Nikola Tesla - Scientist

The engineer who made alternating current practical, then bet everything on wireless power nobody would fund. His motor design won - his tower in the woods did not.

Scientists Scientist Physics Science 19th Century

A life in dates

1975IEEE Nikola Tesla AwardNamed after himMore about this, Power engineering awardNational Inventors Hall of FameAward1954Nikola Tesla StatueTributeMore about this, statue in Zagreb, Croatia1943Died7 January 19431937Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of ParisAward1936Grand cross of the Order of the White LionAward1934John Scott AwardAward1927“Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it.”In their wordsApril 1927As quoted in Dragislav L. Petković, "A Visit to Nikola Tesla", Politika (April 1927); also in Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn,Read the whole statement

1916Edison MedalAward1900“Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.”In their wordsJune 1900"The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900)Read the whole statement

1894Elliott Cresson MedalAward1893“Nature may reach the same result in many ways.”In their words24 February 1893"On Light And Other High Frequency Phenomena" A lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia (24 February 1893), andRead the whole statement

1892“Ere long intelligence - transmitted without wires - will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism.”In their words24 June 1892In Electrical Engineer, (24 Jun 1892), 11‎, 609.Read the whole statement

“Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel.”In their wordsFebruary 1892"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" (February 1892)Read the whole statement

1891“A point of great importance would be first to know: what is the capacity of the earth? And what charge does it contain if electrified?”In their words20 May 1891"Experiments With Alternating Currents of Very High Frequency, and Their Application to Methods of Artificial Illumination" (20 May 1891)Read the whole statement

1856Born10 July 1856

Photos 12

Tesla's rebuilt birth house (parish hall) and the church where his father served in Smiljan. In his honor, the Nikola Tesla Memorial Center museum was established on the site.[6]

Tesla's father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest in the village of Smiljan.

Tesla aged 23, c. 1879

Edison Machine Works on Goerck Street, New York. Tesla found the change from cosmopolitan Europe to working at this shop, located among the tenements on Manhattan's lower east side, a "painful surprise".[38]

Drawing from U.S. patent 381,968, illustrating the principle of Tesla's alternating current induction motor

Tesla's AC dynamo-electric machine (AC electric generator) in an 1888 U.S. patent 390,721

Mark Twain in Tesla's South Fifth Avenue laboratory, 1894

In their own words 10

Nikola Tesla

10 statements, newest first

Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it.
Apr 1927, As quoted in Dragislav L. Petković, "A Visit to Nikola Tesla", Politika (April 1927); also in Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn,, Own words
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
Jun 1900, "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900), Own words
Nature may reach the same result in many ways.
Feb 24, 1893, "On Light And Other High Frequency Phenomena" A lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia (24 February 1893), and, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

National Inventors Hall of Fame1975

Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Paris1937

Grand cross of the Order of the White Lion1936

John Scott Award1934

Edison Medal1916

Elliott Cresson Medal1894

IEEE Fellow

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Eagle

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Sava

Honorary doctor of the University of Zagreb

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Honorary doctor of the Technical University of Graz

Order of the Crown

Order of Prince Danilo I

Order of the White Lion

Family

Parents

Nikola Tesla

Sibling Marica Tesla Kosanović

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About this person

Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without finishing a degree, then worked in telephony and at Continental Edison before migrating to the United States in 1884. He spent a brief stint at Edison Machine Works in New York before founding his own labs, where his AC induction motor and polyphase patents - licensed by Westinghouse in 1888 - became the foundation of the modern electrical grid and made him considerable money. Through the 1890s he chased wireless lighting and global wireless power transmission in high-voltage experiments in New York and Colorado Springs, culminating in the unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless system he ran out of funding to complete. After that collapse he experimented through the 1910s and 1920s with diminishing success, spent most of his money, and lived his final years in New York hotels, leaving unpaid bills. He died in January 1943 in relative obscurity; the SI unit for magnetic flux density was named the tesla in 1960, and popular interest has surged since the 1990s.

Country

Hungary

Scientists from Hungary 6

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