Nikola Tesla was born July 9, 1856, at Lika, Croatia. Son of Reverend Milutin and Djouka Tesla. Both were way above average in intelligence, which intellect was easily passed onto their four children. At the age of four, Nikola built a water wheel, and from then on, became a problem to his parents, because he was always in trouble. His childish adventures included jumping off of a roof with a raised umbrella, thinking the umbrella would make his fall easy. It didn’t. At age 15, he was sent to a higher education institute in Carlstadt, where he excelled, and lived with a relative of his father. He constructed several turbines, and began to think that his future was in the field of invention. He achieved outstanding grades and achievement. Coming down with cholera, he was bed ridden for many weeks. During his recovery time, his mind was wide awake, with inventions and ideas. He envisioned a submarine tube, in which letters and packages could be conveyed across the ocean. He mentally built pumping plants and all sorts of mechanical devices, which he stored away in his brain for future use. His father was insistent that Nikola follow him in the ministry, but Nikola decided that was not for him. In his second year at the Institute, he concentrated his energies on physics, mathematics, and mechanics. His physics class acquired a Gramme Dynamo, a very crude machine, but at his remaining term at the Institute, his idea of an alternating current motor never left his fertile mind.
Upon graduating, he was offered a position in Paris with the Societe Continentale Edison of France. All eyes in America were focused on Thomas Edison, who eventually had 1093 patents. Edison’s inventions and patents, always involved Direct Current (D.C.) powered devices, including generators and motors, which had sparking comutators and brushes. Tesla invented and patented an Alternating Current (A.C.) electrical system, and with it a brushless motor. None of his teachers could visualize Tesla’s idea of a brushless, alternating current motor. The manager of his Institute suggested that Tesla should go to America and possibly improve Edison’s D.C. motor. He arrived in New York with four cents in his pocket, plans for a flying machine, a book, and a scientific article. Walking down a sidewalk, he came across a man fruitlessly trying to make an electrical motor work. Tesla offered to help, and quickly made the machine work perfectly. The man rewarded him with a $20 gold piece. Sometime later, he was able to reach the famous Thomas Edison, where he presented his glowing letter of introduction. Tesla was proficient in many languages, and like Edison, both were proficient readers. Edison hired him on the spot.
Edison was a hard taskmaster, and kept strict hours. Tesla worked to improve Edison’s direct current motor, but kept his silence about his alternating current ideas. Edison was interested only in direct current arc lights, incandescent light bulbs, and direct current motors. Tesla, eventually explained to Edison his alternating current motor idea, but Edison would have none of it. Tesla was introduced to George Westinghouse, a brilliant inventor of air brakes on trains, plus numerous other electrical devices. Westinghouse quickly recognized Tesla’s invention, which he had already patented. Westinghouse bought Tesla’s several patents, which relieved Nikola of any financial worries. Alternating current was capable of transmitting electrical power long distances, with little current loss, whereas direct current could not be sent a long distance, and would require a power plant every mile.
How could Tesla’s A.C. be proven? It was proved at Telluride Colorado. Lucius Nunn, a Telluride lawyer, had heard of Westinghouse and Tesla’s invention, and he had the perfect place to prove where it would work. The Gold King mine, had run out of wood to fire its steam boilers which generated needed electricity, and coal had to be hauled by ox cart for 13 miles. The mine was about to shut down, when Westinghouse and Tesla found a site at a little town called “Ames.” They built a dam to harness water, and installed a six foot Pelton water wheel, which powered a 100 horsepower alternating current generator. Wire was strung 2.6 miles as the crow flies, to the mine site, so the mine to have ample electricity. It worked! The plant worked constantly for 30 days without interruption. The Ames plant, 135 years later, is still operating, as is the dam, although of course larger and more efficient generators have been installed. A.C., or alternating current, has since become the common current in electrical outlets, motors, generators, power plants, and electrical transmission, in the entire world.
A year later, Tesla and Westinghouse won a bid to light the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. They were bidding against Thomas Edison, who had started his General Electric Company, and who held the patent on the incandescent light bulb. Tesla had to invent a new light bulb in 11 months, but he did it. By the time the fair or exposition opened May 1st, 1893, Tesla and Westinghouse had 2500 lamps ready to be lit. Lit they were, which gave them world-wide fame and reputation. Edison’s D.C. was relegated to the junk pile. Newspapers were eloquent in their praise of Tesla, calling him “Our foremost electrician…Greater even that Edison.” Their next stop was Niagara Falls, where a 164 foot wall of water went unused. They won the bid to harness parts of that water, divert it to huge A.C. generators, and they electrified Buffalo New York, which quickly became a manufacturing center, thanks to plentiful electricity. Tesla’s name is on the generator’s name plate as the inventor. Their successors are still in use.
Tesla’s fame quickly went to his head, so to speak, and he spouted forth many ideas, such as transmitting electricity without wires, a powerful vibrating machine which could take down a building, and mind control of machinery. Tesla outgrew his New York laboratory, and wanted to go to the American West, which he then did. His fame attracted big time investors in his ideas, and he built a laboratory in Colorado Springs, promising wireless voice transmission around the world, as well as wireless transmitting of electricity. He built a large laboratory in the 1400 block of North Cascade, and erected a 200 foot tall pole with a brass globe on top. He kept all of his secrets to himself, and would not divulge anything to anyone, other than to say that he had successfully transmitted power without wires, discovered stationary waves in the earth, received radio waves from the stars, etc, but with no patents forthcoming. He had a vast array of coils and devices in his building, and finally it came time to test it. When the switch was thrown by an associate, (Tesla was outside to witness his huge surge of power, far greater than at Niagara Falls), “There was a crackling and snapping as the power built up. There was a crescendo of vicious snaps from above. The noises became machine-gun staccato, then roared to artillery intensity. Ghostly sparks danced around a macabre cloud all over the laboratory. There was a smell of sulfur that might be coming from hell itself. A weird blue light spread over the area. Flames began to jump from the ball at the top of the 200 foot mast….first a few feet long…then longer and brighter…thicker…bluer. More emanations until they reached rod-like proportions, thick as an arm and with a length of over a hundred and thirty feet. The heavens reverberated with a terrific thunder that could be heard fifteen miles over the ridge in Cripple Creek.” Account by a witness. Then there was dramatic silence. Tesla had blown the power plant and the entire city was in darkness. That finished his Colorado Springs experiments.
Tesla then decided to build a new laboratory in upstate New York, and conned J.P. Morgan out of $150,000 to build it. It was called “Wardenclyffe.” Tesla never learned how to control his spending or how to manage money. He proposed an industrial utopian city, and had Stanford White design it. Quickly, the $150,000 ran out and Tesla began begging for more. He didn’t get it. It took a few years, but “Wardenclyffe” failed, and Tesla was not doing much but dreaming of new inventions and preposterous ideas, with no patents, and no money. He did design a new turbine which worked well, but he failed to attract investors for it. Tesla envisioned solar energy, refrigeration, and dozens of other future possibilities and patents, which never came into being. “Wardenclyffe,” like Tesla’s Colorado Springs lab, were both demolished, much to the smiles of neighbors. Tesla had a few royalties coming in, and lived in New York, first at the Waldorf, then the New Yorker, a run-down hotel which no longer exists. Tesla was a clean, fastidious man, who constantly washed his hands, and made hotel maids weary of his demands for many towels, and endless cleaning. He never drank alcohol, and never married. His collars were discarded after one wearing, and he replaced his neckties every week. He could not tolerate a fly, and if one landed upon his table, he demanded that everything be removed and the meal would start over again. Tesla died quietly on December 7th, 1943 in his New Yorker hotel room.
Were he alive today, I am certain that he would have invented the LED light bulb and the electric car which bears his name!
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com