The Electrifying Nikola Tesla!

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The Electrifying Nikola Tesla!

• A biographical sketch by Keith Bechtol

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Timeline
Born in Smiljan Croatia (1859)
Dies in New York (1943)
Cold Springs CO (1899)
Columbian Exposition (1893)
AC Revelation (1882)
Wardenclyffe Tower (1901-1904)
Niagara Falls (1894)
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Chapter 1

• Early years schooling a near brush with death
  Teslas eureka

I observed to my delight that I could visualize
with the greatest facility. I needed no models,
drawings or experiments. I could picture them all
as real in my mind. -Nikola Tesla
Tesla age 23 in Gratz Austria
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Background
My mother was an inventor of the first order and
would, I believe, have achieved great things had
she not been so remote from modern life and its
multifold opportunities. -Nikola speaking of
Djouka Tesla
Tesla family home in Smiljan, Croatia
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Change of plans
I was intended from my very birth for the
clerical position and this thought constantly
oppressed me. -NikolaTesla
I came to life like another Lazarus, to the utter
amazement of everybody. -Nikola Tesla recovering
from cholera
Nikolas father Mulitin Tesla
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AC polyphase system
Mr. Tesla may do many things, but this he cannot
accomplish. His plan is simply a perpetual motion
machine. -Professor Poeschl
the idea came like a flash of lightning and in
an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a
stick on the sand the diagram shown six years
later in my address before the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers. -Nikola Tesla
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Chapter 2
Arriving in America Telsa meets the Wizard of
Menlo Park hard labor and first break
I know two great men and you are one of them the
other is this young man. -Charles Batchelor of
Tesla in a letter to Thomas Edison 1884
Tesla aged 29, one year after arriving in New
York City
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Wizard of Menlo Park
Tesla, you dont understand our American
humor. -Thomas Edison
What I had left was beautiful, artistic and
fascinating in every way what I found was
machined, rough and unattractive. Is this
America? It is a century behind Europe in
civilization.
-Nikola Tesla, 1884
Personally inscribed photograph given to Tesla
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Chapter 3
The current wars lighting the Columbian
Exposition harnessing Niagra Falls
Tesla at the height of his fame age 36, 1894
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Current Wars DC vs. AC
vs.
Tell Westinghouse to stick to air brakes. He
knows all about them. -Thomas Edison
George Westinghouse formed an alliance with Tesla
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Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill
a customer within six months after he puts in a
system of any sizeIt will never be free of
danger.
-Thomas Edison
The electric charge was too weak and the
miserable work had to done again, becoming an
awful spectacle, far worse than hanging.
-New York Times,
August 7, 1890
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Electric Sorcerer
Tesla passing 500,000 volts through his body in
1898
Mark Twain visiting Teslas New York laboratory
in 1895
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Shadowgraphs
The effects on the sensitive plate are due to
projected particles or else to vibrations of
extremely high frequencies. The streams are
formed of matter in some primary or elementary
conditionSimilar streams must be emitted by the
sun an probably by other sources of radiant
energy. -Nikola Tesla
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Roentgen rays (x-rays)

July 20, 1901 Dear Sir! You have surprised me
tremendously with the beautiful photographs of
wonderful discharges and I tell you thank you
very much for that. If only I knew how you make
such things! With the expression of special
respect I remain yours devoted,
W. C. Roentgen
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Weapon to End War
Teleautomaton - a remote controlled torpedo
boat including the first logic gate
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Earthquake Machine
Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was
flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the
machine. The building would have been about our
ears in another few minutes. Outside in the
street there was pandemonium. The police and
ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say
nothing. We told the police it must have been an
earthquake. That's all they ever knew about it.
-Nikola Tesla, 1898
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Chapter 4
Cold Springs laboratory wireless transport of
energy signals from outer space
The gods of the storm burst forth with one of the
grandest electrical displays ever witnessed and
for an hour the heavens were lit with living
fire. -Nikola Tesla in Colorado Springs
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Earth and Atmosphere
Impossible as it seemed, this planet, despite its
vast extent, bahved like a conductor of limited
dimensions. -Nikola Tesla
Schumann Resonance
Global lighting strike distribution
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Ridicule and radio astronomy
It is a rule of a sound philosophizing to examine
all probable causes for an unexplained phenomena
before invoking the most improbable
ones. -Colorado Springs Newspaper 1901
Very Large Array, New Mexico
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Now! Czito, close the switch.
We will close the switch only for a second and
then quickly open it
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Chapter 5
World Wireless Wardenclyffe radio wars
It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of
scientific electrical engineering, only
expensive... blind, faint-hearted, doubting
world. -Nikola Tesla 1905
Tesla age 64, 1920
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World Wireless
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Wardenclyffe
Completed Wardenclyffe Tower, 1904
A frustrated and impatient J. P. Morgan
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A new competitor in wireless
Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is
using seventeen of my patents. -Nikola Tesla
Tesla submitted early radio patents in 1897
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Chapter 6
Pidgeons Teslas legacy
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Signs of deterioration
Tesla planning elaborate menus for pet pigeons
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Postlude
Peace Ray or Death Ray
Belgrade, Yugoslavia