Surrounded by many scientists engaged in new technologies and experiments, there is always an air of mystery and mythology. But if a person discovers long-distance power transmission, creates superweapons, learns to control the weather, or even causes earthquakes, then the biography of such a scientist itself becomes a mystery. It's all about the great scientist Nikola Tesla.
The first years of life
Nikolai was born in 1856 in the Croatian village of Smirjan, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Tesla showed an interest in experimentation from an early age: he observed weather phenomena and asked questions of relatives. As early as the age of 6, he began reading articles about Niagara Falls and told his acquaintances what would happen if he put a blade on the surface of that lump of water and built a power plant.
A year later, he became interested in inventing the flying machine. To better understand gravity and the movement of his body in the air, he took an umbrella and climbed to the roof of a barn. After the experiment, Tesla was admitted to the hospital, and his father forbade Nikolai from conducting such experiments.
Despite his hobbies, his father wanted Nikolai to become a priest. Then, unfortunate things helped a lot: in 1873, Tesla Jr. suffered from cholera and was in a critical condition. In tears, his father walked up to his son and asked him to recover, saying he dreamed of mastering engineering. His father gave him "permission", and Nikolai recovered quickly.
At the end of 1873 he had left to study electrical engineering at a college and later in the faculty of philosophy in Prague, since the family had little money after his father's death. While studying, he also worked, also played cards and billiards, where he exerted his memory and mathematical abilities.
Photo/photographer of Tesla in the study: Napoleon Saroni
A trip to the United States
From 1882 onwards, Tesla worked for telegraph companies in Hungary and France, and soon began to work on his inventions. At this time, the idea of using alternating current was born. Initially, he wanted to take his invention with him to the Russian Empire, because he thought that he would accept it there with greater enthusiasm. But then his colleagues and superiors advised him to go to the "power genius" Thomas Edison.
In 1884, he sailed to New York to work for Edison's company. Initially, he was a maintenance engineer for electric motors. Later, he wrote to Edison in person several times and soon won a meeting. The famous scientist was arrogant to Nikolai, but listened to his alternating ideas. The two sides agreed that if Tesla built such a generator, Edison would pay him $50,000.
Conflict with Thomas Edison
Six months later, Tesla came up with 24 versions of the machine, but didn't get any help from Edison because he said it was "American humor." Tesla resigned, and a campaign against alternating current (sponsored by Edison) took place across the country. The conflict between the two scientists continued until their deaths.
On November 6, 1915, Reuters published a report on the awarding of Nobel Prizes to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, but on November 15, the agency printed a different message. The Nobel laureates were Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg for "their help in the use of X-rays to analyze lattice".
Tesla biographers say neither Edison nor Tesla won the Nobel Prize because they were hostile to each other; both sought to diminish each other's achievements and the right to win. In addition, they said that if a competitor wins the award first, they will not receive the award.
Has laboratories in New York and Colorado
After clashing with Edison, Tesla opened its own lab. It existed in New York until 1895. It was here that he worked to fulfill his childhood dream: to build a power station on the Niagara River, but Edison's company once again beat him.
When the laboratory burned down in 1895 and the scientist suffered a huge loss, he made a decision: he would open a new laboratory, but he would not waste time on small inventions, because the scientist's life was short. He soon opened a lab in Colorado. There he created.
Wordencliffe Tower. Tesla's main dream is to transmit electricity over long distances without wires. The theory that the Tunguska meteorite was a failure of Tesla's experiment can still be found in the media.
Tesla has finally finished working on the asynchronous AC machine.
In 1901, he patented a free energy receiver called a radiant energy meter. The patent covers the sun as well as other sources of radiant energy, such as cosmic rays.
Tesla's ultimate idea was to create a machine that could be remotely controlled by radio and automate various actions. Tesla first patented the world's first remote control, then created a whole set of devices — walkers, flying machines and flying cars — that he could control remotely with his remote control.
Radio, Marconi and the Lost Cause
After Maxwell published his theory of electromagnetism, Tesla came up with the idea of creating a high-voltage coil and then noticed that it emitted very strong electromagnetic waves. He began working on a device that could receive these radio waves.
Initially, he wanted to design a current transmission device that did not use wires, but then he came up with an idea to design a device that used these sound waves to transmit current. The patent for this device was ready in 1900, but Marconi preceded it a few days.
Tesla competed with Marconi for a radio patent, claiming that Marconi's invention used Tesla's previous patent coil without his consent, but a lengthy legal battle left Tesla bankrupt. In the end, Tesla was defeated by the fact that Marconi won the Nobel Prize for creating radio, despite his use of the theory tesla had created. Eventually, after Tesla's own death in 1943, Tesla won an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over radio patents.
The scientist died in 1943. It is worth noting that in one of his experiments, he fell ill, refused to call an ambulance, and retreated to his room. Two days later, he was found dead. The first to arrive at the scene were employees of the U.S. Secret Service, who confiscated all of the scientist's notes.
What the scientist is still working on remains a mystery. But what we do know is that thanks to his presence we had radios, remote controls, lights in the apartment, pressure in the pipes and heating in the house.