Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was born exactly between two days. In his life, he would go on to make many discoveries, cause earthquakes, cause a whole town to black out, and even claim to make contact with aliens. Nikola Tesla’s strange life led to many discoveries, some of which are widely used today.
At precisely midnight between July 9th and 10th, 1856, Nikola Tesla was born. He was born in the village of Smiljan, Croatia in a tiny house next to his father’s church (25). His childhood showed signs of his brilliance. When he was five, he built a motor powered on Junebugs. Margaret Cheney’s Tesla: Man Out of Time describes it as “a light contrivance made of splinters forming a windmill, with a spindle and pulley attached to live Junebugs. When the glued insects beat their wings, as they did desperately, the bug-power engine prepared to take off” (26-27). He also unsuccessfully tried to disassemble and reassemble clocks (27). As a child he wrote poems, and he retained an interest in poetry later in life (26). Nikola’s brilliance was shared by his older brother, Daniel. Daniel was admired by his parents. Like Nikola, Daniel as a child experienced bright flashes of light before his eyes. This strange phenomenon was one instance of the many strange mental phenomena that would haunt and aid Nikola for the rest of his life. As for Daniel, he died too soon. When Daniel was twelve and Nikola was five, a mysterious accident that is not well documented cost Daniel his life (28-29). Daniel’s death affected Nikola’s life. As a result of Daniel’s death, Nikola trained his mind. He aimed to be better than all the other boys. This gave him an even more powerful mind. Later in life, he would be able to imagine an invention and perfect it in his head. The invention would nearly always work in reality (26-33).
However, with this brilliance came setbacks. Tesla retained obsessions and phobias throughout his life. He had a “violent aversion” to pearl earrings, and yet jewelry that sparkled like diamonds he loved (29). He always calculated the cubic contents of his meal before eating, and he counted steps. The smell of camphor anywhere near him discomforted him greatly (29). He also had very acute senses, to the point of which it caused him pain. He had remarkable hearing. “A train whistle twenty miles distant made the chair on which he sat vibrate so strongly that the pain became unbearable. The ground under his feet was constantly trembling. In order for him to rest, rubber cushions were placed under his bed” (42).
His powerful mind and extreme senses helped him in life. In college, he suggested that a motor could be built without a commutator. His professor told him this could never be done. Tesla did it (40). He did it by creating a rotating magnetic field from two alternating currents (44). This motor is widely used today. After dropping out of college due to financial issues, he briefly served in the Central Telephone Office of the Hungarian government and then he got a job at Thomas Edison’s telephone subsidiary in 1882 (42). He was cheated out of pay after doing his job and he left for the Edison Electric Company (46). After fixing two faulty dynamos, his new boss Thomas Edison was impressed. After a while, Tesla commented to Edison that Tesla could improve Edison’s dynamos. Edison told him, “There’s $500,000 dollars in it for you if you can do it.” Tesla worked hard. After working for days and nights, he found the answer. However, when he presented it to Edison, Edison apparently said he was only joking. Tesla walked out in anger again (53).
A little while later, a group of investors approached and offered him a company with his own name. Tesla recognized this as a chance to show his inventions to the world, and the Tesla Electric Light Company was created. However, his dream was not so. The investors only wanted electric lights. So Tesla created his Tesla arc lamp, which was safer, more reliable, and more efficient than previous arc lamps. Despite this invention, Tesla ended up being released from the company with a stock certificate worth little because of the age of the company (59).
And so Tesla, with no source of money and becoming increasingly desperate, had no choice but to put his creative mind aside and toil on the New York street gangs (59). One day, fortune struck and his supervisor introduced him to A. K. Brown, manager of the Western Telegraph company. Brown admired Tesla’s work and created the Tesla Electric Company for him (60). Tesla no longer had to work on street gangs for money, and he was finally getting recognized. Indeed, George Westinghouse, a railroad magnate, was interested in Tesla’s many AC patents. They entered an agreement in which Westinghouse would buy Tesla’s patents and Tesla would earn royalties per horsepower. Tesla moved to Pittsburgh where he worked as a consultant for the Westinghouse firm (62-64). During his consulting work, he invented the carbon-button lamp. This unique lamp consisted of a glass casing and a round carbon “button”. The air inside the sphere was electrostatically propelled towards the glass, then propelled towards the button, then towards the sphere and it repeats. This invention is viewed as an early ancestor of the atom smasher (81-86).
His work continued until Westinghouse entered a merger in which he was forced to drop the contract with Tesla. Tesla agreed to drop the contract and Tesla received his patents from Westinghouse (72-74).
One of Tesla’s most famous laboratories was the one in Colorado Springs. It was funded by multiple people and companies. The most significant contributor was Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen said to Tesla, “All things arranged, land will be free. You will live at the Alta Vista Hotel. I have interest in the City Power Plant so electricity is free to you.” John Jays Hammond, Sr. contributed $10,000. The Simpson and Crawford firm gave another $10,000. The owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, John Jacob Astor, donated $30,000 dollars (171). Tesla was overjoyed. He built a gigantic metal pole with a metal ball on the top. When turned on, thick sparks of electricity would shoot out into the room (174). This is how Tesla plunged a city into darkness.
On July 3, 1899, Tesla (with the help of an assistant) experimented with his contraption. He had turned it on for one second. After that, he turned it on for one minute. Thunder roared out for fifteen miles. It stayed on for about a minute, and only stopped when the power suddenly went out. Thinking the electric company had cut off his power, he called the electric company and found out that the Colorado Springs generator was on fire. The city of Colorado Springs had no electricity. Tesla was denied service until he offered to fix the generator for free (182-184).
Tesla spent the last years of his life becoming poorer and poorer. He took in pigeons and cared for them. He had one pigeon who was white with gray wings. She was his favorite pigeon. She would come when he whistled and would fly in his window and land on his desk. He loved her and the feeling was apparently mutual. He would care for her when she was ill. Tesla said about her, “When that pigeon died, something went out of my life” (282-283).
Nikola Tesla died in Manhattan on January 7th, 1943 at the age of 86. He was a pioneer. He brought to the world the AC motor and the carbon-button lamp (an ancestor of the atom smasher), along with many other inventions. His life was full and helped future generations live in a more scientifically advanced and safer world.
Works Cited
Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981. Print.