నికోలా టెస్లా
నికోలా టెస్లా (ఆంగ్లం : Nikola Tesla) (1856 జూలై 10 - 1943 జనవరి 7) ఒక ఆవిష్కర్త, మెకానికల్ ఇంజనీర్ మరియు ఎలక్ట్రికల్ ఇంజనీర్. నికోలా, ప్రస్తుతము క్రొయేషియాలో ఉన్న స్మిల్యాన్ అనే గ్రామంలో జన్మించాడు. ఇతడు పుట్టుకతో సెర్బియన్, తర్వాత కాలంలో అమెరికా పౌరుడు అయ్యాడు. ఇతడు తరచూ 'ధరణిపై కాంతిని విరజిమ్మిన' ఆధునిక యుగానికి చెందిన గొప్ప శాస్త్రవేత్తగా మరియు ఆవిష్కర్తగా కీర్తించబడతాడు. 19వ శతాబ్దాంతంలో మరియు 20వ శతాబ్దపు ఆరంభంలో విద్యుత్ మరియు అయస్కాంతత్వాలకు సంబంధించిన పరిశోధనలలో విప్లవాత్మకమైన విషయాలను అందించిన శాస్త్రవేత్త. నికోలా టెస్లా పేటెంట్లు మరియు పరిశోధనా విషయాలు ఆధునిక విద్యుచ్ఛక్తి, ఎలక్ట్రిక్ మోటార్లు వంటి విషయాల అభివృద్ధికి దోహదపడడం ద్వారా రెండవ పారిశ్రామిక విప్లవానికి నాంది పలికాయి.
1894లో వైర్‌లెస్ కమ్మ్యూనికేషన్ (రేడియో) ప్రదర్శన వల్ల అమెరికాలోని ఎలక్ట్రికల్ ఇంజనీర్లలో గొప్ప వ్యక్తిగా గుర్తించబడ్డాడు. టెస్లా యొక్క ఆవిష్కరణలు ఆధునిక ఎలక్టికల్ ఇంజనీరింగ్ విభాగానికి మార్గదరషకులయ్యాయి. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Never having put much focus on his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86.
The SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field "B"), the "tesla", was named in his honor (at the "Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures", Paris, 1960), as well as the "Tesla effect" of wireless energy transfer to wirelessly power electronic devices which Tesla demonstrated on a low scale (lightbulbs) as early as 1893 and aspired to use for the intercontinental transmission of industrial energy levels in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.
Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla has contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Many of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.
Tesla is honored in Serbia and Croatia, as well as in the Czech Republic and Romania. He was awarded the highest order of the White Lion by Czechoslovakia.
నికోలా సెర్బియన్ దంపతులకు క్రొయేషియాలోని స్మిల్యాన్ గ్రామంలో జన్మించాడు. ఈయన సరిగ్గా ఉరుములు మెరుపులతో వర్షం పడుతున్నప్పుడు అర్ధరాత్రి జన్మించాడని ఒక కథనం ఉంది.
ఈయన బాప్తిస్మపు ధ్రువీకరణ పత్రం ఈయన 28 జూన్ , 1856, న జన్మించినట్టు. ఈయన తండ్రి మిలుటిన్ టెస్లా, స్రెమ్స్కీ కార్లోవ్చీ పట్టణప్రాంతంలోని సెర్బియన్ ఆర్ధటాక్స్ చర్చిలో మతప్రచారకుడు, తల్లి, డూకా మాండిక్ గా పేర్కొనుచున్నది. ఈయన తండ్రి తరఫు వంశం వారు తారా లోయ లోని స్థానిక సెర్బు తెగకు చెందిన వారైనా లేదా from the హెర్జిగీవ్నియన్ నోబుల్ పావ్లే ఓర్లొవిక్ సంతతికి చెందిన వారైనా అయ్యింటారని భావన టెస్లా తల్లి డూకా, కోసావో ప్రాంతం నుండి వచ్చి లీకా మరియు బంజియా ప్రాంతాలలో స్థిరపడిన కుటుంబానికి చెందినది. ఈమె తండ్రి సెర్బియన్ ఆర్ధటాక్స్ చర్చిలో మతప్రచారకుడు. ఈమె గృహాలంకారణ పనిముట్లు తయారు చేయటంలో ప్రావీణ్యం కలది. ఈమె అనేక సెర్బియా పౌరాణిక గేయాలను కూడా కంఠతా వల్లించేది కానీ ఎప్పుడూ చదవటం, వ్రాయటం నేర్చుకోలేదు.
నికోలా ఐదుగురు సంతానంలో నాలుగవవాడు. ఈయనకు ఒక అన్న (డేన్, నికోలాకు ఐదేళ్లున్నప్పుడు గుర్రపుస్వారీ ప్రమాదంలో మరణించాడు) మరియు ముగ్గురు సోదరీమణులు (మిల్కా, ఆంజెలీనా మరియు మరికా). ఈయన కుటుంబం 1862లో గాస్పిక్‌కు తరలివెళ్ళింది. టెస్లా కార్లొవాక్ లో చదువుకున్నాడు. నాలుగేళ్ళలో పూర్తి చేయాల్సిన విద్యనై మూడేళ్ళలోనే పూర్తిచేశాడు.
టెస్లా ఆ తర్వాత 1875లో గ్రాజ్ లోని ఆస్ట్రియన్ పాలిటెక్నిక్ (ఇప్పుడది గ్రాజ్ సాంకేతిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం) లో ఎలక్ట్రికల్ ఇంజనీరింగు పూర్తిచేశాడు అక్కడుండగా ఆల్టర్నేటింగు కరెంటు యొక్క ఉపయోగాలను అధ్యయనం చేశాడు. కొన్ని మూలాలు ఈయన గ్రాజ్ విశ్వవిద్యాలయం నుండి బాచిలరేట్ పట్టా పొందాడని చెబుతున్నవి. అయితే, విశ్వవిద్యాలయం మాత్రం టెస్లా పట్టభద్రుడు కాలేదని, మూడో సంవత్సరపు మొదటి అర్ధభాగంలో తరగతి గదిలో జరిగే పాఠాలకు హాజరవటం మానేశాడని, ఆ తరువాత చదువు కొనసాగించలేదని చెబుతున్నది. 1878 డిసెంబరులో తన కుటుంబంతో తెగతెంపులు చేసుకొని గ్రాజ్ వదిలిపెట్టి వెళ్ళిపోయాడు. స్నేహితులు ఈయన ముర్ నదిలో మునిగిపోయాడని భావించారు. మారిబోర్ (ప్రస్తుతం స్లొవేనియాలో ఉన్నది) కు వెళ్ళి తొలుత ఒక సంవత్సరం పాటు సహాయ ఇంజనీరుగా ఉద్యోగం చేశాడు. ఈ సమయంలోనే మనోవ్యధకు గురయ్యాడు. ఆ తరువత టెస్లా తండ్రి ప్రోద్బలంతో ప్రాగ్ లోని చార్లెస్ ఫెర్డినాండ్ విశ్వవిద్యాలయంలో చేరి, అక్కడ 1880 వేసవిలో చదువుకున్నాడు. అక్కడ ఎర్నెస్ట్ మాక్ చే ప్రభావితుడయ్యాడు. కానీ, తండ్రి మరణించిన తర్వాత, కేవలం ఒకే టర్ము పూర్తి చేసిన తర్వాత విశ్వవిద్యాలయాన్ని వదిలిపెట్టాడు.
టెస్లా అనేక పుస్తకాలు, శాస్త్రీయ రచనలు చదవటం ప్రారంభించాడు. తన ఏకసంథాగ్రాహ్యంతో అమాంతం పుస్తకాలు పుస్తకాలనే వళ్ళెవేయటం ప్రారంభించాడు. Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration. During his early life, Tesla was stricken with illness time and time again. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by hallucinations. Much of the time the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; just by hearing the name of an item, he would involuntarily envision it in realistic detail. Modern-day synesthetes report similar symptoms. Tesla would visualise an invention in his brain in precise form before moving to the construction stage; a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. Tesla also often had flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life; this began to happen during childhood.
In 1880, he moved to Budapest, (capital of Kingdom of Hungary), to work under Tivadar Puskás in a telegraph company,
the National Telephone Company. There, he met Nebojša Petrović, a young, Serbian inventor who lived in Austria. Although their encounter was brief, they did work on a project together using twin turbines to create continual power. On the opening of the telephone exchange in Budapest, 1881, Tesla became the chief electrician to the company, and was later engineer for the country's first telephone system. He also developed a device that, according to some, was a telephone repeater or amplifier, but according to others could have been the first loudspeaker.
In 1882 he moved to Paris, France, to work as an engineer for the "Continental Edison Company", designing improvements to electric equipment. In the same year, Tesla conceived the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields for which he received patents in 1888.
Soon thereafter, Tesla was awakened from a dream in which his mother had died, "And I knew that this was so". After her death, Tesla fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating in Gospić and the village of "Tomingaj" near Gračac, his mother's birthplace.
On 6 June 1884, Tesla first arrived in the US in New York City with little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, a former employer. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." Edison hired Tesla to work for his "Edison Machine Works". Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company's most difficult problems. Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison company's direct current generators.
Tesla claims he was offered US$50,000 (~ US$1.1 million in 2007, adjusted for inflation) if he redesigned Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy. Tesla said he worked night and day on the project and gave the Edison Company several profitable new patents in the process. In 1885 when Tesla inquired about the payment for his work, Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor," thus breaking his word.
Earning a mere US$18 per week, Tesla would have had to work for 53 years to earn the amount he was promised. The offer was equal to the initial capital of the company. Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to US$25 per week.
Tesla eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time for the Edison company. Tesla used this time to focus on his AC polyphase system, which Edison (believing DC electricity was the future) had never wanted to hear about.
In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, "Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing". The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company. Tesla worked in New York as a common laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternating current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the "American Institute of Electrical Engineers" (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of alternating current electricity over long distances.
In April 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his patent ). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is "bremsstrahlung" (or "braking radiation"). We now know that this device operated by emitting electrons from the single electrode through a combination of field electron emission and thermionic emission. Once liberated, electrons are strongly repelled by the high electric field near the electrode during negative voltage peaks from the oscillating HV output of the Tesla Coil, generating X-rays as they collide with the glass envelope. He also used Geissler tubes. By 1892, Tesla became aware of the skin damage that Wilhelm Röntgen later identified as an effect of X-rays.
In the early research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the "instrument will [... enable one to] generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus".
He also commented on the hazards of working with his circuit and single node X-ray producing devices. Of his many notes in the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. One of the options for the cause, which is not in conformity with conventional X-ray production, was that the ozone generated rather than the radiation was responsible. He believed early on that damage to the skin was not due to the Roentgen rays, but the ozone generated in contact with the skin, and to a lesser extent, Nitrous acid. Tesla held that these were in fact longitudinal waves, such as those produced in waves in plasma. In a plasma or a confined space, there can exist waves which are either longitudinal or transverse, or a mixture of both. There are known examples of this and these plasma waves can occur in the situation of force-free magnetic fields. His hypotheses and experiments were confirmed by others.
Tesla continued research in the field and, later, observed an assistant severely "burnt" by X-rays in his lab. He performed several experiments prior to Roentgen's discovery (including photographing the bones of his hand; later, he sent these images to Roentgen) but didn't make his findings widely known; much of his research was lost in the 5th Avenue lab fire of March 1895.
A "world system" for "the transmission of electrical energy without wires" that depends upon the electrical conductivity was proposed in which transmission in various natural media with current that passes between the two point are used to power devices. In a practical wireless energy transmission system using this principle, a high-power ultraviolet beam might be used to form a vertical ionized channel in the air directly above the transmitter-receiver stations. The same concept is used in virtual lightning rods, the electrolaser electroshock weapon,
and has been proposed for disabling vehicles.
Tesla demonstrated "the transmission of electrical energy without wires" that depends upon electrical conductivity as early as 1891. The "Tesla effect" (named in honor of Tesla) is the archaic term for an application of this type of electrical conduction (that is, the movement of energy through space and matter; not just the production of voltage across a conductor).
On 30 July 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35. Tesla established his 35 South Fifth Avenue laboratory in New York during this same year. Later, Tesla would establish his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston Street. There, at one point while conducting mechanical resonance experiments with electro-mechanical oscillators he generated a resonance of several surrounding buildings but, due to the frequencies involved, not his own building, causing complaints to the police. As the speed grew he hit the resonant frequency of his own building and belatedly realizing the danger he was forced to apply a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment, just as the astonished police arrived.
He also lit vacuum tubes wirelessly at both of the New York locations, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission.
Some of Tesla's closest friends were artists. He befriended "Century Magazine" editor Robert Underwood Johnson, who adapted several Serbian poems of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (which Tesla translated). Also during this time, Tesla was influenced by the Vedic philosophy teachings of the Swami Vivekananda.
When Tesla was 36 years old, the first patents concerning the polyphase power system were granted. He continued research of the system and rotating magnetic field principles. It is curious that Nikola Tesla, a pioneer of AC systems, was born approximately 100 km north of Šibenik where the first power plant in Croatia was constructed. It may be a coincidence that in May 1892, Tesla held a lecture on alternating systems in the City Hall of Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) at the time of the beginning of the preparations to construct the Jaruga I hydroelectric power plant. Tesla served, from 1892 to 1894, as the vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the forerunner (along with the Institute of Radio Engineers) of the modern-day IEEE. From 1893 to 1895, he investigated high frequency alternating currents. He generated AC of one million volts using a conical Tesla coil and investigated the "skin effect" in conductors, designed tuned circuits, invented a machine for inducing sleep, cordless gas discharge lamps, and transmitted electromagnetic energy without wires, building the first radio transmitter. In St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla made a demonstration related to radio communication in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail its principles. Tesla's demonstrations were written about widely through various media outlets. Tesla also investigated harvesting energy that is present throughout space. He believed that it was just merely a question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature, stating:
At the 1893 World's Fair, the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an international exposition was held which for the first time devoted a building to electrical exhibits. It was a historic event as Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced visitors to AC power by using it to illuminate the Exposition. On display were Tesla's fluorescent lamps and single node bulbs. An observer noted: 
Tesla also explained the principles of the rotating magnetic field and induction motor by demonstrating how to make an egg made of copper stand on end in his demonstration of the device he constructed known as the ""Egg of Columbus"".
Also in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries in part due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current advocated by Tesla and Westinghouse. Until Tesla invented the induction motor, AC's advantages for long distance high voltage transmission were counterbalanced by the inability to operate motors on AC. As a result of the "War of Currents," Edison and Westinghouse went nearly bankrupt, so in 1897, Tesla released Westinghouse from contract, providing Westinghouse a break from Tesla's patent royalties. Also in 1897, Tesla researched radiation which led to setting up the basic formulation of cosmic rays.
When Tesla was forty-one years old, he filed the first basic radio patent (). A year later, he demonstrated a radio-controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio-controlled torpedoes. Tesla had developed the ""Art of Telautomatics"", a form of robotics, as well as the technology of remote control. In 1898, a radio-controlled boat was demonstrated to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. These devices had an innovative coherer and a series of logic gates. Tesla called his boat a "teleautomaton" and said of it, "You see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race." Radio remote control remained a novelty until the 1960s. In the same year, Tesla devised an "electric igniter" or spark plug for Internal combustion gasoline engines. He gained , "Electrical Igniter for Gas Engines", on this mechanical ignition system. Tesla lived in the former Gerlach Hotel, renamed The Radio Wave building, at 49 W 27th St. (between Broadway and Sixth Avenue), Lower Manhattan, before the end of the century where he conducted the radio wave experiments. A commemorative plaque was placed on the building in 1977 to honor his work.
In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments. Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla's diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground's telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves.
At his lab, Tesla proved that the earth was a conductor, and he produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts, and up to 135 feet long).
Tesla also investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. Reproductions of Tesla's receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity (e.g., distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques).
Tesla stated that he observed stationary waves during this time.
Tesla researched ways to transmit power and energy wirelessly over long distances (via transverse waves, to a lesser extent, and, more readily, longitudinal waves). He transmitted extremely low frequencies through the ground as well as between the earth's surface and the Kennelly-Heaviside layer. He received patents on wireless transceivers that developed standing waves by this method. In his experiments, he made mathematical calculations and computations based on his experiments and discovered that the resonant frequency of the Earth was approximately 8 Hertz (Hz). In the 1950s, researchers confirmed that the resonant frequency of the Earth's ionospheric cavity was in this range (later named the Schumann resonance).
In Colorado, Tesla carried out various long distance power transmission experiments. "Tesla effect" is the application of a type of electrical conduction (that is, the movement of energy through space and matter; not just the production of voltage across a conductor). Through longitudinal waves, Tesla transferred energy to receiving devices. He sent electrostatic forces through natural media across a conductor situated in the changing magnetic flux and transferred power to a conducting receiving device (such as Tesla's wireless bulbs).
In the Colorado Springs lab, Tesla observed unusual signals that he later thought may have been evidence of extraterrestrial radio communications coming from Venus or Mars.
He noticed repetitive signals from his receiver which were substantially different from the signals he had noted from storms and earth noise. Specifically, he later recalled that the signals appeared in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks together. Tesla had mentioned before this event and many times after that he thought his inventions could be used to talk with other planets. There have even been claims that he invented a ""Teslascope"" for just such a purpose. It is debatable what type of signals Tesla received or whether he picked up anything at all. Research has suggested that Tesla may have had a misunderstanding of the new technology he was working with,
or that the signals Tesla observed may have simply been an observation of a non-terrestrial natural radio source such as the Jovian plasma torus signals.
Tesla left Colorado Springs on 7 January 1900. The lab was torn down and its contents sold to pay debts. The Colorado experiments prepared Tesla for his next project, the establishment of a wireless power transmission facility that would be known as Wardenclyffe. Tesla was granted for the means of increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations. The United States Patent Office classification system currently assigns this patent to the primary Class 178/43 ("telegraphy/space induction"), although the other applicable classes include 505/825 ("low temperature superconductivity-related apparatus").
In 1900, with US$150,000 (51 % from J. Pierpont Morgan), Tesla began planning the "Wardenclyffe Tower" facility. In June 1902, Tesla's lab operations were moved to Wardenclyffe from Houston Street. The tower was finally dismantled for scrap during World War I. Newspapers of the time labeled Wardenclyffe "Tesla's million-dollar folly". In 1904, the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio, and Tesla began his fight to re-acquire the radio patent. On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine. During 1910–1911 at the "Waterside Power Station" in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100–5000 hp.
Since the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marconi for radio in 1909, Thomas Edison and Tesla were mentioned as potential laureates to share the Nobel Prize of 1915 in a press dispatch, leading to one of several Nobel Prize controversies. Some sources have claimed that due to their animosity toward each other neither was given the award, despite their enormous scientific contributions, and that each sought to minimize the other one's achievements and right to win the award, that both refused to ever accept the award if the other received it first, and that both rejected any possibility of sharing it.
In the following events after the rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the prize (although Edison did receive one of 38 possible bids in 1915, and Tesla did receive one bid out of 38 in 1937).
Earlier, Tesla alone was rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize of 1912. The rumored nomination was primarily for his experiments with tuned circuits using high-voltage high-frequency resonant transformers.
In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi attempting, unsuccessfully, to obtain a court injunction against Marconi's claims. After Wardenclyffe, Tesla built the Telefunken Wireless Station in Sayville, Long Island. Some of what he wanted to achieve at Wardenclyffe was accomplished with the Telefunken Wireless. In 1917, the facility was seized and torn down by the Marines, because it was suspected that it could be used by German spies.
Before World War I, Tesla looked overseas for investors to fund his research. When the war started, Tesla lost the funding he was receiving from his patents in European countries. After the war ended, Tesla made predictions regarding the relevant issues of the post-World War I environment, in a printed article (20 December 1914). Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues. Tesla started to exhibit pronounced symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the years following. He became obsessed with the number three; he often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building, demanded a stack of three folded cloth napkins beside his plate at every meal, etc. The nature of OCD was little understood at the time and no treatments were available, so his symptoms were considered by some to be evidence of partial insanity, and this undoubtedly hurt what was left of his reputation.
At this time, he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, renting in an arrangement for deferred payments. Eventually, the Wardenclyffe deed was turned over to George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria, to pay a US$20,000 debt. In 1917, around the time that the Wardenclyffe Tower was demolished by Boldt to make the land a more viable real estate asset, Tesla received AIEE's highest honor, the Edison Medal.
Tesla, in August 1917, first established principles regarding frequency and power level for the first primitive radar units.
In 1934, Émile Girardeau, working with the first French radar systems, stated he was building said systems "conceived according to the principles stated by Tesla". By the 1920s, Tesla was reportedly negotiating with the United Kingdom government about a ray system. Tesla had also stated that efforts had been made to steal the so called "death ray". It is suggested that the removal of the Chamberlain government ended negotiations.
On Tesla's seventy-fifth birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him on its cover. The cover caption noted his contribution to electrical power generation. Tesla received his last patent in 1928 for an apparatus for aerial transportation which was the first instance of VTOL aircraft. By the end of 1931, Tesla released ""On Future Motive Power"" which covered an ocean thermal energy conversion system. In 1934, Tesla wrote to consul Janković of his homeland. The letter contained a message of gratitude to Mihajlo Pupin who had initiated a donation scheme by which American companies could support Tesla. Tesla refused the assistance, choosing instead to live on a modest pension received from Yugoslavia, and to continue his research.
In 1936, Tesla wrote in a telegram to Vladko Maček: "I'm equally proud of my Serbian origin and my Croatian homeland. Long live all Yugoslavs."
When he was eighty-one, Tesla stated he had completed a "dynamic theory of gravity". He stated that it was "worked out in all details" and that he hoped to soon give it to the world.
The theory was never published.
The bulk of the theory was developed between 1892 and 1894, during the period that he was conducting experiments with high frequency and high potential electromagnetism and patenting devices for their use. Reminiscent of Mach's principle, Tesla stated in 1925 that:
Tesla was critical of Einstein's relativity work, calling it:
Tesla also argued:
Tesla also believed that much of Albert Einstein's relativity theory had already been proposed by Ruđer Bošković, stating in an unpublished interview:
Later in life, Tesla made remarkable claims concerning a "teleforce" weapon. The press called it a "peace ray" or death ray.
In total, the components and methods included:
Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon from the early 1900s until his death. In 1937, Tesla composed a treatise entitled ""The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media"" concerning charged particle beams.
Tesla published the document in an attempt to expound on the technical description of a "superweapon that would put an end to all war". This treatise of the particle beam is currently in the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade. It described an open ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allowed particles to exit, a method of charging particles to millions of volts, and a method of creating and directing nondispersive particle streams (through electrostatic repulsion).
His records indicate that it was based on a narrow stream of atomic clusters of liquid mercury or tungsten accelerated via high voltage (by means akin to his magnifying transformer). Tesla gave the following description concerning the "particle gun"'s operation:
Tesla tried to interest the US War Department in the device.
He also offered this invention to European countries.
None of the governments purchased a contract to build the device. He was unable to act on his plans.
Another of Tesla's theorized inventions is commonly referred to as "Tesla's Flying Machine", which appears to resemble an ion-propelled aircraft. Tesla claimed that one of his life goals was to create a flying machine that would run without the use of an airplane engine, wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source. Initially, Tesla pondered about the idea of a flying craft that would fly using an electric motor powered by grounded base stations. As time progressed, Tesla suggested that perhaps such an aircraft could be run entirely electro-mechanically. The theorized appearance would typically take the form of a cigar or saucer.
Tesla was fluent in many languages. Along with Serbo-Croatian, he spoke seven other languages: Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.
Tesla may have suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder,
and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes, and was adamant about staying in a hotel room with a number divisible by three. Tesla was also noted to be physically revolted by jewelry, notably pearl earrings. He was fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene, and was by all accounts mysophobic. He greatly disliked touching human hair other than his own as well as round objects.
Tesla was obsessed with pigeons, ordering special seeds for the pigeons he fed in Central Park and even bringing some into his hotel room with him. Tesla was an animal-lover, often reflecting contentedly about a childhood cat, "The Magnificent Macak." Tesla never married. He was celibate and claimed that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities. Nonetheless there have been numerous accounts of women vying for Tesla's affection, even some madly in love with him. Tesla, though polite, behaved rather ambivalently to these women in the romantic sense.
Tesla was prone to alienating himself and was generally soft-spoken. However, when he did engage in a social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of him. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force." His loyal secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote: "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul." Tesla's friend Hawthorne wrote that "seldom did one meet a scientist or engineer who was also a poet, a philosopher, an appreciator of fine music, a linguist, and a connoisseur of food and drink."
Nevertheless, Tesla displayed the occasional cruel streak; he openly expressed his disgust for overweight people, once firing a secretary because of her weight. He was quick to criticize others' clothing as well, demanding a subordinate to go home and change her dress on several occasions.
Tesla was widely known for his great showmanship, presenting his innovations and demonstrations to the public as an artform, almost like a magician. This seems to conflict with his observed reclusiveness; Tesla was a complicated figure. He refused to hold conventions without his Tesla coil blasting electricity throughout the room, despite the audience often being terrified, though he assured them everything was perfectly safe.
In middle age, Tesla became very close friends with Mark Twain. They spent a lot of time together in his lab and elsewhere.
Tesla remained bitter in the aftermath of his incident with Edison. The day after Edison died the "New York Times" contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla, who was quoted as saying: Shortly before he died, Edison said that his biggest mistake had been in trying to develop direct current, rather than the vastly superior alternating current system that Tesla had put within his grasp.
Tesla was good friends with Robert Underwood Johnson. He had amicable relations with Francis Marion Crawford, Stanford White, Fritz Lowenstein, George Scherff, and Kenneth Swezey. He ripped up a Westinghouse contract that would have made him the world's first billionaire, in part because of the implications it would have on his future vision of free power, and in part because it would run Westinghouse out of business, and Tesla had no desire to deal with the creditors.
Tesla lived the last ten years of his life in a two-room suite on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker, room 3327. There, near the end of his life, Tesla showed signs of encroaching mental illness, claiming to be visited by a specific white pigeon daily. Several biographers note that Tesla viewed the death of the pigeon as a "final blow" to himself and his work.
Tesla believed that war could not be avoided until the cause for its recurrence was removed, but was opposed to wars in general.
He sought to reduce distance, such as in communication for better understanding, transportation, and transmission of energy, as a means to ensure friendly international relations.
Like many of his era, Tesla, a life-long bachelor, became a proponent of a self-imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. In a 1937 interview, he stated:
In 1926, Tesla commented on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality, indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future.
In his later years Tesla became a vegetarian. In an article for "Century Illustrated Magazine" he wrote: "It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit." Tesla argued that it is wrong to eat uneconomic meat when large numbers of people are starving; he also believed that plant food was "superior to it [meat] in regard to both mechanical and mental performance". He also argued that animal slaughter was "wanton and cruel".
In his final years he suffered from extreme sensitivity to light, sound and other influences.
Tesla died of heart failure alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, some time between the evening of 5 January and the morning of 8 January 1943, at the age of 86. Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla was destitute and died with significant debts. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number, in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.
Immediately after Tesla's death became known, the government's Alien Property Custodian office took possession of his papers and property, despite his US citizenship. His safe at the hotel was also opened. At the time of his death, Tesla had been continuing his work on the teleforce weapon, or death ray, that he had unsuccessfully marketed to the US War Department. It appears that his proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma, and was imagined as a particle beam weapon. The US government did not find a prototype of the device in the safe. After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. The so-called "peace ray" constitutes a part of some conspiracy theories as a means of destruction. The personal effects were seized on the advice of presidential advisers; J. Edgar Hoover declared the case most secret, because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and patents. One document states that "[he] is reported to have some 80 trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to do with his experiments [...]". Charlotte Muzar reported that there were several "missing" papers and property.
Tesla's family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually, his nephew, Sava Kosanoviċ, won possession of some of his personal effects, which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia.
Tesla's funeral took place on 12 January 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City. His body was cremated and his ashes taken to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn was placed in the Nikola Tesla Museum, where it resides to this day.
According to John J. O'Neill, author of "Prodigal Genius, the Life of Nikola Tesla", Tesla told him this story in the presence of William L. Laurence, the New York Times science writer.
Tesla had been feeding pigeons for years. Among them, there was a very beautiful female white pigeon with light gray tips on its wings that seemed to follow him everywhere. A great deal of rapport developed between them. As Tesla confessed, he loved that pigeon: "Yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me." If the pigeon became ill, he would nurse her back to health and as long as she needed him and he could have her, nothing else mattered and there was purpose in his life.
One night as he was lying in bed, she flew in through the window and he knew right away that she had something important to tell him: she was dying. "And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes - powerful beams of light". "...Yes," "...it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory."
Tesla admitted to O'Neill that when that particular pigeon died, something went out of his life. Before that time, he could complete the most ambitious programs he could ever dream of but after the pigeon flew into the beyond, he knew his life's work was done for good.
He did not like posing for portraits, doing so only once for princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy. His wish was to have a sculpture made by his close friend, Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, who was at that time in United States, but he died before getting a chance to see it. Meštrović made a bronze bust (1952) that is held in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and a statue (1955/56) placed at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb. This statue was moved to Nikola Tesla Street in Zagreb's city centre on the 150th anniversary of Tesla's birth, with the Ruđer Bošković Institute to receive a duplicate.
In 1976, a bronze statue of Tesla was placed at Niagara Falls, New York. A similar statue was also erected in his hometown of Gospić in 1986.
The SI unit tesla (T) for measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field B) was named in Tesla’s honor at the "Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures", Paris in 1960. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of which Tesla had been vice president also created an award in recognition of Tesla. Called the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award, it is given to individuals or a team that has made outstanding contributions to the generation or utilization of electric power, and is considered the most prestigious award in the area of electric power.
The crater Tesla on the far side of the Moon and the minor planet 2244 Tesla are also named after him.
Tesla was featured on several Yugoslav- and Serbian dinar notes and coinage. The largest power plant complex in Serbia, the TPP Nikola Tesla is named in his honor. On 10 July 2006 the biggest airport in Serbia (Belgrade) was renamed Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport in honor of Tesla’s 150th birthday.
The company, Tesla was a large, state-owned electrotechnical conglomerate in the former Czechoslovakia. It was renamed in Tesla's honor from the previous Electra on 7 March 1946. Some of its subsidiaries still trade in the Czech Republic.
An electric car company, Tesla Motors, named their company in tribute to Tesla. Their website states: "The namesake of our Tesla Roadster is the genius Nikola Tesla" [...] "We‘re confident that if he were alive today, Nikola Tesla would look over our car and nod his head with both understanding and approval."
The Croatian subsidiary of Ericsson is also named 'Ericsson Nikola Tesla d.d'. ('Nikola Tesla' was a phone hardware company in Zagreb before Ericsson bought it in the 1990s) in honor of Tesla's pioneering work in wireless communication.
The year 2006 was celebrated by UNESCO as the "150th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, scientist ", as well as being proclaimed by the governments of Croatia and Serbia to be the "Year of Tesla". On this anniversary, 10 July 2006, the renovated village of Smiljan (which had been demolished during the wars of the 1990s) was opened to the public along with Tesla's house (as a memorial museum) and a new multimedia center dedicated to the life and work of Tesla. The parochial church of St. Peter and Paul, where Tesla's father had held services, was renovated as well. The museum and multimedia center are filled with replicas of Tesla's work. The museum has collected almost all of the papers ever published by, and about, Tesla; most of these provided by Ljubo Vujovic from the Tesla Memorial Society.
in New York. Alongside Tesla's house, a monument created by sculptor Mile Blazevic has been erected. In the nearby city of Gospić, on the same date as the reopening of the renovated village and museums, a higher education school named Nikola Tesla was opened, and a replica of the statue of Tesla made by Frano Krsinic (the original is in Belgrade) was presented.
The song "Tesla's Hotel Room" by the Handsome Family, on their 2006 album "Last Days of Wonder", is a fictionalized account of Tesla's later years at the New Yorker hotel.
The heavy metal group Tesla, which made famous the rock-ballad "Love Song", was named after Nikola Tesla, and their website provides a link to Nikola Tesla's webpage.
In the years since his death, many of his innovations, theories and claims have been used, at times unsuitably and controversially, to support various fringe theories that are regarded as unscientific. Most of Tesla's own work conformed with the principles and methods accepted by science, but his extravagant personality and sometimes unrealistic claims, combined with his unquestionable genius, have made him a popular figure among fringe theorists and believers in conspiracies about "hidden knowledge". Some conspiracy theorists even in his time believed that he was actually an angelic being from Venus sent to Earth to reveal scientific knowledge to humanity. This belief is maintained in present times by followers of Nuwaubianism.
A monument to Tesla was established at Niagara Falls, New York, USA. This monument is a copy of a monument standing in front of the Belgrade University Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Another monument to Tesla, featuring him standing on a portion of an alternator, was established at Queen Victoria Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. The monument was officially unveiled on Sunday, 9 July 2006 on the 150th anniversary of Tesla's birth. The monument was sponsored by St. George Serbian Church, Niagara Falls, and designed by Les Drysdale of Hamilton, Ontario. Mr. Drysdale's design was the winning design from an international competition. Tesla's most famous statue is the one erected on 23 May 1879 at Sycamore Peak showing him and Dr. Brian S. Whitecross. Belgrade International Airport is called "Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport".
Nikola Tesla has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, films, radio, TV, live theatre, comics and video games. The lack of recognition received by Tesla during his own lifetime has made him a tragic and inspirational character well suited to dramatic fiction. Tesla has particularly been seen in science fiction where his inventions are well suited. The impact of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla is a recurring theme in several types of science-fiction.