On Nikola Tesla
and
Modern Society

by A.G.

An Introduction to Nikola Tesla

When every man comes to a pinnacle or tragic point in his life, he may often wonder "Have I done anything that has a significant impact on society?" or "How will I be remembered?" Nikola Tesla could indeed answer these questions with both confidence and pride. He was born on 9 July 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, on the Balkan Peninsula to proud Serbian parents. His father Milutin oppressed Nikola with his own ambitions as an Orthodox priest, but Nikola inherited his mother's gift for creating practical household tools. Throughout his life Tesla worked vigorously with electricity and all of its applications. Among his major accomplishments were the inventions of alternate current and the first radio. An early sign of his genius was the fact that "he was able to perform integral calculus in his mind" when he was in high school ("Life and Legacy"). After seeing an engraving of Niagara Falls, he determined to someday harness its power ("L & L"). This is part of the reason he was moved to come to America.

The Beginnings of a Brilliant Inventer

After a physics professor showed him a Gramme dynamo that "by applying a direct current-[the dynamo] could be used as both a motor and a generator." A dynamo is a type of machine that converts the mechanical of a motor into electrical energy with the use of magnets and commutators. Tesla studied the machine and concluded that it would be possible to get rid of the commutators, which are the rotating parts of the dynamo that carries the current between the brushes ("L & L"). He would not achieve this for many years, but it was what led him to build the AC generator. He later came to work for several power companies to better the performance of their DC generators, first abroad in Europe, then in America ("L & L").

With the invention of Thomas Edison's new incandescent bulb there was an increasing demand for electricity, and this demand was met by the Edison General Electric Company. They ran DC power plants all over New York, only able to send electricity in a one mile radius through unsafe power lines. Edison saw Tesla's potential as an innovator, and, after hiring him to improve his DC generators, claimed that the $50,000 he promised Tesla was only a joke, thus provoking a life-long rivalry between the two ("L & L"). Both these men were of great genius, but Tesla, with his "formal . . . education," liked to work out everything perfectly in his mind, whereas Edison, being "self-taught," was a hands-on, "trial and error" kind of man ("L & L").

Tesla Works For Western Union

Tesla resigned from his engineering position at Edison's company and was later approached by a Mr. A. K. Brown of the Western Union Co. This was the man who would finally finance a project for him to build his AC generator:

The motors I build there . . . were exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected ("L & L")

A Boyhood Dream Comes True

Tesla's next challenge was to finally fulfill his boyhood dream of harnessing the power driving Niagara Falls; no one had yet successfully exploited its full potential ("L & L"). The Niagara Falls Commission was faced with doing just that. Lord Kelvin of England headed the commission, and he at first opposed the utilisation of an AC power plant. Tesla, however, swayed Kelvin's thought at the Chicago Exposition ("L & L"). This decision to finally use an alternate current on a major power plant totally changed the direction of electrical sources towards AC. If this giant of a project had not chosen AC current at that time, two possibilities might have occurred. First, a power plant may still have been built at the site, but it could not have compared to the AC success; Tesla's was the only plan accepted ("L & L"). Second, the AC generator might have never been popularly accepted as a better and more efficient alternative to DC power. While working for Westinghouse shortly thereafter, he also oversaw a five-year project for an AC plant to power Buffalo; it was also a success.

Tesla's Most Important Inventions

• In 1888 Tesla finished developing his arc lamp (Walters 175). Because this lamp had a "greater throw" of light, it was ideal to use for street lamps and spotlights at theatres (Beckhard 117). These lamps are still used today for that purpose.

• In 1890 Tesla invented the "electronic tube," which was the basis for his broadcast system. In that year he also created "high frequency [AC] dynamos" (Walters 176). He also made up his "tuning principles" for the radio, and suggested the use of "high frequency currents for [physical] therapy" (Beckhard 176).

• Many of the components of his early radio are still used, and surely his principles widely applied, as well as furthering the progress of physical therapy.

• In 1891, Tesla gave a lecture pertaining to his concepts of ether and applying it to lighting (Tesla 148). Ether is the invisible, elastic substance of space that supposedly conducts waves. He said that there is no evidence of electricity without “gross matter,” and that electricity is “ether associated with matter” (Tesla 148). He believed that one could light a bulb with incandescence by passing an electrical current through a vacuum (Tesla 179)

• In 1891, he invented his "Tesla coil," which were two electrical coils, not connected by wires, that were able to transmit a signal when they were resonated at the same frequency (“L & L”). This was basically the predecessor to the wireless telegraph and the radio. The development of these devices helped with communications in both World Wars. Were it not for this work, we might not today have the instant global communications that we have via satellites and cell phones. However, just before he would have sent a fifty-mile transmission, his lab burned down and a young Italian named Guglielo Marconi took credit for the first long-distance transmission in England, using many of Tesla's patents in the process. As Tesla said: "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents" (“L & L”). Marconi got the patent and the Nobel Prize, but Tesla didn't get credit until posthumously (“L & L”).

• In 1892 Tesla created the "carbon button lamp." This lamp consisted of a carbon button encased in glass filled with rarefied air, and it used as much electricity as an incandescent bulb. Its light was 20 times as intense as the incandescent bulb, although it had a short life (Walters 114). When a current passed through the button, parts of it exploded, hit the glass, and bounced back at the button to make it glow while at the same time appearing to disappear. Little did he know that this was the predecessor to the atom-smasher used by today's scientists to explore the atomic world around us.

• Tesla also worked with radio control in simple robots. His 1898 demonstration of a "remote control" boat at the electrical convention in Madison Square Garden was a sensation that left the audience in awe (“L & L”). He made a point, however, not to limit its application to just boats, but to any device (“L & L”). Even today, without Tesla, the little boy down the street would not be able to play with his remote control car on the sidewalk and the Mars Pathfinder might not have even been suggested (not to mention there would be no dramatic rescue in Toy Story). The idea was way ahead of its time. He grew furious, though, when someone suggested using this for unmanned weapons: "you do not see there a wireless torpedo, you see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race" (“L & L”). Unfortunately, this didn't prevent its militaristic use later with the use of drone spy planes and guided missiles.

Tesla at Colorado Springs

His next project was purely a personal ambition, which he undertook at Colorado Springs: the wireless transmission of energy, begun in 1899 near Pike's Peak (“L & L”). With the belief in the conductivity of the Earth, he determined to shake the earth with his electricity; he at least succeeded in burning out the power in the entire city of Colorado Springs. He had an odd laboratory, consisting of a peel-away roof, an eighty-foot tower, and a 142 foot mast on top of that (“L & L”). It was basically a giant Tesla coil with the purpose of creating "man-made lightning" (“L & L”). He also meant to "transmit extra-low frequency [about 8Hz] signals through the space between the surface of the Earth and the ionosphere" (“L & L”). His last intent in Colorado was to send electricity to the ionosphere. 80 km above the ground using a huge electrical tower(“L & L”). It was never known whether or not his experiments here were successful; his journal was very detailed with data, but even so, the results of his experiments are left very hazy (“L & L”). Therefore, those experiments couldn't have contributed much to the betterment of society, but perhaps these secretive results helped him with later inventions. While here at Colorado Springs, he also became the "first man to detect radio waves from space" (“L & L”). This may have been what prompted "believers" and astronomers to listen to the skies for signs of life (or anything else out there).

Tesla's Final Great Ideas and Projects

Upon returning to New York, Tesla had many radical ideas for new projects. His first was to harness the sun's energy with an antenna, and also to "control the weather with electrical energy" (“L & L”). He also proposed proposed [a] global system of wireless communications" (“L & L”). Although we don't use the same format he proposed, the idea of a "global system of wireless communications" is what we have, with the ability to send "messages, news, music, stock market reports, private messages, secure military communications, and . . . pictures to any part of the world" (“L & L”). His idea is the basis for our communications systems both then and now. He also had an idea to build a “teleforce” defense system around the US., utilising four inventions: rays that can travel outside a vacuum, a system for creating a large “electrical force,” a way to amplify this force, and a propelling force for it (Chevey 256). He was also able to develop the principles of radar to detect submarines using highly concentrated rays reflected back from an object and then illuminated on a “fluorescent screen” (Chevey 207-208). This concept was developed specifically to detect the then invisible German U-Boats. It is widely used today for meteorological purposes and air traffic control, as well as in the military.

Tesla's Last Years as an Inventor

After many successes, Tesla finally faced failure. J. P. Morgan had become a major patron, but Tesla lied about his project, telling Morgan that he would build a radio transmission tower and a power plant, when in actuality he intended to build a wireless electrical transmission tower (“L & L”). When his plan was found out, he lost his funding. He then started his Wardenclyffe project in 1901 on Long Island. He meant to build another huge tower for electrical wireless transmission (“L & L”). The project was outrun by Marconi and left incomplete, being dubbed "Tesla's million dollar folly" (“L & L”).

On 7 January 1943, he died with incomplete inventions, ideas, and theories that were never fully explored (Walters 179). However, throughout his life, Nikola Tesla made enormous contributions to the study of electricity and its applications. Much of the bustling world would not exist the way it does without his contribution to electrical lighting and communications. Cities would not have become “sleepless,” but everyone would have an early bedtime, and many people would not be able to so easily communicate halfway around the world. With over 200 patents and many more inventions, he invented more than even Thomas Edison and has left a mark on society that continues even today and shall continue into the future.

Works Cited

• Beckhard, Arthur J. Electrical Genius. New York: Messner, 1960.
• Chevey, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1981.
• Tesla, Nikola. “Experiments with Alternating Currents of Very High Frequency and their Application to Methods of Artificial Illumination.” New York: Columbia College, 1891. Rpt. in The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla. Ed. Thomas Commerford Martin. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.
• "Nikola Tesla: Life and Legacy." Tesla-Master of Lightning. 2000. 23 January 2003 <http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll.html>.
• Walters, Helen B. Nikola Tesla: Giant of Electricity. New York: Crowell, 1961.

This webpage created by A.G. Last update, 27 May 2003.

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