Inventions

Tesla believed that alternating current was vastly superior to (Edison's) direct current, but the problem was the lack of a practical motor. Alternating current is practical because of the fact that it can be altered, or converted, to suit a variety of situations. For example, if the voltage is made quite high, then the current necessary for a specific level of power is very low. This low current then becomes very efficient when sending electrical power over very long wires. (This is the reason why the power lines running across the countryside are at very high voltages.) Tesla also worked with radio-frequency electromagnetic waves, and, despite the claims made by Marconi, actually did invent the idea of Radio as we know it today. (There are numerous patents which bear this out. Even today, many texts still credit Marconi with the invention of radio, despite the Supreme Court decision which overruled the Marconi patent, awarding it to Tesla. Unfortunately, this decision came two years after Tesla's own death.) In working with radio waves, Tesla created the Tesla coil as a means to generate and receive this form of energy. Every time you start your automobile ( or virtually any type of vehicle, for that matter) the device that provides "spark" to the spark plug, thus enabling the engine to start, is a unit either wholly or in part, a Tesla Coil.

Tesla postulated the ability to locate objects in the air or in the ground by using radio waves. Today, we call it "RADAR", and when used to peer into the human body, "MRI". Tesla also created radio controlled devices., or "Teli-autonomotons". His work with special gas filled lamps set the stage for the creation of fluorescent lighting, and neon lights.

Tesla patented dozens of devices ranging from speedometers to extremely efficient electrical generators. One unique device was his bladeless boundary disk turbine. Instead of using fan-type blades, Tesla's turbine utilized solid disks of metal, and relied on what is called the "boundary layer effect". His turbine ran on either compressed air or steam or gasoline explosions, and was so efficient that a device held in the hand could produce well over 10 horsepower!

One of the largest turbines that Tesla designed pumped out 10,000 Horse-power, and was about one fifth the size and weight of the engines of its day. Today, this bladeless technology is being used in a special type of non-clogging pump designed for the oil industry. The turbine is awaiting commercial use, and public acceptance., but developments are rapidly making it again seem attractive. Frank Germano, Guy Letorneua, and Martin Dorantes, of International Turbine And Power, of Cody Wyoming, USA, is pioneering the design of a special Tesla-Type turbine for the commercial power markets. This turbine can be run on any combustible fuel (propane, methane, gasoline, diesel, hydrogen), steam, or even water under pressure.

It has been said that Tesla is the "Forgotten Father of Technology." It is hard to believe that a man who gave the world so much, received so little for his efforts. History books have been equally unkind. In many parts of this country, people still refer to the electric utility as the 'Edison Company', even though they use the Tesla-Westinghouse alternating current system, not Edison's direct current. At the Niagara Falls power generating station, a small statue of Tesla is purposely left un-illuminated at night. I have visited this statue, and it is a quite stunning statement to witness the statue in complete darkness, with the surrounding area ablaze with lighting supplied from Tesla's own inventions.

Tesla also had a deep desire to provide wireless electricity across the globe. First, there was the patent infringement issue, which made millionaires of others, particularly the Marconi Company. But Tesla maintained a single-minded focus on developing global wireless communications and energy systems. Working in Colorado Springs in 1899, Tesla developed a transmitter to perfect a method by which transmitted energy could be channeled through natural media.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tesla built a laboratory to develop this. The Colorado Springs lab contained the largest Tesla Coil ever built. Called the Magnifying Transmitter, it was capable of generating some 300,000 watts of power, and could produce a bolt of lightning over 130 feet long. According to local accounts, Tesla actually managed to successfully transmit about 30 to 50 thousand watts of power, without wires, using the Transmitter. There are detailed accounts of these feats, below.

Two years later, 1901, working on Long Island at Wardenclyffe, he set to work on his ultimate goal: construction of a "world telegraphy center" that was to have a lab, a wireless transmitter and production facilities for manufacturing oscillators and vacuum tubes. Constructed on the "model city's" 1,800 acres would be homes, stores and buildings to accommodate 2,500 workers... at least, that was the dream...

By that year's end, however, Marconi had usurped the inventor by transmitting an overseas signal. That left Tesla at the mercy of his financier, J.P. Morgan, who literally pulled the plug on his vision. Morgan, at the time the prime force behind General Electric Co., may have been unnerved by Tesla's claims that the technology could transmit "unlimited power" by wireless means. The word "free" did not translate well to Morgan. Again, the money flow came to a halt.

Some Tesla devotees suspect he may have been a pioneer of the transistor. "Inventors of the modern computer have repeatedly been surprised, when seeking patents, to encounter Tesla's basic ones already on file," noted Tesla historian Leland Anderson, a former EE and a board member of the Wardenclyffe project. Indeed, two of Tesla's patents from 1903 contain the basic principles of the logical "AND" circuit element. Tesla went on to experiment with actual wireless transmission of electrical power.

Despite his accomplishments, by 1915, at age 60, Tesla was living on credit and drifting from one cheap hotel to another, a victim of his own poor business decisions, underdeveloped ideas and inability to create another innovation as profound as the AC paradigm. In 1931, at the age of 75, Tesla received birthday greetings from Lee de Forest and Albert Einstein. In his later years he spent most of his time at the New York Public Library or feeding pigeons that he called - “my sincere friends".

By 1943, he had begun suffering heart trouble and fainting spells along with some mental confusion. On January 1st, 1943 he complained of chest pains during an experiment and returned to the hotel room where he lived. The last person to see him alive was a hotel maid on January 5th, 1943. It is assumed that he died January 7th, 1943 in New York City and his body was discovered on the following day. Over 2,000 people attended his funeral in Manhattan. So, at age 86, the great inventor died alone, nearly penniless and all but forgotten. Years earlier, however, Tesla had appeared to predict the posthumous recognition that today's scientific community would afford him when he wrote: "Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments." And what accomplishments they were, Dr. Tesla. The world would be a very dark place, without you.

 "The present is theirs ; the future, for which I really work , is mine." Nikola Tesla