For more than a hundred years, the world has been haunted by the figure of Nikola Tesla. The Serb, who was born in the Croatian village of Smilyan, continues to be discussed both as a genius inventor and as a greedy rogue who profited from science, passing off his "toys" as a technical breakthrough.
For 86 years of his turbulent life, Tesla managed to do a lot: "cut away" from the army, sell dozens of patents, be a director of a company and go bankrupt, work as an excavator, change his country of residence several times, become rich and impoverished. The activity of this man cannot be assessed unequivocally: he really was an insanely gifted scientist. At the same time, the Balkan never missed the opportunity to dissolve the most stupid rumors about himself through the media in order to get this or that financial preference. We decided not to mix one with the other, so we differentiated the scientific and pseudoscientific achievements of this person.
The main brainchildren of Nikola Tesla:
- The most ambitious achievements of the Serb are considered research in the field of alternating current. The "war of currents" that followed and the rivalry with Thomas Edison accelerated scientific and technological progress. Before Tesla, few people thought that it was possible to use something other than direct current, which was considered both cheap and safe, and even transmit voltage over great distances. And yet, Edison's supporters, realizing that the Serb's idea could be realized, even invented an electric chair that ran on alternating current to scare people with its ability to kill a person. Nevertheless, alternating current is used almost everywhere today, and this is done thanks to generators and transformers created by a native of a small Croatian village. Historians and scholars believethat the above "war" lasted more than a hundred years - from the beginning of the 20th century to 2007, when New York finally switched to alternating current. By the way, during his experiments and demonstrations, Nicola often used his own body as an argument that alternating current could be conductive and safe. These shows probably gave rise to numerous legends and rumors about him as a "superman".
- The inventor of radio, Marconi, would have achieved little if Nikola Tesla had not learned to suppress sound with current and output it to frequencies that go beyond the perception of human hearing. Back in 1891, in a public lecture, he described and demonstrated how radio communication is carried out. It happened 5 years before Marconi transmitted a signal from one building to another.
- Developments in the field of magnetic fields and the theory of the ether allow us to charge our gadgets wirelessly. The Serb did not just talk about the possibility of today's Wi-Fi and bluetooth devices more than a hundred years ago, but also conducted similar experiments in his laboratories.
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Most popular myths:
- Very often the Tunguska meteorite is associated with a Balkan scientist. According to legend, on the day of this anomaly, Tesla was either going to transmit a large amount of energy through the air, or he intended to "light up" the path to the North Pole for the traveler Robert Peary. In general, popular rumor could not dwell on at least one version and convey what exactly the ubiquitous scientist was trying to do. He himself did not deny "fairy tales", keeping silent and intimidating the public that his 47-meter tower "Wardencliff" was closed and destroyed just because of its incredible capabilities. In fact, the project simply “burned out”.
- The "Philadelphia Experiment" or the relocation of the military destroyer "Eldridge" with a crew of 181 people are also assigned to Nicolas. Those who spread these rumors in the second half of the twentieth century were not even embarrassed by the fact that Tesla died in January 1943, and the teleportation (not proven by anyone) allegedly took place already in October.
- According to another bike, in 1931, a scientist demonstrated the world's first electric car that could move without any traditional power sources. Naturally, there is no documented evidence. Nevertheless, the legend is good, you can even make money on it: now one American company produces electric cars named after a Serb.
Personality Facts:
- Among his close friends were Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and Jules Verne.
- The scientist was obsessed with cleanliness: according to his contemporaries, he washed his hands every 15 minutes and was pathologically afraid of insects and microbes. If a fly landed on his table in a cafe, the waiters had to change all the food.
- Before the "war of currents" Tesla successfully worked for Edison for some time. After each chose his own path and they became opponents, Edison "forgot" that he owes the Serb an amount equal to today's million dollars.
- Nikola Tesla possessed incredible energy: he worked 18 hours a day, memorized whole chapters from literary works word for word, and could calmly do somersaults while walking and move on.
- He constantly measured something: steps during exercise, the volume of pots, cups and plates, the weight of food, the area of its pieces. If this could not be done, the "lord of the current" was very nervous and preferred to dine alone.
As you can see, Tesla was both a great scientist and no less successful hoaxer. It is not for nothing that they say that he was ahead of his time - not only in science, but also in what modern society calls PR. After all, most people know little about the Nobel laureates, but everyone has heard about the Balkan. And in his case, it seems, it doesn't matter whether you've heard the truth or fiction …