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Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943), was a Serbian inventor , electrical engineer , mechanical engineer , and physicist . He is best known for his part in the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. He was born in the village of Smiljan, in the part of former Austria-Hungary that is now Croatia . He later became an American citizen.

Tesla got his first job in Budapest in 1882, working at a telephone company . A few years later, he moved to the United States. His best-known invention was an electric motor that could run well on AC power. Tesla died of coronary thrombosis (a blood clot in his heart) in a hotel room in Manhattan , New York City , on January 7, 1943.

Nikola Tesla

Serbian American scientist Nikola Tesla invented the Tesla coil and alternating-current (AC) electricity, in addition to discovering the rotating magnetic field.

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Engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla designed the alternating-current (AC) electric system, which is the predominant electrical system used across the world today. He also created the “Tesla coil” that is still used in radio technology. Born in modern-day Croatia, Tesla immigrated to the United States in 1884 and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways. The Serbian American sold several patent rights, including those to his AC machinery, to George Westinghouse . Tesla died at age 86 in January 1943, but his legacy lives on through his inventions and the electric car company Tesla that’s named in his honor.

FULL NAME: Nikola Tesla BORN: July 10, 1856 DIED: January 7, 1943 BIRTHPLACE: Smiljan, Croatia ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the Austrian Empire town of Smiljan that is now part of Croatia.

He was one of five children, including siblings Dane, Angelina, Milka, and Marica. Nikola’s interest in electrical invention was spurred by his mother, Djuka Mandic, who invented small household appliances in her spare time while her son was growing up.

Tesla’s father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian orthodox priest and a writer, and he pushed for his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola’s interests lay squarely in the sciences.

Tesla received quite a bit of education. He studied at the Realschule, Karlstadt (later renamed the Johann-Rudolph-Glauber Realschule Karlstadt) in Germany; the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria; and the University of Prague during the 1870s.

After university, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, where for a time he worked at the Central Telephone Exchange. It was while in Budapest that the idea for the induction motor first came to Tesla, but after several years of trying to gain interest in his invention, at age 28, Tesla decided to leave Europe for America.

In 1884, Tesla arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction to famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison , whose DC-based electrical works were fast becoming the standard in the country. Edison hired Tesla, and the two men were soon working tirelessly alongside each other, making improvements to Edison’s inventions.

Several months later, the two parted ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship , attributed by historians to their incredibly different personalities. While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was commercially out-of-touch and somewhat vulnerable. Their feud would continue to affect Tesla’s career.

In 1885, Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company and was tasked by his investors to develop improved arc lighting. After successfully doing so, however, Tesla was forced out of the venture and, for a time, had to work as a manual laborer in order to survive. His luck changed two years later when he received funding for his new Tesla Electric Company.

Throughout his career, Tesla discovered, designed, and developed ideas for a number of important inventions—most of which were officially patented by other inventors—including dynamos (electrical generators similar to batteries) and the induction motor.

He was also a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology, remote control, and the rotating magnetic field—the basis of most AC machinery. Tesla is most well-known for his contributions in AC electricity and for the Tesla coil.

AC Electrical System

Tesla designed the alternating-current (AC) electrical system, which quickly became the preeminent power system of the 20 th century and has remained the worldwide standard ever since. In 1887, Tesla found funding for his new Tesla Electric Company, and by the end of the year, he had successfully filed several patents for AC-based inventions.

Tesla’s AC system soon caught the attention of American engineer and businessman George Westinghouse , who was seeking a solution to supplying the nation with long-distance power. Convinced that Tesla’s inventions would help him achieve this, in 1888, he purchased his patents for $60,000 in cash and stock in the Westinghouse Corporation.

As interest in an AC system grew, Tesla and Westinghouse were put in direct competition with Thomas Edison , who was intent on selling his direct-current (DC) system to the nation. A negative press campaign was soon waged by Edison, in an attempt to undermine interest in AC power.

Unfortunately for Edison, the Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and Tesla conducted demonstrations of his AC system there.

Hydroelectric Power Plant

In 1895, Tesla designed what was among the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States, at Niagara Falls. The following year, it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York—a feat that was highly publicized throughout the world and helped further AC electricity’s path to becoming the world’s power system.

In the late 19 th century, Tesla patented the Tesla coil, which laid the foundation for wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today. The heart of an electrical circuit, the Tesla coil is an inductor used in many early radio transmission antennas.

The coil works with a capacitor to resonate current and voltage from a power source across the circuit. Tesla used his coil to study fluorescence, x-rays, radio, wireless power, and electromagnetism in the earth and its atmosphere.

Wireless Power and Wardenclyffe Tower

Having become obsessed with the wireless transmission of energy, around 1900, Tesla set to work on his boldest project yet: to build a global, wireless communication system transmitted through a large electrical tower that would enable information sharing and provide free energy throughout the world.

With funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan , Tesla began work on the free energy project in earnest in 1901. He designed and built a lab with a power plant and a massive transmission tower on a site on Long Island, New York, that became known as Wardenclyffe.

However, doubts arose among his investors about the plausibility of Tesla’s system. As his rival, Guglielmo Marconi —with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison —continued to make great advances with his own radio technologies, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project.

The Wardenclyffe staff was laid off in 1906, and by 1915, the site had fallen into foreclosure. Two years later, Tesla declared bankruptcy, and the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap to help pay the debts he had accrued.

After suffering a nervous breakdown following the closure of his wireless power project, Tesla eventually returned to work, primarily as a consultant. But as time went on, his ideas became progressively more outlandish and impractical. He grew increasingly eccentric, devoting much of his time to the care of wild pigeons in the parks of New York City . Tesla even drew the attention of the FBI with his talk of building a powerful “death ray,” which had received some interest from the Soviet Union during World War II.

Poor and reclusive, Tesla died of coronary thrombosis on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86 in New York City, where he had lived for nearly 60 years.

The legacy of Tesla’s work lives on to this day. 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 40 th Street and 6 th Avenue.

Several movies have highlighted Tesla’s life and famous works, most notably:

• The Secret of Nikola Tesla , a 1980 biographical film starring Orson Welles as J. P. Morgan .
• Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World , a 1994 documentary produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia.
• The Prestige , a 2006 fictional film about two magicians directed by Christopher Nolan , with rock star David Bowie portraying Tesla.

In 2003, a group of engineers founded Tesla Motors, a car company named after Tesla dedicated to building the first fully electric-powered car. Entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk contributed over $30 million to Tesla in 2004 and serves as the company’s co-founder and CEO.

Tesla Motors unveiled its first electric car, the Roadster, in 2008. A high-performance sports vehicle, the Roadster helped changed the perception of what electric cars could be. In 2014, Tesla launched the Model S, a lower-priced model that, in 2017, set the MotorTrend world record for 0 to 60 miles per hour acceleration at 2.28 seconds. The company’s designs showed that an electric car could have the same performance as gasoline-powered sports car brands like Porsche and Lamborghini.

Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe

Since Tesla’s original forfeiture of his free energy project, ownership of the Wardenclyffe property has passed through numerous hands. Several attempts have been made to preserve it, but efforts to declare it a national historic site failed in 1967, 1976, and 1994.

Then, in 2008, a group called the Tesla Science Center (TSC) was formed with the intention of purchasing the property and turning it into a museum dedicated to the inventor’s work. In 2009, the Wardenclyffe site went on the market for nearly $1.6 million, and for the next several years, the TSC worked diligently to raise funds for its purchase. In 2012, public interest in the project peaked when Matthew Inman of TheOatmeal.com collaborated with the TSC in an Internet fundraising effort, ultimately receiving enough contributions to acquire the site in May 2013.

Wardenclyffe Tower finally joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. Work on its restoration is still in progress. A $20 million redevelopment broke ground in April 2023, but those efforts were complicated by large fire that November. The site is closed to the public “for the foreseeable future” for reasons of safety and preservation, according to the Tesla Science Center.

• Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
• I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.
• The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

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Nikola Tesla

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 13, 2020 | Original: November 9, 2009

Serbian-American engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. Though he was famous and respected, he was never able to translate his copious inventions into long-term financial success—unlike his early employer and chief rival, Thomas Edison.

Nikola Tesla’s Early Years

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church and his mother managed the family’s farm. In 1863 Tesla’s brother Daniel was killed in a riding accident. The shock of the loss unsettled the 7-year-old Tesla, who reported seeing visions—the first signs of his lifelong mental illnesses.

Did you know? During the 1890s Mark Twain struck up a friendship with inventor Nikola Tesla. Twain often visited him in his lab, where in 1894 Tesla photographed the great American writer in one of the first pictures ever lit by phosphorescent light.

Tesla studied math and physics at the Technical University of Graz and philosophy at the University of Prague. In 1882, while on a walk, he came up with the idea for a brushless AC motor, making the first sketches of its rotating electromagnets in the sand of the path. Later that year he moved to Paris and got a job repairing direct current (DC) power plants with the Continental Edison Company. Two years later he immigrated to the United States.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and was hired as an engineer at Thomas Edison’s Manhattan headquarters. He worked there for a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. At one point Edison told Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Tesla quit soon after.

Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse

After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own Tesla Electric Light Company and a stint digging ditches for $2 a day, Tesla found backers to support his research into alternating current. In 1887 and 1888 he was granted more than 30 patents for his inventions and invited to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on his work. His lecture caught the attention of George Westinghouse, the inventor who had launched the first AC power system near Boston and was Edison’s major competitor in the “Battle of the Currents.”

Westinghouse hired Tesla, licensed the patents for his AC motor and gave him his own lab. In 1890 Edison arranged for a convicted New York murderer to be put to death in an AC-powered electric chair—a stunt designed to show how dangerous the Westinghouse standard could be.

Buoyed by Westinghouse’s royalties, Tesla struck out on his own again. But Westinghouse was soon forced by his backers to renegotiate their contract, with Tesla relinquishing his royalty rights.

In the 1890s Tesla invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights and the high-voltage transformer known as the Tesla coil. He also experimented with X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication two years before Guglielmo Marconi and piloted a radio-controlled boat around a pool in Madison Square Garden. Together, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls , creating the first modern power station.

Nikola Tesla’s Failures, Death and Legacy

In 1895 Tesla’s New York lab burned, destroying years’ worth of notes and equipment. Tesla relocated to Colorado Springs for two years, returning to New York in 1900. He secured backing from financier J.P. Morgan and began building a global communications network centered on a giant tower at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island. But funds ran out and Morgan balked at Tesla’s grandiose schemes.

Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel, working on new inventions even as his energy and mental health faded. His obsession with the number three and fastidious washing were dismissed as the eccentricities of genius. He spent his final years feeding—and, he claimed, communicating with—the city’s pigeons.

Tesla died in his room on January 7, 1943. Later that year the U.S. Supreme Court voided four of Marconi’s key patents, belatedly acknowledging Tesla’s innovations in radio. The AC system he championed and improved remains the global standard for power transmission.

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Nikola Tesla Facts & Worksheets

Nikola tesla was a serbian-american engineer and physicist who made several breakthroughs regarding the production, transmission, and application of electricity or electric power., search for worksheets, download the nikola tesla facts & worksheets.

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Table of Contents

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer and physicist who made several breakthroughs regarding the production, transmission, and application of electricity or electric power. Tesla was known as the man who invented the first alternating current (AC) motor. Tesla developed a technology that transmits and generates AC. He also invented the “Tesla Coil,” an invention that is still widely used in radio technology.

See the fact file below for more information on the Nikola Tesla or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Nikola Tesla worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

• Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia .
• Nikola Tesla had four siblings named Dane, Angelina, Milka, and Marica.
• His mother was Djuka Mandic. She was believed to help spark Tesla’s interest in electrical invention.
• Djuka invented small household appliances in her spare time as Nikola grew up.
• His father was named Milutin Tesla, who was a Serbian orthodox priest and a writer.
• Milutin Tesla attempted to push Nikola to become a priest like him, but Nikola was only interested in science.
• Tesla attended primary school in Smiljan in 1861.
• There, he studied German, arithmetic, and religion.
• He attended middle school Gospíc, Lika, when his family moved in 1862.
• Tesla moved away north to Karlovac in 1870.
• There, he attended high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium. It was a school within the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier.
• Before finishing high school in 1873, Tesla had already developed a curiosity in electricity.
• He noted that this was a “mysterious phenomena” and he wanted to “know more of this wonderful force.”
• Unbelievably, Tesla was able to compute integral calculus in his head, and his professors even accused him of cheating.
• Tesla contracted cholera in 1873.
• Out of worry, his father promised to send him to the best engineering school if he recovered.
• Tesla ran away to the southeast of Lika to Tomingaj to avoid being compulsively enlisted in the national army.
• In the mountains, he miraculously recovered from his illness, and was greatly helped by reading Mark Twain’s work.
• In 1875, Tesla enrolled at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria , on a Military Frontier scholarship.
• His father died in 1879.
• In 1880, his two uncles put up enough money for him to pursue his studies.
• He left Gospíc for Prague to supposedly study.
• However, he arrived too late to enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University.

BUDAPEST TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

• Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1881.
• He moved to Budapest in order to work under Tivadar Puskás at a telegraph company named the Budapest Telephone Exchange.
• The company at that time was not functional and under construction.
• Tesla realized this and decided to work as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead.
• The Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional within a few months.
• After that, Tesla was appointed in the chief electrician position.
• Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station during his stay of employment.
• The company claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier, which was never patented nor publicly described.

TESLA VS. EDISON

• Tesla arrived in the United States in 1884.
• Tesla arrived in America with sufficient wealth.
• He also carried a letter of introduction to the famous inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison .
• Thomas Edison was known for DC-based electrical works that were fast becoming the standard in the country.
• Edison hired Tesla to work beside him with the goal to further improve his inventions.
• Several months later, Edison and Tesla parted ways due to a conflict between business and scientific pursuit.
• Historians noted that Edison and Tesla possessed incredibly different personalities.
• Thomas Edison was focused on making a business out of his inventions.
• Nikola Tesla was uniquely out-of-touch with material things, and more focused on the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
• Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company in 1885.
• Tesla was ordered by his investors to develop improved arc lighting.
• Tesla succeeded in developing his investor’s request.
• However, Tesla was forced out of the venture and, for a time, had to work as a manual laborer in order to survive.
• Two years later, he became lucky and once again received funding for his new Tesla Electric Company.

DEATH & LEGACY

• Nikola Tesla was poor and reclusive when he suffered to his death.
• He died of a coronary thrombosis on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86 in New York City , where he had lived for nearly 60 years.
• Tesla remained a respected figure in science and in the field of physics. The legacy of his work left behind lives on to this day.
• 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.

Nikola Tesla Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Nikola Tesla across 22 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Nikola Tesla worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Nikola Tesla who was a Serbian-American engineer and physicist who made several breakthroughs regarding the production, transmission, and application of electricity or electric power. Tesla was known as the man who invented the first alternating current (AC) motor. Tesla developed a technology that transmits and generates AC. He also invented the “Tesla Coil,” an invention that is still widely used in radio technology.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

• Nikola Tesla Facts
• Tesla’s Family
• Life Summary
• Correct Sequence
• Tesla Dictionary
• Tesla or False
• Tesla vs. Edison
• Invention Review
• American Inventors
• Tesla Applications
• My Science Invention

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Nikola Tesla Biography Facts for Kids Video

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                                                Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was an electrical engineer and one of the most formidable physicists in the history of science. He registered more than 300 patents and became famous for developing AC (Alternating Current), while his work was an important initial step in various developments in wireless communications, radar, X-rays, robotics and many more. He is often called one of history’s most important inventors whose discoveries were way ahead of his time and continue to influence technology today. He was born in 1856 in a town called Smiljan, now known as a part of Croatia but at that time, located within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His career as an inventor began early at the age of just 26. He started working at the Central Telegraph Office in Budapest. He is reported to have first sketched out the principles for a rotating magnetic field. This important idea is still being used in many electromechanical devices. This major achievement laid the spadework for many of his future inventions, including the alternating current motor and ultimately led him to New York City in 1884, enticed by Thomas Edison and his pioneering manufacturing company, Edison Machine Works. It is often said that Tesla was a brilliant a scientist but an equally terrible businessman. He was not able or probably not willing to see the commercial value behind his ideas.

But beyond his brilliant work, some particular sides of his life are still unspoken in the pages of history.

• He was born during a lighting storm.
• The Tesla museum was funded by a cartoon.
• He and Edison were rivals but not sworn enemies.
• He had the idea for Smartphone technology in 1901.
• Tesla suffered from insomnia and obsessive compulsive behaviours (OCD).
• He could not stand the sight of pearls. Once he refused to speak to a women wearing them.
• He had a photographic memory and a fear of germs.

Biography of Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American Inventor

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Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856–January 7, 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and futurist. As the holder of nearly 300 patents, Tesla is best known for his role in developing the modern three-phase alternating current (AC) electric power supply system and for his invention of the Tesla coil, an early advancement in the field of radio transmission.

During the 1880s, Tesla and Thomas Edison , inventor and champion of direct electrical current (DC), would become embattled in the “War of the Currents” over whether Tesla’s AC or Edison’s DC would become the standard current used in long-distance transmission of electrical power.

Fast Facts: Nikola Tesla

• Known For: Development of alternating current (AC) electrical power
• Born: July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia)
• Parents: Milutin Tesla and Đuka Tesla
• Died: January 7, 1943 in New York City, New York
• Education: Austrian Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria (1875)
• Patents: US381968A —Electro-magnetic motor, US512,340A —coil for electro-magnets
• Awards and Honors : Edison Medal (1917), Inventor’s Hall of Fame (1975)
• Notable Quote : “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

Early Life and Education

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the village of Smiljan in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia) to his Serbian father Milutin Tesla, an Eastern Orthodox priest, and his mother Đuka Tesla, who invented small household appliances and had the ability to memorize lengthy Serbian epic poems. Tesla credited his mother for his own interest in inventing and photographic memory. He had four siblings, a brother Dane, and sisters Angelina, Milka, and Marica. 

In 1870, Tesla started high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium in Karlovac, Austria. He recalled that his physics teacher’s demonstrations of electricity made him want “to know more of this wonderful force.” Able to do integral calculus in his head, Tesla completed high school in just three years, graduating in 1873.

Determined to pursue a career in engineering, Tesla enrolled at the Austrian Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria, in 1875. It was here that Tesla studied a Gramme dynamo, an electrical generator that produces direct current. Observing that the dynamo functioned like an electric motor when the direction of its current was reversed, Tesla began thinking of ways this alternating current could be used in industrial applications. Though he never graduated—as was not uncommon then—Tesla posted excellent grades and was even given a letter from the dean of the technical faculty addressed to his father stating, “Your son is a star of first rank.”

Feeling that chastity would help him focus on his career, Tesla never married or had any known romantic relationships. In her 2001 book, “ Tesla: Man Out of Time ,” biographer Margaret Cheney writes that Tesla felt himself to be unworthy of women, considering them to be superior to him in every way. Later in life, however, he publicly expressed strong dislike what he called the “new woman,” women he felt were abandoning their femininity in an attempt to dominate men.

The Path to Alternating Current

In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he gained practical experience as the chief electrician at the Central Telephone Exchange. In 1882, Tesla was hired by the Continental Edison Company in Paris where he worked in the emerging industry of installing the direct current-powered indoor incandescent lighting system patented by Thomas Edison in 1879. Impressed by Tesla’s mastery of engineering and physics, the company’s management soon had him designing improved versions of generating dynamos and motors and fixing problems at other Edison facilities throughout France and Germany.

When the manager of the Continental Edison facility in Paris was transferred back to the United States in 1884, he asked that Tesla be brought to the U.S. as well. In June 1884, Tesla emigrated to the United States and went to work at the Edison Machine Works in New York City, where Edison’s DC-based electrical lighting system was fast becoming the standard. Just six months later, Tesla quit Edison after a heated dispute over unpaid wages and bonuses. In his diary, Notebook from the Edison Machine Works: 1884-1885 , Tesla marked the end of the amicable relationship between the two great inventors. Across two pages, Tesla wrote in large letters, “Good By to the Edison Machine Works.”

By March 1885, Tesla, with the financial backing of businessmen Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail, started his own lighting utility company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. Instead of Edison’s incandescent lamp bulbs, Tesla’s company installed a DC-powered arc lighting system he had designed while working at Edison Machine Works. While Tesla’s arc light system was praised for its advanced features, his investors, Lane and Vail, had little interest in his ideas for perfecting and harnessing alternating current. In 1886, they abandoned Tesla’s company to start their own company. The move left Tesla penniless, forcing him to survive by taking electrical repair jobs and digging ditches for $2.00 per day. Of this period of hardship, Tesla would later recall, “My high education in various branches of science, mechanics, and literature seemed to me like a mockery.”

During his time of near destitution, Tesla’s resolve to prove the superiority of alternating current over Edison’s direct current grew even stronger.

Alternating Current and the Induction Motor

In April 1887, Tesla, along with his investors, Western Union telegraph superintendent Alfred S. Brown and attorney Charles F. Peck, founded the Tesla Electric Company in New York City for the purpose of developing new types of electric motors and generators.

Tesla soon developed a new type of electromagnetic induction motor that ran on alternating current. Patented in May 1888, Tesla’s motor proved to be simple, dependable, and not subject to the constant need for repairs that plagued direct current-driven motors at the time.

In July 1888, Tesla sold his patent for AC-powered motors to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owned by electrical industry pioneer George Westinghouse. In the deal, which proved financially lucrative for Tesla, Westinghouse Electric got the rights to market Tesla’s AC motor and agreed to hire Tesla as a consultant.

With Westinghouse now backing AC and Edison backing DC, the stage was set for what would become known as “The War of the Currents.”

The War of the Currents: Tesla vs. Edison

Recognizing the economic and technical superiority of alternating current to his direct current for long-distance power distribution, Edison undertook an unprecedently aggressive public relations campaign to discredit AC as posing a deadly threat to the public—a force should never allow in their homes. Edison and his associates toured the U.S. presenting grizzly public demonstrations of animals being electrocuted with AC electricity. When New York State sought a faster, “more humane” alternative to hanging for executing condemned prisoners, Edison, though once a vocal opponent of capital punishment, recommended using AC-powered electrocution. In 1890, murderer William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in a Westinghouse AC generator-powered electric chair that had been secretly designed by one of Edison’s salesmen.

Despite his best efforts, Edison failed to discredit alternating current. In 1892, Westinghouse and Edison’s new company General Electric, competed head-to-head for the contract to supply electricity to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. When Westinghouse ultimately won the contract, the fair served as a dazzling public display of Tesla’s AC system.

On the tails of their success at the World’s Fair, Tesla and Westinghouse won a historic contract to build the generators for a new hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls. In 1896, the power plant began delivering AC electricity to Buffalo, New York, 26 miles away. In his speech at the opening ceremony of the power plant, Tesla said of the accomplishment, “It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering.”

The success of the Niagara Falls power plant firmly established Tesla’s AC as the standard for the electric power industry, effectively ending the War of the Currents.

The Tesla Coil

In 1891, Tesla patented the Tesla coil, an electrical transformer circuit capable of producing high-voltage, low-current AC electricity. Though best-known today for its use in spectacular, lightening-spitting demonstrations of electricity, the Tesla coil was fundamental to the development of wireless communications. Still used in modern radio technology, the Tesla coil inductor was an essential part of many early radio transmission antennas.

Tesla would go on to use his Tesla coil in experiments with radio remote control, fluorescent lighting , x-rays , electromagnetism , and universal wireless power transmission. 

On July 30, 1891, the same year he patented his coil, the 35-year-old Tesla was sworn in as a naturalized United States citizen.

Radio Remote Control

At the 1898 Electrical Exposition in Boston’s Madison Square Gardens, Tesla demonstrated an invention he called a “telautomaton,” a three-foot-long, radio-controlled boat propelled by a small battery-powered motor and rudder. Members of the amazed crowd accused Tesla of using telepathy, a trained monkey, or pure magic to steer the boat.

Finding little consumer interest in radio-controlled devices, Tesla tried unsuccessfully to sell his “Teleautomatics” idea to the US Navy as a type of radio-controlled torpedo. However, during and after World War I (1914-1918), the militaries of many countries, including the United States incorporated it.

Wireless Power Transmission

From 1901 through 1906, Tesla spent most of his time and savings working on arguably his most ambitious, if a far-fetched, project—an electrical transmission system he believed could provide free energy and communications throughout the world without the need for wires. 

In 1901, with the backing of investors headed by financial giant J. P. Morgan, Tesla began building a power plant and massive power transmission tower at his

Wardenclyffe laboratory on Long Island, New York. Seizing on the then commonly-held belief that the Earth’s atmosphere conducted electricity, Tesla envisioned a globe-spanning network of power transmitting and receiving antennas suspended by balloons 30,000 feet (9,100 m) in the air. 

However, as Tesla’s project drug on, its sheer enormity caused his investors to doubt its plausibility and withdraw their support. With his rival, Guglielmo Marconi—enjoying the substantial financial support of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison—was making great advances in his own radio transmission developments, Tesla was forced to abandon his wireless power project in 1906.

Later Life and Death

In 1922, Tesla, deeply in debt from his failed wireless power project, was forced to leave the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City where he had been living since 1900, and move into the more-affordable St. Regis Hotel. While living at the St. Regis, Tesla took to feeding pigeons on the windowsill of his room, often bringing weak or injured birds into his room to nurse them back to health.

Of his love for one particular injured pigeon, Tesla would write, “I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.”

By late 1923, the St. Regis evicted Tesla because of unpaid bills and complaints about the smell from keeping pigeons in his room. For the next decade, he would live in a series of hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills at each. Finally, in 1934, his former employer, Westinghouse Electric Company, began paying Tesla $125 per month as a “consulting fee,” as well as paying his rent at the Hotel New Yorker.

In 1937, at age 81, Tesla was knocked to the ground by a taxicab while crossing a street a few blocks from the New Yorker. Though he suffered a severely wrenched back and broken ribs, Tesla characteristically refused extended medical attention. While he survived the incident, the full extent of his injuries, from which he never fully recovered, was never known.

On January 7, 1943, Tesla died alone in his room at the New Yorker Hotel at the age of 86. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as coronary thrombosis, a heart attack.

On January 10, 1943, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia delivered a eulogy to Tesla broadcast live over WNYC radio. On January 12, over 2,000 people attended Tesla’s funeral at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Following the funeral, Tesla’s body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley, New York.

With the United States then fully engaged in World War II ., fears that the Austrian-born inventor might have been in possession of devices or designs helpful to Nazi Germany , drove the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seize Tesla’s possessions after his death. However, the FBI reported finding nothing of interest, concluding that since about 1928, Tesla’s work had been “primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.”

In his 1944 book, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla , journalist, and historian John Joseph O’Neill wrote that Tesla claimed to have never slept more than two hours per night, “dozing” during the day instead to “recharge his batteries.” He was reported to have once spent 84 straight hours without sleep working in his laboratory.

It is believed that Tesla was granted around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions during his lifetime. While several of his patents remain unaccounted for or archived, he holds at least 278 known patents in 26 countries, mostly in the United States, Britain, and Canada. Tesla never attempted to patent many of his other inventions and ideas.

Today, Tesla’s legacy can be seen in multiple forms of popular culture, including movies, TV, video games and several genres of science fiction. For example, in the 2006 movie The Prestige, David Bowie portrays Tesla developing an amazing electro-replicating device for a magician. In Disney’s 2015 film Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, Tesla helps Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel , and Jules Verne discover a better future in an alternate dimension. And in the 2019 film The Current War, Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult, squares off with Thomas Edison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, in a history-based depiction of the war of the currents.

In 1917, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal, the most coveted electrical prize in the United States, and in 1975, Tesla was inducted into the Inventor’s Hall of Fame. In 1983, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Tesla. Most recently, in 2003, a group of investors headed by engineer and futurist Elon Musk founded Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing the first car fittingly powered totally by Tesla’s obsession—electricity.

• Carlson, W. Bernard. “Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age.” Princeton University Press, 2015.
• Cheney, Margaret. “Tesla: Man Out of Time.” Simon & Schuster, 2001.
• O'Neill, John J. (1944). “Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla.” Cosimo Classics, 2006.
• Gunderman, Richard. “The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla.” Smithsonian.com , January 5, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/extraordinary-life-nikola-tesla-180967758/ .
• Tesla, Nikola. “Notebook from the Edison Machine Works: 1884-1885.” Tesla Universe, https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/books/nikola-tesla-notebook-edison-machine-works-1884-1885 .
• “The War of the Currents: AC vs. DC Power.” U.S. Department of Energy , https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power .
• Cheney, Margaret. “Tesla: Master of Lightning.” MetroBooks, 2001.
• Dickerson, Kelly.“Wireless Electricity? How the Tesla Coil Works.” LiveScience , July 10, 2014, https://www.livescience.com/46745-how-tesla-coil-works.html .
• “About Nikola Tesla.” Tesla Society , https://web.archive.org/web/20120525133151/http:/www.teslasociety.org/about.html .
• O’Neill, John J. “Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla.” Cosimo Classics, 2006.
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Nikola Tesla Biography

If we ask you to look up the encyclopedia and find out who invented the radio or X-rays, neon lights that we use so often in the parties or the microwave that we use every day in the kitchen, you will never find anything about Nikola Tesla there. But the fact is otherwise! It was Nikola Tesla who did the main homework for the development of all the aforementioned things and the technology behind them. Yes, whether you believe it or not, the truth is that even though Tesla lived about a hundred and sixty years ago, he helped in developing technology that is used by all of us every single day. Sadly, he was never given the credit he truly deserved due to some unfortunate circumstances.

Early childhood

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. His mother was an inventor and his father was a priest. His parents wanted him to become a priest like his father, but he had a passion for studying Science. He studied Science at the University of Prague and then started working for the Central Telephone Exchange in Budapest.

Tesla and Edison

At the age of 28, Tesla decided to go to America in pursuit of his desire to create new inventions. Upon moving to the United States, Tesla started working with the famous American inventor, Thomas Edison . While working together, a disagreement occurred between Tesla and Edison over Edison’s direct current and Tesla’s alternating current. This was also known as the “war of the currents.” Edison lamps were supplied with direct current which made them weak and inefficient. The direct current could not travel for long distances. On the other hand, Tesla’s alternating current was able to travel long distances on distribution lines, first in one direction, and then in another in multiple waves.

Tesla Electric Light Company

The disagreements created a lot of bitterness between the two scientists and Tesla eventually left Edison to create his own company called the Tesla Electric Light Company. His work caught the attention of another American inventor, George Westinghouse. They joined hands and started working together to generate electricity for the nation. Edison and Tesla were now in direct competition for providing America with energy and power. In 1893, Tesla’s AC electrical system was selected over Edison’s at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was a big accomplishment for Tesla. But, as luck would have it, Westinghouse ran into financial trouble and Tesla had to walk out of the partnership by selling his patent.

Wireless Broadcasting System

A year later, in 1896, Tesla created the world’s first hydroelectric power plant, which brought power to the city of Buffalo, New York. This invention brought Tesla considerable fame and recognition for a short while. During 1899 to 1900, Tesla continued to experiment with electricity and radio frequency magnetic waves in his laboratory based in Colorado. In 1900, supported by financier J.P. Morgan, Tesla started construction of a “Wireless Broadcasting System” tower on Long Island, New York. The aim of constructing this tower was to connect telephone and telegraph services, as well as broadcast images, reports, and weather information to every corner of the world. But due to certain reasons, J.P. Morgan had to cut funding and the tower had to be sold off.

Research gets stolen!

Tesla never had the gods of destiny working in his favor and there was more to come. During this period of turmoil, Tesla’s research work was stolen and used as their own by his contemporary scientists. Marconi is alleged to have passed off Tesla’s work on long-distance radio transmission as his own. Tesla decided to sue Marconi but it was too late. Though Tesla’s patents were prior to Marconi, the national press was out rightly supporting Marconi and the judge did not know a thing about modern technology. Naturally, Tesla lost his case. Much Later, in 1943, the US Supreme court conducted a detailed investigation, reversed the old decision given by the court and granted recognition to Tesla, nullifying Marconi patents.

You would be surprised to know that Tesla had over 800 different patents to his name, and despite that he was penniless. Ridicule from his own colleagues, lack of recognition by the public, drove him into a life of depression and self-imposed exile. He started jotting down his theories and research activities in his diaries and notebooks instead of getting them published anywhere. It is absolutely ironical that the man who invented the modern world died a pauper in a lonely hotel room on January 7, 1943 at the age of 86. Half a century after his death, scientists are still trying to comprehend and study his various theories. Many of them are just now being proven. It is indeed sad that we never managed to recognize and appreciate a true genius like Tesla in his lifetime. But, now that you know all about him, you can make an endeavor to give Nikola Tesla his due credit, no matter belated it is.

Famous Quotes

• “I dont care that they stole my idea . . I care that they dont have any of their own.”
• “My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
• “The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter – for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes.”
• “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success . . . Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”
• “The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.”
• “All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”

11 Interesting fun facts about Nikola Tesla

• Tesla suffered from insomnia and obsessive compulsive behavior (OCD).
• Tesla was a genius in the true sense of the word; he could speak 8 languages and had the ability to memorize a large amount of information. You could ask him to recite any portion from anywhere from his book and he would have done it in a jiffy!
• He was extremely fond of pigeons.
• The International Unit of Magnetic Flux Density is called “Tesla” after him.
• Tesla discovered X-ray radiation years before Roentgen was credited with its discovery.
• Tesla had proposed to build a radio controlled boat to the U.S. military.
• Though Tesla did not invent the light itself, he did find out the way to harness and distribute light over long distances.
• He also predicted the internet by once saying: “The household’s daily newspaper will one day be printed ‘wirelessly’ in the home during the night”.
• He claimed to have designed a death ray that could electrocute the enemy army from a distance of over 200 miles.
• His work with electromagnetic waves resulted in the invention of the radio, radar and the MRI, a type of X-Ray that has enabled us to look inside the human body
• During World War I, different countries were desperately looking for ways and means to detect enemy submarines under water. Tesla proposed the use of energy waves – the present day radar system technology – to detect the subs. However, the idea was rejected by all the scientists and military establishments as absurd and far-fetched. Sad, isn’t it? So, what happened thereafter? Well, the world then waited many more years for radars to be re-invented.

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Nikola Tesla Facts for Kids

• Name : Nikola Tesla
• Profession : Inventor and Engineer
• Born : July 10th, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire
• Died : January 7th, 1943 in New York City, NY, United States
• Resting Place : Nikola Tesla Museum in
• Legacy : Famous for his contributions to the AC electricity supply system

24 Nikola Tesla Facts for Kids

• Nikola Tesla was a native born Serbian inventor, engineer and futurist.
• Nikola Tesla is most famous for his work on the AC (alternating current) electric power supply system.
• Nikola Tesla was born on Tesla July 10th, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire, Europe.
• Nikola Tesla was the son of Milutin Tesla and Đuka Mandić.
• Nikola Tesla was one of the five children by Milutin Tesla and Đuka Mandić.
• Nikola Tesla was the 2nd youngest of his four siblings. He had three sisters and one brother.
• Nikola Tesla never married or had any children; he believed his chastity helped him achieve his scientific abilities.
• Nikola Tesla died from coronary thrombosis at the age of 86 on January 7th, 1943 in New York City, United States.
• Nikola Tesla’s ashes are laid to rest at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, Europe.
• In 1873, Tesla contracts cholera and spends nine months recovering with multiple near death instances.
• In 1882, Tesla starts working for the Continental Edison Company in Paris, France. This is where Tesla was first introduced to electricity and gained a lot of experience with electrical engineering.
• In 1884, Tesla emigrates to the United States and works at the Edison Machine Works in New York City. He only works there for about six months and quits over a dispute related to a bonus.
• In 1886, Tesla meets with Charles F. Peck and Alfred S. Brown. He explains to them his ideas for electrical equipment, both men agree to financially back Tesla.
• In 1887, Tesla and his two new partners form the Tesla Electric Company.
• In 1888, Tesla is granted a patent for his induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC). He would license this patent to Westinghouse and work with them as a consultant for one year.
• In 1889, Tesla uses funds generated from licensing his patents to open several laboratories in New York City.
• In 1891, Tesla invests the Tesla coil, an electrical resonant transformer circuit.
• In 1891, Tesla became a naturalized United States citizen at the age of 35 on July 30th.
• Between 1892 and 1894, Tesla served at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers as the vice president.
• In 1893, Tesla was granted a patent his Tesla’s oscillator. This was a steam-powered electric generator.
• In 1893, Tesla consults with Edward Dean Adams on the best system to use to transmit hydroelectric power generated at Niagara Falls. Adams ultimately agrees with Tesla and builds an AC distribution system.
• In 1894, Tesla may have taken the first X-ray image in history, predating the first X-ray image taken by Wilhelm Röntgen by a few weeks.
• Between 1901 and 1917, Tesla experiments with wireless electricity transmission at the Tesla Tower (Wardenclyffe Tower) in Shoreham, New York, United States.
• During the life of Nikola Tesla, he received more than 275 patents worldwide for his inventions. The majority of his patents were issued in the United States of America.

Additional Resources on Nikola Tesla

• About Nikola Tesla – Find more information on Nikola Tesla on the Tesla Science Center website.
• Biography of Nikola Tesla – Read the biography of Nikola Tesla on the Biography website.
• Timeline of Nikola Tesla – View a timeline of the life of Nikola Tesla on the MIT website.
• Nikola Tesla – Wikipedia – Discover more facts and information about Nikola Tesla on the Wikipedia website.

This is an author profile for articles that are created from a collaborative effort. It is not uncommon that articles on this site were either written, researched or fact checked by several authors and team members. So this author profile will be displayed to reflect that. Our team of editors, writers and fact checkers do extensive research before publishing articles on the site, and we do our best to provide the most accurate information possible.

The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

The eccentric inventor and modern Prometheus died 75 years ago, after a rags-to-riches to rags life

Richard Gunderman, The Conversation

Match the following figures – Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Alfred Nobel and Nikola Tesla – with these biographical facts:

• Spoke eight languages
• Produced the first motor that ran on AC current
• Developed the underlying technology for wireless communication over long distances
• Held approximately 300 patents
• Claimed to have developed a “superweapon” that would end all war

The match for each, of course, is Tesla. Surprised? Most people have heard his name, but few know much about his place in modern science and technology .

The 75th anniversary of Tesla’s death on Jan. 7 provides a timely opportunity to review the life of a man who came from nowhere yet became world famous; claimed to be devoted solely to discovery but relished the role of a showman; attracted the attention of many women but never married; and generated ideas that transformed daily life and created multiple fortunes but died nearly penniless.

Early years

Tesla was born in Croatia on a summer night in 1856, during what he claimed was a lightning storm – which led the midwife to say, “He will be a child of the storm,” and his mother to counter prophetically, “No, of the light.”* As a student, Tesla displayed such remarkable abilities to calculate mathematical problems that teachers accused him of cheating. During his teen years, he fell seriously ill, recovering once his father abandoned his demand that Nikola become a priest and agreed he could attend engineering school instead.

Although an outstanding student, Tesla eventually withdrew from polytechnic school and ended up working for the  Continental Edison Company , where he focused on electrical lighting and motors. Wishing to meet Edison himself, Tesla immigrated to the U.S. in 1884, and he later claimed he was offered the sum of US$50,000 if he could solve a series of engineering problems Edison’s company faced. Having achieved the feat, Tesla said he was then told that the offer had just been a joke, and he left the company after six months.

Tesla then developed a relationship with two businessmen that led to the founding of  Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing . He filed a number of electrical patents, which he assigned to the company. When his partners decided that they wanted to focus strictly on supplying electricity, they took the company’s intellectual property and founded another firm, leaving Tesla with nothing.

Tesla reported that he then  worked as a ditch digger  for $2 a day, tortured by the sense that his great talent and education were going to waste.

Success as an inventor

In 1887, Tesla met two investors who agreed to back the formation of the Tesla Electric Company. He set up a laboratory in Manhattan, where he developed the  alternating current induction motor , which solved a number of technical problems that had bedeviled other designs. When Tesla demonstrated his device at an engineering meeting, the Westinghouse Company made arrangements to license the technology, providing an upfront payment and royalties on each horsepower generated.

The so-called “ War of the Currents ” was raging in the late 1880s. Thomas Edison promoted direct current, asserting that it was safer than AC. George Westinghouse backed AC, since it could transmit power over long distances. Because the two were undercutting each other’s prices, Westinghouse lacked capital. He explained the difficulty and asked Tesla to sell his patents to him for a single lump sum, to which Tesla agreed, forgoing what would have been a vast fortune had he held on to them.

With the  World’s Columbian Exposition  of 1893 looming in Chicago, Westinghouse asked Tesla to help supply power; they’d have a huge platform for demonstrating the merits of AC. Tesla helped the fair illuminate more light bulbs than could be found in the entire city of Chicago, and wowed audiences with a variety of wonders, including an electric light that required no wires. Later Tesla also helped Westinghouse win a contract to generate electrical power at  Niagara Falls , helping to build the first large-scale AC power plant in the world.

Challenges along the way

Tesla encountered many obstacles. In 1895, his Manhattan laboratory was devastated by a fire, which destroyed his notes and prototypes. At Madison Square Garden in 1898, he demonstrated  wireless control  of a boat, a stunt that many branded a hoax. Soon after he turned his attention to the wireless transmission of electric power. He believed that his system could not only distribute electricity around the globe but also provide for worldwide wireless communication.

Seeking to test his ideas, Tesla built a laboratory in  Colorado Springs . There he once drew so much power that he caused a regional power outage. He also detected signals that he claimed emanated from an extraterrestrial source. In 1901 Tesla persuaded J.P. Morgan to invest in the construction of a  tower on Long Island  that he believed would vindicate his plan to electrify the world. Yet Tesla’s dream did not materialize, and Morgan soon withdrew funding.

In 1909,  Marconi received the Nobel Prize  for the development of radio. In 1915, Tesla unsuccessfully sued Marconi, claiming infringement on his patents. That same year,  it was rumored  that Edison and Tesla would share the Nobel Prize, but it didn’t happen. Unsubstantiated speculation suggested their mutual animosity was the cause. However, Tesla did receive numerous honors and awards over his life, including, ironically, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers  Edison Medal .

A singular man

Tesla was a  remarkable person . He said that he had a photographic memory, which helped him memorize whole books and speak eight languages. He also claimed that many of his best ideas came to him in a flash, and that he saw detailed pictures of many of his inventions in his mind before he ever set about constructing prototypes. As a result, he didn’t initially prepare drawings and plans for many of his devices.

The 6-foot-2-inch Tesla cut a dashing figure and was popular with women, though he never married, claiming that his  celibacy played an important role in his creativity . Perhaps because of his nearly fatal illness as a teenager, he feared germs and practiced very strict hygiene, likely a barrier to the development of interpersonal relationships. He also exhibited unusual phobias, such as an aversion to pearls, which led him to refuse to speak to any woman wearing them.

Tesla held that his greatest ideas came to him in solitude. Yet he was no hermit, socializing with many of the most  famous people of his day  at elegant dinner parties he hosted. Mark Twain frequented his laboratory and promoted some of his inventions. Tesla enjoyed a reputation as not only a great engineer and inventor but also a philosopher, poet and connoisseur. On his 75th birthday he received a congratulatory letter from Einstein and was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Tesla’s last years

In the popular imagination, Tesla played the part of a mad scientist . He claimed that he had developed a motor that ran on cosmic rays; that he was working on a new non-Einsteinian physics that would supply a new form of energy; that he had discovered a new technique for photographing thoughts; and that he had developed a new ray, alternately labeled the death ray and the peace ray, with vastly greater military potential than Nobel’s munitions.

His money long gone, Tesla spent his later years moving from place to place, leaving behind unpaid bills. Eventually, he settled in at a New York hotel, where his rent was paid by Westinghouse. Always living alone, he frequented the local park, where he was regularly seen feeding and tending to the pigeons , with which he claimed to share a special affinity. On the morning of Jan. 7, 1943, he was found dead in his room by a hotel maid at age 86.

Today the name Tesla is still very much in circulation. The airport in Belgrade bears his name, as does the world’s best-known electric car, and the magnetic field strength of MRI scanners is measured in Teslas. Tesla was a real-life Prometheus: the mythical Greek titan who raided heaven to bring fire to mankind, yet in punishment was chained to a rock where each day an eagle ate his liver. Tesla scaled great heights to bring lightning down to earth, yet his rare cast of mind and uncommon habits eventually led to his downfall, leaving him nearly penniless and alone.

*Editor's Note, August 29, 2019: This article has been updated to correct Tesla's birthplace. Though he was of Serbian ethnicity, he was born in present day Croatia.

Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

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