That he invented Tesla. The most mysterious inventions of the genius Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla (Serbian Nikola Tesla; English Nikola Tesla). Born July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now in Croatia) - died January 7, 1943 in New York (USA). Inventor in the field of electrical and radio engineering, engineer, physicist.
Born and raised in Austria-Hungary, in subsequent years he worked mainly in France and the USA. In 1891 he received US citizenship. By nationality - Serbian.
Widely known for his contributions to the creation of alternating current devices, polyphase systems and the electric motor, which made it possible to achieve the so-called second stage of the industrial revolution.
He is also known as a supporter of the existence of ether: his numerous experiments are known, which were aimed at showing the presence of ether as a special form of matter that can be used in technology.
The unit of measurement of magnetic flux density (magnetic induction) is named after N. Tesla. Among the scientist’s many awards are the E. Cresson, J. Scott medals.
Contemporary biographers consider Tesla “the man who invented the 20th century” and the “patron saint” of modern electricity. After demonstrating radio and winning the War of the Currents, Tesla became widely recognized as an outstanding electrical engineer and inventor. Tesla's early work paved the way for modern electrical engineering, and his early discoveries were innovative. In the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any inventor or scientist in history and popular culture.
Tesla's family lived in the village of Smilyan, 6 km from the city of Gospić, the main city of the historical province of Lika, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father - Milutin Tesla (1819-1879), priest of the Srem diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Serbian. Mother - Georgina (Juka) Tesla (1822-1892), nee Mandich, was the daughter of a priest. On June 28 (July 10), 1856, a fourth child, Nikola, appeared in the family. In total, there were five children in the family: three daughters - Milka, Angelina and Maritsa and two sons - Nikola and his older brother Dane. When Nikola was five years old, his brother died after falling from his horse.
Nikola graduated from the first grade of primary school in Smilany. In 1862, shortly after Dane’s death, the father of the family was promoted to rank, and Tesla’s family moved to Gospić, where he completed the remaining three years of primary school, and then the three-year lower real gymnasium, which he graduated in 1870. In the autumn of the same year, Nikola entered the Higher Real College in the city of Karlovac. He lived in the house of his aunt, his father's cousin, Stanka Baranovich.
In July 1873, N. Tesla received a matriculation certificate. Despite his father’s order, Nikola returned to his family in Gospić, where there was a cholera epidemic, and immediately became infected (although it is not entirely clear whether it was actually cholera). Here's what Tesla himself said about it: “Since childhood, I was destined for the path of a priest. This prospect hung over me like a black cloud. After receiving my matriculation certificate, I found myself at a crossroads. Should I disobey my father, ignore my mother's loving wishes, or submit to fate? This thought depressed me, and I looked into the future with fear. I deeply respected my parents, so I decided to study spiritual sciences. It was then that a terrible cholera epidemic broke out, which wiped out a tenth of the population. Contrary to my father’s unquestionable orders, I rushed home, and the illness crushed me. Later, cholera led to dropsy, lung problems and other diseases. Nine months in bed, almost without moving, seemed to have drained all my vitality, and the doctors gave up on me. It was a painful experience, not so much because of the physical suffering, but because of my great desire to live. During one of the attacks, when everyone thought I was dying, my father quickly entered the room to support me with these words: “You will get better.” I can see his deathly pale face now as he tried to encourage me in a tone that contradicted his assurances. “Perhaps,” I replied, “I can get better if you let me study engineering.” “You will go to the best educational institution in Europe,” he answered solemnly, and I realized that he would do it. A heavy burden was lifted from my soul. But consolation might have come too late if I had not been miraculously cured by an old woman with a decoction of beans. There was no power of suggestion or mysterious influence in this. The remedy for the disease was in the full sense healing, heroic, if not desperate, but it had an effect.”.
The recovered N. Tesla was soon to be called up for three years of service in the Austro-Hungarian army. His relatives considered him not healthy enough and hid him in the mountains. He returned back only in the early summer of 1875.
In the same year, Nikola entered the Higher Technical School in Graz (currently the Graz Technical University), where he began to study electrical engineering. Observing the operation of the Gram machine at lectures on electrical engineering, Tesla came to the idea of the imperfection of direct current machines, but Professor Jacob Peschl sharply criticized his ideas, before the whole course he gave a lecture on the impracticability of using alternating current in electric motors. In his third year, Tesla became interested in gambling, losing large sums of money at cards. In his memoirs, Tesla wrote that he was driven “not only by the desire to have fun, but also by failure to achieve his intended goal.” He always gave away winnings to losers, for which he soon became known as an eccentric. In the end, he lost so badly that his mother had to borrow money from her friend. From then on he never played again.
Tesla got a job as a teacher at a real gymnasium in Gospić, the one where he studied. Work at Gospic did not suit him. The family had little money, and only thanks to financial help from his two uncles, Petar and Pavel Mandich, young Tesla was able to leave for Prague in January 1880, where he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague.
He studied for only one semester and was forced to look for work.
Until 1882, Tesla worked as an electrical engineer for the government telegraph company in Budapest, which at that time was engaged in laying telephone lines and building a central telephone exchange. In February 1882, Tesla figured out how to use a phenomenon that would later become known as the rotating magnetic field in an electric motor.
Working for a telegraph company prevented Tesla from realizing his plans to create an alternating current electric motor. At the end of 1882, he took a job with the Continental Edison Company in Paris. One of the company's largest works was the construction of a power plant for the railway station in Strasbourg. At the beginning of 1883, the company sent Nikola to Strasbourg to solve a number of operational problems that arose during the installation of lighting equipment for the new railway station. In his free time, Tesla worked on making a model of an asynchronous electric motor, and in 1883 he demonstrated the operation of the engine in the city hall of Strasbourg.
By the spring of 1884, work at the Strasbourg railway station was completed, and Tesla returned to Paris, expecting a bonus of 25 thousand dollars from the company. Having tried to receive the bonuses due to him, he realized that he would not see this money and, offended, quit.
One of the first biographers of the inventor B. N. Rzhonsnitsky states: “His first thought was to go to St. Petersburg, since in Russia in those years many discoveries and inventions important for the development of electrical engineering were made. The names of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lachinov, Vladimir Nikolaevich Chikolev and others were well known to electricians of all countries, their articles were published in the most widespread electrical engineering magazines in the world and, undoubtedly, were known to Tesla.”. But at the last moment, one of the administrators of the Continental Company, Charles Batchelor, persuaded Nikola to go to the USA instead of Russia. Batchlor wrote a letter of recommendation to his friend Thomas Edison: “It would be an unforgivable mistake to give such talent the opportunity to go to Russia. You will still be grateful to me, Mr. Edison, for the fact that I did not spare several hours to convince this young man to abandon the idea of going to St. Petersburg. I know two great people - one of them is you, the second is this young man.".
In the biographies of Tesla by other authors, nothing is said about Tesla’s desire to go to Russia, and the text of the note is given only from one (last) sentence. The note was first mentioned by Tesla's first major biographer, John O'Neill. There is no documented text of the note. A modern author, Ph.D. Mark Safer, believes that the note as such may not have existed.
On July 6, 1884, Tesla arrived in New York. He took a job at Thomas Edison's Edison Machine Works as an engineer repairing electric motors and DC generators.
Edison perceived Tesla's new ideas rather coldly and increasingly openly expressed disapproval of the direction of the inventor's personal research. In the spring of 1885, Edison promised Tesla 50 thousand dollars (at that time an amount approximately equivalent to 1 million modern dollars) if he could constructively improve the direct current electric machines invented by Edison. Nikola actively set to work and soon introduced 24 varieties of Edison’s machine, a new switch and regulator, which significantly improved performance. Having approved all the improvements, in response to a question about the reward, Edison refused Tesla, noting that the emigrant still did not understand American humor well. Offended, Tesla immediately quit.
After working for just a year at Edison's company, Tesla gained fame in business circles. Upon learning of his dismissal, a group of electrical engineers invited Nikola to organize his own company related to electric lighting issues. Tesla's projects on the use of alternating current did not inspire them, and then they changed the original proposal, limiting themselves to only a proposal to develop an arc lamp project for street lighting. A year later the project was ready. Instead of money, the entrepreneurs offered the inventor part of the shares of the company created to operate the new lamp. This option did not suit the inventor, and the company responded by trying to get rid of him, trying to slander and discredit Tesla.
From the autumn of 1886 until the spring, the young inventor was forced to subsist on auxiliary jobs. He dug ditches, “slept wherever he had to, and ate whatever he found.” During this period, he became friends with engineer Brown, who was in a similar position, who was able to persuade several of his acquaintances to provide small financial support to Tesla. In April 1887, the Tesla Arc Light Company, created with this money, began to equip street lighting with new arc lamps. Soon the company's promise was proven by large orders from many US cities. For the inventor himself, the company was only a means to achieve his cherished goal.
For his company's office in New York, Tesla rented a house on Fifth Avenue, not far from the building occupied by Edison's company. An intense competitive struggle broke out between the two companies, known in America as the “War of Currents.”
In July 1888, the famous American industrialist George Westinghouse bought more than 40 patents from Tesla, paying an average of 25 thousand dollars for each. Westinghouse also invited the inventor to a consultant position at factories in Pittsburgh, where industrial designs of alternating current machines were developed. The work did not bring satisfaction to the inventor, preventing the emergence of new ideas. Despite Westinghouse's entreaties, Tesla returned to his laboratory in New York a year later.
Shortly after returning from Pittsburgh, Nikola Tesla traveled to Europe, where he visited the 1889 World's Fair in Paris; visited his mother and sister Maritsa.
In 1888-1895, Tesla was engaged in research on high-frequency magnetic fields in his laboratory. These years were the most fruitful: he received many patents for inventions. The leadership of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers invited Tesla to give a lecture about his work. On May 20, 1892, he spoke to an audience that included prominent electrical engineers of the time, and was a great success.
On March 13, 1895, a fire broke out in a laboratory on Fifth Avenue. The building burned to the ground, destroying the inventor's most recent achievements: a mechanical oscillator, a stand for testing new lamps for electric lighting, a prototype of a device for wireless transmission of messages over long distances, and an installation for studying the nature of electricity. Tesla himself stated that he could reconstruct all his discoveries from memory.
The Niagara Falls Company provided financial assistance to the inventor. Thanks to Edward Adams, Tesla had $100,000 to set up a new laboratory. Already in the fall, research resumed at a new address: 46 Houston Street. At the end of 1896, Tesla achieved radio signal transmission over a distance of 30 miles (48 km).
In May 1899, at the invitation of the local electric company, Tesla moved to the resort town of Colorado Springs in Colorado. The town was located on a vast plateau at an altitude of 2000 m. Strong thunderstorms were not uncommon in these places.
Tesla set up a small laboratory in Colorado Springs. The sponsor this time was the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, who allocated $30,000 for research. To study thunderstorms, Tesla designed a special device, which was a transformer, one end of the primary winding of which was grounded, and the other was connected to a metal ball on a rod extending upward. A sensitive self-tuning device connected to a recording device was connected to the secondary winding. This device allowed Nikola Tesla to study changes in the Earth's potential, including the effect of standing electromagnetic waves caused by lightning discharges in the Earth's atmosphere (more than five decades later, this effect was studied in detail and later became known as the Schumann Resonance). Observations led the inventor to think about the possibility of transmitting electricity wirelessly over long distances.
Tesla's next experiment was aimed at exploring the possibility of independently creating a standing electromagnetic wave. In addition to a variety of induction coils and other equipment, he designed a “amplifying transmitter.” The turns of the primary winding were wound on the huge base of the transformer. The secondary winding was connected to a 60-meter mast and ended with a copper ball of a meter in diameter. When an alternating voltage of several thousand volts was passed through the primary coil, a current with a voltage of several million volts and a frequency of up to 150 thousand hertz arose in the secondary coil.
During the experiment, lightning-like discharges were recorded emanating from a metal ball. The length of some discharges reached almost 4.5 meters, and thunder was heard at a distance of up to 24 km. The first run of the experiment was interrupted by a burnt-out generator at a power plant in Colorado Springs, which was the source of current for the primary winding of the “amplifying transmitter.” Tesla was forced to stop experiments and independently repair the failed generator. A week later the experiment was continued.
Based on the experiment, Tesla concluded that the device allowed him to generate standing waves that propagated spherically from the transmitter, and then converged with increasing intensity at a diametrically opposite point on the globe, somewhere near the islands of Amsterdam and Saint-Paul in the Indian Ocean.
Nikola Tesla recorded his notes and observations from experiments in the laboratory in Colorado Springs in a diary, which was later published under the title “Colorado Springs Notes, 1899-1900.”
In the fall of 1899, Tesla returned to New York.
60 km north of New York on Long Island, Nikola Tesla acquired a plot of land bordering the property of Charles Warden. The area of 0.8 km² was located at a considerable distance from settlements. Here Tesla planned to build a laboratory and a scientific campus. By his order, the architect V. Grow developed a project for a radio station - a 47-meter wooden frame tower with a copper hemisphere at the top. The construction of such a structure made of wood gave rise to many difficulties: due to the massive hemisphere, the center of gravity of the building shifted upward, depriving the structure of stability. It was difficult to find a construction company that took on the project. Construction of the tower was completed in 1902. Tesla settled in a small cottage nearby.
The production of the necessary equipment was delayed because the industrialist who financed it, John Pierpont Morgan, terminated the contract after learning that instead of practical goals in developing electric lighting, Tesla planned to research wireless transmission of electricity. Having learned that Morgan had stopped financing the inventor's projects, other industrialists also did not want to deal with him. Tesla was forced to stop construction, close the laboratory and disband the staff. While paying off creditors, Tesla was forced to sell the land. The tower was abandoned and stood until 1917, when federal authorities suspected that German spies were using it for their own purposes. Tesla's unfinished project was blown up. Apparently, Tesla tried to implement a project to produce “atmospheric electricity”, but due to lack of funding and time, this project remained unfinished. A 47-meter tower and a conducting sphere on a relatively dielectric base would give a good effect. Unfortunately, he did not have time to implement a converter for use in industry and households. However, this theory of Tesla is successfully confirmed by patents registered later.
After 1900, Tesla received many other patents for inventions in various fields of technology (electric meter, frequency meter, a number of improvements in radio equipment, steam turbines, etc.)
In the summer of 1914, Serbia found itself at the center of events that led to the outbreak of the First World War. While remaining in America, Tesla took part in raising funds for the Serbian army. Then he begins to think about creating a superweapon: “The time will come when some scientific genius will invent a machine capable of destroying one or more armies with one action.”.
In 1915, newspapers wrote that Tesla had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Thomas Edison was also announced at the same time. Inventors were asked to split the prize into two. According to some sources, the mutual hostility of the inventors led to the fact that both refused it, thus rejecting any possibility of sharing the prize. In fact, Edison was not offered the prize in 1915, although he was nominated for it, and Tesla was nominated for the first time in 1937.
On May 18, 1917, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal, although he himself resolutely refused to receive it.
In 1917, Tesla proposed the principle of operation of a device for radio detection of submarines.
In 1917-1926, Nikola Tesla worked in different cities of America. From the summer of 1917 until November 1918 he worked for Pyle National in Chicago; was in Milwaukee with Ellis Chalmers 1919-1922; The last months of 1922 were spent at the Boston Waltham Watch Company, and in 1925-1926 in Philadelphia, Tesla developed a gasoline turbine for the Budd Company.
In 1934, an article by Tesla was published in the Scientific American magazine, which caused a wide resonance in scientific circles, in which he examined in detail the limits of the possibility of obtaining ultra-high voltages by charging spherical containers with static electricity from rubbing belts and expressed doubt that the discharges of this electrostatic generator could help in researching the structure of the atomic nucleus.
At an old age, Tesla was hit by a car and suffered broken ribs. The disease caused acute pneumonia, which became chronic. Tesla found himself bedridden.
War began in Europe. Tesla was deeply worried about his homeland, which found itself under occupation, repeatedly making ardent appeals in defense of peace to all Slavs (in 1943, after his death, the first guards division of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia was named after Nikola Tesla for their courage and heroism ).
On January 1, 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the US President, expressed a desire to visit the sick Tesla. The Yugoslav Ambassador to the United States, Sava Kosanovic (who was Tesla's nephew), visited him on January 5 and arranged a meeting. He was the last person to communicate with Tesla.
Tesla died on the night of January 7–8, 1943. Tesla always demanded that he not be disturbed; there was even a special sign hanging on the door of his hotel room in New York. The body was discovered by a maid and the director of the New Yorker Hotel only 2 days after death. On January 12, the body was cremated, and an urn with ashes was installed at Fairncliffe Cemetery in New York. Later it was moved to the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade.
Tesla's eccentric nature has led to many rumors. Proponents of conspiracy theories believe that the CIA classified most of his developments and is still hiding them from the world scientific community. Tesla’s experiments were credited with a connection with the problem of the Tunguska meteorite, the “Philadelphia experiment” - the teleportation of a large US warship with its entire crew several tens of kilometers, etc.
In his autobiography, Tesla describes a number of "unusual passions, prejudices and habits" he acquired in his youth:
Tesla played billiards almost professionally.
Tesla rested approximately 4 hours a day. Of these, two hours were spent on thinking and only two hours on sleep.
He had a fierce antipathy towards women's earrings, especially those with pearls.
The smell of camphor caused him great discomfort.
If, during his research, he dropped a small square of paper into the liquid, it gave him a particularly terrible taste in his mouth.
Tesla counted steps while walking, the volume of bowls of soup, cups of coffee and pieces of food. If he failed to do this, then the food did not give him pleasure, so he preferred to eat alone.
According to Rzhonsnitsky, “Tesla, due to his character, could not and did not know how to work in a team”.
Tesla never married. According to him, innocence contributed greatly to his scientific abilities.
Inventions and scientific works of Nikola Tesla:
AC. Since 1889, Nikola Tesla began researching high frequency currents and high voltages. He invented the first samples of electromechanical HF generators (including inductor type) and a high-frequency transformer (Tesla transformer, 1891), thereby creating the prerequisites for the development of a new branch of electrical engineering - HF technology.
During his research on high-frequency currents, Tesla also paid attention to safety issues. Experimenting on his body, he studied the effect of alternating currents of various frequencies and strengths on the human body. Many rules first developed by Tesla have become part of modern safety principles when working with RF currents. He discovered that at current frequencies above 700 Hz, electric current flows across the surface of the body without causing harm to body tissues. Electrical devices developed by Tesla for medical research have become widespread throughout the world.
Experiments with high-frequency, high-voltage currents led the inventor to the discovery of a method for cleaning contaminated surfaces. Similar effects of currents on the skin have shown that in this way it is possible to remove small rashes, cleanse pores and kill germs. This method is used in modern electrotherapy.
Field theory. On October 12, 1887, Tesla gave a strict scientific description of the essence of the phenomenon of a rotating magnetic field. On May 1, 1888, Tesla received his major patents for the invention of polyphase electrical machines (including the asynchronous electric motor) and a system for transmitting electricity through polyphase alternating current. Using a two-phase system, which he considered the most economical, a number of industrial electrical installations were launched in the United States, including the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station (1895), the largest in those years.
Radio. Tesla was one of the first to patent a method for reliably producing currents that could be used in radio communications. U.S. Patent Patent 447,920, issued in the United States on March 10, 1891, described a “Method of Operating Arc-Lamps” in which an alternator produced high-frequency (by the standards of the time) current oscillations of the order of 10,000 Hz. The patented innovation was a method of suppressing the sound produced by an arc lamp under the influence of alternating or pulsating current, for which Tesla came up with the idea of using frequencies that are beyond the range of perception of human hearing. According to modern classification, the alternator operated in the range of very low radio frequencies.
In 1891, Tesla described and demonstrated the principles of radio communication at a public lecture. In 1893, he became closely involved in the issues of wireless communication and invented the mast antenna.
Resonance. In one of the scientific journals, Tesla talked about experiments with a mechanical oscillator, which, by tuning it to the resonant frequency of any object, can destroy it. In the article, Tesla said that he connected the device to one of the beams of the house, after a while the house began to shake, and a small earthquake began. It was impossible to turn off the device, so Tesla took a hammer and smashed the invention. Tesla told the arriving firefighters and police officers that it was a natural earthquake; he ordered his assistants to remain silent about this incident.
Tesla coils are still sometimes used specifically to produce long spark discharges that resemble lightning.
The ex-director of the N. Tesla Museum in Belgrade (Serbia), member of the European Academy of Sciences - Velimir Abramovich - published his letter of appeal in the Delphis magazine No. 68 (4/2011) entitled “The Legacy of N. Tesla - it’s time to study” , in which he indicated that “since 1952, about 60 thousand still unstudied scientific documents of the world famous Serbian scientist have been stored” and proposed to create a Russian-Serbian society (institute) for the study of the scientific heritage of Nikola Tesla.
Myths and legends about Nikola Tesla:
Tesla documents. According to legend, after Tesla’s death, the FBI special department responsible for storing the property of foreign citizens (Alien Property Custodian) sent out employees who seized all the papers they found in the room. The FBI suspected that several years before Tesla's death, some papers were stolen by German intelligence and could be used to create German flying saucers. Wanting to prevent a repeat of this incident, the FBI classified all the papers they discovered.
In the book by writer Tim Schwartz, it is mentioned that in other hotels where Tesla rented rooms, his personal belongings were also left behind. Some of them were lost; more than 12 boxes of items were sold to pay Tesla's bills. Tim Schwartz also claims that in 1976, four nondescript boxes of papers were put up at auction by a certain Michael P. Bornes, a bookseller from Manhattan. Dale Alfrey bought them for $25, not knowing what the papers were. According to the author of the book, it was later revealed that these were laboratory journals and papers of Nikola Tesla, which described hostile alien beings capable of controlling the human brain.
Many readers questioned Tim Schwartz's claims, perceiving the book as an attempt to create a sensation.
Philadelphia experiment. It is hardly possible to talk about Tesla's direct participation in this hypothetical event due to the discrepancy between the dates of Tesla's life and the time of the proposed experiment, since Tesla himself died before it began - on January 7, 1943, while it is assumed that the experiment was carried out only on October 28 1943.
Tesla electric car. In 1931, Nikola Tesla demonstrated a working prototype of an electric car that moved without any traditional power source. There is no material evidence of the existence of an electric car.
Beam weapon. The American agency DARPA allegedly tried to create Tesla's legendary "death rays" in 1958 during the Seesaw project, which was carried out at the Livermore National Laboratory. In 1982, the project was interrupted due to a number of setbacks and cost overruns.
Tunguska meteorite. At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century, a hypothesis appeared about the connection between Nikola Tesla and the Tunguska meteorite. According to this hypothesis, on the day the Tunguska phenomenon was observed (June 30, 1908), Nikola Tesla conducted an experiment on transmitting energy “through the air.”
A few months before the explosion, Tesla claimed that he could light the way to the North Pole for the expedition of the famous explorer Robert Peary. In addition, there are records in the journal of the US Library of Congress that he requested maps of the “least populated parts of Siberia.” His experiments on the creation of standing waves, when, as stated, a powerful electrical impulse was concentrated tens of thousands of kilometers away in the Indian Ocean, fit well into this “hypothesis.” If Tesla managed to pump a pulse with the energy of the so-called “ether” (a hypothetical medium, which, according to the scientific concepts of past centuries, was attributed to the role of a carrier of electromagnetic interactions) and “swing” the wave by the resonance effect, then, according to this assumption, a discharge with a power comparable to nuclear explosion.
Nikola Tesla is “the man who made the 20th century.” This is what his contemporaries say about him. This is a scientist of Serbian origin who spent most of his work in the United States. Years of life – 1856-1943. He invented several versions of the engine and alternator, and his entire scientific life was aimed at promoting the use of alternating current, wireless and free transmission of energy. The scientist also actively studied the ideas of free energy, which various pseudoscientists and charlatans are now trying to implement for the purpose of profit. In this article we will look at Nikola Tesla's greatest inventions and which ones are used in the modern world.
AC
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, there was a period in the history of electrical engineering that is often called the “War of Currents.” Its meaning was the struggle between supporters of DC and AC networks, or the struggle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. During the struggle, Tesla and his associates were subjected to both financial and moral pressure, such as black PR and slander.
Patent No. 447921 is an alternator, which dates back to March 10, 1891. Accordingly, Nikola Tesla promoted the idea of using alternating current for power supply - it was more economically profitable, since by converting voltage values using transformers it was possible to reduce the load on long lines, for example, between cities. This allowed the use of smaller gauge wires, which significantly reduced the cost of infrastructure development. In short, alternating voltage won the war, but in the United States the last constant voltage consumer was turned off in 2007. By the way, the first large power plant was built at Niagara Falls in 1894, where 10 three-phase generators with a total capacity of 75 MW were installed. It was the brainchild of the Tesla-Westinghouse tandem. There is also a monument to the great scientist erected there.
The first thing that comes to mind when the name of this inventor sounds is the Tesla coil. It is actively used in amateur and demonstrations at various exhibitions. Externally, it is a pillar with an extension at the end, from which electrical discharges or lightning are extracted.
Nikola Tesla used this device to generate high frequency current and transmit it over distances. In fact, its device resembles a transformer, where there are two windings and a high-frequency generator.
This design was assembled for wireless transmission of data and electricity. However, the idea was not implemented, and investors stopped funding when it became known that the creator had invested in the idea of free electrification. The structure was a 47-meter wooden tower with a copper hemisphere on top. Money stopped being allocated already at the final stages of construction, which is why the outstanding engineer was left on the verge of bankruptcy and stopped construction.
According to one version, the tower was created to become part of a worldwide wireless data transmission system. However, the project could not be fully implemented and brought to practical use. Because of this discovery, the scientist is sometimes called the predictor or father of wireless networks.
Interesting! Conspiracy theorists and fans of entertaining stories associate the fall of the Tunguska meteorite with Tesla’s experiments either at the Wondercliffe Tower or with experiments with the death ray.
Radio and remote control
Historically, the discovery of radio belongs to the Italian Guglielmo Marconi (patent for the invention - 1905, and the first connection between the continents - 1901) and the Russian engineer Popov. However, in 1897, Nikola Tesla patented the first radio receiver and transmitter. The Italian engineer took his development as a basis and in 1904 Tesla was deprived of the right to the invention.
Biographers associate this with the inventor’s confrontation with Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, who did not recognize his discoveries and ideas, trying in every possible way to discredit the inventions. It is interesting that the first criminal executed by electricity was executed by alternating current, thus the rival popularizers of direct current Edison and Carnegie “threw a stone in the garden” to supporters of alternating current Tesla, Westinghouse and others. By 1943, the US Supreme Court recognized the genius's contribution to the development of radio.
However, at the electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden in 1898, Nikola Tesla presented a submarine controlled by remote control.
AC motor
Nikola Tesla's discoveries and inventions include the first asynchronous AC motor. Unlike asynchronous machines used in our time, it worked on two phases, not three. The patent is dated 1888. Later, the rights to its production were purchased by one of the scientist’s sponsors, George Westinghouse.
The engineer planned to use the invented engine as an alternative to internal combustion engines, but at that time few people took the issue of replacing fuel engines with electric ones seriously. Nevertheless, there were attempts to develop a car based on it. The modern Tesla electric car has nothing in common with the great inventor.
This is best viewed as a reference to history. Nikola Tesla invented the electric car in 1931. The 1931 Pierce Arrow was taken as the basis. The scientist drove it around New York for about a week, but the main mystery was where the engine gets its energy - there were no wires or visible large batteries. There was only a small black box, and the author of the invention referred to the fact that the car takes energy from the ether.
He also owns a number of other discoveries, inventions and patents for electric motors of various designs, including the armature of electric machines.
Interesting! Researchers claim that the notes of the great scientist say nothing about an engine powered by ether.
X-rays
According to the official version, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered radiation in 1895, which later received his name. But back in 1887, Nikola Tesla conducted experiments with vacuum tubes, then the scientist recorded special rays that could illuminate objects. This included experiments related to photographing bones; in the picture below you can see an example of his photographs.
Free energy and rays of space
Nikola Tesla assumed that there are a lot of particles floating around us, the energy of which can be captured and used for useful purposes. Thus receiving unlimited energy. Part of these projects included the Wondercliffe Tower, the Tesla Coil, and other devices largely involving the use of inductors.
This video discusses this issue in more detail:
Our contemporaries are still trying to extract energy from the ether; they have thematic forums and clubs. Nevertheless, Africa still has problems with water, and utility tariffs are only rising. Apparently all modern developments are useless and are often based on simply capturing radio waves and converting them into electricity.
Conclusion
In the scientific world, in our case in physics, honor is given to scientists and engineers by naming a phenomenon or quantity after it. This is what happened with Nikola Tesla, despite all his inventions, contributions to science and brilliant mind, only the unit of measurement of magnetic field induction - Tesla (T) - is named after him. However, the above is not a complete list of the discoveries of the great scientist; this includes various speeches and demonstrations where Nikola Tesla lit light bulbs, passing current through himself or experiments with “cold fire”, which was intended to replace water and bath procedures.
Due to such demonstrations in our time, speculation and judgments arise about his contributions and discoveries in electricity, which cannot be proven. His modern fans confidently claim the author's undeserved oblivion and bankruptcy. This is attributed to pressure from the intelligence services, the ruling clans of that time, and so on. Due to the lack of funding for the inventor in those years, most of the discoveries remained lost, and some of what Tesla invented was considered secret by his fans.
So we looked at all the greatest discoveries and inventions of Nikola Tesla. Finally, we recommend watching a video that clearly demonstrates the most important creations of the inventor:
Materials
Nikola Tesla patented about 300 inventions during his life. He earned more than 15 million dollars from them.
Many are still in use today, but with them he created several amazing devices that even modern scientists cannot recreate.
Tesla is the most brilliant and amazing scientist of the 19th and 20th centuries. The inventions he created were always far ahead of modern science. He created them based on his personal ideas about physics. Few people understood him, and many ridiculed him, but nevertheless, his creations still live. He was simply ahead of his time. Nikola Tesla's most amazing inventions are remarkable because they have had or can have an incredible impact on our lives.
Radio
Although Guillermo Marconi was initially credited as the inventor of this invention, and most people still credit him as such, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Marconi's 1943 patent when it received evidence that Tesla had invented the radio many years before him. Tesla demonstrated that radio signals are just another wave frequency that requires a transmitter and receiver. He gave a presentation on this technology to the National Electric Light Association.
And although Tesla received two patents for his invention - US 645576 and US 649621 - in 1897, in 1904 the US Patent Office reversed its decision, awarding a patent for the radio invention to Marconi. Many believe that this decision was due to the fact that Marconi's financial partners were Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, and these people had enough grounds and power to influence the decision of the patent commission. It also allowed the US government (among others) to avoid paying patent royalties that Tesla claimed.
AC
This invention caused a great stir at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. It marked the beginning of an irreconcilable war between Edison's and Tesla's views on how electricity should be produced and distributed. Moreover, this division can be described in terms of cost and safety: direct current, the idea of which was supported by Edison (and the General Electric company) was expensive to transmit over long distances and produced dangerous discharges on the converter (switch) required for its operation. However, Edison and those who supported him were able to use these "dangers" of electric current to instill public fear of Tesla's alternative - alternating current. To prove his words, Edison sometimes demonstrated killing animals with electric shock.
As a result, Edison gave the world the electric chair while simultaneously maligning Tesla's attempts to give the world a safer and cheaper alternative. Tesla's response to this was his famous demonstrations of the complete safety of electricity when he passed current through his own body to light electric lamps. This confrontation between Edison and Tesla (and GE and Westinghouse) in 1893 was the culmination of more than a decade of shady deals, stolen ideas, and patent fraud by Edison and his investors to suppress Tesla's inventions. But, nevertheless, it was Tesla’s invention that eventually began to be used to generate and supply electricity to our homes.
Electric motor
Tesla's invention of the electric motor was popularized by the famous electric car that bears his name. Without going into technical details that are far beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say that the engine Tesla invented, which operates in rotating magnetic fields, could very quickly free humanity from the power of Big Oil.
But, unfortunately, in 1930 this invention became a victim of the economic crisis and the subsequent World War. However, it forever changed the landscape of the world in many ways that we now take for granted: industrial fans, home electronics, water pumps, power tools, disk drives, digital clocks, compressors and much more.
Robotics
Tesla's incredibly inventive scientific mind led him to the idea that all living beings act under the influence of external impulses. He stated: “With every thought and every action I have demonstrated with the greatest satisfaction, and continue to do so every day, that I am just an automaton with the ability to move, which only reacts to external stimuli.”
This is how the concept of the robot was born. However, the human element had to be preserved in this case - and Tesla insisted that these human replicas should have certain restrictions, namely on growth and reproduction.
X-rays
Electromagnetic and ionizing radiation were studied extensively in the late 1800s, but Tesla explored the whole gamut. Everything from the forerunner of Kirlian photography, which has the ability to capture life force, to the radiation we currently use in medical diagnostics - all are transformative inventions in which Tesla played a key role.
X-rays, like many of Tesla's other discoveries, stemmed from his belief that everything we need to understand the universe is always around us, and we just have to use our minds to develop devices that can enhance our internal perception of reality. .
Light
Of course, Tesla did not invent light itself, but he did discover a way to store and transmit it. He developed and used fluorescent lamps in his laboratory 40 years before they were “discovered” by industry. At the World's Fair, Tesla took glass tubes and bent them into the shapes of famous scientists' names - essentially creating the world's first neon sign. But perhaps his most famous and controversial invention in this area was the famous “Tesla coils”.
Predictably, they are the very invention that big industry would like to suppress: the idea that the Earth itself is a giant magnet capable of generating electricity using frequencies as a transmitter. And all you need on the other end to use it is just a receiver, as in the case of a radio.
Remote control
This invention was a natural extension of the discovery of radio. Patent number 613809 was issued for the world's first remote-controlled boat, demonstrated in 1898.
By using several large batteries and switches that could be operated by radio, the operator could control the boat's propeller and rudder.
Wireless communications and limitless free energy
These two concepts are inextricably linked, and to this day the energy elite tries to suppress them - after all, what good is energy that cannot be measured and controlled? In 1900, Tesla presented the project of the World Wireless Transmission Center to one of the richest people of that time, banker John Pierpont Morgan. Tesla intended to create a device that would provide wireless communications around the world with the ability to communicate with voice, music, stock quotes and even images. Morgan became interested in the project and immediately gave the scientist about $150,000 to build a tower, the famous “Wardenclyffe,” that could use natural frequencies to transmit data, including images, voice messages, and text. With this money, Tesla organized the construction of a 57-meter-high tower on Long Island with a steel shaft buried 36 meters into the ground. A metal ball weighing 55 tons was installed at the top of the tower.
This was essentially the world's first example of wireless communications, but it also clearly demonstrated that the universe is filled with free energy that can be used to connect all the people of the world into a single network and give them an unlimited amount of energy. Tesla's work in this area was suppressed, and much of it remains classified to this day.
As Tesla stated, the tower was a transmitter of electric current over vast distances (thousands of kilometers) without the help of wires. Tesla's diaries contain descriptions of the operating principle of this installation, which was based on the reflection of energy from the Earth's ionosphere.
In 1905, a test launch of this unprecedented installation was carried out. The effect was simply stunning - as journalists later wrote, “Tesla lit up the sky over the ocean for thousands of miles.”
However, further development of the project required the manufacture of even more expensive equipment, and Morgan, for some reason, suspended funding for the project.
There is a hypothesis that the Wardenclyffe project is directly related to the Tunguska meteorite. What is known for certain is that on June 30, 1908 (the day the Tunguska phenomenon was observed), Tesla conducted another experiment on energy transfer in the Wardenclyffe Tower. In addition, the journal of the US Library of Congress records that a few days earlier he asked for maps of the “least populated parts of Siberia.”
In 1931, Tesla demonstrated a new phenomenon. He removed the gasoline engine from a conventional car and replaced it with an electric motor of his own invention. He attached some kind of device to the electric motor, from which two antennas protruded. It is documented that Tesla drove this car for a week without ever recharging the electric motor, reaching speeds of up to 145 kilometers per hour.
To questions about where energy comes from, he answered: “From the ether around us.” Unfortunately, after some time he removed his miracle engine and destroyed it. All that remains of this invention is an entry in one of Tesla’s diaries: “I don’t work for the present, I work for the future!”
“...Based on this research, I created a generator that generated ethereal vortex rings, which I called ethereal vortex objects. This was a victory. I was euphoric. It seemed to me that I could do anything. I promised a lot of things without fully investigating this phenomenon, and I paid dearly for it. They stopped giving me money for my research, and the worst thing is that they stopped believing me. Euphoria gave way to deep depression. And then, I decided on my crazy experiment...”
In 1898, Tesla was studying the phenomenon of resonance. The result of the research was a device that he tested in his own home. He attached his invention to a beam in the lab's attic and turned it on. After some time, the walls of neighboring houses began to vibrate, and people ran out into the street in panic.
Having heard about Nikola Tesla's experiments, they called the police. However, before their arrival, the scientist turned off and destroyed his device. There were entries in his diaries: “I could bring down the Brooklyn Bridge in an hour and even split the Earth. All you need is precise timing and a suitable resonator."
Beam weapon "Death Ray"
One of his ingenious creations is a powerful device that could prevent the Second World War. A rather sad fact is that Tesla’s inventions attracted the interest of the US government only after the death of the scientist. A global search was conducted at the New Yorker Hotel, where he died. The FBI seized all documents related to the physicist's scientific activities. Dr. John Trump, who ran the National Defense Committee, reviewed them and made an expert opinion that “these notes are speculative and speculative, they are only philosophical in nature and do not imply any principles or methods of implementation.”
However, 15 years after this, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) implemented the secret “Swing” project at the Lawrence Livermoor Laboratory. It took 10 years and 27 million dollars, and, despite the fact that the undoubtedly failed consequences of these experiments are still classified, all scientists agree on one thing - in 1958, the Americans tried to create Tesla’s famous “death rays”.
It is known that shortly before his death, Tesla announced that he had invented “death rays” that were capable of destroying 10,000 aircraft from a distance of 400 km. There is not a sound about the mystery of the rays. During the 1960s, both the United States and Russia took full advantage of Tesla's research. One of the technologies created by the phenomenal scientist attracted the greatest interest of military specialists and became the subject of secret development. Tesla called this invention a radio frequency oscillator, and it was used, among other things, in his death ray. The main idea of the invention is the transfer of energy in the atmosphere and its concentration for various purposes. Later, these technologies, largely based on Tesla's inventions, were used in the Star Wars program. It is known that the desperate inventor sent proposals around the world to construct a “super weapon”, intending to establish a balance of power between different countries and thus avert the onset of World War II. The mailing list included the governments of the United States, Canada, England, France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
The Soviet Union was interested in this proposal. In 1937, the inventor negotiated with the Amtorg company, which represented the interests of the USSR in the USA, and gave it some plans for a vacuum chamber for his “death rays”. Two years later, Tesla received a check for $25,000 from the USSR. This, of course, did not stop the war - the Soviet Union created laser technology much later.
In 1940, in an interview with the New York Times, 84-year-old Nikola Tesla announced his readiness to reveal the secret of television power to the American government. It was built, he said, on a completely new physical principle, which no one had ever dreamed of, different from the principles embodied in his inventions in the field of transmitting electricity over vast distances.
According to Tesla, this new type of energy will operate through a beam with a diameter of one hundred millionth of a square centimeter and can be generated by special stations, the cost of which will not exceed 2 million dollars, and the construction time will not exceed three months.
Yes, perhaps the fading inventor really plunged into a world of illusions. However, taking into account the fact that he never minced words and always carried out the announced projects, it can be assumed that Tesla could adapt the technology of wireless energy transfer to the needs of the military.
They said that in the last years of his life he worked on the construction of artificial intelligence. And I wanted to learn how to photograph thoughts, considering it quite possible.
Tesla died on Christmas Day, January 7, 1943. At 86 years old. The Second World War was going on in Europe, and Tesla's projects for the military department remained unfinished. Maybe that’s why he stubbornly refused the help of doctors. In the morning the maid entered the room - Tesla was lying on the bed dead. The body of the great inventor was cremated, and an urn containing his ashes was installed in Ferncliffe Cemetery in New York. Thus ended the life of the most mysterious, perhaps, of all great scientists.
The halo surrounding Tesla's personality and discoveries contributed to the spread of all kinds of statements, usually of a semi-mythical nature. Such statements cannot be verified due to the lack of documents, which does not prevent, however, from attributing to Tesla a direct or indirect relationship to many mysteries of the 20th century.
Essentially, the entire energy industry of the 20th century grew on his patents. But this was not enough for him. Tesla worked for several decades on the problem of energy in the entire Universe. I studied what moves the sun and luminaries. I tried to learn how to control cosmic energy myself. And establish connections with other worlds. Tesla did not consider all this to be his merit. He assured that he was simply acting as a conductor of ideas coming from the ether.
Tesla did not patent many of his discoveries and did not even leave drawings. Most of his diaries and manuscripts have not survived, and only fragmentary information about many inventions has survived to this day.
In the newspapers of that time you can find mocking notes about the connections of the mad inventor with the Martians. But the scientist himself took this more than seriously: “In order to accomplish this miracle, I would give my life!” Tesla also had other extraordinary abilities. One day he felt a strong desire to detain his guests who were staying with him, and literally by force did not allow them to board the train. Thus, he probably saved them from death, because the train actually went off the rails, and many passengers were killed or injured.
Only now are we beginning to realize the door to what an unknown world Nikola Tesla opened.
- The Kirlian effect, for example, was patented in 1949, and Tesla demonstrated the effect of the amazing glow of the “aura” of objects at the end of the 19th century.
- Half a century after Tesla juggled ball lightning, Nobel Prize laureate P.L. tried to create it. Kapitsa.
- In the 1980s, at an experimental installation for the creation of ball lightning, I.M. Shakhparonov received a “by-product” in the form of magnetic graphite with unique properties. Moreover, the elements of the installation itself were the source of an unknown field that reduces blood clotting, improves the taste of food products and even vodka.
- Today, the effect of strong magnetic fields on living organisms is actually demonstrated in Japan, where frogs and dogs are sent into “zero gravity.” In super-strong magnetic fields, animals “float in the air.” However, people do not fly yet - the consequences of the actions of such fields have not been studied.
- Some scientists are now keen on studying the torsion field, and are looking for information about it in Tesla’s fragmentary notes. But there are few of them left.
Most of Nikola Tesla's diaries and manuscripts disappeared under unclear circumstances. Where are they today? What secrets do they contain? Maybe they are stored in Pentagon safes and are waiting in the wings. Or maybe, as some biographers believe, Nikola Tesla burned them himself at the beginning of World War II, convinced that this knowledge was too dangerous for unreasonable humanity...
Scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla is the Leonardo Da Vinci of the 20th century. He is credited with mysterious inventions, he becomes the hero of science fiction novels and films, his name is shrouded in an aura of mystery. Today, on the birthday of the great Serb, we will remember the most amazing inventions that are attributed to him.
If you rummage through dubious sites where they sell all sorts of nonsense, such as “a trap for Santa Claus” or “a magic ball for communicating with the otherworldly,” then sooner or later you will definitely come across a relatively inexpensive “Tesla eternal energy generator.” Don't be a simpleton - this is deception. If the scientist really invented a source of eternal energy, then we are unlikely to know about it, since he burned his entire archive under the pretext “humanity is not yet ready for the greatness of my inventions.” However, the story has reached us that in 1931 Nikola conducted a curious experiment. Instead of a traditional internal combustion engine, he installed a small box with two rods sticking out of it into a Pierce-Arrow car. After that, the car worked without recharging for a whole week. Eyewitnesses say that Tesla managed to accelerate the car to 150 kilometers per hour. And this is hard to believe.
Wireless transmission of electricity over a distance
In the spring of 1908, Tesla wrote in a letter to the editor of the New York Times: “even now my wireless power installations can turn any area of the globe into an area unsuitable for habitation.” It is unlikely that the scientist was bluffing. In any case, regardless of whether it is true or fiction, something incredible happened in Siberia in the summer - June 30 of the same year. Most naively believe that a meteorite fell there, which later received the name “Tunguska”. But one hypothesis says that there was no fall. And the explosion is a consequence of Nikola’s experiments, which involved transferring energy over long distances. At the same time, supporters of the fantastic assumption claim that the version has evidence. Alternatively, this: on the eve of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, in the skies of Canada and Northern Europe the clouds suddenly became silvery and seemed to pulsate. This coincides exactly with the stories of eyewitnesses who previously observed experiments in his laboratory in Colorado Springs.
Superweapon
In 1958, the American agency DARPA took on a project called “Swing”. The implementation of this operation took almost a dozen years and about 30 million of the most convertible currency in the world. The project seemed to have failed, and scientists, together with the soldiers, classified its results. However, information leaked to the press that the Americans were trying to recreate the mysterious “death rays” that Tesla invented. In truth, it is worth noting that twenty years before the start of the experiment, when the great scientist was still alive, he offered the US government a superweapon capable of destroying 10 thousand aircraft from a distance of 400 kilometers. It is strange that then, on the eve of the Second World War, this invention remained unclaimed by the Americans. "Death Rays" are shrouded in mystery, but it is known that it was based on a certain radio frequency oscillator - a device that used the Earth's atmosphere as a source of colossal energy. By the way, there are rumors that, unlike the USA, the USSR became interested in the technology, and apparently even bought the drawings from Tesla for 25 thousand dollars. And, who knows, maybe in the invention of lasers, which are now actively used in both secular and military industries, there is a bit of the genius of the great Serb.
Philadelphia experiment
Another mystery, closely connected with the name of the great scientist and reflected in science fiction literature and cinema, is called the “Philadelphia Experiment”. They say that before World War II, Tesla collaborated with the militarists, in particular with the US Navy. For them, Nikola developed a project that was supposed to create technology for the “invisibility” of Navy ships for enemy radars. And it seems that literally a year was not enough for him to conduct an experimental confirmation of his theory: at the very height of the Great Patriotic War, in January 1943, the heart of the genius stopped beating. However, ten months after the death of the creator of the technology, the Americans seem to have put Tesla’s idea into practice. They managed to use Nikola's generators to create an electromagnetic shield around the destroyer Eldridge. But, again according to rumors, the ship not only disappeared from radar, but also became invisible to human eyes - it simply disappeared. The ship was discovered two hundred kilometers from the experiment site. At the same time, the Eldridge crew members suffered significant mental disorders.
Parapsychology and clairvoyance
Believe it or not, Tesla’s contemporaries were not surprised when they passed on from mouth to mouth the story that Tesla took his inventions from somewhere outside - either from parallel space, or from the future. This, of course, looks like a ridiculous joke, but the scientist himself has repeatedly made very unexpected statements on this matter. For example, a letter from a scientist to a friend has been preserved, where he writes that, while studying high-frequency currents, he came across something fantastic: “I discovered a thought. And soon you will be able to personally read your poems to Homer, and I will discuss my discoveries with Archimedes himself.” In any case, even if we discard mysticism, it is still impossible not to note that Tesla’s genius was a mystery to his contemporaries and remains a mystery to us, his descendants. Where did he get his ideas? How did you achieve understanding of things that were meaningless at first glance? How was he able to get to the bottom of forces hidden from human eyes? It seems that in his research he was indeed ahead of his time. By the way, the famous Indian philosopher Vivekananda, who visited the USA in order to find out the possibility of uniting all existing religions, visited Nikola Tesla in his laboratory in New York in 1906. After the meeting, he wrote a letter to his Indian friend Alasing, where he enthusiastically talked about his acquaintance: “This man is different from all Western people. He demonstrated his experiments with electricity, which he treats as a living being, with whom he speaks and gives orders... There is no doubt that he has a spirituality of the highest level and is able to recognize all our gods.”
In general, truth is elegantly intertwined with fiction, and mysteries from a century ago remain unanswered. And, perhaps, in fact, the time has not yet come for us to understand and comprehend the full depth of the great genius of Nikola Tesla. Wait and see.
If you heard the name Nikola Tesla, you probably might have thought that he was some kind of outstanding person, while being completely unaware of his merits. Therefore, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with a brief biography of this outstanding inventor.
Nikola Tesla is rightfully considered one of the greatest people, who owns a large number of inventions that changed our world.
He was born in the village of Smilany on July 10, 1856 in the family of the Serbian priest Milutin Tesla. When Nikola Tesla was six years old, his family moved to the city of Gospić, located six kilometers from Smilyan. In his new place, Nikola graduated from primary school and a three-year gymnasium. At the age of 14, he entered the Higher Real School, located in the city of Karlovac.
They say that at the age of ten, the future scientist, while stroking a fluffy cat, noticed that sparks were jumping between his fingers and the cat’s fur. Having asked his father about the nature of these sparks, the boy heard the answer that sparks are most likely “relatives” of lightning. The father’s answer forever sank into the boy’s soul, clearly showing him that electricity (which Nikola knew nothing about at that time) can be both “tame” like a domestic animal and “wild” like thunderbolt.
While studying in Karlovac, Tesla studied a lot of mathematics and physics. He was especially impressed by the physical experiments of Professor Martin Sekulic. This professor was demonstrating his own invention in action - a light bulb covered with tin foil, which rotated rapidly while connected to a static machine.
In 1875, Nikola Tesla entered the Higher Technical School in Graz, where he gradually began to reveal his ability to invent. It was during his studies that Tesla set himself the goal of creating an electric motor powered by alternating current. And already in his second year, he was able to propose his own version of improving the then miracle of technology - the Gramma dynamo, powered by direct current. The fact is that the machine's commutator consisted of several wire brushes that transmitted current from the generator to the motor in one direction, which caused strong sparking. Therefore, Tesla proposed to abandon the collector and use alternating current. However, his idea was subjected to sharp criticism, which only infuriated Tesla, and he spent the following years of his studies thinking about the problem of an alternating current generator.
Surprisingly, Tesla failed to prepare for his final exams. He was denied a deferment, and Nikola did not graduate from college. In Graz, Tesla's genius never got used to routine studies, being distracted by fantastic inventions and gambling.
In 1880, Nikola was able to enter the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague. But he studied in his new place for only one semester, although, apparently, he did not regret it much.
At the beginning of 1881, Tesla found himself in Hungary, where in Budapest he received the position of draftsman and designer of the engineering department of the Central Telegraph.
With the opening of an American telephone exchange in Budapest, Tesla gets the opportunity to study many of the progressive inventions of that time. He tests and repairs telephone lines and scrutinizes the multi-channel telegraph and the carbon-disc induction speaker, inventions of Thomas Edison. Experimenting with the shape of the speaker, Tesla created a cone-shaped loudspeaker that repeated and amplified signals. This device became the prototype of the future loudspeaker. But Tesla directed all his main efforts to creating an electric motor powered by alternating current. Despite the fact that the solution had already matured in the scientist’s head, it was not possible to practically implement it.
In his inventive work, Tesla gave one hundred percent and brought himself to the point of nervous exhaustion: “I heard the ticking of a clock three rooms away from me. The landing of the fly on the table made a dull thud in my ears.”
And here mysticism comes to the fore. Tesla, whom doctors had already predicted death, unexpectedly recovered, and then found a solution to the problem that tormented him.
During that period, Tesla’s thought worked with such intensity that in less than two months the scientist created “practically all types of motors and all modifications of the system” associated with Tesla. These were both single-phase and multi-phase motors. The revolutionary nature of his inventions lay in the fact that now electricity could be supplied hundreds of kilometers by connecting household appliances and factory machines to it, rather than using it only to illuminate buildings.
In April 1882, Tesla went to Paris, where he met Charles Bechlor, manager of the Continental Company. He was hired by this company.
A year later, Tesla was sent to Strasbourg, where he was supposed to monitor the construction of the power plant and identify defects during construction. In Strasbourg, Nikola managed to design an engine powered by alternating current. The device was shown to the mayor of the city, but he never found sponsors for the young scientist.
A year later, Tesla returned to Paris and tried to receive the bonus of 25 thousand dollars due to him, but since no one was going to pay him, he quit and in the spring of 1884 went to America.
The meeting with Thomas Edison had an indelible impression on Tesla; the American seemed to him to be a real “sorcerer” of electricity. By repairing the dynamos on the first steamship with electric lighting, Tesla gained the respect and trust of Edison. However, Nikola did not have a chance to interest Edison in alternating current - he firmly believed in direct current.
After leaving Edison in early 1885, Tesla stopped bowing to any authorities in the scientific world and realized that he was able to try on the “electric crown” on himself.
In March, Tesla met with Edison's former agent, now a major patent specialist, Lemuel Serrell. Together they applied for the first patent, number 335786, which described an improved model of the arc lamp that produces uniform light.
Having received financial support from entrepreneurs Weil and Lane from New Jersey, Tesla creates his own company. Entrepreneurs suggested that the scientist create a project for an arc lamp for street lighting. Tesla created the project, but Weil and Lane simply “dumped” the scientist, leaving him not only without a company, but also without a livelihood (instead of money, the Serb was offered part of the company’s shares). This led to the fact that the inventor, in order not to die of hunger, went to work as an ordinary digger for two dollars a day.
And yet, in April 1887, Tesla founded the Tesla Arc Light Company. Now he could plunge headlong into his favorite calculations. Thanks to the genius of Tesla, his company rapidly gained momentum and became a “deadly” competitor to Thomas Edison’s company. In the “war of currents,” as the competitive struggle between Tesla and Edison was wittily called in the American media, the clear advantage was on Tesla’s side.
After a report on the alternating current generator on May 16, 1888 in the auditorium of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Tesla drew the attention of millionaire inventor George Westinghouse (creator of the hydraulic locomotive brake), who immediately offered Tesla a million dollars and royalties for future patents.
In 1892, while giving a lecture on high-frequency electromagnetic fields to scientists at the Royal Academy of Great Britain, Tesla lit light bulbs in his hands. The electric motor was not connected to them by wires. Some lamps did not even have a spiral - the high-frequency current passed through the inventor's body. The scientists’ admiration knew no bounds, and after the lecture, physicist John Rayleigh solemnly seated Tesla in Faraday’s chair, saying: “This is the chair of the great Faraday. After his death, no one sat in it.”
In the same year, Nikola Tesla designed the world's first wave radio transmitter, thereby beating Marconi by seven years. Using radio control, Tesla created "teleautomata" - self-propelled mechanisms that were controlled from a distance.
In 1895, the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station (the largest in the world) was commissioned, which operated using Tesla generators.
However, not everyone shared Tesla’s creative and commercial successes. In March 1895, Tesla's laboratory burned to the ground in a fire. The fire consumed not only his previous, but also his newest developments, including a new method of transmitting messages over long distances without wires, a mechanical oscillator, and many others. It was rumored that the fire could have been caused by arson committed by ill-wishers, thereby hinting at Thomas Edison.
However, having a phenomenal memory, Tesla managed to restore all his inventions. Already at the end of 1896, Tesla transmitted a signal wirelessly over a distance of 48 kilometers!
In May 1899, Tesla found himself in the resort town of Colorado Springs, located on a plateau 2000 meters above sea level. Tesla was so impressed by the presence of strong thunderstorms in this resort that he decided to create a laboratory to study them. To do this, Tesla developed a transformer in which one end of the primary winding was grounded, and the other end was connected to a metal ball with a rod extending upward. A sensitive self-tuning device was connected to the secondary winding, which, in turn, was connected to a recording device.
This design allowed him to study the changing potential of the Earth, including the effect of standing electromagnetic waves from lightning discharges in the atmosphere.
Tesla then embarks on an even grander experiment. Having connected a 60-meter mast with a copper ball at the end (one meter in diameter) to the secondary winding of the transformer, the scientist began to pass an alternating current of several thousand volts through the primary winding. As a result, a current of several million volts and a frequency of up to 150 thousand hertz appeared in the secondary winding. The copper ball began to emit lightning-like discharges with a length of up to 4.5 meters. Thunderous rumbles were heard at a distance of up to 24 kilometers.
As a result of these experiments, Tesla proved the possibility of creating a standing electromagnetic wave.
In the fall of 1899, Tesla returned to New York. A grandiose plan matured in the scientist’s head - to build a station for wireless transmission of information and energy to any point on Earth. To accomplish this task, Tesla bought a plot of land on Long Island, where in 1902 the construction of a wooden frame tower 47 meters high with a copper ball on top was completed; the tower was called “Wardenclyffe”.
However, the idea of uncontrolled transmission of energy throughout the planet frightened many industrialists - they feared that Tesla's invention would deprive them of their sources of profit. Therefore, Tesla was unable to find further funding for this project.
However, this did not stop him; Tesla still began to carry out the planned experiments. The most famous was the one during which, on the night of July 15-16, 1903, the New York sky was illuminated with a light similar to the northern lights.
It is the Wardenclyffe Tower that some researchers consider to be the “culprit” of the explosion over Tunguska in 1908.
Having moved a little away from the squabbles around the Wardenclyffe Tower, Tesla turns his talent to new inventions. These included a frequency meter, an electric meter, improved steam turbines, and electrotherapeutic devices. In one of the letters, the scientist mentioned that he was working on a project “a car, a locomotive and a lathe.” Tesla sought to cover as many spheres of human activity as possible.
In 1909-1910, Tesla's financial affairs were going very well, thanks to orders for his inventions. However, he secretly hoped that he could use the money he received to restore the project of the world transfer station - the Wardenclyffe Tower.
However, soon the scientist again quickly plunged into the abyss of debt. After so many years of hard work, Nikola Tesla found himself completely bankrupt.
Relying on genes, Tesla intended to live more than 100 years. Most likely, he would have been able to reach the target point, despite even his strange diet (warm milk, bread, some vegetables), and binge work at night. However, after getting hit by a car and breaking his ribs, he seriously undermined his health.
After the scientist's death on the night of January 7-8, 1943, all his papers were taken by FBI agents. After carefully studying Tesla's legacy, the FBI stated that the great scientist did not leave anything that could have practical application.
10 most important inventions and discoveries of Nikola Tesla
1. High-frequency electrical engineering (high-frequency transformer, electromechanical HF generator (including inductor type)).
2. Multiphase electric current. Tesla himself considered two-phase current to be the most economical, so two-phase electric current was used in the electrical installations of the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station. However, three-phase current has become widespread.
3. Radio communications and mast antenna for radio communications. In 1891, Tesla described and demonstrated the principles of radio communications during a public lecture, and in 1893 he created a mast antenna for wireless radio communications.
4. Tesla coils. To this day they are used to produce artificial lightning.
5. Use of electrical devices for medical purposes. Tesla discovered that high-frequency currents of high voltage (up to 2 million volts) can have beneficial effects on the skin, in particular, kill germs and cleanse pores.
6. The phenomenon of a rotating magnetic field. Described by Tesla in 1888, earlier and independently of the Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris.
7. Asynchronous electric motor. Patented in 1888.
8. He was the first (or one of the first) to observe and describe cathode, x-rays and ultraviolet radiation.
9. Fluorescent lamp (designed first).
10. Radio controlled boat. Demonstrated in 1898.
If you have read to the end of the article, watch a rather interesting video about this outstanding person.
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