Nikola
Tesla was
a
Serbian-American
inventor,
electrical
engineer,
and
scientist.
He was
born in
Smilja,
Croatia on
July 9,
1856 and
died on
January 7,
1943 in
New York
City.
He was
often sick
during his
boyhood,
but he was
a bright
student
with a
photographic
memory.
Against
his
father's
wishes he
chose a
career in
electrical
engineering.
After
his
graduation
from the
University
of Prague
in 1880,
Tesla
worked as
a
telephone
engineer
in
Budapest,
Hungary.
By 1882 he
had
devised an
AC power
system to
replace
the weak
direct-current
(DC)
generators
and motors
then in
use.
Tesla
moved to
the United
States in
1884,
where he
worked for
Thomas
Edison who
quickly
became a
rival.
Edison
being an
advocate
of the
inferior
DC power
transmission
system.
During
this time,
Tesla was
commissioned
with the
design of
the AC
generators
installed
at Niagara
Falls.
Friction
soon
developed
between
the two,
and by
1886 Tesla
had lost
his job.
In 1887
he
received
enough
money from
backers to
build a
laboratory
of his own
in New
York City.
In1888
his
discovery
that a
magnetic
field
could be
made to
rotate if
two coils
at right
angles are
supplied
with AC
current 90¡
out of
phase made
possible
the
invention
of the AC
induction
motor. The
major
advantage
of this
motor
being its
brushless
operation,
which many
at the
time
believed
impossible.
Tesla
later
invented a
high-frequency
transformer,
called the
Tesla
Coil,
which made
AC power
transmission
practical.
He also
experimented
with radio
and
designed
an
electronic
tube for
use as the
detector
in a voice
radio
system
almost 20
years
before Lee
De Forest
developed
a similar
device.
Tesla
lectured
before
large
audiences
of
scientists
in the
United
States and
Europe
between
the years
1891 and
1893.
George
Westinghouse
purchased
the
patents to
his
induction
motor, and
made it
the basis
of the
Westinghouse
power
system
which
still
underlies
the modern
electrical
power
industry
today.
Tesla
did
notable
research
on
high-voltage
electricity
and
wireless
communication;
at one
point
creating
an
earthquake
which
shook the
ground for
several
miles
around his
New York
laboratory.
Tesla
also
devised a
system
which
anticipated
world-wide
wireless
communications,
fax
machines,
radar,
radio-guided
missiles
and
aircraft.
Although
Tesla had
laid the
theoretical
basis for
radio
communication
as early
as 1892,
Guglielmo
Marconi
claimed
all basic
radio
patents
because of
his own
pioneering
work in
the field.
In 1915
Tesla made
an
unsuccessful
attempt to
obtain a
court
injunction
against
the claims
of Marconi.
When the
United
States
Supreme
Court
reviewed
this
decision
in 1943,
however,
it
reversed
the
decision
and
invalidated
Marconi's
patents on
the ground
that they
had indeed
been
anticipated
by earlier
work.
Tesla
and Edison
supposedly
had been
chosen to
share a
Nobel
prize in
physics.
According
to the
report,
Tesla
declined
his share
of the
award
because of
his doubt
that
Edison was
a
scientist
in the
strictest
sense.
Neither of
them ever
received
the prize.
During
his later
years he
led a
secluded,
eccentric,
and often
destitute
life,
nearly
forgotten
by the
world he
believed
would
someday
honor him.
Tesla
died on
Jan. 7,
1943, in
New York
City. The
Tesla
Museum in
Belgrade,
Yugoslavia,
was
dedicated
to the
inventor.
In 1956
the Tesla,
a unit of
magnetic
flux
density in
the metric
system,
was named
in his
honor.
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