Nikola Tesla - The genius who lit up the world

quote graphics by Ashwin CS

These are the words of one of the greatest inventors of all time, Nikola Tesla -'the genius who lit the world'. He is well known for the' Tesla coil 'which laid the foundation of wireless technologies. Nikola Tesla was a true visionary far ahead of his contemporaries in the field of scientific development. He discovered and patented the rotating magnetic field, the basis of alternating current electrical system.

Nikola Tesla was born in modern day Croatia in 1856 July 10.From an early age he demonstrated the obsessiveness that would puzzle and amuse those around him. He could memorize entire books and store logarithmic tables in his brain.

Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison: “I know two great men,” wrote Batchelor, “one is you and the other is this young man.” Tesla spent the next 59 years of his productive life living in New York. Tesla set about improving Edison’s line of dynamos while working in Edison’s lab in New Jersey. It was here that his divergence of opinion with Edison over direct current versus alternating current began.

He experimented with shadow graphs similar to those that later were to be used by Wilhelm Röntgen when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Tesla’s countless experiments included work on a carbon button lamp, on the power of electrical resonance, and on various types of lighting.In 1898 Tesla announced his invention of a tele-automatic boat guided by remote control.

Tesla never really cared of money.What he wanted the most was to provide free electricity to the world.In order to allay fears of alternating currents, Tesla gave exhibitions in his laboratory in which he lit lamps by allowing electricity to flow through his body.

His alternating current induction motor is considered one of the ten greatest discoveries of all time. Tesla’s greatest achievement is his polyphase alternating current system, which is today lighting the entire globe. Among his discoveries are the fluorescent light , laser beam, wireless communications, wireless transmission of electrical energy, remote control, robotics, Tesla’s turbines and vertical take off aircraft. Tesla is the father of the modern electrical transmissions systems. He registered over 700 patents worldwide. His vision included exploration of solar energy and the power of the sea. He foresaw interplanetary communications and satellites.

By the end of his brilliant and tortured life, the Serbian physicist, engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla was penniless and living in a small New York City hotel room. He spent days in a park surrounded by the creatures that mattered most to him—pigeons—and his sleepless nights working over mathematical equations and scientific problems in his head. That habit would confound scientists and scholars for decades after he died, in 1943. His inventions were designed and perfected in his imagination. Because of a lack of funds, many of his ideas remained in his notebooks, which are still examined by enthusiasts for unexploited clues.