Nikola Tesla, born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia) and died on 7 January 1943 in New York, was an American inventor and engineer of Serbian origin.
A FRUITFUL BRAIN
From a very young age Nikola TESLA is able to perform very complicated mathematical calculations in his head. He has an exceptional intellectual capacity, an unparalleled visual memory and a definite gift for learning languages.
He entered the GRAZ Polytechnic School in Austria in 1875, but had to abandon his studies in 1881 due to lack of financial means.
He was hired in PARIS by the EDISON GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY in 1882, then went to the United States at the request of Thomas EDISON, who encountered difficulties with the direct current network.
He solves the problem by using alternating current, then resigns when he is refused.
He then creates his own company, but does not manage to develop it.
THE ALTERNATIVE POWER: A REVOLUTION
In 1888, George WESTINGHOUSE buys his patents and hires him to impose the distribution of electricity in alternating current, which will be done in 1893, after a hard battle with Thomas EDISON, who was always convinced of the superiority of direct current.
In 1896, he established the first hydroelectric power station on Niagara Falls and supplied the town of BUFFALO.
In view of the contract binding them, the company WESTINGHOUSE owed him nearly 12 million dollars in royalties; given the financial difficulties then encountered by the company, he agreed to renounce it and to assign his patents to it for 216,000 dollars, so that alternating current could benefit everyone.
The President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers said of Nikola TESLA: "If we were to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would stop, trains would stop, our cities would be thrown into darkness and our factories would be dead... His name marks an era in the advancement of electrical science. From this work comes a revolution. »
In 1928, Nikola TESLA had filed nearly 300 patents covering numerous inventions, the latest of which was that of a biplane with vertical take-off and landing.
Many others were unprotected and usurped.
ISOLATED AND IN DEBT
In the fall of 1937, trying to avoid a taxi, Nikola TESLA fell badly and did not recover.
He died, alone and covered with debts, on January 7, 1943 in room 3327 of the NEW YORKER Hotel in Manhattan, where he was staying.
After his death, his family had to initiate a long procedure with the American administration to obtain his archives and personal effects. It is only in 1952, that his nephew, Sava KOSANOVIC, obtains that his entire estate (original manuscripts, thousands of letters, photographs and most of his inventions) be returned to him. Nikola TESLA's funeral urn was finally shipped to Serbia in 1957.
His archives and inventions are now also exhibited in Belgrade.
