Running head: TESLA, THE GREAT INVENTOR 1

Tesla, The Great Inventor

Stacy Symons

Salt Lake Community College

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Tesla, The Great Inventor

Imagine our world today. Imagine all the comforts from technology we enjoy every day.

We have radio, remote control systems, and efficient motors. We have power plants than run off

of alternating current, hydroelectric dams, and geothermal stations. We light our cities, we heat

our homes, we take advantage of a constant stream of electricity. For these, and many more,

conveniences, we have Nikola Tesla to thank. His life was devoted to invention, for us to use

“throughout the world to lighten the burden of mankind and…to bring pleasure to people in all

parts of the earth. (C. Dommermuth-Costa, Nikola Tesla, A Spark of Genius, pg. 131)”

Nikola Tesla was born in a small village in Croatia, at midnight on July 10, 1856.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, there was a simultaneous electrical storm, throwing a bolt of

lightning at his precise moment of birth. The midwife, who helped Tesla’s mother birth her son,

exclaimed, “Your new son is a child of the storm.” Mrs. Tesla corrected her, “No, he is a child of

light!” Nikola’s father, Milutin, an Orthodox priest, was a well-educated man. He instilled in

young Nikola a love of poetry and an inquiring mind. Djuka, Nikola’s mother, was an

inspiration for learning and growth. Though formally uneducated, she taught herself to read and

made several inventions of her own to help her with managing the family farm and raising her

five children. Djuka’s father and grandfather also had several inventions credited to their name.

His family genes and upbringing were influential in his inventive talent. One of the first

inventions Tesla came up with was when he was a child. He invented a type of motor, powered

by June bugs, commonly considered pests in Croatia. From his very formative years, Tesla

believed in the power to harness natural phenomena to power our world.

The nineteenth century was filled with many advancements in electricity. Alessandro

Volta, an Italian physicist and chemist, created the first electric battery and pioneered the field of
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electrochemistry. Michael Faraday, a British physicist and chemist, first discovered the existence

of electrical current in 1831. He was also created the first electric motor and credited with the

first discovery of direct current. In 1832, French instrument maker Hippolyte Pixii created the

first dynamo, or electric motor. Thomas Edison made his first demonstration of his incandescent

light bulb in 1879. All of these advances and inventions and advancements were great. Towards

the end of the century, Nikola Tesla presented himself on the scene with a more efficient design

for an alternating current motor and the tesla coil. Many of his predecessors paved the way for

future knowledge and understanding. Tesla understood and assimilated all of it to create a better

understanding of how the world works and how to harness its natural resources.

Thomas Edison is well known for first patenting electrical generators that run off direct

current and producing the first incandescent light bulb. Direct Current has its drawbacks,

however. Direct current is unidirectional, produces low voltage, and loses its ability to light

anything after two kilometers. To make this technology feasible, towns and cities would need to

have power stations at least every mile and use copper lines as thick as a forearm. Tesla’s

alternating current generators, on the other hand, switched the direction of the current 60 times

per second and generates high voltage, maintaining its strength over long distances. The use of

transformers safely steps down the voltage for residential use in the home. Alternating current is

much more efficient and economical. Ever the businessman, Edison began a campaign against

his competitor, initiating a “war of currents.” He claimed that alternating current was more

dangerous. He conducted public executions of small animals and convinced a New York prison

to use alternating current in its electric chair executions. The war culminated in a bid to power

the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Edison’s company, Edison General Electric, originally put in

a bid for about $1 million. Seeing an opportunity for great advertisement and an impressive
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demonstration of the utility of alternating current, the Westinghouse Company, which owned the

patent to Tesla’s alternating current motor, placed a bid for about half that amount. The war

wasn’t over, however. In a last-ditch attempt to undercut the AC system, the Edison General

Electric Company refused to allow Westinghouse and Tesla the use of their lightbulbs. Within

two weeks, Tesla was able to invent his own lightbulb for use at the fair. Additionally, to prove

his system was safe, Tesla performed various experiments with his alternating current. He was

able to spin a magnetic egg on a table above his polyphase system. Using his Tesla coil and

wearing cork soled shoes, he transmitted electricity through his body, with bolts of light

emanating as if he was on fire. He even demonstrated the first application of radio transmission

at the fair. This exposition at the Chicago World’s Fair was a major success.

Tesla was always wanting to create more opportunities for better and efficient use of

natural phenomena. Before even coming to America, he had a vision on how he was to harness

the natural power of Niagara Falls. He had already, in his mind, developed a more efficient

motor that ran on alternating current. He knew that, in time, he would be able to create a large

turbine that would run off the potential and kinetic energy of the falls. That time came after

winning the War of Currents. The Westinghouse Company gained the contract to utilize the

natural power of the falls to light the cities of Buffalo and New York City using four large

generators.

Tesla was a visionary man. Many of his ideas were ahead of his time. He is credited

with the first x-ray image, originally referred to as a “shadowgraph.” He envisioned a tower to

transmit free energy not only locally but globally, to all impoverished cities of the world. His

dream was to ease the suffering of the world. Unfortunately, Tesla was not a businessman as

much as he was an inventor. At one time in his life, after selling his patents to Westinghouse for
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his polyphase alternating current system, he was a millionaire. He was due royalties for every

horse power sold by Westinghouse. The company came under hard times years later, though.

Mr. Westinghouse approached Tesla with his dilemma. Reflecting on their friendship and how

Mr. Westinghouse was the first one to believe and support him, Tesla tore up the contract. Mr.

Westinghouse ensured his friend that he would take his AC system to the world, which he did.

This, however, resulted in a life long struggle to finance his ideas and inventions thereafter.

Unfortunately, this stunted his abilities to further proliferate his creativity.

Tesla was an ingenious, visionary man. Blessed with wisdom and insight beyond his

time, he gave us practical tools to harness electricity to light our homes and cities. His ideas and

inventions ushered in an electrical era, to which we owe our many conveniences. Determined in

the face of doubt and financial hardship, Tesla lit the world.
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References

Carlson, B. (2013). Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Munson, R. (2018). Tesla: Inventor of the Modern. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Dommermoth-Costa, C. (1994) Tesla: A Spark of Genius. New York: Lerner Publications

Company