The First Tesla

One of my personal heroes, (that always seems like a word that is overused and not totally fitting, he would not have understood it) It seems to me that Nikolas Tesla's story is a tale of tragically unfulfilled potential and unrealised application, partly to do with the quality of the men he had to be involved with at the time and to be fair, his own inability to communicate with the people who could have helped, rather than exploit him. He lived a special life, in later years he was the funny old man in Central Park feeding the pigeons. he died relatively penniless  and unknown.

But his time is not over, far from it, his discoveries are as relevant today as they were over a century ago. And his legacy has yet to reach its full proportion.

Nikola Tesla, the inventor, was born July 1856, in what is now Croatia. He came to the United States in 1884 and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways. He sold several patent rights, including those to his alternating-current machinery, to George Westinghouse. His 1891 invention, the "Tesla coil," is still used in radio technology today.

Tesla's interest in electrical invention was spurred by his mother, who invented small household appliances while her son was growing up. Tesla's father was a Serbian orthodox priest and a writer, who pushed for his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola's interests lay squarely in the sciences. After studying during the 1870s, Tesla moved to Budapest, where for a time he worked at the Central Telephone Exchange. It was while in Budapest that the idea for the induction motor first came to him, but after several years of trying to gain interest in his invention, at age 28 Tesla decided to leave Europe for America.

Tesla arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison, whose DC-based electrical works were fast becoming the standard in the country. Edison hired Tesla, and the two men were soon working tirelessly alongside each other, making improvements to Edison's inventions. However, the two parted ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship. While Edison was a commercial powerhouse who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was commercially out-of-tune and somewhat vulnerable.

After parting ways with Edison, in 1885 Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company and was tasked by his investors to develop improved arc lighting. After successfully doing so, however, Tesla was forced out of the venture and for a time had to work as a manual laborer in order to survive. His luck changed in 1887, when he was able to find interest in his AC electrical system and funding for his new Tesla Electric Company. Setting straight to work, by the end of the year, Tesla had successfully filed several patents for AC-based inventions.  

Tesla's AC system eventually caught the attention of American engineer and business man George Westinghouse, who was seeking a solution to supplying the nation with long-distance power. Convinced that Tesla's inventions would help him achieve this, in 1888 he purchased his patents for $60,000 in cash and stock in the Westinghouse Corporation. As interest in an alternating-current system grew, Tesla and Westinghouse were put in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who was intent on selling his direct-current system to the nation. A negative-press campaign was soon waged by Edison, in an attempt to undermine interest in AC power. Tesla, for his part, continued in his work and would patent several more inventions during this period, including the "Tesla coil," which laid the foundation for wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today.

Unfortunately for Thomas Edison, the Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and Tesla conducted demonstrations of his AC system there. Two years later, in 1895, Tesla designed what was among the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States, at Niagara Falls. The alternating-current system would quickly become the preeminent power system of the 20th century, and it has remained the worldwide standard ever since. In addition to his AC system and coil, throughout his career, Tesla discovered, designed and developed ideas for a number of other important inventions—most of which were officially patented by other inventors—including dynamos (electrical generators similar to batteries) and the induction motor. He was also a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology, remote control and the rotating magnetic field—the basis of most AC machinery.

Having become obsessed with the wireless transmission of energy, around 1900 Nikola set to work on his boldest project yet: to build a global, wireless communication system—to be transmitted through a large electrical tower—for sharing information and providing free electricity throughout the world. With funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan, in 1901 Tesla began work on the project in earnest, designing and building a lab with a power plant and a massive transmission tower on a site on Long Island, New York, that became known as Wardenclyffe. However, when doubts arose among his investors about the plausibility of Tesla's system and his rival, Guglielmo Marconi—with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison—continued to make great advances with his own radio technologies, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project. The Wardenclyffe staff was laid off in 1906 and by 1915 the site had fallen into foreclosure. Two years later Tesla declared bankruptcy and the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap to help pay the debts he had accrued.

Death and Legacy
After suffering a nervous breakdown, Tesla eventually returned to work, primarily as a consultant. But as time went on, his ideas became progressively more outlandish and impractical. He also grew increasingly eccentric, devoting much of his time to the care of wild pigeons in New York City's parks. He even drew the attention of the FBI with his talk of building a powerful "death beam," which had received some interest from the Soviet Union during World World II.

Wardenclyffe Project
In 2008, a group called the Tesla Science Center was formed with the intention of purchasing the Wardenclyffe site and turning it into a museum dedicated to the inventor's work. In February 2009 the property went on the market for nearly $1.6 million, and for the next few years, the Tesla Science Center worked diligently to raise funds for its purchase. In 2012, public interest in the project peaked when Matthew Inman collaborated with the TSC in an Internet fundraising effort, ultimately receiving enough contributions to acquire the site in May 2013. Work on its restoration is still in progress.

Tesla died in New York City on January 7, 1943.

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