Editor’s Note: One of the issues
challenging creativity and innovation in Nigeria is the intractable electricity
shortages. The African Development Bank (AfDB) calculates that the price of production
in Nigeria can reduce by as much as 40 percent if the cost of providing energy
is excluded. I hope this blog would inspire someone to invent solutions to the perennial
electric power shortages.
To inspire someone I decided to publish the story of one of
the most inventive men of the last 300 years: Nikola Tesla.
Nikola Tesla was headed for the priesthood until a twist of
fate led him the way of science. Yet this man produced inventions that have
significantly changed our world. From this man’s life and accomplishments I saw firsthand
what knowledge, revelation and realized potentialities can propel ordinary men
to produce, what the LORD is able to accomplish by the works of willing
minds and hands!
Tesla read many works, memorizing complete books, and
supposedly possessed a photographic memory. He was a polyglot, speaking eight
languages: Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian,
and Latin. Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed
moments of inspiration. During his early life, Tesla was reportedly stricken
with frequent illness. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes
of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by visions. Often, the
visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; at other times
they would provide the solution to a problem he had encountered.
Just by hearing the name of an item, he would be able to
envision it in realistic detail. Tesla would visualize an invention in his mind
with extreme precision, including all dimensions, before moving to the
construction stage, a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. He
typically did not make drawings by hand but worked from memory. Beginning in
his childhood, Tesla had frequent flashbacks to events that had happened
previously in his life.
Tesla's inventions are the backbone of modern power and
communication systems, but he faded into obscurity later in the 20th century,
when most of his inventions were lost to history.
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Nikola Tesla (Image source: paleofuture.gizmodo.com)
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By Kenneth Nwabudike
Okafor
"YOUR SON IS A
STAR OF FIRST RANK"
Nikola Tesla (10th July 1856 – 7th January 1943) was an
inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist
best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating
current (AC) electricity supply system. He also developed the three-phase
system of electric power transmission. He emigrated to the United States in
1884 and sold the patent rights to his system of alternating-current dynamos,
transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse. In 1891 he invented the Tesla coil,
an induction coil widely used in radio technology.
Training for an engineering career, he attended the
Technical University at Graz, Austria, and the University of Prague. At Graz he
first saw the Gramme dynamo, which operated as a generator and, when reversed,
became an electric motor, and he conceived a way to use alternating current to
advantage. Later, at Budapest, he visualized the principle of the rotating magnetic
field and developed plans for an induction motor that would become his first
step toward the successful utilization of alternating current. In 1882 Tesla
went to work in Paris for the Continental Edison Company, and, while on
assignment to Strassburg in 1883, he constructed, after work hours, his first
induction motor. Tesla sailed for America in 1884, arriving in New York with
four cents in his pocket, a few of his own poems, and calculations for a flying
machine. He first found employment with Thomas Edison,
but the two inventors were far apart in background and methods, and their
separation was inevitable.
Tesla gained experience
in telephony and electrical engineering before emigrating to the US in 1884 to
work for Thomas Edison. He soon struck out on his own with financial backers,
setting up laboratories/companies to develop a range of electrical devices. His
patented AC induction motor and transformer were licensed by George
Westinghouse, who also hired Tesla as a consultant to help develop a power
system using alternating current. Tesla is also known for his high-voltage,
high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs which
included patented devices and theoretical work used in the invention of radio
communication, for his X-ray experiments, and for his ill-fated attempt at
intercontinental wireless transmission in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower
project.
On 10th July 1906, his
50th birthday, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 16,000 rpm
bladeless turbine. During 1910–1911 at the Waterside Power Station in New York,
several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100–5,000 hp.
Tesla invented a steam-powered mechanical oscillator¾Tesla’s oscillator.
While experimenting with mechanical oscillators at his Wardenclyffe Tower,
Houston Street lab, Tesla allegedly generated a resonance of several buildings.
As the speed grew, it is said that the machine oscillated at the resonance
frequency of his own building and, belatedly realizing the danger, he was
forced to use a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment, just as the police
arrived.
Tesla was born to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan,
Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia).
Nikola Tesla’s father, Milutin Tesla, was a
Serbian Orthodox priest. Tesla’s mother, Ðuka Tesla (née Mandić), whose father
was also a Serbian Orthodox priest, had a talent for making home craft tools,
mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Ðuka had
never received a formal education. Nikola credited his eidetic memory and
creative abilities to his mother’s genetics and influence. Tesla’s progenitors
were from western Serbia, near Montenegro.
Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had an
older brother named Dane and three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica. Dane
was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five. Some accounts say
that Tesla caused the accident by frightening the horse. In 1861, Tesla
attended the "Lower" or "Primary" School in Smiljan where he
studied German, arithmetic, and religion. In 1862, the Tesla family moved to
Gospić, Austrian Empire, where Tesla’s father worked as a pastor. Nikola
completed "Lower" or "Primary" School, followed by the "Lower Real Gymnasium" or "Normal School".
In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac to attend school
at Higher Real Gymnasium, where he was profoundly influenced by a math teacher
Martin Sekulić. He was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which
prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating. In 1873, he finished a
four-year term in three years and upon graduating he returned to his birth
town, Smiljan. Shortly after he arrived, he contracted cholera; he was
bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times. His father, in a
moment of despair, promised to send him to the best engineering school if he
recovered from the illness (his father had originally wanted him to enter the
priesthood).
In 1874, Tesla evaded being drafted into the
Austro-Hungarian Army in Smiljan by running away to Tomingaj, near Gračac.
There, he explored the mountains in hunter's garb.
In 1875, he enrolled at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria,
on a Military Border scholarship. During his first year, he never missed a
lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams (nearly twice as
many required), started a Serbian culture club, and even received a letter of
commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to Tesla’s father, which
stated, "Your son is a star of first rank".
Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to
11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted. He was "mortified when [his] father made
light of [those] hard won honours". After
his father’s death in 1879, Tesla found a package of letters from his
professors to his father, warning that unless he were removed from the school,
Tesla would be killed through overwork. During his second year, Tesla came into
conflict with Professor Poeschl over the Gramme dynamo,
when Tesla suggested that commutators were not necessary. At the end of his
second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling. During
his third year, he gambled away his allowance and his tuition money, later
gambling back his initial losses and returning the balance to his family.
Tesla claimed that he "conquered [his] passion then and
there," but later he was known to play
billiards in the US. When exam time came, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an
extension to study, but was denied. He never graduated from the university and
did not receive grades for the last semester.
In December 1878, Tesla left Graz and severed all
relations with his family to hide the fact that he dropped out of school. His
friends thought that he had drowned in the Mur River. Tesla went to Maribor
(now in Slovenia), where he worked as a draftsman for 60 florins a month. He
spent his spare time playing cards with local men on the streets. In March
1879, Milutin Tesla went to Maribor to beg his son to return home, but Nikola
refused. Nikola suffered a nervous
breakdown at around the same time.
On 24th March 1879, Tesla was returned to Gospić
under police guard for not having a residence permit. During that year, Tesla
taught a large class of students in his old school, Higher Real Gymnasium, in
Gospić.
In January 1880, two of Tesla’s uncles put
together enough money to help him leave Gospić for Prague where he was to
study.
In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest
to work under Ferenc Puskas at a telegraph company, the Budapest Telephone
Exchange. Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under
construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central
Telegraph Office, instead. Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange
became functional and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position.
During his employment, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station
equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier,
which was never patented nor publicly described.
Poor and reclusive, Nikola
Tesla died on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86, in New York City, where he had
lived for nearly 60 years. But the legacy of the work he left behind him lives
on to this day.
Nikola Tesla during his life and in death has
achieved several honours. On his 75th birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him
on its cover. The cover caption "All the
world’s his power house" noted
his contribution to electrical power generation. He received congratulatory
letters from more than 70 pioneers in science and engineering, including Albert
Einstein. In 1956, the Tesla Society was founded. The following are named after
him: Tesla, a 26 kilometre-wide
crater on the far side of the moon; 2244 Tesla,
a minor planet; TPP Nikola Tesla, the largest power plant in Serbia; Tesla
(company), electrotechnical conglomerate in the former
Czechoslovakia; Tesla Motors,
an electric car company; The Belgrade Nikola
Tesla Airport; The Nikola Tesla Award; and The Nikola Tesla Museum Archive in Belgrade.
Tesla’s
achievements and his abilities as a showman demonstrating his seemingly miraculous
inventions made him world-famous.
Several
books and films have highlighted Tesla's life and famous works, including Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World,
a documentary produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla
Museum in Belgrade, Serbia; and The
Secret of Nikola Tesla, which stars Orson Welles as J. P. Morgan).
And in the 2006 Christopher Nolan film The
Prestige, Tesla was portrayed by rock star/actor David
Bowie. In 1994, a street sign identifying "Nikola Tesla Corner" was
installed near the site of his former New York City laboratory, at the
intersection of 40th Street and 6th Avenue.
Sources
- Kosanovic, Bogdan R., "Nikola Tesla." University of Pittsburgh, December 29, 2000. (Accessed Dec. 27, 2010)http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/
- O’Neill, John J. Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla. Cosimo Classics, 2007; originally published 1944.
- Uth, Robert, "Tesla: Master of Lightning." New Voyage Communications, 2000. (Accessed Dec. 27, 2010)http://www.pbs.org/tesla/
- Tesla, Nikola. My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla. Waking Lion Press, 2006; originally published as a series of articles in Electrical Experimental magazine, 1919.
- Tesla Memorial Society of New York. "Tesla Coil." (Accessed Dec. 27, 2010)http://www.teslasociety.com/teslacoil.htm
- Tesla Memorial Society of New York. "Tesla Radio." (Accessed Dec. 27, 2010)http://www.teslasociety.com/radio.htm
- Vujovic, Ljubo. "Nikola Tesla: The Genius Who Lit the World." Tesla Memorial Society of New York, July 10, 1998. (Accessed Dec. 27, 2010)http://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Wikipedia
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