Nicolas Tesla - Inventor or Futurist?

"Were we," remarks B. A. Behrend, distinguished author and engineer, "to seize and to eliminate the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, and our mills would be dead and idle."

Nikolas Tesla: A Brief Bio: (1856-1943) - an American inventor and engineer, whose mastery of electricity came at a time when electricity was changing American life. Tesla is the unsung creator of the electric age, without whom our radio, auto ignition, telephone, alternating current power generation, alternating current transmission, radio, and television, would all have been impossible. He discovered the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery, and held more than 700 patents.

His inventions make him one of the foremost pioneers in the distribution of electric energy.

Nikolas Tesla was born in Croatia, which at that time, lay within Austro-Hungary. It is interesting to note that he was a Serbian of Valachian descent. Tesla was proud of his Croatian motherland and Serbian descent. When his mother died in 1892, he paid a visit to Croatian capital Zagreb, and gave a lecture about alternating current.

On that occasion Tesla said: "As a son of my homeland, I feel it is my duty to help the city of Zagreb in every respect with my advice and work" - ("Smatram svojom duznoscu da kao rodeni sin svoje zemlje pomognem gradu Zagrebu u svakom pogledu savjetom i cinom").

Nikolas Tesla, besides being a great inventor and an outspoken Serbian patriot, had sincerely adored free Serb states, Serbia and Montenegro. He had never hidden his patriotic feelings, on the contrary, he stressed them.

On 1st of June 1892, Tesla arrived in Belgrade due to the call from Belgrade municipality. Several thousand people greeted him at the Belgrade train station. He addressed the gathered crowd, who saluted him: "There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exiting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb. Long live Serbdom!..."

Tesla further said to the students of Belgrade University: "As you can see and hear, I have remained a Serb overseas where I have done some researches. You should do so and by your knowledge and hard work you should glorify Serbdom over the world." One of Tesla's proudest moments was when he was granted his United States citizenship; he never lost his love of his homeland, however. His monument, carved by Ivan Mestrovic (who knew Tesla personally), can be seen in Zagreb. Another monument, carved by Croatian sculptor Frano Krsinic, can be seen on "Goat Island", near the former Tesla Hydropower Plant on Niagara Falls, in the middle of the Niagara River, between the United States and Canada boarders.

It is purposely left un-illuminated at night (for the effect, and, to provoke thought of what the world would be like without Tesla's contributions). A part of the Technical Museum in Zagreb is dedicated to Nikolas Tesla. Even today, so many years after Tesla's death in 1943, his numerous manuscripts are kept as "top secret" by the US Ministry of Defense (see Margaret Cheney, "Tesla: Man Out of Time", Prentice Hall, 1981)

Nikolas Tesla Museum is a unique institution of science and culture in Yugoslavia and in the world. It is the only museum in the world which preserves the original and personal inheritance of Nikolas Tesla. It possesses several exceptionally valuable collections:

above 160 000 original documents,
above 2000 books and journals,
above 1200 historical technical exhibits,
above 1500 photographs and photo plates of original, technical objects, instruments and apparatus,
above 1000 plans and drawings.

(As the institution which preserves the most abundant in the world collection of documents on life and work of Nikolas Tesla, the Museum plays a significant role in providing abundant information to the researchers of history of science, inventions and patent rights as well as for environmental protection projects and studies of pollution-free energy sources.)

Nikolas Tesla

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia