Nicola
Tesla, the man called by many the father of modern world. Born in modern-day
Croatia in 1856. His father, Milutin was a priest of the
Serbian Orthodox Church. His mother, Duka had the ability to memorize long text
and a talent for hand crafting. Tesla inherited the eidetic memory from his
mother, and from young age he amazed everyone with his talents.
During the
studies, there was an ongoing debate between him and one of the professors over
perceived design flaws in the direct-current motors that were demonstrated in
class. Tesla dropped his studies and moved to Paris, where he took a job at the
Continental Edison Company. During his job, there he made a prototype of
alternating a current motor. He tried to find a businessman to become an
investor in his invention, but none of them understand the device and didn’t
see the value of it, so they rejected Tesla. Nicola decided to move to New
York, where he could meet Thomas Edison, who could eventually appreciate his
work. His idea was dismissed, but he get a job at Edison’s company. After some
time, Nicola became his most valuable engineer, and got a promise of
50 000$ for improving Edison’s direct-current generators, what Tesla did,
but in return, Edison said he was only joking about the reward, and offered
only a rise of 10$ a week. Tesla resigned and was forced to take a job of
digging ditches to survive. After hearing that, several investors asked Tesla
to create an arc lighting system. In return they would finance his new company,
the Tesla Electric Company. Nicola accepted the offer. When the company started
to make profit, he was swindled out of most of the money, and then ejected from
the company.
Two men
approached Tesla and agreed to invest in his alternating current project,
building him a laboratory in New York. Here he built a complete system of
generators, motors and lighting. Then he was asked to lecture at the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Tesla
demonstrating wireless lighting during lecture
Now he
could finally develop and do research that led to the modern world we know.
First he researched radiant energy, it led to the discovery of X-rays and its
usage. He didn’t make his discoveries well-known, which eventually led to
X-rays been attributed to somebody else later.
X-ray of a hand, taken by Tesla
There were
more Tesla’s inventions not credited to him, e.g. the radio transmission.
Besides the
inventions that were not credited to Tesla, there were some others, which could
not find financial support. One of them were waves to detect German U-bots and
other ships. Twenty years passed when eventually radar was invented using
Tesla’s principles.
The last
patent that Tesla received was for Equipment for aerial transportation. He
designed a flying machine that was a cross between a helicopter and an airplane
that could take off vertically and then fly horizontally. Now known as Vertical
Short Take-off and Landing planes.
F-35, example of the Vertical Short Take-off
and Landing plane
Surely
Nicola Tesla genius and ability to think big caused that many others could not
comprehend some of the plans he had for the future. It is one of the examples
when a great mind is born to early, in times where he is not understood, and
could not use full of his potential.
What do you think about Nicola Tesla? Have you
heard about his inventions, that are credited to someone else?
Do you know other great minds, that were born
to early, and could not use full of their potential?
Comments
In my opinion Leonardo da Vinci also was a great person. He invented a great amount of things that we are using today. He was very well educated. Da Vinci was a real Renaissance man knowing much about everything.
I think that great mind, that was misunderstood and due to it hated by society was ... Bona. She was great economist, she expanded her wealth and she knew how to administer. But polish society was jealous and they wanted to ruin her. They hated her for her knowledge of law and economy, so they couldn't deceive her and she was richer and richer. She wanted to advise king, so situation in the kingdom would be better, but his official advisers told him not to do this, because "she is just traitor, she wants all of us to get poorer and poorer", while she was just enforcing the law and she didn't allow to break the law and bribery.
I think nowadays many businessmans are looking for a genius and they do all PR's work and I hope people are not going to lose any genius like Tesla.
I'm a big fan of everything that is wireless. I try to make a lot of things to be wireless. Starting from the light, through turning on the sockets, to controlling my coffee machine. I just think it's useful and improves my daily life. So what can I say? Thank you Nicola!
I have heard a lot about his inventions and what a D Thomas Edison really was.
I think that more people should know about this genius, because there are a lot of people who are not aware of who he was.
There were a lot of people who were bora too early for their times, but I think that it’s impossible to find better example than Tesla.
I think Leonardo Da Vinci was also a person, who was born to early. However, how our world would look like without them?
I guess there were a lot of people, through the history who had ideas that were too much for people of their times, the most overused example of that would be Leonardo Da Vinci and some of his inventions, I guess it's just something humanity does, when something shakes up the way things are, people get upset or can't understand it right away, Elon Musk might end up being a modern example of this but now inventions are rarely attributed to single person.
I don't know any similar story but I know that many talents are wasted mostly becouse of parents that are unable to spot them on time.