Nikola Tesla (born July 10, 1856 - died January 7, 1943) is a genius inventor in the field of electrical and radio engineering.
Origin. Training
Nikola Tesla, a Serb by nationality, was born in Smiljan (formerly Austria-Hungary, now Croatia). In the family of a priest. According to his memories, he was a rather strange child. The sight of pearls made him cramp, the taste of peach caused a fever, and the paper sheets floating in the water caused an unpleasant taste in his mouth.
The father wanted his son to become a clergyman, but from an early age Nicholas was interested in nothing more than electricity and, contrary to his father's will, he entered the Higher Technical School in Graz (Austria), which he successfully graduated from in 1878.
1880 - Studied at the University of Prague. In his sophomore year, he was struck by the idea of an induction alternator. Nikola shared the idea with the professor, who found it delusional. But this conclusion only spurred the young inventor.
After graduating from the university until 1882 he worked as an engineer in the telephone society in Budapest, and then in the Edison company in Paris. 1882 - already there, he built a working model of an induction alternator.
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Work for Edison
1884 - emigrated to the USA. To Thomas Edison - with recommendations from a Parisian friend: “I know two great people. One of them is you, the other is this young man."
Edison took the promising electrical engineer into his company, and friction immediately arose between the inventors. The main reason for the disagreement is the divergence of views on the origin of electricity. Edison was an adherent of the well-known theory of "motion of charged particles", while Tesla had a different opinion.
In his theory of electricity, the fundamental was such a concept as ether - some invisible substance that fills the whole world and transmits vibrations at a speed many times higher than the speed of light. Every millimeter of space, Tesla believed, is saturated with boundless, infinite energy that you just need to be able to extract.
Until now, physicists have not been able to give an interpretation of Tesla's views on physical reality. And the theory of the ether itself was recognized as anti-scientific.
Break with Edison
After breaking up with Edison, Nikola Tesla was taken over by the famous industrialist George Westinghouse, founder of Westinghouse Electric. While working for the company, he obtained patents for polyphase electrical machines, an induction motor, and an alternating polyphase power transmission system.
Myth or Reality?
Earthquake Machine
Tesla's mysterious invention, about which his followers have been controversial for a long time - the "Earthquake Machine", which worked on electromagnetic waves, as she assumed, could cause natural disasters anywhere on our planet. According to legend, it was this machine that caused the 1908 earthquake in New York, which destroyed the researcher's laboratory. Nikola destroyed this car himself, because he saw the real danger it poses to humanity.
Superweapon
On the creation of a superweapon, the scientist said: "I must create a machine that is capable of destroying one or more armies in one action."
It is believed that Tesla did not manage to invent this weapon. Although, this is only the official version. Many researchers believe that the Tunguska meteorite that fell in Siberia more than 100 years ago is nothing more than a test of a new genius superweapon. In support of this hypothesis, it is known that many who visited Tesla's laboratory saw on his wall a map of Siberia, including the area in which the explosion took place. In addition, in one of the articles - published a few months before the explosion on Tunguska, the scientist himself wrote: "… Even now, my wireless power plants are capable of turning any area of the world into an area uninhabitable …".
Earth-lamp
1914 - a project was proposed to scientists, according to which the entire globe, together with the atmosphere, was to become a huge lamp. To do this, it is only necessary to pass a high-frequency current through the upper layers of the atmosphere, and they will glow. However, the researcher did not explain how to do this, although he has repeatedly argued that he sees no difficulty in this.
Conversations with spirits
Tesla's letter to one of his friends has survived. Nicola claimed that while studying high-frequency currents, he came across something amazing: “I discovered a thought. And soon you will be able to personally read your poems to Homer, and I will be able to discuss my discoveries with Archimedes himself."
By the way, Tesla's sworn enemy, Edison, also made attempts to contact the other world.
Philadelphia experiment
One of the most famous rumors associated with Tesla's name is the disappearance of the destroyer Eldridge. Allegedly, before the Second World War, the researcher began to cooperate with the US Navy, creating a "invisibility screen" of ships for enemy radars. The scientist himself did not have a chance to conduct an experiment - he died on January 7, 1943, but 10 months later, on the destroyer Eldridge, the military, with the help of Tesla's generators, "inflated an electromagnetic bubble." But an unexpected effect appeared. The ship became invisible not only to radars, but also to human vision. He disappeared, and after that he was allegedly discovered two hundred kilometers from the place where the experiment was carried out. All members of the destroyer crew suffered severe mental disorders.
Nikola Tesla - inventions
Most Outstanding Inventions
• Light - they discovered a way to preserve and transmit it.
• Electrodynamic induction lamp.
• Alternating current.
• Electric motor.
• X-ray beam.
• Radio communication.
• Remote control.
• Electric submarine.
• Robotics.
• Laser.
• Ozone generator.
• Teleportation and time machine.
• Safe turbine.
• Wireless communications and unlimited free energy.
Unprecedented ways to transfer energy
He began to develop new, unprecedented ways of transferring energy. How do we connect electrical appliances to the network? A plug - that is, two conductors (wires). If you connect only one, there will be no current - the circuit is not closed. And the inventor demonstrated the transmission of power through one conductor. Or no wires at all.
During his lecture on the high-frequency electromagnetic field in front of the scientists of the Royal Academy, he turned on and off the electric motor remotely, in his hands light bulbs themselves lit up. Some even lacked a spiral - just an empty flask. It was 1892!
At the end of the lecture, physicist John Rayleigh invited Tesla into his office and solemnly said, pointing to the chair: “Sit down, please. This is the chair of the great Faraday. After his death, no one sat in it."
1895 - the world's largest Niagara hydroelectric power station was commissioned by Westinghausen. Powerful generators of the genius inventor worked on it. At the same time, Nikola Tesla designed a number of radio-controlled self-propelled mechanisms - "teleautomatics". At Madison Square Garden, he demonstrated remote control of small boats.
Colorado Springs
In the late 19th century, a tower with a large copper sphere on top was built for Tesla's experiments in Colorado Springs. There, the inventor generated potentials that were discharged by arrows of lightning up to 40 meters long. Thunderous rumbles accompanied the experiments. A huge ball of light blazed around the tower. Passers-by in the streets shied away in fright, watching with fear as sparks jumped between their feet and the ground. Horses received electroshock from behind iron horseshoes. Butterflies and those "whirled helplessly in circles on their wings, beating with trickles of blue halos." Metal objects shone with "the lights of St. Elmo".
All this electrical phantasmagoria was not arranged to scare people. The purpose of the experiments was different: for 25 miles from the tower, 200 light bulbs at once lit up. The electric charge was transmitted wirelessly through the ground.
Project Wardencliff
Finally, high-profile experiments in Colorado Springs destroyed a generator at a local power plant, had a chance to return to New York, where in 1900, on behalf of the banker John Pierpont Morgan, the scientist took on the construction of the World Station for Wireless Power Transmission. The project was based on the idea of resonant buildup of the ionosphere, provided for the participation of 2 thousand people and was named "Wardenclyffe". On Long Island, construction began on a huge science campus.
The main structure was a 57 m high frame tower with a huge copper "plate" on top - a giant amplifying transmitter. And with a steel shaft, which went deep into the ground by 36 m. 1905 - a test run of an unprecedented structure took place, it produced an amazing effect. "Tesla set the sky over the ocean on fire for thousands of miles," the newspapers wrote.
The second tower - for transmitting powerful streams of energy wirelessly - the scientist intended to build at Niagara Falls.
However, the project required huge costs. All the money of the inventor himself went into this pit. And Morgan realized that the superstation was unlikely to be able to provide commercial benefits. Moreover, on December 12, 1900, Marconi sent the first transatlantic signal from the English Cornwall to Canada. His communication system turned out to be more promising.
Although Nikola built the first wave radio transmitter in 1893, years ahead of Marconi (in 1943, Tesla's priority was confirmed by the US Supreme Court), he confessed to Morgan that he was interested not in communication, but in wireless transmission of energy to anywhere on Earth.
After the project
However, this was not part of Morgan's plans, and his funding was cut off. And with the outbreak of the First World War, the US government, concerned about the possible use of the tower by enemy scouts, decided to blow it up.
Scientists predicted the possibility of treating patients with high-frequency current, the appearance of an electric furnace, a fluorescent lamp, and an electron microscope.
The squares and streets of New York were illuminated by Tesla's arc lamps. Enterprises worked on his electric motors, rectifiers, electric generators, transformers, high-frequency equipment. Although Marconi received the first patent in the field of radio, many of his applications were rejected because Nikola Tesla managed to get a lot of patents for improvements in radio equipment.
Amazing experiences
1917 - Tesla proposed the principle of operation of a device for radio detection of submarines.
1931 - a scientist showed the public a strange car. A gasoline engine was removed from a luxury limousine and an electric motor was installed. After that, in front of the public, the inventor placed a nondescript box under the hood with two rods sticking out of it, and connected it to the motor. Saying, "Now we have energy," he got behind the wheel and drove off.
The car was tested for a week. He developed a speed of up to 150 km / h and, as you can see, did not need to be recharged at all. Everyone asked the scientist: "Where does the energy come from?" He answered: "From the air." Probably, we would already be driving cars with a perpetual motion machine, if those longtime viewers did not start talking about evil spirits. The angry inventor took the mysterious box out of the car and took it to the laboratory. Its mystery has not been solved to this day.
Death rays
Shortly before his death, the scientist announced that he had invented "death rays" capable of destroying 10 thousand aircraft from a distance of 400 km. Not a sound about the secret of the rays. It was rumored that in the last years of his life he carried out work on the construction of artificial intelligence. And I wanted to learn how to photograph thoughts, believing that it is quite possible.
Death
Nikola Tesla died on January 7, 1943 at the age of 86, from heart failure. Shortly before his death, the scientist fell under the wheels of a car and received a broken rib. Against the background of complications, pneumonia began and he went to bed. Even very ill, Nikola did not let anyone in and was alone in his hotel room. So he died alone. The body was found only two days after death.
Many newspapers in those days wrote that the death of a scientist could be faked by those to whom he could cross the road with his inventions, or those who could be offended by Tesla's refusal to cooperate.
The urn with the ashes was installed at Fairncliff Cemetery in New York. Later it will be transferred to the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade.
Interesting Facts
• After a serious illness in his youth, Nikola began to suffer from a phobia associated with a fear of germs. He washed his hands all the time and demanded up to 18 towels a day in hotels, and if a fly landed on his plate during dinner in a restaurant, the researcher immediately made a new order. Moreover, the scientist himself said that after that illness he began to have strange visions.
“Strong flashes of light obscured pictures of real objects and simply replaced my thoughts,” the scientist wrote in his diary. "These pictures of objects and scenes had the properties of reality, but they were always perceived as visions … To get rid of torment, I switched to visions from normal life."
• The closure of the Wardencliffe project was facilitated by the inventor's statements that he constantly communicates with alien civilizations (hence the rumors that the Wardencliff project was intended to communicate with other civilizations).
• Tesla has registered about 300 patents, earning more than $ 15 million on them (not including subsequent royalties)
• The lectures of the scientist were most often attended by people who were far from physics. This is because the lectures were a colorful show. The demonstration of a fluorescent light bulb without an incandescent spiral was especially successful. Then it was perceived as a cross between a cunning trick and black magic.
• Some of the scientists have now begun to get involved in the study of the torsion field, and information about it is sought in the fragmentary notes of the inventor. However, few of them remained. Most of the scientist's diaries and manuscripts disappeared under strange circumstances.