Nikola Tesla was an electrical inventor, and lived during the late 1800's
into the mid-1900's. He was a brilliant person, yet was an enigma to practically
everyone. Known for his eccentric lifestyle, Tesla nevertheless maintained a
rather high social profile, despite his prolific inventiveness. Some of his
phobias included pearl earrings worn by women, never staying in a hotel room or
floor whose number was divisable by three, and insisting on a large number of
napkins at every meal with which he would meticulously polish his silverware.
Tesla had a good number of friends, one of which was Samuel Clemmons, also known
as Mark Twain.
Tesla's main claim to fame lay with his invention of the
alternating current motor. Tesla believed that alternating current was vastly
superior to (Edison's) direct current, but the problem was the lack of a
practical motor. Alternating current is practical because of the fact that it
can be altered or converted to suit a variety of situations. For example, if the
voltage is made quite high, then the current necessary for a specific level of
power is very low. This low current then becomes very efficient when sending
electrical power over very long wires. (This is the reason why the power lines
running across the countryside are at very high voltages.)
Tesla also
worked with radio-frequency electromagnetic waves, and despite the claims made
by Marconi, actually did invent the idea of Radio as we know it today. (There
are numerous patents which bear this out.) In working with radio waves, Tesla
created the Tesla coil as a
means to generate and receive this form of energy.
Tesla went on to
experiment with actual wireless transmission of electrical power. In Colorado
Springs, Colorado, he built a laboratory to develop this. The Colorado Springs
lab contained the largest Tesla Coil ever built, even today. Called the
'Magnifying Transmitter', it was capable of generating some 300,000 watts of
power, and (reportedly) could produce a bolt of lightning 130 feet long.
According to local acounts, Tesla actually managed to successfully transmit
about 30 to 50 thousand watts of power without wires using the
'Transmitter'.
Tesla was also a great mechanical engineer, and patented
dozens of devices ranging from speedometers to extremely efficient electrical
generators. One unique device was his bladeless turbine. Instead of using
fan-type blades, Tesla's turbine utilized solid disks of metal, and relied on
what is called the 'boundry-layer effect'. His turbine ran on either
compressed air or steam, and was so efficient that a device held in the hand
could produce well over 10 horsepower! Today, this bladeless technology is being
used in a special type of non-clogging pump designed for the oil industry. (In
fact, the thicker the stuff it pumps, the more efficiently it pumps
it!)
Tesla had a knack for visualizing inventions in their final,
finished form. He also would envision a great many other ideas and concepts,
which only later in this century would come to pass. One such idea was the
creation of a large ring that would encircle the earth. Built on scaffolding,
once completed, the scaffolding would be removed, and the ring would remain
stationary. 20th century geosynchronous satellites work in a similar
way.
Tesla was also responsible for a great many other inventions and
devices that we take for granted today. He postulated the ability to locate
objects in the air or in the ground by using radio waves. Today, we call it
RADAR, and when used to peer into the human body, MRI. Tesla also created radio-
control devices. His work with special gas-filled lamps set the stage for the
creation of fluorescent lighting.
Tesla eventually died, literally
pennyless, on January 7th, 1943. It is rather sad that a man who gave the world
so much, received so little for his efforts. History books have been unkind as
well. Even today, many texts still credit Marconi with the invention of radio,
despite the Supreme Court decision which overruled the Marconi patent, awarding
it to Tesla. In many parts of this country, people still refer to the electric
utility as the 'Edison Company', even though they use the Tesla-Westinghouse
alternating current system, NOT Edison's direct current. At the Niagra
Falls power generating station, a small statue of Tesla is purposely left
unilluminated at night. It has been said that Tesla is the Forgotten Father of
Technology. Tesla himself once commented "... The present is theirs. (skeptics
of the day) The future, for which I really worked, is mine." How true
indeed.
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