The Master of Lightning: Nikola Tesla

Bonnie Asher

History 222

When one hears the name Nikola Tesla, the idea of a great inventor usually does not pop

into one’s head instantaneously. In fact, in most cases the person doesn’t know who that is.

Nikola Tesla, the protégé of Thomas Edison, was a remarkable scientist who improved the

science of mechanical and electrical engineering diligently up until his death, where he began to

be forgotten by those who study electrical and mechanical engineering. He invented many

things, including the induction motor and the AC current. Tesla was known by many journalists

and media as the stereotypical “mad scientist” up until his death in 1946. 1

Tesla was born the fourth child to Milutin and Duka Tesla. His father, Milutin, was a

Serbian priest; and his mother was a housewife who built her own mechanical eggbeater and also

had a knack for being able to memorize and recite Serbian epic poems.2 Tesla was born on July

10th, 1856 in Smiljan; a village in the Austrian Empire. Tesla’s eldest brother, Dane, was killed

when Tesla was five, either due to a horseback riding incident or by being pushed down the

cellar stairs by Nikola as Dane accused as he lie delirious in the hospital.3 Because of Dane’s

death, Tesla was slated to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a pastor. The family

moved to Gospic, a town in the Austrian Empire in 1862. 4

Tesla excelled in primary school, being able to calculate integral calculus completely in

his head; much to the disbelief of his teachers.5 In 1873 he finished his four year term in three.

After returning home from school, Tesla contracted cholera which worried his father. Tesla saw

this as an opportunity to coerce his father to rescind his plans for Tesla to enter the priesthood

and made his father promise that if Tesla got better; he would send him to Austrian Polytechnic

1 Van Riper2 O’Neill, John J3 Cheney, Margaret4 Tesla Universe5 PBS.org

School in Graz, Austria. Tesla eventually recovered, and as promised, his father allowed him to

attend the Polytechnic School.6 However, this was not before Tesla had to avoid being drafted

into the army in Smiljan.

Tesla hid out in the mountains of Tomingaj, where he donned the clothes of a hunter and

explored the mountains. To Tesla, this was an invigorating experience in which he grew both

mentally and physically strong.7 Alongside exploring the mountains, Tesla also read Mark

Twain, which supposedly made him recover miraculously from his previous bout with cholera.8

After about a year of hiding out in the mountains, Tesla returned to Graz; where he enrolled in

the Polytechnic School on a scholarship.

During his first year in Graz; Tesla constantly impressed his professors. He passed nine

exams, never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, and even impressed the Dean

of the school so much that a letter of commendation was sent back to his father.9 Tesla worked

from 3am to 11pm without pause, holidays, or Sundays. In his second year at the college, Tesla

clashed with professors over his idea that the Gramme Dynamo, which was a machine that could

be used as both a generator and a motor, could be improved by removing an inefficient part

called commutators. His professors were amused at this idea, and liked it to creating a perpetual

motion machine. However, several years later, Tesla would use this original idea to create his

famous induction motor.10

Towards the end of Tesla’s second year in Graz, he became addicted to gambling. His

grades began to slip, and eventually he had gambled away his tuition and allowance money.

6 Glenn7 Tesla Universe8 Tesla, Nikola9 O’Neill, John J10 Tesla, Nikola

Tesla then requested an extension of his exams in order to study, but was denied. He then

dropped out of school and never received grades for the semester. In order to hide his shame

from his family and friends, Tesla moved to Maribor where he worked as a draftsman. In 1879,

his father went to Maribor, pleading for his son’s return but was turned away. Tesla then suffered

a nervous breakdown.11

Eventually, Tesla was returned to Gospic with the police for not having a residence

permit. His father died shortly after this, and Tesla began teaching at his old school in Gospic.12

In 1880, Tesla’s uncles then pooled money together to help Tesla go to Prague where he was to

enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University. However, he had never studied Greek or Czech which

were two required subjects, and he also arrived too late to enroll. Not to be deterred in his pursuit

for knowledge however, Tesla attended lectures at the university as an auditor. 13

Through this he began to work in a telegraph company. While working there he came to

the epiphany that the company was not entirely functional, and became a draftsman for the

Central Telegraph Office instead. Because of this, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became

functional, and Tesla was sent to become the chief electrician.14 During this time he was claimed

to have completed a perfect telephone repeater or amplifier. Unfortunately it was never patented

or made public.15

During the next few years Tesla began to work with Thomas Edison, under his

Continental Edison Company in France. When he was relocated to New York City he was hired

by Edison to work with his Edison Machine Works project. Tesla’s quickly rose the ranks during

11 Seifer, Marc J12 Tesla Universe13 Mrkich, D14 Tesla Universe15 Tesla, Nikola

the Edison’s Machine Work.16 He boasted that he could boost the efficiency of Edison’s

inefficient motor and generators. This would improve the economy and the service both. Edison

remarked on this, offering Tesla “fifty thousand dollars…if you can do it.”17 Tesla diligently

worked for months and submitted results. Edison denied any statement of payment, saying that

Tesla didn’t understand his American humor. 18 However, Tesla was offered a 10$ raise over his

18$ salary, in recompense, which he got weekly. Tesla refused however, and resigned

immediately.19

Tesla then began the formation of his own company, the Tesla Electric Light &

Manufacturing in 1886. Tesla, always the innovator, pushed the company towards developing his

alternating current systems, and installing electrical arc light illumination systems designed by

Tesla. Eventually, the investors disagreed, and fired him. This left Tesla virtually broke, and he

was forced to work as a ditch digger for low wages. 20

In 1887, Tesla hit a stroke of luck and started a new company, the Tesla Electric Co.,

with the backing of Charles F. Peck, a New York attorney, and Alfred S. Brown, the director of

Western Union. Setting their stake upon 89 Liberty Street in Manhattan, New York, where he

would work on his alternating current motor, and other devices dealing with power distribution.

21 He constructed and experimented with a brushless alternating current induction motor, which

he had based on a rotating magnetic field principle he was claimed to have thought of earlier in

1882.

16 Carey, Charles17 Cheny, 200118 Pickover, Clifford19 Cheney 200120 Tesla Timeline21 Tesla Timeline

However, a month before Tesla was due to show off his AC motor, Oliver B.

Shallenberger, a Westinghouse engineer invented an induction meter that was based on Teslas’

same principle. On top of that, an English engineer also stated he was working on an induction

motor during Tesla’s demonstration. 22

Tesla was not to be discouraged though. In 1893, he revealed his alternating current

electricity at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The world was amazed, and it quickly

became the standard in the world during the 20th century. Tesla went on to design the first

hydroelectric power plant for Niagara Falls in 1895, which lead to the media dubbing him a hero

across the world.23

Tesla soon became overworked in his pursuits to make his alternating current the

standard of the future. His New York laboratory was continuously busy. Tesla began to toss

aside many ideas and inventions that he had thought of, mainly because his unwillingness to

write down what he was thinking about and his short attention span. When he lost his memory

after one incident of being overworked, his assistant filed for patents on several of Tesla’s

inventions. 24

Tesla finally broke through with his Tesla coil and high frequency machines. By 1900 he

had “obtained powerful discharges of 1,000 feet and flashed a current around the globe, I was

reminded of the first tiny spark I observed in my Grand Street laboratory and was thrilled by the

sensations akin to those I felt when I discovered the rotating magnetic field.”25

22 Dosi, Teece, Chytry23 Tesla Society24 Corrosion Doctors25 The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla

Tesla’s experiments and innovation did not go unnoticed for long. In 1901, famous

billionaire entrepreneur J.P. Morgan offered Tesla $150,000 to build an alternating current

transmission plant. The construction of this plant was started in 1901 in Long Island, New York.

He dubbed the land Wardenclyffe Tower. It stood 186 feet high, and dug down into another 150

feet of ground. However, J.P. Morgan eventually withdrew from funding Tesla, and construction

on Wardenclyffe Tower was halted.

Tesla still used the tower for experimenting however, and even went so far as to shoot a

bolt of electricity a hundred and twenty feet into the air above the antenna. It caused fires at the

power company however, and they restricted any power being sent to Wardenclyffe Tower.

Eventually it succumbed to the test of time, and was eventually destroyed in 1917. 26

After Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower came crashing down upon him, Tesla switched his

focus to turbines and other projects. His ideas never left the notebook he wrote them down upon,

and in 1915 he when he was snuffed by the Nobel Prize committee and did not get to share

Edison’s Nobel Prize with him. Ironically, Tesla was then the recipient of the Edison Medal in

1917, which is the highest honor that the American Institute of Electrical Engineers can bestow.27

In 1919, Tesla published his autobiography through a series in the magazine Electrical

Experimenter. This helped push the public’s view of a mad scientist who had a death ray in

Wardenclyffe tower that could incinerate ten thousand people away, and people began to see

Tesla in a different light. However, his statements in his autobiography were often sensational

regardless. He continued to post radical things for his time, such as “How to Send Signals to

26 Garden of Praise27 Neuronet

Mars”, and “The Breaking of Tornadoes”. Tesla’s health continued to worsen up into 1937 as he

began to fall out of the scientific community.

Also in 1937, Tesla was hit by a taxi while he was crossing the street. This contributed to

his steady decline in health. He became secluded from the public, and was alone and often

depressed. Tesla’s poor health continued into 1943, where on January 5th, he called the United

States Secretary of Defense and offered information about his “super weapon” to the American

military. The officer who answered the phone assumed it was a prank, and hung up on Tesla,

never to call back again. Two days after this, in a hotel, Tesla died. He was 87 years old.28

Throughout his last year on the earth, Tesla had begun having troubles with his heart and

experiencing fainting spells. On the first of January he complained of chest pains while

conducting an experiment and returned to his hotel where he lived. The last time he was seen

alive was by a hotel maid on the fifth, the night he made his phone call to the Secretary of

Defense.

On January 12th, 1943 over two thousand people gathered at Saint John the Theologian’s

cathedral to honor the great engineer.

Tesla brought several innovations into this world, most famously his alternating current

and Tesla coil, but his mind was one of the most innovative and intelligent of his era. He went

beyond the normal thoughts and mindsets of the 19th century, and produced scientific marvels

such as the Wardenclyffe tower. He was a man of many talents and skills, and spent out his last

days at the New York Public Library, feeding the pigeons who he called “my sincere friends”.

28 B92.net

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