Nicola Tesla is perhaps not that widely known outside the scientific community. In fact, many people might never have heard his name had it not been the name of a ground-breaking electric car brand now associated with Elon Musk. However, he rates as one of the scientific greats due to his prolific output of ideas and inventions. The electricity system we rely on today, from power generation to transmission, exists largely thanks to his innovations.
Who is the man?
A Croatian colleague told me that both Croatia and Serbia lay claim to Tesla. Ethnically, he was Serbian, although his birthplace was in modern day Croatia.
His mother, with no formal education, made tools and mechanical appliances. She was also able to memorise Serbian epic poetry. Tesla credits his mother with aspects of his creativity.
His early life
Tesla certainly travelled extensively, initially studying in Graz and Prague, then leaving to take up employment in Budapest due to lack of funds. This was to be a problem that plagued him throughout his life.
Tesla’s clear talent led to employment progression. He had for some time been considering the complement to an existing generator which produced alternating current (AC) — the AC motor. Most of us are familiar with AC mains at 50Hz (UK and Europe) or 60Hz (USA), but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this was a revolutionary idea. To use that phrase, ‘thinking outside the box’, that is what Tesla was doing – literally – the box being direct current (DC) systems, the type of current available from a battery.
In a similar manner to those associated with other geniuses, notably Newton and perhaps Einstein, the realisation of a viable form of the AC motor came at a random moment in a flash of inspiration, and in detailed form. Was this hereditary on his mother’s side, or is it characteristic of the mental workings of genius?
At this point, the Budapest employment ceased with the sale of the company, and Tesla moved to Paris, with a position at the French arm of Thomas Edison’s company. This was the start of a long association with Edison — the juxtaposition of the savvy businessman with the brilliant but naïve scientist and engineer.
Their relationship later deteriorated, the animosity stemming from Tesla’s view that Edison cheated him out of bonuses and culminating in the Nobel Prize debacle in 1915. Accounts of this vary, however, and neither party received the prize.
And then to America
The Edison connection would lead to Tesla to emigrate to New York in 1884, when at this stage the trust level was high. Tesla was hoping that Edison would help finance his AC product ideas, but Edison was wedded to DC. These were the early days of electrical generation and transmission and there was a bit of a ‘VHS/Betamax’ fight between proponents of DC systems and AC systems.
George Westinghouse was, like Edison, a businessman, but with a burgeoning AC system for which he needed an AC motor. Through a series of events, the connection between Westinghouse and Tesla materialised.
A bit of tech here …
To understand why Tesla’s work with AC power was so revolutionary, it helps to grasp some basic principles of electricity. Power – in most cases – is simply the product of voltage and current. All cables lose some power as current flows through them, and the more current there is, the greater the loss. To reduce this, electricity is transmitted at high voltage and low current.
Voltage and current conversion are implemented using the transformer — an AC component, which enables transmission at much lower losses over distance than DC by using high voltage. When Tesla moved to work with Westinghouse, he was able to develop what is called ‘polyphase systems’ – a more efficient and reliable way to generate, transmit and use electricity using AC generators and AC motors. He thus found himself on the winning side of electricity transmission – which laid the foundation for the modern electrical grid – and he made a fortune.
Crazy ideas
Some of his other ideas were, by today’s standards, bizarre. He had this idea that he could transmit power wirelessly, using planet earth as a resonant system. But he ran out of money.
As well as various locations in New York, he maintained a site in Colorado Springs. Here he conducted experiments using the Tesla coil, a resonant transformer circuit. With this device, he generated tremendous voltages. Take a look at some of the musical Tesla coils on YouTube.
So, what happened to him?
Throughout his career, while Tesla understood he needed funds to pursue his ideas, he had little interest in money per se — hence his wildly oscillating pecuniary fortunes.
In later life he lived in a succession of hotels, punctuated by evictions due to non-payment of bills. His interests also turned rather dark, becoming preoccupied with eugenics which has associations with the idea of creating a “master race” – a set of ideas now associated with the far right, such as Hitler.
Despite his financial struggles, Tesla continued to generate new ideas and inventions, lodging patents well into his later years. He died alone in a New York hotel room in 1943, largely forgotten by the public, though his contributions to science and engineering would later be widely recognised.
There is a rather nice, if melancholy and elegiac, song by The Handsome Family (the American Gothic musicians, Brett and Rennie Sparks) which documents his tragic demise. It is called Tesla’s Hotel Room, from their album Last Days of Wonder — worth a listen.
In the end, Nikola Tesla achieved recognition in a better form than a knighthood or elevation to the House of Lords. He is up there with Ohm, Volta, Faraday, Ampère and Watt — he has a unit named after him. The Système Internationale (SI) unit for magnetic flux density is the tesla — so there!
Acknowledgements: (1) Wikipedia (2) The Franklin Institute
