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89-495: Nikola Tesla ( / ˈ n ɪ k ə l ə ˈ t ɛ s l ə / ; Serbian Cyrillic : Никола Тесла , [nǐkola têsla] ; 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American engineer, futurist , and inventor. He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. Born and raised in the Austrian Empire , Tesla first studied engineering and physics in

178-401: A commutator , thus avoiding sparking and the high maintenance of constantly servicing and replacing mechanical brushes. Along with getting the motor patented, Peck and Brown arranged to get the motor publicized, starting with independent testing to verify it was a functional improvement, followed by press releases sent to technical publications for articles to run concurrently with the issue of

267-533: A naturalized citizen of the United States. In the same year, he patented his Tesla coil. After 1890, Tesla experimented with transmitting power by inductive and capacitive coupling using high AC voltages generated with his Tesla coil. He attempted to develop a wireless lighting system based on near-field inductive and capacitive coupling and conducted a series of public demonstrations where he lit Geissler tubes and even incandescent light bulbs from across

356-777: A thermo-magnetic motor idea, they agreed to back the inventor financially and handle his patents. Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887, with an agreement that profits from generated patents would go 1 ⁄ 3 to Tesla, 1 ⁄ 3 to Peck and Brown, and 1 ⁄ 3 to fund development. They set up a laboratory for Tesla at 89 Liberty Street in Manhattan, where he worked on improving and developing new types of electric motors, generators, and other devices. In 1887, Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC),

445-538: A wirelessly controlled boat, one of the first ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs . In 1893, he made pronouncements on

534-808: A 2014 survey, 47% of the Serbian population write in the Latin alphabet whereas 36% write in Cyrillic. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, along with the equivalent forms in the Serbian Latin alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) value for each letter. The letters do not have names, and consonants are normally pronounced as such when spelling

623-623: A bonus he did not receive, either for redesigning generators or for the arc lighting system that was shelved. Tesla had previous run-ins with the Edison company over unpaid bonuses he believed he had earned. In his autobiography, Tesla stated the manager of the Edison Machine Works offered a $ 50,000 bonus to design "twenty-four different types of standard machines" "but it turned out to be a practical joke". Later versions of this story have Thomas Edison himself offering and then reneging on

712-539: A challenge in Unicode modeling, as the glyphs differ only in italic versions, and historically non-italic letters have been used in the same code positions. Serbian professional typography uses fonts specially crafted for the language to overcome the problem, but texts printed from common computers contain East Slavic rather than Serbian italic glyphs. Cyrillic fonts from Adobe, Microsoft (Windows Vista and later) and

801-510: A ditch digger for $ 2 per day. Later in life Tesla recounted that part of 1886 as a time of hardship, writing "My high education in various branches of science, mechanics and literature seemed to me like a mockery". In late 1886, Tesla met Alfred S. Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and New York attorney Charles Fletcher Peck. The two men were experienced in setting up companies and promoting inventions and patents for financial gain. Based on Tesla's new ideas for electrical equipment, including

890-625: A feasible engineering solution to generate electricity. In 1893, Edward Dean Adams , who headed the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company , sought Tesla's opinion on what system would be best to transmit power generated at the falls. Over several years, there had been a series of proposals and open competitions on how best to do it. Among the systems proposed by several US and European companies were two-phase and three-phase AC, high-voltage DC, and compressed air. Adams asked Tesla for information about

979-457: A few other font houses include the Serbian variations (both regular and italic). If the underlying font and Web technology provides support, the proper glyphs can be obtained by marking the text with appropriate language codes. Thus, in non-italic mode: whereas: Since Unicode unifies different glyphs in same characters, font support must be present to display the correct variant. The standard Serbian keyboard layout for personal computers

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1068-504: A few weeks, Wilhelm Röntgen 's December 1895 announcement of the discovery of X-rays—when he tried to photograph Mark Twain illuminated by a Geissler tube , an earlier type of gas discharge tube. The only thing captured in the image was the metal locking screw on the camera lens. In March 1896, after hearing of Röntgen's discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging ( radiography ), Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging, developing

1157-504: A frustrating period because of conflicts with the other Westinghouse engineers over how best to implement AC power. Between them, they settled on a 60-cycle AC system that Tesla proposed (to match the working frequency of Tesla's motor), but they soon found that it would not work for streetcars, since Tesla's induction motor could run only at a constant speed. They ended up using a DC traction motor instead. Tesla's demonstration of his induction motor and Westinghouse's subsequent licensing of

1246-558: A high-energy single-terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla coil (the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation ). In his research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the "instrument will ... enable one to generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus". Tesla noted

1335-519: A power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current, which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882). This innovative electric motor, patented in May 1888, was a simple self-starting design that did not need

1424-494: A quip about their "Parisian" being out all night. After Tesla told them he had been up all night fixing the Oregon , Edison commented to Batchelor that "this is a damned good man". One of the projects given to Tesla was to develop an arc lamp -based street lighting system. Arc lighting was the most popular type of street lighting but it required high voltages and was incompatible with the Edison low-voltage incandescent system, causing

1513-501: A range of electrical and mechanical devices. His AC induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed. Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators /generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging . He also built

1602-539: A royalty of $ 2.50 per AC horsepower produced by each motor. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of $ 2,000 ($ 67,800 in today's dollars) per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs. During that year, Tesla worked in Pittsburgh, helping to create an alternating current system to power the city's streetcars. He found it

1691-660: A series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943. Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the International System of Units (SI) measurement of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since

1780-717: A stage. He spent most of the decade working on variations of this new form of lighting with the help of various investors but none of the ventures succeeded in making a commercial product out of his findings. In 1893 at St. Louis , Missouri, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association , Tesla told onlookers that he was sure a system like his could eventually conduct "intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance without

1869-455: A way to make the polyphase system it would need compatible with older single-phase AC and DC systems by developing a rotary converter . Westinghouse Electric now had a way to provide electricity to all potential customers and started branding their polyphase AC system as the "Tesla Polyphase System". They believed that Tesla's patents gave them patent priority over other polyphase AC systems. Westinghouse Electric asked Tesla to participate in

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1958-407: A way to transmit worldwide communications. At the time Tesla was formulating his ideas, there was no feasible way to wirelessly transmit communication signals over long distances, let alone large amounts of power. Tesla had studied radio waves early on, and came to the conclusion that part of the existing study on them, by Hertz, was incorrect. Also, this new form of radiation was widely considered at

2047-636: Is necessary (or followed by a short schwa , e.g. /fə/).: Summary tables According to tradition, Glagolitic was invented by the Byzantine Christian missionaries and brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 860s, amid the Christianization of the Slavs . Glagolitic alphabet appears to be older, predating the introduction of Christianity, only formalized by Cyril and expanded to cover non-Greek sounds. The Glagolitic alphabet

2136-477: Is the only one in official use. The ligatures : were developed specially for the Serbian alphabet. Serbian Cyrillic does not use several letters encountered in other Slavic Cyrillic alphabets. It does not use hard sign ( ъ ) and soft sign ( ь ), particularly due to a lack of distinction between iotated consonants and non-iotated consonants, but the aforementioned soft-sign ligatures instead. It does not have Russian/Belarusian Э , Ukrainian/Belarusian І ,

2225-505: The New York Herald Tribune published an article on Tesla, in which he recalled an event that occasionally took place while experimenting with his single-electrode vacuum tubes. A minute particle would break off the cathode, pass out of the tube, and physically strike him: Tesla said he could feel a sharp stinging pain where it entered his body, and again at the place where it passed out. In comparing these particles with

2314-766: The Higher Real Gymnasium where the classes were held in German, as it was usual throughout schools within the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier . Later in his patent applications, before he obtained American citizenship, Tesla would identify himself as 'of Smiljan, Lika , border country of Austria-Hungary '. Tesla later wrote that he became interested in demonstrations of electricity by his physics professor. Tesla noted that these demonstrations of this "mysterious phenomena" made him want "to know more of this wonderful force". Tesla

2403-597: The Imperial-Royal Technical College in Graz in 1875 on a Military Frontier scholarship. Tesla passed nine exams (nearly twice as many as required) and received a letter of commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated, "Your son is a star of first rank." At Graz, Tesla noted his fascination with the detailed lectures on electricity presented by Professor Jakob Pöschl and described how he made suggestions on improving

2492-566: The Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia banned the use of Cyrillic, having regulated it on 25 April 1941, and in June 1941 began eliminating " Eastern " (Serbian) words from Croatian, and shut down Serbian schools. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet with the work of Krste Misirkov and Venko Markovski . The Serbian Cyrillic script was one of

2581-679: The Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company . Tesla worked for the rest of the year obtaining the patents that included an improved DC generator, the first patents issued to Tesla in the US, and building and installing the system in Rahway , New Jersey. Tesla's new system gained notice in the technical press, which commented on its advanced features. The investors showed little interest in Tesla's ideas for new types of alternating current motors and electrical transmission equipment. After

2670-495: The djerv (Ꙉꙉ) for the Serbian reflexes of Pre-Slavic *tj and *dj (* t͡ɕ , * d͡ʑ , * d͡ʒ , and * tɕ ), later the letter evolved to dje (Ђђ) and tshe (Ћћ) letters . Vuk Stefanović Karadžić fled Serbia during the Serbian Revolution in 1813, to Vienna. There he met Jernej Kopitar , a linguist with interest in slavistics. Kopitar and Sava Mrkalj helped Vuk to reform Serbian and its orthography. He finalized

2759-566: The 1870s without receiving a degree. He then gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry . In 1884 he immigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen . He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop

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2848-425: The 1890s through 1906, Tesla spent a great deal of his time and fortune on a series of projects trying to develop the transmission of electrical power without wires . It was an expansion of his idea of using coils to transmit power that he had been demonstrating in wireless lighting. He saw this as not only a way to transmit large amounts of power around the world but also, as he had pointed out in his earlier lectures,

2937-581: The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago where the company had a large space in the "Electricity Building" devoted to electrical exhibits. Westinghouse Electric won the bid to light the Exposition with alternating current and it was a key event in the history of AC power, as the company demonstrated to the American public the safety, reliability, and efficiency of an alternating current system that

3026-594: The 1990s. Nikola Tesla was born into an ethnic Serb family in the village of Smiljan , within the Military Frontier , in the Austrian Empire (present-day Croatia ), on 10 July 1856. His father, Milutin Tesla (1819–1879), was a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church . His father's brother Josif was a lecturer at a military academy who wrote several textbooks on mathematics. Tesla's mother, Georgina "Đuka" Mandić (1822–1892), whose father

3115-557: The 3 and 13 October 1914 banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia , limiting it for use in religious instruction. A decree was passed on January 3, 1915, that banned Serbian Cyrillic completely from public use. An imperial order on October 25, 1915, banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina , except "within the scope of Serbian Orthodox Church authorities". In 1941,

3204-652: The Columbian Exposition. At the same time, a further contract was awarded to General Electric to build the AC distribution system. In 1895, Edward Dean Adams, impressed with what he saw when he toured Tesla's lab, agreed to help found the Nikola Tesla Company, set up to fund, develop, and market a variety of previous Tesla patents and inventions as well as new ones. Alfred Brown signed on, bringing along patents developed under Peck and Brown. The board

3293-528: The Edison Machine Works". Soon after leaving the Edison company, Tesla was working on patenting an arc lighting system, possibly the same one he had developed at Edison. In March 1885, he met with patent attorney Lemuel W. Serrell, the same attorney used by Edison, to obtain help with submitting the patents. Serrell introduced Tesla to two businessmen, Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail, who agreed to finance an arc lighting manufacturing and utility company in Tesla's name,

3382-513: The Latin alphabet, in use in western South Slavic areas, using the same principles. As a result of this joint effort, Serbian Cyrillic and Gaj's Latin alphabets have a complete one-to-one congruence, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters. The updated Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was officially adopted in the Principality of Serbia in 1868, and was in exclusive use in

3471-645: The Latin script is almost always used in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina , whereas Cyrillic is in everyday use in Republika Srpska . The Serbian language in Croatia is officially recognized as a minority language; however, the use of Cyrillic in bilingual signs has sparked protests and vandalism . Serbian Cyrillic is an important symbol of Serbian identity. In Serbia, official documents are printed in Cyrillic only even though, according to

3560-587: The Paris installation, was brought back to the United States to manage the Edison Machine Works , a manufacturing division situated in New York City, and asked that Tesla be brought to the United States as well. In June 1884, Tesla emigrated and began working almost immediately at the Machine Works on Manhattan 's Lower East Side , an overcrowded shop with a workforce of several hundred machinists, laborers, managing staff, and 20 "field engineers" struggling with

3649-773: The Société Electrique Edison, the division in the Ivry-sur-Seine suburb of Paris in charge of installing the lighting system. There he gained a great deal of practical experience in electrical engineering. Management took notice of his advanced knowledge in engineering and physics and soon had him designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors. They also sent him on to troubleshoot engineering problems at other Edison utilities being built around France and in Germany. In 1884, Edison manager Charles Batchelor , who had been overseeing

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3738-486: The US military as a type of radio-controlled torpedo , but they showed little interest. Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward, when a number of countries used it in military programs . Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate "Teleautomatics" in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago, while he was traveling to Colorado Springs , on 13 May 1899. From

3827-640: The Westinghouse alternating current system and Thomson-Houston sometimes siding with Edison. Competing in this market meant Westinghouse would not have the cash or engineering resources to develop Tesla's motor and the related polyphase system right away. Two years after signing the Tesla contract, Westinghouse Electric was in trouble. The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890 , causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric. The sudden cash shortage forced

3916-599: The age of 60 after an unspecified illness. During the rest of the year Tesla taught a large class of students in his old school in Gospić. In January 1880, two of Tesla's uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospić for Prague , where he was to study. He arrived too late to enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University ; he had never studied Greek , a required subject; and he was illiterate in Czech , another required subject. Tesla did, however, attend lectures in philosophy at

4005-576: The alphabet in 1818 with the Serbian Dictionary . Karadžić reformed standard Serbian and standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet by following strict phonemic principles on the Johann Christoph Adelung ' model and Jan Hus ' Czech alphabet . Karadžić's reforms of standard Serbian modernised it and distanced it from Serbian and Russian Church Slavonic , instead bringing it closer to common folk speech, specifically, to

4094-571: The alternating current system he was already marketing. Westinghouse looked into getting a patent on a similar commutator-less, rotating magnetic field-based induction motor developed in 1885 and presented in a paper in March 1888 by Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris , but decided that Tesla's patent would probably control the market. In July 1888, Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla's polyphase induction motor and transformer designs for $ 60,000 in cash and stock and

4183-445: The basement of the building and was so intense Tesla's 4th-floor lab burned and collapsed into the second floor. The fire not only set back Tesla's ongoing projects, but it also destroyed a collection of early notes and research material, models, and demonstration pieces, including many that had been exhibited at the 1893 Worlds Colombian Exposition. Tesla told The New York Times "I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?". After

4272-598: The best engineering school if he recovered from the illness. Tesla later said that he had read Mark Twain 's earlier works while recovering from his illness. The next year Tesla evaded conscription into the Austro-Hungarian Army in Smiljan by running away southeast of Lika to Tomingaj , near Gračac . There he explored the mountains wearing hunter's garb. Tesla said that this contact with nature made him stronger, both physically and mentally. He enrolled at

4361-419: The bits of metal projected by his "electric gun", Tesla said, "The particles in the beam of force ... will travel much faster than such particles ... and they will travel in concentrations". In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a boat that used a coherer -based radio control —which he dubbed "telautomaton"—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden . Tesla tried to sell his idea to

4450-406: The company to lose contracts in some cities. Tesla's designs were never put into production, possibly because of technical improvements in incandescent street lighting or because of an installation deal that Edison made with an arc lighting company. Tesla had been working at the Machine Works for a total of six months when he quit. What event precipitated his leaving is unclear. It may have been over

4539-426: The company to refinance its debts. The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies, research, and patents, including the per motor royalty in the Tesla contract. At that point, the Tesla induction motor had been unsuccessful and was stuck in development. Westinghouse was paying a $ 15,000-a-year guaranteed royalty even though operating examples of

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4628-555: The country up to the interwar period . Both alphabets were official in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Due to the shared cultural area, Gaj's Latin alphabet saw a gradual adoption in the Socialist Republic of Serbia since, and both scripts are used to write modern standard Serbian. In Serbia , Cyrillic is seen as being more traditional, and has

4717-472: The current state of all the competing systems. Tesla advised Adams that a two-phased system would be the most reliable and that there was a Westinghouse system to light incandescent bulbs using two-phase alternating current. The company awarded a contract to Westinghouse Electric for building a two-phase AC generating system at the Niagara Falls, based on Tesla's advice and Westinghouse's demonstration at

4806-463: The deal, quipping "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor". The size of the bonus in either story has been noted as odd since Machine Works manager Batchelor was stingy with pay and the company did not have that amount of cash (equal to $ 1,695,556 today) on hand. Tesla's diary contains just one comment on what happened at the end of his employment, a note he scrawled across the two pages covering 7 December 1884, to 4 January 1885, saying "Good By to

4895-515: The design of an electric motor the professor was demonstrating. But by his third year he was failing in school and never graduated, leaving Graz in December 1878. One biographer suggests Tesla was not studying and may have been expelled for gambling and womanizing. Tesla's family did not hear from him after he left school. There was a rumor among his classmates that he had drowned in the nearby river Mur but in January one of them ran into Tesla in

4984-615: The dialect of Eastern Herzegovina which he spoke. Karadžić was, together with Đuro Daničić , the main Serbian signatory to the Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850 which, encouraged by Austrian authorities, laid the foundation for Serbian, various forms of which are used by Serbs in Serbia , Montenegro , Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia today. Karadžić also translated the New Testament into Serbian, which

5073-562: The fair for a week during its six-month run to attend the International Electrical Congress and put on a series of demonstrations at the Westinghouse exhibit. A specially darkened room had been set up where Tesla showed his wireless lighting system, using a demonstration he had previously performed throughout America and Europe; these included using high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current to light wireless gas-discharge lamps . An observer noted: Within

5162-498: The fire Tesla moved to 46 & 48 East Houston Street and rebuilt his lab on the 6th and 7th floors. Starting in 1894, Tesla began investigating what he referred to as radiant energy of "invisible" kinds after he had noticed damaged film in his laboratory in previous experiments (later identified as "Roentgen rays" or " X-rays "). His early experiments were with Crookes tubes , a cold cathode electrical discharge tube. Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X-ray image—predating, by

5251-621: The hazards of working with his circuit and single-node X-ray-producing devices. In his many notes on the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. He believed early on that damage to the skin was not caused by the Roentgen rays, but by the ozone generated in contact with the skin, and to a lesser extent, by nitrous acid . Tesla incorrectly believed that X-rays were longitudinal waves, such as those produced in waves in plasmas . These plasma waves can occur in force-free magnetic fields . On 11 July 1934,

5340-640: The high-frequency current overheated the iron core and melted the insulation between the primary and secondary windings in the coil. To fix this problem Tesla came up with his "oscillating transformer", with an air gap instead of insulating material between the primary and secondary windings and an iron core that could be moved to different positions in or out of the coil. Later called the Tesla coil, it would be used to produce high- voltage , low- current , high frequency alternating-current electricity. He would use this resonant transformer circuit in his later wireless power work. On 30 July 1891, aged 35, Tesla became

5429-457: The motor probably seemed obvious to Tesla and he agreed to release the company from the royalty payment clause in the contract. Six years later Westinghouse purchased Tesla's patent for a lump sum payment of $ 216,000 as part of a patent-sharing agreement signed with General Electric (a company created from the 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson-Houston). The money Tesla made from licensing his AC patents made him independently wealthy and gave him

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5518-438: The motor were rare and polyphase power systems needed to run it was even rarer. In early 1891, George Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms, saying that, if he did not meet the demands of his lenders, he would no longer be in control of Westinghouse Electric and Tesla would have to "deal with the bankers" to try to collect future royalties. The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion

5607-509: The official status (designated in the constitution as the " official script ", compared to Latin's status of "script in official use" designated by a lower-level act, for national minorities). It is also an official script in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro , along with Gaj's Latin alphabet . Serbian Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia , Montenegro , and Bosnia and Herzegovina . Although Bosnia "officially accept[s] both alphabets",

5696-424: The patent, both in 1888, came at the time of extreme competition between electric companies. The three big firms, Westinghouse, Edison, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company , were trying to grow in a capital-intensive business while financially undercutting each other. There was even a " war of currents " propaganda campaign going on, with Edison Electric claiming their direct current system was better and safer than

5785-594: The patent. Physicist William Arnold Anthony (who tested the motor) and Electrical World magazine editor Thomas Commerford Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his AC motor on 16 May 1888 at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers . Engineers working for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company reported to George Westinghouse that Tesla had a viable AC motor and related power system—something Westinghouse needed for

5874-447: The possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it. After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in

5963-408: The previous 18th century Slavonic-Serbian script, following the principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written", removing obsolete letters and letters representing iotated vowels , introducing ⟨J⟩ from the Latin alphabet instead, and adding several consonant letters for sounds specific to Serbian phonology . During the same period, linguists led by Ljudevit Gaj adapted

6052-410: The room were suspended two hard-rubber plates covered with tin foil. These were about fifteen feet apart and served as terminals of the wires leading from the transformers. When the current was turned on, the lamps or tubes, which had no wires connected to them, but lay on a table between the suspended plates, or which might be held in the hand in almost any part of the room, were made luminous. These were

6141-623: The same experiments and the same apparatus shown by Tesla in London about two years previous, "where they produced so much wonder and astonishment". During his presentation at the International Electrical Congress in the Columbian Exposition Agriculture Hall, Tesla introduced his steam powered reciprocating electricity generator that he patented that year, something he thought was a better way to generate alternating current. Steam

6230-768: The semi-vowels Й or Ў , nor the iotated letters Я (Russian/Bulgarian ya ), Є (Ukrainian ye ), Ї ( yi ), Ё (Russian yo ) or Ю ( yu ), which are instead written as two separate letters: Ја, Је, Ји, Јо, Ју . Ј can also be used as a semi-vowel, in place of й . The letter Щ is not used. When necessary, it is transliterated as either ШЧ , ШЋ or ШТ . Serbian italic and cursive forms of lowercase letters б , г , д , п , and т (Russian Cyrillic alphabet) differ from those used in other Cyrillic alphabets: б , г , д , п , and т (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet). The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized among languages and there are no officially recognized variations. That presents

6319-426: The summer of 1889, Tesla traveled to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and learned of Heinrich Hertz 's 1886–1888 experiments that proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation , including radio waves . In repeating and then expanding on these experiments Tesla tried powering a Ruhmkorff coil with a high speed alternator he had been developing as part of an improved arc lighting system but found that

6408-461: The task of building the large electric utility in that city. As in Paris, Tesla was working on troubleshooting installations and improving generators. Historian W. Bernard Carlson notes Tesla may have met company founder Thomas Edison only a couple of times. One of those times was noted in Tesla's autobiography where, after staying up all night repairing the damaged dynamos on the ocean liner SS  Oregon , he ran into Batchelor and Edison, who made

6497-633: The time and funds to pursue his own interests. In 1889, Tesla moved out of the Liberty Street shop Peck and Brown had rented and for the next dozen years worked out of a series of workshop/laboratory spaces in Manhattan . These included a lab at 175 Grand Street (1889–1892), the fourth floor of 33–35 South Fifth Avenue (1892–1895), and sixth and seventh floors of 46 & 48 East Houston Street (1895–1902). Tesla and his hired staff conducted some of his most significant work in these workshops. In

6586-461: The time to be a short-distance phenomenon that seemed to die out in less than a mile. Tesla noted that, even if theories on radio waves were true, they were totally worthless for his intended purposes since this form of "invisible light" would diminish over a distance just like any other radiation and would travel in straight lines right out into space, becoming "hopelessly lost". Serbian Cyrillic alphabet Reformed Serbian based its alphabet on

6675-485: The town of Maribor and reported that encounter to Tesla's family. It turned out Tesla had been working there as a draftsman for 60 florins per month. In March 1879, Milutin finally located his son and tried to convince him to return home and take up his education in Prague. Tesla returned to Gospić later that month when he was deported for not having a residence permit. Tesla's father died the next month, on 17 April 1879, at

6764-598: The two official scripts used to write Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia since its establishment in 1918, the other being Gaj's Latin alphabet ( latinica ). Following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbian Cyrillic is no longer used in Croatia on national level, while in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro it remained an official script. Under the Constitution of Serbia of 2006, Cyrillic script

6853-614: The university as an auditor but he did not receive grades for the courses. Tesla moved to Budapest , Hungary , in 1881 to work under Tivadar Puskás at a telegraph company, the Budapest Telephone Exchange. Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead. Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional, and Tesla

6942-536: The use of wires" by conducting it through the Earth. Tesla served as a vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1892 to 1894, the forerunner of the modern-day IEEE (along with the Institute of Radio Engineers ). By the beginning of 1893, Westinghouse engineer Charles F. Scott and then Benjamin G. Lamme had made progress on an efficient version of Tesla's induction motor. Lamme found

7031-437: The utility was up and running in 1886, they decided that the manufacturing side of the business was too competitive and opted to simply run an electric utility. They formed a new utility company, abandoning Tesla's company and leaving the inventor penniless. Tesla even lost control of the patents he had generated, since he had assigned them to the company in exchange for stock. He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and as

7120-439: Was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating. He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873. After graduating Tesla returned to Smiljan but soon contracted cholera , was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times. In a moment of despair, Tesla's father (who had originally wanted him to enter the priesthood), promised to send him to

7209-693: Was allocated the chief electrician position. During his employment, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier , which was never patented nor publicly described. In 1882, Tivadar Puskás got Tesla another job in Paris with the Continental Edison Company. Tesla began working in what was then a brand new industry, installing indoor incandescent lighting citywide in large scale electric power utility . The company had several subdivisions and Tesla worked at

7298-432: Was also an Eastern Orthodox Church priest, had a talent for making home craft tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems . Đuka had never received a formal education. Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence. Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had three sisters, Milka, Angelina, and Marica, and an older brother named Dane, who

7387-630: Was based on the Slavic dialect of Thessaloniki . Part of the Serbian literary heritage of the Middle Ages are works such as Miroslav Gospel , Vukan Gospels , St. Sava's Nomocanon , Dušan's Code , Munich Serbian Psalter , and others. The first printed book in Serbian was the Cetinje Octoechos (1494). It's notable extensive use of diacritical signs by the Resava dialect and use of

7476-486: Was filled out with William Birch Rankine and Charles F. Coaney. It found few investors since the mid-1890s were a tough time financially, and the wireless lighting and oscillators patents it was set up to market never panned out. The company handled Tesla's patents for decades to come. In the early morning hours of 13 March 1895, the South Fifth Avenue building that housed Tesla's lab caught fire. It started in

7565-407: Was forced into the oscillator and rushed out through a series of ports, pushing a piston up and down that was attached to an armature. The magnetic armature vibrated up and down at high speed, producing an alternating magnetic field . This induced alternating electric current in the wire coils located adjacent. It did away with the complicated parts of a steam engine/generator, but never caught on as

7654-631: Was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around by Cyril's disciples, perhaps at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th century. The earliest form of Cyrillic was the ustav , based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants not found in Greek. There was no distinction between capital and lowercase letters. The standard language

7743-402: Was killed in a horse-riding accident when Tesla was aged six or seven. In 1861, Tesla attended primary school in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion. In 1862, the Tesla family moved to the nearby town of Gospić , where Tesla's father worked as parish priest. Nikola completed primary school, followed by middle school. In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac to attend high school at

7832-422: Was polyphase and could also supply the other AC and DC exhibits at the fair. A special exhibit space was set up to display various forms and models of Tesla's induction motor. The rotating magnetic field that drove them was explained through a series of demonstrations including an Egg of Columbus that used the two-phase coil found in an induction motor to spin a copper egg making it stand on end. Tesla visited

7921-582: Was published in 1868. He wrote several books; Mala prostonarodna slaveno-serbska pesnarica and Pismenica serbskoga jezika in 1814, and two more in 1815 and 1818, all with the alphabet still in progress. In his letters from 1815 to 1818 he used: Ю, Я, Ы and Ѳ. In his 1815 song book he dropped the Ѣ. The alphabet was officially adopted in 1868, four years after his death. From the Old Slavic script Vuk retained these 24 letters: He added one Latin letter: And 5 new ones: He removed: Orders issued on

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