Jacqueline Hochheiser, Corporate Communications
Early Life
Nikola Tesla is well-known for his contributions to the creation and advancement of electrical devices that improved convenience and quality of life for the common person. While he established himself as a prominent inventor in the Unites States, Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer who was born on July 10, 1856 in the village of Smiljan to an ethnic Serbian family. This village was located in the Military Frontier, a borderland of the Habsburg Monarchy and later the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empire. This area is now present-day Croatia, and during Tesla’s time, the common language taught in school was German.
Tesla’s father was a priest and writer at an Eastern Orthodox church, as was his grandfather on his mother’s side. His mother was recounted to have a gift for inventing small household appliances to use in her own kitchen, and perhaps this was early inspiration for a young Tesla, who was the fourth of five children.
Tesla was well-educated and studied at the Realschule, or otherwise known as the Higher Real Gymnasium. This was where Tesla first discovered an interest in electricity after watching one of his physics professors perform a demonstration of how it worked. This in turn, directed the course of Tesla’s studies as he moved to higher education at the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria and later the University of Prague during the 1870s.
Working with Thomas Edison
After graduating from university, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary where he began working for the Central Telephone Exchange. While he was working, he also started to create the first of his electrical inventions: the induction motor. When he conceived of this idea, Tesla was only 28 years old. However, he found it difficult to gain traction in the European market and decided to move to America.
It was in the States that Tesla began working for the already renowned Thomas Edison. Nearly as soon as he landed on American soil Tesla made his way to the inventor’s DC-based electrical workshop. Edison was already a tycoon in the electrical industry, with many of his inventions becoming staples in American homes, including of course, the lightbulb.
The two men worked tirelessly to improve upon Edison’s existing inventions, as well as to create new ones. However, it soon became apparent that the two had very differing ideas of how to run a business, and the direction in which they wanted to take electrical inventions. After just a few months of working together, Tesla and Edison parted ways. Unfortunately, the bad blood created over the split continued to affect Tesla after the fact.
Edison was adept at marketing his inventions and giving them practical purpose in modern society, while Tesla focused more on the science and was commercially out of touch. Their fields were also in direct competition with each other and since Edison already had a reputation and prominence in American society, this put Tesla at a disadvantage.
Influence on RF – The Tesla Coil
Despite the hardships, Tesla persevered, and in 1885, he received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company and was tasked with creating improved arc lighting. He succeeded, but was soon forced out of his venture and had to work as a manual laborer to stay afloat until he founded his second company, the Tesla Electric Company in 1887. This time, his luck held and he continued on to have an illustrious career.
Throughout his tenure, 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.
However, he was best known for the Tesla Coil, which was patented in 1895. The coil laid the foundation for wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today including radios and TVs. The Tesla Coil is an electrical transformer that used high frequency alternating current (AC) to increase voltage. Its high voltage allowed the current to travel through the air to power nearby electronic devices often with arcs of lightning-like electricity. The coil functions as the heart of an electrical circuit and was an inductor used in many early radio transmission antennas. While the original device was primitive, the concepts used to create it have led to the development of more advanced radio technology.
Tesla was primarily interested in the ability to wirelessly transmit electricity for lighting purposes. His idea was to build his coil on a larger scale, with multiple coils placed strategically across the globe to provide power to any device with a receiver coil within range. Despite the fact that he never realized this goal to the grand-scale he was imagining, the Tesla Coil still made an impact on technology and future technology after his time.
Late Life
Tesla’s career was fraught with battles with the U.S. government for patents and Nobel Prizes, as well as fellow inventors (Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi) who were pursuing similar endeavors, but his career was also one of great renown and accomplishment.
After Tesla’s death on January 7, 1943, the Custodian of Alien Property impounded his trunks, which held his papers, diplomas, letters, and laboratory notes. These were eventually released to Tesla’s nephew, Sava Kosanovich, and later housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum on Belgrade, Serbia. His funeral was held in New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
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