Nikola Tesla is a born inventor, he is adept at it from an early age. Later on, the originally Serb will make important contributions to our current electricity grid. But he also works on radio communication and wireless energy transfer. Tesla is often portrayed as an almost mythical figure, a legend. You could almost wonder if this man really existed…
One calls him one of the greatest geniuses of all time, the other prefers to label him as crazy. It is almost inevitable that Nikola Tesla must have been both. Because how can you not call someone a genius if he invented the modern electric motor and the basis of our current power supply? When he put the first construction drawing of the FM radio on paper. Built the first hydroelectric power station, took one of the first X-rays, reportedly spoke eight languages, remembered books, and first thought out almost all of his inventions completely in his head.
Nevertheless, the Serbian-American inventor had an unstable personality. He regularly suffered from nervous breakdowns and had a fear of contamination, hated jewelry, had a strange obsession with the number three and liked to talk to pigeons.
But despite its – to say the least – “quirks,” Tesla managed to get hold of hundreds of patents. Kennislink interviews this eccentric, whose work has been somewhat forgotten, but who has regained popularity in recent years due to many appearances in popular culture.
Mr. Tesla, inventing already ran in the family?
“Yes, it was my mother, Đuka Tesla, to whom I owe a lot. She herself was very handy and creative in making household appliances, even though she had no training at all.”
“If she hadn't lived so secluded from the modern world, she could have been a brilliant inventor. She was tireless and had an almost photographic memory. I am sure I got all my gifts from her.”
Do you remember much of your childhood?
“As soon as I could think I started building and inventing things. I can remember building a water wheel when I was five and dreaming about the possibility of extracting energy from Niagara Falls. Of course I succeeded, some 35 years later.”
“I was drawn to physics and mathematics from an early age, only my father wanted me to become a priest at all costs. It was only when he saw what grades I was getting and the teachers asked him about it, did my father become convinced that there was a career for me as an engineer.”
But you didn't start inventing right away?
“I started my career at 25 e in Europe, initially as an electrical engineer with a telephone company in Budapest. But inventing it was something I couldn't stop. The principle of the induction motor suddenly popped into my head during a walk in the park. I immediately drew it out for a friend with a stick in the sand. Less than a year later, I moved to Paris to work for the Continental Edison Company, of the miser Thomas Edison. I was busy improving alternators. In the meantime, I was also working on my own electric motor.”
In the end, your partnership with Edison came to an end. Why?
“When I moved to the United States in 1884, I was able to work for Edison there. He made me do too simple jobs at first. But soon I was able to work my way up to much harder and more important problems.”
“One of my tasks was to redesign the generators they used there. They were designed to make direct current, and of course that was a problem! At one point I told Edison to switch to the much more convenient AC power.”
“He seemed to like the idea and offered me a whopping $50,000 if I could get it done. Of course I did, but when I asked for my reward he laughed and offered me a ten dollar a week raise… I immediately stopped working for that fool.”
Why is alternating current actually better than direct current?
“Well, do I still have to explain that now? The whole world is now using it! The most important point is that you can easily transport alternating current over great distances, because the voltage can easily be increased with a transformer. This is not possible with direct current, where the voltage always remains low and huge losses occur during transport.”
“It cannot be otherwise than Edison must have seen those advantages too; only he had built up his electricity empire on direct current. He clung to DC and did everything in his power to give AC a bad name. Ultimately, it must be the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 that delivered the death blow for DC. Although Edison unveiled an eight-foot-tall light bulb at the top of a pavilion that ran on direct current, the rest of the thousands of lamps on the property ran on alternating current. The public was introduced to this superior technique on a large scale for the first time.”
Why did you move to Colorado Springs a few years later?
“I left New York in 1899 for much quieter Colorado because I needed more space for my experiments and inventions. I wanted to make progress, especially in the field of wireless energy transfer. In Colorado Springs, I built a large Tesla coil in my lab, which enabled me to generate massive electrical discharges. They were visible and audible from a great distance. Well, the neighbors didn't really bother me, but for me it was certainly no spielerei. Everyone was impressed when I showed that I could light bulbs wirelessly for miles around. That same year I showed that I could light 200 light bulbs at a distance of 40 kilometers!”
Around that time you enjoyed the fame of a superstar. Did you welcome the almost mythical status you acquired then and seem to have now?
“I can't say that I found it annoying, but it was mainly a distraction from my work. I loved just being busy with my inventions; all alone. Nothing beats the joy of an inventor seeing that something he has devised works. That's also the reason I've never had a woman in my life. After all, that would only distract from the work I was doing day and night. Unfortunately, inventors often lead a lonely existence…”
One of your last major projects was the construction of the Wardenclyffe Tower, quite a megalomaniac project isn't it?
“With this I could have delivered an almost infinite amount of energy to any place on the earth! Ships could have sailed, industries could have run, all because of this 50-foot tower that I had built on Long Island from 1901. Much to my regret, the project was never completed because my financier John Morgan turned off the money tap. He did not believe that we could have made money with this concept. I think it would have changed the world. But if you don't believe that wireless power transfer was efficient enough to be a success, I think it's time to break this down and devote my brain to better things.”
1/10
Out and about with Turing or Tesla
What would it be like to spend the day talking to famous inventors like Nikola Tesla or Alan Turing? That's what we tried to imagine at Kennislink. We pretended we could, a series of fictitious interviews. In these conversations we tried not only to learn everything about inventions, but also to penetrate into their private lives. In this slideshow you will meet eight famous inventors.
1/10
The self-made woman
The woman in our list of famous inventors initially developed her device to lend a helping hand. But especially hotels and medical institutions saw the usefulness of the fast and boiling hot washing machine. Kennislink spoke to Ms Cochrane about her difficult road to success and the inspiration for her invention.
Read the interview with Josephine Cochrane here
1/10
The thoughtful
Alexander Graham Bell was born with the fascination for sound. His father and grandfather were speech teachers who taught the deaf to speak, and Bell was involved in this throughout his life. In his spare time, this workaholic worked on several inventions. Kennislink talked to him about his most important invention:the telephone. A phone interview, of course. “People remember me because of the telephone, but my real mission may have been to teach the deaf to speak.”
Read the interview with Alexander Graham Bell here
1/10
The outcast
Today, many see him as the “father of the computer.” In 1936, British mathematician Alan Turing devised a number of important concepts that formed the basis for the computer revolution. But the brilliant Turing also struggled with his homosexuality at a time when it was all but accepted. “Into the cell or chemical castration, what would you have done?”
Read the interview with Alan Turing here
1/10
The loner
The stubborn go-getter Theodore Maiman manufactured the first laser in 1960 thanks to a special combination of knowledge, skill and character. He was a real inventor, who was not taken quite seriously by the scientific establishment. And the press didn't like his 'death ray' at first either. Maiman blows off steam in this fictional interview. “I don't get discouraged easily.”
Read the interview with Theodore Maiman
1/10
The troublemaker
A genius, genius inventor, provocateur and a racist. Few inventors of the twentieth century are as controversial as the American physicist William Shockley. Partly thanks to his work, the transistor was created, which laid the foundation for today's computers. “I've loved provoking all my life.”
Read the interview with William Shockley
1/10
The entrepreneur
Sometime between 1440 and 1450, the German Johannes Gutenberg first put individual metal letters together in order to be able to print texts faster than ever. The technology soon caused a true revolution. But Gutenberg's life had a lot of setbacks. “Perhaps I am more of a creative entrepreneur looking for opportunities than a real inventor.”
Read the interview with Johannes Gutenberg
1/10
The modest
He is the discoverer of penicillin, a bactericidal substance that could suddenly cure all kinds of infectious diseases. But he himself never understood that such a fuss was made about it. Kennislink held a fictional interview with the modest Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming. "A contamination in my experiment eventually earned me the Nobel Prize."
Read the interview with Alexander Fleming here
1/10
The Eccentric
Nikola Tesla is a born inventor, he is adept at it from an early age. Later on, the originally Serb will provide important amounts for our current electricity grid. But he also works on radio communication and wireless energy transfer. Tesla is often portrayed as an almost mythical figure, a legend. Kennislink finds out what he really was like. “I just loved working on my inventions, all by myself.”
Read the interview with Nikola Tesla
1/10
Other fictional interviews
Handsome minds over a cup of coffeeBrilliant biologists over a drink
This article is part of the 'Fraud Inventors Spoken' series, in which eight famous inventors are 'fictionally interviewed'.