange for stock.

Tesla and Westinghouse:

After being unsuccessful in his company, Tesla was hired by Westinghouse to develop a power system using alternating currents. Westinghouse launched the first AC power system near Boston and was a major competitor of Edison. He gave Tesla his own lab and licensed Tesla’s patents for his AC motor. Tesla designed AC power systems that are still used around the world. He built motors exactly as he imagined, and it worked as he expected. After Tesla’s innovation, the Westinghouse company won the bid to electricity the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Innovations:

Nikola Tesla was an innovative and big thinker. He made some groundbreaking inventions that we are still using. Tesla is well-known for his contributions to AC electricity and the Tesla coil. Let’s discuss his remarkable discoveries. Tesla designed the alternating current (AC) electrical system that became the dominant power system in the 20th century. Still, now our electrical system is based on alternating current. However, the most remarkable well-known discovery is the “Tesla coil." It is a wireless technology that generates high voltages and frequency and low current. A Tesla coil is an inductor used in radio technology.

In the early 20th century, Tesla saw the rise of piston engines in the automobile industry. Then he developed his own turbine called the “Tesla Turbine." He used smooth discs that spin in a chamber, and the disk rotates through the combustion process. In 1895, Tesla developed the first AC hydroelectric power plant in the United States at Niagara Falls, and it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York. There is much debate about the inventor of the radio. However, Tesla was prepared to transmit a radio signal over a distance of 50 miles from his lab, but unfortunately his lab burned down, so the test was delayed. Elsewhere, Marconi was granted a patent for his radio transmit signal, and he was capable of transmitting a signal across the Atlantic using a Tesla oscillator that made him the inventor of the radio.

Although fluorescent and neon lamps were not invented by Tesla, he contributed greatly to the advancement of both. Tesla is considered to be the first person in America to take an x-ray photograph. He also invented the remote control. To make a wireless power transmission system, he tried to build ‘Wardenclyffe Tower’ but unfortunately failed. Moreover, he played an important role in many discoveries.

Honors and Awards:

Tesla won numerous awards and medals in his life, including the Elliott Cresson Medal (1894), the AIEE Edison Medal (1916), the Grand Officer of the Order of St. Sava (Serbia, 1892), the Medal of the University of Paris (France, 1937), the Order of the White Eagle (Yugoslavia, 1936), the John Scott Medal (1934), and so many more.

There are also many things that are named after Tesla, including ‘The Tesla Society,' 2244 Tesla (a minor planet), Tesla (the SI-derived unit of magnetic inductivity), Tesla Motors (an electric car company), The Nikola Tesla Award, The Nikola Tesla Museum, Nikola Tesla Day in Croatia, and so many more.

Death:

Tesla was a lifelong bachelor. He would take a daily walk to the park and feed the pigeons there. In 1937, while feeding pigeons in the park late at night, he was involved in a car accident and broke his back and ribs. He refused to go to the hospital for treatment and never recovered from this injury. On January 7, 1943, Tesla was found dead in the Hotel New Yorker, United States.

-Ariful Islam
Bangladesh

References:
1. Nikola Tesla: Wikipedia
2. https://www.biography.com/inventors/nikola-tesla
3. https://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm
4. Tesla, N., & Childress, D. H. (1993). The fantastic inventions of Nikola Tesla. Adventures Unlimited.
5. Nikola Tesla