Tesla History

TESLA HISTORY

In January, 1943, Dr. Nikola Tesla had lived for the past ten years in room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker, located on 34th Street at 8th Avenue in New York City. Nearing the end of his life, alone, almost forgotten, he had no one to talk to but the pigeons at his window sill, whom he fed and befriended.

And each night he gazed from that window over the vast city of New York, illuminated by his own brilliant creation, the alternating current system of electricity.

What was extraordinary about Tesla? It was his superhuman ability to visualize, to make
"…excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge...1" and thus envision complex technological innovations in his own mind.

As the child of a Serbian family living in Croatia, he learned to construct simple inventions. Even as a boy, he was driven by "...the first instinctive impulse which later dominated me – to harness the energies of nature to the service of man.2".

The lightning bolt of inspiration struck him during his university education in Prague – in the midst of a nervous collapse brought on by overwork, he visualized the Rotating Magnetic Field, his greatest discovery, which made possible his later invention of the alternating current system and all of its devices.

He traveled to America, first to work in the famous laboratory of Thomas Edison, then to strike out on his own.

And thence his struggle to produce the patented alternating current generators and motors based on his startling innovation of the Rotating Magnetic Field

And it was a struggle, because Edison, committed to direct current, tried to stop him by waging the War of the Currents.

And then George Westinghouse bought Tesla's patents for a great deal of money, and built the titanic power station at Niagara Falls, where the vast force of the falls were harnessed to transmit electricity unheard-of distances – hundreds of miles – and power Tesla's revolutionary motors, the first to run on alternating current.

But this was child's play for Tesla, whose goal was nothing less than the wireless transmission of unlimited power to the farthest corners of the Earth, free for the benefit of all mankind. He applied his newly acquired fortune to building a laboratory and pursuing his altruistic aim. Along the way, he invented the wireless telegraph, only to see Marconi take the credit for his discovery – it was not until late 1943, months after Tesla's death, that the U.S. Supreme Court decided the patent dispute against Marconi, in favor of Tesla.

But it was in the 1890's, immediately following the triumphant success of the awesome power station at Niagara Falls, that Tesla reached the height of his glory, dining at Delmonico's among the wealthy and the famous, entertaining his friends – Mark Twain, Paderewski, Rudyard Kipling – with amazing technological demonstrations in his laboratory.

Tesla strained to resist the temptations of the women who pursued him – he remained celibate, following the teachings of the Swami Vivekenanda, and thus focussed his life-force solely on his work.

Tesla met with the great financier J.P. Morgan, who agreed to finance construction of a mammoth Tower at Wardenclyffe on the shore of Long Island, for the wireless broadcast of information, especially stock quotes. But when Morgan discovered Tesla's secret intent to broadcast wireless power, free for all mankind, he refused to offer further financial support – free wireless power would afford no opportunity for profit.

The half-completed tower was ultimately dynamited during World War I, perhaps by government agents. And so, with the failure of the Tower project, Tesla's decline into poverty and obscurity began. His altruism and benevolence were no match for the greed of the cold-blooded corporate men.

And when, in the late 1930's, President Roosevelt asked Tesla for his fabled and mysterious Death Ray, to be added to the arsenal of democracy, Tesla claimed that it did not exist. He did not think the world was ready for it, nor for an unknown number of other inventions which he kept hidden away.

Tesla died alone in his hotel room on January 7, 1943.

1. From Tesla's autobiography, My Inventions, Section I, My Early Life.

2. From Tesla's autobiography, My Inventions, Section II, My First Efforts At Invention.