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Nikola Tesla ( 1856 - 1943 )  Category ( Scientists ) [suggest a correction]
 

Nikola TeslaNikola Tesla, born in 1856, was an electrical engineer by trade and a famous inventor. He was born on July 10 in Smilian, in present day Serbia. His parents were Father Milutin Tesla, a Serbian Orthodox priest and Duka Mandic, the daughter of a Serbian Orthodox priest.

Tesla was one of five children and went to school in Karlovac, where he finished four years of school in only three. From there, he studied electrical engineering at Austrian Polytechnic. He never completed the program nor received a degree. In 1878, Tesla left his family to work as an assistant engineer in Maribor, Slovenia. In 1880, at his father’s suggestion, he attended Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. He completed only one semester there.

In 1881, Tesla became the chief electrician at the telephone exchange in Budapest. One year later, he moved to Paris and worked for the Continental Edison Company as an engineer. It was during this time that he thought up the induction motor and began using rotating magnetic fields in devices. He received several patents for this work.

Tesla arrived in New York City on June 6, 1884. Using only a letter of recommendation from his employer in Paris, he began working for Thomas Edison. Edison and Tesla disagreed strongly on the future of electricity. Edison believed that direct current would continue to be the best option, while Tesla advocated the development of alternating current. The two remained antagonists for the rest of their lives.

After resigning from Edison, Tesla worked digging ditches for a short time before starting the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing company. He disagreed with investors on alternating current and was ousted from the company as a result.

In 1888, Tesla began working for George Westinghouse. Eventually, he set up a series of his own laboratories to work in. He was not very fiscally responsible, and many of his labs had to be closed as a result.

Of his many inventions, perhaps the biggest was the radio. He received a patent for it at the age of 41, but the Nobel prize initially went to someone else. Several years after his death, Tesla was finally recognized as the true inventor of the radio.

Later in his life, Tesla did more theoretical work. He theorized on ray guns, levitation machines, and wireless communications. He attempted to create a wireless communication tower, but never completed it. For some of these ideas and for his developing obsessive compulsive disorder, Tesla lost respect amongst his contemporaries.

Tesla never married, preferring a celibate lifestyle, and died alone in a hotel room in New York on January 8, 1943. He was 86 years old and died of heart failure.

Image: Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), circa 1896.


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http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/TESLA_BIO.html [Comment on this link]
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Title :Adventures in CyberSound: Tesla, Nikola
Description : An on-line, academic work that will research the history of radio and the related media services of telegraphy, telephony, facsimile, television, photography and cinema. The project will also develop an on-line resource centre based on the above research. The project will subsequently develop the document A Future for Radio? and a prototype interactive on-line broadcast radio service, A Radio for the Future?
 
 
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http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/tesla.... [Comment on this link]
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Title :Inventor Nikola Tesla Biography
Description : Fascinating facts about Nikola Tesla inventor of AC Induction Motor in 1888.
 
 
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http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/143.html [Comment on this link]
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Title :Invent Now | Hall of Fame | Search | Inventor Profile
 
 
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