Biography of Nikola Tesla

Introduction

Nikola Tesla is a well-known name in the field of alternating current. He was Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer who aspired to bring new useful inventions in the later nineteenth century. Many people are interested in Nikola Tesla Biography and hence we will know more about him today.

Early Life

Tesla was born in the sub-ethnic village of Smiljan in the Austrian empire to an eastern orthodox priest in July 1856. He finished his primary and secondary education nearby only. He finished his higher education earlier and got interested in integral calculus and electricity. In 1875, Tesla got a military frontier scholarship and enrolled in Imperial-Royal Technical College in Graz. He performed wonderfully during his first year but never graduated from college. He then worked as a draftsman but was transported back due to the absence of a passport.

Career

Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary to work as a chief electrician in Budapest Telephone Exchange where he made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier, which was not patented and publicly described. 

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Tesla got another job at Continental Edison Company where he gained a great deal of practical experience in electrical engineering. Sooner, he started designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors. He worked in Edison utilities built around France and in Germany to solve various engineering problems. From there, he moved to the United States to work at Edison Machine Works where he worked at installing and improving generators. He also worked on the concept of street arc lighting. He then left work from there due to unexplained reasons.

Nikola Tesla’s inventions

First Solo Venture:
In 1885, The Tesla Electric Light Company got funding to develop an improved version of Arc Lighting. Tesla, even after successfully doing this task, was forced to move out of the venture. He then had to work as a manual labourer, in order to survive.
Tesla set up Tesla Electric Company in April 1887 with the help of two experienced businessmen. The first invention of Nikola Tesla was the induction motor. It ran on alternating current (AC) which is a format of the power system. This system was expanding in Europe and the United States very swiftly because of its long-distance, high voltage transmission advantages. This innovative electric motor was given patent in May 1888 that had a simple self-starting design. There was no sparking as it didn’t need a commutator and therefore, no high maintenance costs were occurring out of constant service and mechanical brushes replacement. Another Nikola Tesla invention was the Tesla coil used to produce high-voltage, low-current, and high-frequency alternating-current electricity.
In 1890, Tesla started his experiments on wireless electricity which was also known as Nikola Tesla wireless electricity. He tried to develop a near-field inductive and capacitive coupling-based wireless lighting system. He also conducted a number of public demonstrations in which he lit Geissler tubes and incandescent lamps.
In 1895, Tesla was the first to design AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States, at Niagara Falls. He used it to power the city of Buffalo, New York. This feat was publicized throughout the world and thus, it helped AC electricity in becoming the power system of the world.
Tesla Free Energy:
Tesla became interested in wireless transmission of energy in 1900. The global wireless communication system was Tesla’s boldest project. It was to be transmitted through a large electrical tower. The purpose was to share information and provide free energy all over the world.

He received funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan in 1901. Tesla began to work on the free energy project. He built a lab with a power plant that was a huge transmission tower located at the Long Island in New York, popularly known as Wardenclyffe.
But the investors started having doubts regarding the plausibility of the system of Tesla. The rival of Tesla named Guglielmo Marconi continued to make big advancements in his radio technologies as he got financial support from Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. Due to all this, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project.
In 1906, the staff of Wardenclyffe was laid off and the site was permanently closed by 1915. Bankruptcy was declared by Tesla after two years. The tower was sold at a very low price to pay the debts.
Death Ray:
Nick Tesla couldn’t bear the Tesla Free Energy Project closure and due to this, suffered from a nervous breakdown. He eventually returned to work as a consultant. But his ideas became very impractical with time.

How Did Nikola Tesla Die?

Tesla died at the age of 86 on January 7, 1943, in New York City due to coronary thrombosis. He lived there for nearly 60 years. However, the legacy of the work Tesla left behind lives on to this day. In 1994, near his former New York City laboratory’s site at the 40th street and 6th Avenue intersection, a street sign identifying "Nikola Tesla Corner" was installed to commemorate Nikola Tesla.