Imagine a world without lights, motors, electric pumps, fans, refrigerators, or elevators. If there were no microwaves, there would be no radio or television. The next time you press the switch, you should think about Nikola Tesla. Tesla, more than any other inventor, is entitled to say that he ushered in the age of electricity. But 70 years after his death, a century after his major inventions came out, his name is not as well known as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell or the Wright brothers.
Tesla's restless brain allows him to go beyond these innovations in power and machinery. He invented a "amplification coil" that greatly increases the frequency and voltage of an electric current. Tesla discovered that such currents could radiate electromagnetic waves, and he was acutely aware that these electromagnetic waves were promising. Today, "wireless" is a ubiquitous term in the world of computer networks. Tesla discovered this principle more than 100 years ago.
Tesla is often compared to Thomas Edison, but he is the opposite of Edison in many ways. Edison claimed that the invention was "1% inspiration, 99% sweat". However, Tesla was a very thoughtful and far-sighted person. Edison was self-taught; Tesla received a full industrial education. Edison solved some practical problems; Tesla dreamed of inventing technology that could change the world. Edison commercialized his invention; Tesla had little business acumen. The only thing they have in common is that both sleep very little: Tesla sometimes works from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. the next morning.
During Tesla's lifetime, many of his inventions were not rewarded or rewarded in any way. For example, Guglielmo Marconi invented radio, but his device was made based on Tesla's ideas. It wasn't until recent years that Tesla gained wider recognition for his profound insights and their impact on modern life.
Tesla's growth background
Tesla's father, an Orthodox priest, wanted his son, born in 1856, to be like himself. The Tesla family was ethnic Serbs who lived in Croatia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. Tesla's mother invented kitchen utensils like egg beaters, and he felt like her. When he fell ill once as a teenager, he made his father promise him that if he recovered, he would send him to technical school. He studied mechanics and electricals at the Austrian Polytechnic School in Graz, Austria, with the aim of becoming an engineer.
Tesla saw pictures of Niagara Falls as a child. He immediately thought of a huge mill waterwheel that could harness the power of the waterfall to work. These scenes show that Tesla has been thinking strangely since he was a child. This young man is able to perform calculus calculations in his mind and has a superior memory. But what stands out most is his ability to visualize his ideas: he can process his thoughts over and over again in his mind so that they can be as real as they seem in real objects.
But his talent also brought some negative effects. In his 20s, the tall, thin Tesla experienced a nervous breakdown that made his senses overly sensitive—the ticking of his watch could make him feel uncomfortable, and he even found that sunlight could make him feel depressed. Throughout his life, he suffered from phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Tesla has long been interested in alternating current. At that time, experiments that required motors and lighting used direct current (DC), just like the current generated by batteries. DC motors are inefficient, but no one can imagine how ac opportunities work. One day, while Tesla was discussing poetry in the park, it occurred to him how to make an AC motor a reality.
His idea of using alternating current has puzzled experts in Europe. In 1884, at the age of 28, Tesla decided to travel to New York and presented thomas Edison with his ideas. He described to the great inventor his views on alternating current, but Edison was not interested in it. Instead, he hired Tesla to operate his DC device. But the two didn't quite fit — Tesla quit his job without finishing the job Edison had given him, and he didn't end up getting his own salary.
With no money, Tesla began to make a living by helping others dig ditches. But his fate was about to strike back.
ALTERNA is easier to use
Direct current consists of electrons moving in one direction along a conductor. The direction of electron motion in alternating current changes several times per second. In order to make an electric motor, you need to change the polarity of a fixed electromagnet called a stator. The magnetic rotor will constantly want to align with the magnetic poles where the stator has been changing, so that the stator will rotate to generate power. DC motors use clever mechanical commutators to change polarity; AC motors electrically change the direction of the current directly. Once Tesla figured out how to match alternating current to the polarity of the electromagnets in the motor, he made one of his most important breakthroughs.
The triumph of alternating current
Edison has found users for his HVDC transmission system, setting up wires on the streets of New York City to lead to their homes. But George Westinghouse is already working on a competing AC transmission system. He thought Tesla's invention could give his solution an advantage over Edison.
Tesla understood that AC was a more efficient way to drive electric motors and electric lights. What's more, the "AC" can be boosted using a coil. Through electromagnetic induction, a low voltage in one coil is transformed into a high voltage in another. High-voltage current can be transmitted more efficiently in the wires and then made available to the home by bucking. Tesla's circuits are the precursors of transformers we often see on utility poles. Direct current cannot be boosted, and to transmit it miles away, thicker wires are needed.
Alternating current was already known before Tesla began his work. But Tesla has designed an integrated system of generators, transmission lines, electric motors, lighting systems and other circuits that allow AC to be an alternative to DC. In 1887, Tesla filed seven patents related to his alternating current, which were granted without being challenged. Westinghouse bought the patents in 1888.
But direct current is still in vogue. Westinghouse electric and Edison are caught up in what is known as the "war of currents." Edison was the first to attack, claiming that alternating current was too dangerous for the public to use safely. In 1890, an acquaintance of Edison's name, Harold Brown, arranged for a Westinghouse alternator to execute a death row inmate, further reinforcing his view.
But Westinghouse Electric, which holds Tesla's patent, can prove that alternating current is a more efficient alternative. The climax of the conflict in the Current War occurred at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago from 1893 to 1894. Westinghouse's electricity costs are much lower than Edison's. He got the contract and powered the show on the basis of tesla systems. When the Expo opened, thousands of bright lights came on, much to the surprise of visitors. The demonstration eliminated the public's fear of alternating current, which became the standard solution for the power system.
Tesla fulfilled his childhood dream of building a power plant in Niagara Falls, which marked Tesla's victory. Investors poured heavy injections on alternating current and hydroelectric power in 1890, both of which had yet to be tested. In 1896, Tesla-designed generators began to supply power to the power system, and the long and intense wait ended. Eventually, they delivered electricity to New York City, illuminating Broadway. As hydroelectric power plants began to be built around the world, the era of electricity quietly arrived.
The war on current is over, but Nikola Tesla has turned to more visionary inventions.
Insight into electromagnetic induction
Many of Tesla's inventions were based on the principle of electromagnetic induction. In the 1830s, British scientist Michael Faraday demonstrated that moving magnets generate electric currents in conductors (with changes here). It was this ability of electrical energy to exert an effect over a certain distance that fascinated Tesla and inspired him to generate ideas ranging from AC motors to Tesla coils.
Tesla went into the unknown
Even simple currents can generate magnetic fields. Alternating current oscillating under high voltage produces electromagnetic waves. Heinrich Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves in 1888, and many inventors joined the competition for wireless communications or other uses using them.
Tesla was mesmerized by high-frequency electromagnetic waves. Using them, he was able to make:
• Neon-filled lamp. This new type of lighting does not require a luminous filament; the gas itself can emit light.
• Make the vacuum tube emit light at a distance without direct contact with the wave source.
• Heat a metal rod to a very high temperature.
• At West Point Military Academy in New York, 50 miles (80 kilometers), electromagnetic waves generated by his laboratory in New York could still be detected.
Many inventors contributed to the development of radio, but Guglielmo Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for this invention. Tesla was unhappy that its foundational and original contributions were not recognized, and Tesla had applied for a patent long before Marconi invented the first prototype. In 1943, a few months after Tesla's death, the U.S. Supreme Court finally recognized Tesla's patented invention as the basis of Marconi's initial achievements.
Tesla saw another use for electromagnetic waves. He believes they make it possible to transmit electrical energy wirelessly on a large scale. In 1898, he moved to Springs, Colorado, and built large coils, now known as Tesla coils, with which Tesla generated enormous voltages. With them, he was able to create artificial lightning. He lit 200 light bulbs at a distance of 25 miles (40 kilometers) and experimented with ways to transmit energy through the air or the Earth itself.
Back in New York a year later, he persuaded the banker J.P. Morgan to support him in building a system that could communicate wirelessly around the world, which could wirelessly transmit news, mail, and even pictures. Tesla is still dreaming of being able to transmit electrical energy. He set up a laboratory on Long Island called Wardenclyffe. There, he built a 187-foot (57-meter) tall wooden tower and blasted steel pipes into the ground hundreds of feet deep. As fees increased, Morgan withdrew from the project. Due to high debt, Tesla was forced to destroy the tower and abandon the laboratory in 1905. But for the rest of his life, he remained convinced that wireless power transmission was feasible.
At the same time, Tesla used electromagnetic waves to build a ship that could be controlled by radio. He discovered that, at very high voltages, his homemade vacuum tubes emitted rays that could penetrate solids, and he created what he called "shadow maps," thus becoming one of the first people to try to study X-rays. Over time, Tesla's research into high-frequency electromagnetic waves has formed the basis for innovations ranging from microwave ovens to cathode-ray television picture tubes.
Tesla took his inventive genius in a different direction than his contemporaries like Edison. His exploration of the uncharted territory of high-frequency electricity and radio waves opened the way for many inventors who followed him.
Tuning
Another important principle on which Tesla relies is the concept of electrical resonance. Conductors (which we call antennas) can even receive electromagnetic waves from hundreds of miles away. But to choose one of several waves of different frequencies, the receiver needs to be "tuned", that is, it needs to resonate with the electromagnetic wave at this frequency. This is the same idea as having the strings of the violin resonate with the tuning fork. Tesla invented a way to tune circuits, and to this day we still accept radio or television by "tuning."
Tesla's legacy
Tesla, who has always been eccentric, is now thought to suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. As he grew older, his quirks became more apparent. He has a phobia of bacteria and will desperately wash his hands. He only ate cooked food. He was obsessed with the number three. He claimed to have received information from outer space. As an old man, he had a crush on pigeons, and he smuggled them into his hotel room.
As early as 1891, George Westinghouse's company was on the verge of bankruptcy. To help the man who trusted him, Tesla agreed to give up the royalties Westinghouse owed on alternating current patents. The inventor could have made millions of dollars on this, but is now destitute. Westinghouse died in 1914, and he never adequately compensated Tesla for his contributions.
Yet Tesla continued his invention. He was granted at least 275 patents during his lifetime. He left behind a long list, many of which ultimately failed to materialize:
• In 1904, he invented an efficient bladeless turbine, but the device had no commercial application.
• He proposed the use of geothermal, solar and wind power to generate electricity.
• Years before the discovery of the ionosphere, he speculated about the existence of the ionosphere, which is the charged layer in the Earth's atmosphere.
• He patented a spark plug for a gasoline engine.
• He invented the first electronic clock based on mechanical vibration.
• His last patent was a vertical take-off vehicle, which would become a reality much later.
Not all of Tesla's ideas worked. His dream of wireless power transmission never proved feasible. He refuted Einstein's work, and what he refuted would form the basis of modern physics. During and after World War I, Tesla studied a "beam of death," but it was never realized outside of science fiction films.
In 1943, Tesla died alone in a new York hotel at the age of 86.
"Someday," Tesla predicted in 1915, "for example, six huge radio stations will be built around the world, and all the inhabitants of the earth will be connected to each other not only by sound, but also through pictures." ”
Sound familiar? Isn't that the phone we use?
By John Kelly
Translation: Nothing
Reviewer: Tibetan idiot
Original link:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/famous-inventors/nikola-tesla.htm