Mad scientist who invented wireless communication

By Kenneth KwamaNikolai Tesla, the Serbian who invented alternating current and wireless technology was so obsessed with the number three and could not enter a building before walking around it three times. He only lived in hotel rooms, and every room number he chose had to be divisible by three.Tesla was the first to conceive an effective method of utilising alternating current, and in 1888, he patented the induction motor, which converted electrical energy into mechanical energy. Among his other principal inventions are lighting and the Tesla coil."The radio, I know I’m its father, but I don’t like it," Tesla once said. "I just don’t like it. It’s a nuisance. I never listen to it. The radio is a distraction and keeps you from concentrating. There are too many distractions in this life for quality of thought, and it is quality of thought, not quantity, that counts," Tesla once told and American newspaper called the Daily Post in an interview.Despite making more than 700 inventions, Tesla was not wealthy. According to various web accounts, he cared little for money and as long as he could experiment, he was happy. Much of the time he did not even have a laboratory, and worked where he lived.One of his admirers is quoted saying thus by www.abc.net.au: "I think we all misunderstood Tesla. He was so far ahead of his time that the best of us mistook him for a dreamer."It was his custom on his birthday - July 10- to announce to reporters the shape of things to come.Energy transmissionOn his 76th birthday, he announced: "The transmission of energy to another planet is only a matter of engineering. I have solved the problem so well I don’t regard it as doubtful."On another birthday, Tesla predicted that power would soon be projected without wires through the stratosphere. He also had plans to build a ring around the equator so that just by staying stationary, people would be able to travel around the world in 24 hours."He had plans to photograph thought. He thought, well, thought is electrical energy, and we record electrical energy all the time. Why shouldn’t we be able to photograph it?" states www.bloomberg.com.Tesla patented and designed the world’s first hydroelectric power station at Niagara Falls, as well as the whole AC power and distribution system, including the dynamos, the coils and transformers to step up and step down the voltage for transmission.Tesla was born in 1856 into a Serbian family, and raised in Croatia. He immigrated to America when he was 28 years old. Not long after his arrival in America, he was employed by another inventor, Thomas Edison.Edison’s method was to doggedly persist in searching for an answer to a problem, expressed in his memorable aphorism that invention is "ten per cent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration."Tesla later remarked of Edison that "just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labour."Tesla had spent ten years at various Eastern European universities. He could speak, write and read half a dozen European languages, and quote the works of Shakespeare, Goethe and many others at length.He was erudite and perceptive and had the innate mathematical abilities, being capable of prodigious mental calculations. He also had the remarkable ability to see his inventions in three-dimensions in his imagination."He was able to envisage his electric motor, set it running, watch how it performed, make adjustments and refinements and see what effect they had. Only then did he set to and build a working model. This was how he proceeded all his life. Practically everything he built worked first time, because he understood the fundamental principles and had already observed its performance in his imagination," states www.abc.net.au.Working togetherHe excelled and this endeared him to Edison. At some point while working together, he thought he had a bargain with Edison when he offered to improve the efficiency of his generators by 25 per cent, and Edison laughingly replied that that would be worth $50,000.When Tesla exceeded the target, Edison said he’d only been joking about the money. Eventually Tesla grew tired of being ripped off, and left.He continued his inventions and by 1897, Tesla had amassed all of the essential patents for generating, modulating, transmitting and receiving wireless impulses. He was by now years ahead of his competitors, and he knew it. When America’s famous banker JP Morgan heard of Tesla’s exploits, he saw opportunity to make money and entered into a contract with the inventor, which according to various web sources, was cleverly worded to indicate that Tesla had ceded 51 per cent of his patents to the banker.The banker sat on Tesla’s patents and made sure the wayward inventor could do nothing, even refusing to allow him to seek other backers for other projects.His debts started to mount. He moved from hotel to hotel, unable to pay the bills. Despite making over 700 inventions in his lifetime and some of the most important breakthroughs in the history of science, Tesla died broke and heavily in debt.

Mad scientist who invented wireless communication

Get Full Access for Ksh299/Week.

Stand With Bold Journalism.
Stand With The Standard.

Related Topics

Popular this week

Latest Stories

The Standard Insider

Digger Classified

GET OUR NEWSLETTER

CONNECT WITH US

FOR THE LATEST JOB ADVERTS

DIGGER JOBS

Digger Motors

Digger Real Estate

Mad scientist who invented wireless communication

Get Full Access for Ksh299/Week.

Stand With Bold Journalism. Stand With The Standard.

Related Topics

Trending Now

Popular this week

Latest Stories

The Standard Insider

Digger Classified

GET OUR NEWSLETTER

CONNECT WITH US

FOR THE LATEST JOB ADVERTS

Stand With Bold Journalism.
Stand With The Standard.