Tesla, Nikola (1856-1943) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography (original) (raw)
Eccentric Serbian-American engineer who made many contributions to the invention of electromagnetic devices. Tesla was Serb who was born in the Croatian village of Smiljan in the Lika region, which at the time was part of Austrian monarchy. His father was an orthodox church priest.
Tesla had a keen memory and ability to visualize and construct complicated objects in his mind's eye. While working on his first job with the American Telephone Company in Budapest in 1880, Tesla suffered a nervous breakdown in which he claimed to suffer from a Edgar Allen Poe-like hypersensitivity of perception (Hunt and Draper 1991, p. 32). After he recovered, he was walking with a friend when the idea for the polyphase system of generating alternating current suddenly occurred to him. As of yet, he did not possess the means to actually build the necessary equipment.
Tesla was hired by the French branch of the Edison Company and assigned the job of repairing an electrical plant in Strassburg. Upon completion of the repairs, however, the Edison Company refused to pay the money it had promised. Tesla quit, and set his hopes on obtaining work in America. Strangely enough, once in America, he went to work forEdison. After promising $50,000 to Tesla if he would improve DC motors, Edison reneged on his word, dismissing the promise as "American humor." Tesla was furious and quit immediately. Unfortunately, Tesla was not able to find other work, so he was forced to dig ditches for two years.
Finally, he obtained work at Westinghouse's Pittsburgh labs. He told Westinghouse about his idea for the polyphase system, which would allow alternating current [AC] electricity 
to be transmitted over large distances. Edison, however, had invested heavily in direct current [DC] systems and fought AC with everything he had. Westinghouse saw the advantages of Tesla's system, and agreed to buy the patent rights for one million dollars plus a $1 per horsepower royalty. Westinghouse built power plants and transmission lines, proving once and for all that AC power was an economical and workable system, while Edison'simpractical DC never got very far off the ground. Westinghouse used the polyphase system to harness the power of Niagra Falls in a hydroelectric plant.
Using the money he received from Westinghouse, Tesla founded the Tesla Electric Company in New York. Here, he invested time and money creating exotic new electric devices, including the Tesla coil. Tesla's biographer O'Neill reported the untenable story (which was echoed by subsequent biographers) that among these devices was a fist-sized vibrator which was capable up setting up resonances and creating a man-made earthquake. In any case, Tesla's lab burnt to the ground of March 13, 1895. Everything was lost, as Tesla had no insurance.
Tesla moved to Colorado Springs, where he built a new laboratory and performed more experiments using a monstrousTesla coil. According to O'Neill once again, Tesla used this to generate man-made lightning. He then moved back to New York and began the construction of a lab with a huge tower in Wardenclyffe, Long Island. The lab was never completed, and the tower was eventually knocked down. There may have been some unusual maneuvering in the awarding of the 1912 or 1915 Nobel Prize. Biographer disagree on the dates, but report that Tesla was confidentially informed that he was to share the physics award with Edison, and was then surprised to see it go to a scientist (Hunt and Draper 1991, pp. 166-171).
Tesla was highly eccentric in his behavior and absolutely impractical with money. One of his compulsions was his daily feeding of the pigeons in New York. He is reported to have become attached to a dove, and his biographers report that the death of this pigeon, whom he regarded with an emotion resembling love, dealt him a shattering blow (Hunt and Draper 1991, pp. 192-193). Tesla was destitute for the last years of his life and was forced to move from one hotel to another when he got behind in his bills. Upon Tesla's death, his papers were impounded by the Custodian of Alien Property.
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© 1996-2007 Eric W. Weisstein