Nikola Tesla

Life and legacy

Nikola Tesla was born in the village of Smiljan in the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire (present-day Croatia) to a Serbian Orthodox family. His father was a priest, and his mother, though unschooled, possessed a remarkable gift for building mechanical devices and memorizing epic poetry. Tesla studied engineering in Graz and Prague before working for the Continental Edison Company in Paris. In 1884, he emigrated to the United States with little more than a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison.

Tesla briefly worked for Edison but the two men clashed over the merits of direct current (DC) versus alternating current (AC). Edison championed DC, which could only transmit power over short distances. Tesla's AC system, using rotating magnetic fields and polyphase currents, could transmit electricity over vast distances with far less loss. Backed by industrialist George Westinghouse, Tesla's AC system won the contract to harness the power of Niagara Falls in 1893, and the "War of Currents" was effectively decided in Tesla's favor. The modern electrical grid is built on Tesla's AC system.

Tesla was a prolific inventor who held over 300 patents worldwide. He made fundamental contributions to the development of the induction motor, the Tesla coil (a resonant transformer still used in radio technology), fluorescent lighting, and wireless energy transmission. His dramatic public demonstrations - producing artificial lightning bolts and lighting lamps wirelessly - made him one of the most famous scientists in America. He also conducted pioneering work on radio transmission, and in 1943 the U.S. Supreme Court posthumously upheld Tesla's radio patent priority over Guglielmo Marconi.

Tesla's later years were marked by increasing eccentricity and financial ruin. He lived alone in a series of New York hotels, feeding pigeons in Bryant Park and claiming to have conceived inventions - a particle beam weapon, wireless energy for the entire globe - that were never realized. He died penniless in the New Yorker Hotel on January 7, 1943. Though largely forgotten for decades, Tesla has been recognized as one of the most important inventors in history. The SI unit of magnetic flux density, the tesla, bears his name.

Key accomplishments

• Developed the alternating current (AC) electrical system that powers the modern world
• Designed the hydroelectric power system at Niagara Falls (1893), proving AC's viability
• Invented the Tesla coil, the induction motor, and pioneered radio technology
• Held over 300 patents worldwide across electrical and mechanical engineering
• The SI unit of magnetic flux density (the tesla) was named in his honor

Timeline

The dated lines from the record above, in order, with Nikola Tesla's age worked out from the birth year (1856).

1. 1856Born July 10, 1856, Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern Croatia)
2. 1893Designed the hydroelectric power system at Niagara Falls (1893), proving AC's viability (around age 37)
3. 1943Died January 7, 1943, New York City

Quotes

The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.

Interview with Politika newspaper, Belgrade, 1927

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments.

Interview in Politika (April 1927)

Related figures

Where Nikola Tesla sits in the atlas

• Era: Industrial & Victorian Age (~1800-1910), one of 18 figures filed there
• Born 1856, the 109th of 125 figures in the full list by birth year.
• City: New York City

Contemporaries

34 other figures in the atlas were alive at some point during Nikola Tesla's lifetime (1856-1943). These are the longest overlaps.

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): both alive for 83 years, 1856 to 1939
• Thomas Edison (1847-1931): both alive for 75 years, 1856 to 1931
• Winston Churchill (1874-1965): both alive for 69 years, 1874 to 1943
• Marie Curie (1867-1934): both alive for 67 years, 1867 to 1934
• Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922): both alive for 66 years, 1856 to 1922
• Albert Einstein (1879-1955): both alive for 64 years, 1879 to 1943
• Alexander Fleming (1881-1955): both alive for 62 years, 1881 to 1943
• Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): both alive for 62 years, 1881 to 1943

Others connected with the same city

Figures not already listed on this page, nearest in time first.

More from Industrial & Victorian Age

Figures from the same era born closest in time to Nikola Tesla.

• Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), The Mirror of the Russian Soul
• Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), The Father of Microbiology
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), The Psychologist of the Soul
• Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), The Lady with the Lamp
• Queen Victoria (1819-1901), The Grandmother of Europe
• Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), The Lion of Abolition