Because of his eccentric personality and unbelievable claims about the development of science and technology, Tesla was isolated and considered a mad scientist at the end of his life.
Tesla is probably the great inventor you haven’t heard about for a long time.
One may recognize the Tesla name given to the famous electric car company, or as the main character in the movie “The Current War: Director’s Cut” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison. All of that is inspired by Nikola Tesla, who is more famous for his talent than history admits.
He was the visionary scientist who developed the foundation for today’s widely used AC power, and pioneered many technologies that improved everyday life. Originally from Siberia, moving to New York City in 1884, Tesla held about 300 patents during his career.
“There’s no modern gadget we enjoy today that hasn’t been touched by Tesla’s hands,” said Marc Alessi, executive director of the Tesla Science Center in Wardenclyffe, New York, USA.
Tesla’s 300 inventions could change human history. (Photo: Etsy).
This is the technology that caused the battle between Tesla and Edison.
In 1884, Tesla left Europe to work for Edison, after being promised a ,000 rental to improve DC current. Of course, Tesla’s alternating current proved superior. It can reverse many times per second, easily converted to high or low voltage.
“Tesla worked hard 20 hours a day. He was always trying to convince Edison to switch to alternating current,” Alessi told CNN. ” Edison didn’t pay Tesla after all, saying his promises only was a joke. Tesla had to give up.”
Physicist Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931) looking at a light bulb. (Image: Getty).
According to the US Department of Energy, Edison did not want to lose royalties from the DC patents he owned. Therefore, he discredited Tesla’s AC with a media campaign that said it was very dangerous.
Edison even brought cases of animals being electrocuted to death to increase the danger of AC electricity. In response, Tesla openly tested 250,000 volts AC through itself to show it was safe.
Today, the popularity of alternating current proves the greatness of Tesla. AC power is used in refrigerators, power tools, fans, etc., while DC is still used in some industrial machinery, but requires more maintenance.
History records Italian businessman Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio. But sometimes history is also wrong.
Marconi sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic, but it used technology from 17 Tesla patents. Another war broke out here.
Italian electrical engineer, Nobel scientist Guglielmo Marconi. (Image: Getty).
Finally, the US Supreme Court revoked Marconi’s radio patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla and two scientists Oliver Lodge and John Stone. Unfortunately, Tesla and Marconi had already passed away.
“Tesla is the one who set a new milestone for wireless technology ,” said Ivana Zoric, curator of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. “Tesla is the man who invented the 20th century.”
If you can sit in one place now, without ever getting up from your chair to change the TV channel, you have to thank Tesla. He invented one of the world’s earliest remote-controlled devices, what he called the “teleautomaton”.
The device, patented in 1898, was used by Tesla to remotely control a miniature boat during an electrical show at Madison Square Garden.
According to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Tesla knows how important this invention is, so he has also patented it in 11 countries.
Tesla was a pioneer in X-ray technology. He took some of the first X-ray images of the human body, which he called “shadowgraphs”. He was also one of the first scientists to theorize that X-rays could be harmful.
Most of us only know the X-rays found by researcher Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, but we don’t know that Tesla was also a pioneer in the study of this type of light. (Photo: Everett Colection).
According to an academic article published in 2008 in Radio Graphics: “Every radiologist knows Nikola Tesla’s research in the field of electromagnetism… but few know that Tesla also had experiments in electromagnetism. X ray”.
However, people do not forget Tesla’s efforts. His name is given to the unit of measurement of magnetic induction strength in the international system of measurement.
Tesla is a big name in the renewable energy industry. Nine of the 12 patents used to design one of the world’s first hydroelectric plants, built at Niagara Falls, New York, belong to Tesla.
“As a child, Tesla’s uncle read him a book about Niagara Falls. The first thing he thought about was energy. Water falling to him was energy,” Alessi explained.
Part of the Niagara Falls area in New York, USA. (Photo: Worldofwaterfalls).
In the early days of people using fossil energy for the industrial revolution, Tesla said: ”That’s not the way we should go. It’s so polluting and unsustainable.”
According to the Tesla Science Center, Tesla wanted to develop clean energy because he understood the physics behind energy, and what could be in the future. Even in his own time, Tesla proposed using renewable energy sources such as water, wind and the sun.