Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla. I was surprised I really only learned of Tesla during college. I learned a lot about him from the PBS show, Nikola Tesla, Master of Lightning,  and through the interactive website and not really from any class I took. I was surprised that a man so ahead of his time was not even taught in my high school. I can’t really blame the school system too much because Nikola Tesla has only been getting his dues recently, which is a crying shame, and really only in the engineering community. Luckily, Team Tesla is fixing that. His Laboratory, Wardenclyffe in Shoreham, New York was recently purchased to be converted to a museum in Tesla’s honor. This is in thanks to people like Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal who has his own comic illustrating the awesomeness of Tesla.

Nikola Tesla made huge strides in electrical engineering especially when the term didn’t even exist yet. He was key in radio transmissions and in transmission, generation, and storing energy. He invented CFLs for the Chicago world fair. He even thought of things like the LASER well ahead of his time. He called it a Death Ray then, but it was the same principal. And his ultimate dream was to be able to transmit electricity free over open air for all. We don’t have this available on the market today, but it looks like we may soon. This man was so ahead of his time. I genius who, later in life blurred the line of genius and insanity.

Now to explain who he was. Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia on July 10, 1856. His only brother died when he was 12, falling off a horse. The same year he graduated to secondary school. It is during his childhood on one cold winter day that he was petting his cat,  Macak, and he was shocked. Curiosity in this phenomena started budding. In 1873 Nikola Tesla got gravely ill with Cholera, to help motivate him through illness, his father, who was previously opposed to Tesla being a scientist, promised to let him go to engineering school if he got better. Nikola obviously got better and went to school in 1875. After he graduated, he worked around Europe at various engineering firms and also taught, at the behest of his father, who dies in 1879.

Tesla had an epiphany about alternating current in 1882 and then moved to Paris to work for the European Edison Company. On June 10, 1883, Tesla demonstrates the AC motor he had developed, but the potential behind the invention is misunderstood. In 1884, he arrives in New York and meets Thomas Edison. Edison hired Tesla on the spot, but didn’t like AC. He would hear nothing about it, being a proponent of DC. It wasn’t until Tesla leaves and works at Westinghouse that his AC designed would really be appreciated and then implemented.

The reason Tesla leaves Edison is infamous. Edison decides to make a wager with Tesla to see if Tesla can improve the DC dynamo with a $50,000 reward if he is successful. Tesla spend several days and nights on the project and succeeded, when he asked Edison about the money, Edison wouldn’t pay him saying that Tesla needed to understand American humor. Incidentally, this is one of the major reasons I, and other members of Team Tesla, think Edison is a douche. After not being awarded the money he should have gotten, Tesla leaves Edison and has a very bad financial winter. The only job he can find is  digging ditches. Luckily in 1887, some investors see potential in AC and fund Tesla Electric company. On July 7, 1888, Tesla sells some of his AC patents to Westinghouse for $25,000 plus royalties of $2.5 per horsepower. He also gets awarded the contract of building a power plant at Niagara Falls. In November of 1890, while working with x-rays, he discovers wireless transmission and begins work on that.

On July 30, 1891, Tesla gains US citizenship and he was extremely proud of this. It’s at this point that Tesla has gained some fame and lots of contracts. He begins touring Europe and America lecturing about his work. December 6, 1901, Tesla’s Rival in data transmission (radio) beats him, but Marconi used designs that include at least seven parts that were patented by Tesla. Marconi won the Nobel and the US Congress awarded the patent to Marconi. It wasn’t until 1990 that the patent was awarded to its rightful inventor, Nikola Tesla. It was at this point that Tesla started to lose money and blur the line of genius and insanity  Tesla was heartbroken that he wasn’t awarded the patent or the Nobel Prize. He continues work on the transmission of electricity, but ends up running out of funding. His Chicago lab is torn down and he eventually looses Wydenclyffe in 1915. Tesla declares bankruptcy in 1916. He ends up teaching, accepting awards, and moves around to hotel after hotel before coming back to New York. During this time, he kept pigeons  hated the sight of pearls, and only stayed in hotel rooms that were divisible by three. Tesla died on January 7th, 1943 at age 86 in room 3327 in the Hotel New Yorker. He was penniless, but honored by many universities world wide with honorary doctorates.

Nikola Tesla was a genius who happened to see the world differently. His work shaped the way our world works, allowing electricity to really take hold. His inventions are still being used today, not just at Niagara Falls, but at plants world wide. Tesla is the real father of the radio and he came extremely close to transmitting free electricity for all. It is unfortunate that the Nobel Prize for the radio was given to Marconi, who knows what he would have made next. To the Master of Lighting, I salute you.

Find more information about Tesla at these additional sources:

• Tesla Society
• Timeline of Nikola Tesla
• The Oatmeal’s Comic on Tesla
• Wikipedia Entry on Tesla
• About.com Entry on Tesla
• Drunk History of Tesla
• History.com Entry on Tesla

I don’t have a set topic for next time. I may just cover the radio, its invention, its impact on World War I, and its impact on society after the war. If you have any other cool Tesla stories or inventions to comment on, please feel free to do so. Or if you have any topics you’d like me to cover, please don’t hesitate to comment below. Happy learning!

An Electrifying History of Electricity

We use electricity to power virtually everything in our homes from heating to surfing the internet. Electricity starts our cars, powers our TVs, radios, phones, and computers that keep us all connected. How did we learn to harness this electricity and why use electricity at all?

Professor Mayergoyz at University of Maryland, College Park explained to his classes that we use electricity because it is the easiest transformable and transmittable energy source. This means you can take any kinetic, thermal, and even magnetic energy and somehow convert it to electrical energy. The spinning blades of a windmill can drive a turbine which creates an electrical current. Thermal energy can heat up water and create steam, which flows into a similar type of turbine that generates electricity. The turbine itself utilizes magnetic energy to generate a current. Magnetic energy is related to current in that a current will generate a magnetic field and in turn, manipulating the magnetic field can manipulate the current. This helps us create alternating current that is useful in transmitting electricity from the power plants that generate it to our homes and businesses.

Back to our original question, how did we learn to harness electricity?

To answer that, we must go back more than two thousand years to where the Ancient Greek first learned of static electricity. We’ve all done it, particularly on a cold winter’s day. We’ve shocked ourselves from walking over carpet and then touching something metal, petting our furry pets, or even just getting in and out of the car.  According to wiseGeek.org, The Ancient Greeks discovered that rubbing fur on Amber created static electricity. Discovered in the 1930’s, clay pots line with copper and filled with acid were dated back to around 250 BCE, according to Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. These pots barely mustered up to half a volt which made it pretty much useless to even charge a cell phone.

It wasn’t until the 17th century that the term “electric” was even coined and it wasn’t until the mid 18th century that the Leyden Jar was created. The Leyden jar can be considered the first battery as it was capable of storing a small charge. According to the National High Magnetic Field Lab, Leyden jars were hooked up to electrostatic generator to build a charge and the jar was Benjamin Franklin’s favorite way of demonstrating electricity. This led Benjamin Franklin to first use the term ‘battery’ and led Benjamin Franklin to go on and perform his famous key and kite experiment which led him to discover that lightning was a form of electricity.

Work continued on electricity, but it was during the 19th century that we see a boom in its development. Two famous names may even spring to mind: Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla. Their story could fill a whole article, suffice to say this: Thomas Edison was a supporter of direct current being industry standard and Nikola Tesla supported alternating current. There were pros and cons to both types of electricity and both are still used today, but alternating current ended up winning because it was easier and cheaper to send miles and miles away. So instead of needed a power station within a couple mile radius, we can have power stations farther away from towns that serve the whole town.

Direct current is still used in small circuits and actually powers our phones and computers. We use AC adapters to convert alternating current to direct current in order to do so.

That is the history of electricity! Next week I’ll talk about Tesla and Edison and their battle of currents.

UPDATE: I previously miss spelled Nikola. I really should know better, but in my defense his name is not in my spell check. I should really rectify that.