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80-619: Nikola Tesla introduced his first prototype violet ray at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Most of the antique violet rays in the US were produced before the Depression era , and some of the larger US manufacturers of violet rays were Renulife, Fitzgerald, and Fisher. Companies who manufactured violet ray devices made many other types of electrical appliances as well, e.g. Star Electric, which also manufactured stock ticker machines. Many of

160-499: A Ruhmkorff coil with a high speed alternator he had been developing as part of an improved arc lighting system but found that 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

240-617: A cold cathode electrical discharge tube. Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X-ray image—predating, by 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

320-403: 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

400-779: 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),

480-628: 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

560-646: 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 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 ,

640-527: 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 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

720-585: 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 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

800-408: 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 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

880-411: A department that designed and tested equipment and trained Edison workers how to wire buildings and install and repair dynamos. New types of dynamos were designed here as well as improved power consumption meters. The demands of the expanding utility soon overtaxed the cramped lower Manhattan shop. Extra lathes needed for production had to be set up on the sidewalks outside the building connected through

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960-514: 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

1040-506: 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

1120-559: 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

1200-585: 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

1280-497: 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

1360-552: A required subject; and he was illiterate in Czech , another required subject. Tesla did, however, attend lectures in philosophy at 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,

1440-541: 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

1520-697: A series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in 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

1600-487: 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 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

1680-516: 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 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

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1760-410: 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

1840-454: 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 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,

1920-506: 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

2000-753: 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 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,

2080-771: 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

2160-599: 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

2240-633: 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

2320-439: The financial panic of 1890 , causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric. The sudden cash shortage forced 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

2400-607: The tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since 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

2480-425: 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,

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2560-548: The 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson-Houston). The money Tesla made from licensing his AC patents made him independently wealthy and gave him 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),

2640-696: The 1970s and 1980s, may have used a violet ray. The violet ray was suggested independently by two museum curators after they were given victims' descriptions of one of the several electrical devices used by Burge. American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce advocated use of the violet ray in almost 900 of his readings . Since the 1990s, under the name "violet wand", violet ray devices have more recently become popular as relatively safe electrical stimulation devices for erotic electrostimulation . Nikola Tesla 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)

2720-600: 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 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

2800-1093: 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 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

2880-533: 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,

2960-487: 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 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

3040-660: 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

3120-467: The Surface Electrode externally over the area of the nose. Use Ozone Generator. During the 1940s and 1950s, makers of violet ray devices were subjected to numerous lawsuits and multiple actions by the US government including recalls, seizures, forfeitures, and orders to have them destroyed. The last manufacturer of violet ray electrotherapy devices in the US was Master Electric. The company

3200-488: 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

3280-573: 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

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3360-489: The back of head and neck with strong current in direct contact with the skin. Treat the spine and hold the electrode in the hand. Ozone inhalations for about four minutes are also of importance. For catarrh , this treatment was directed: Catarrh, Nasal - In this condition the Nasal Tube is used within the nose with a mild current within the nasal passage, two to five minutes on each side, followed by an application with

3440-423: The bankers" to try to collect future royalties. The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion 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

3520-577: 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 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

3600-420: 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

3680-545: 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 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

3760-490: The companies who were able to continue manufacturing violet rays after the Depression stopped making them due to World War II , when they began manufacturing radio coils and other electrical components for the war instead. A typical violet ray device consisted of an ungrounded, electrical control box that controlled the interrupter and housed the magneto coil, and an attached bakelite or other handle housing which contained

3840-408: 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

3920-468: 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

4000-520: 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

4080-604: The different types of electric light installations Edison was offering customers. The Machine Works was incorporated in 1884 with Edison investor Charles Batchelor as general manager, John Kruesi as assistant general manager, and Samuel Insull as secretary. At the end of 1885 the Electric Tube Company and the Edison Shafting Manufacturing Company were merged into the Edison Machine Works . The Machine Works also had

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4160-608: The factory windows by long drive belts. Strikes, unionizing attempts, and the general expense of labor and land in New York City sent Edison looking for a site for a new factory. In 1886 the Machine Works , along with 200 of its workers, were moved to two unfinished factory buildings on a 10-acre site in Schenectady, NY , intended to have been the McQueen Locomotive Works. The new factory was put under

4240-496: 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 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

4320-530: 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 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

4400-623: 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,

4480-534: The high voltage coil and an insertion port for attachments. Glass, evacuated tubes of varying shapes and for different therapeutic uses could be inserted into the bakelite handle to apply the resulting current to different parts of the body. Violet ray treatments were said to cure everything from lower back pain to carbuncles . From an antique Master Violet Ray manual c. 1920 comes this treatment advice: Brain Fog - Use Applicator No. I over forehead and eyes. Also treat

4560-567: 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 a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His AC induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him

4640-453: The next month, on 17 April 1879, at 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 ,

4720-400: 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

4800-529: 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

4880-644: The priesthood), promised to send him to 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

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4960-434: The problem in 1881 Edison leased the old Etna Iron Works at 104 Goerck Street, Lower Manhattan and set up the Edison Machine Works with Edison providing 90% of the capital and investor partner Charles Batchelor providing 10%. The workforce built up to some 800 men supervised by Edison machinist Charles Dean. This shop supplied jumbo dynamos for the original Pearl Street Station as well as dynamos of various sizes for

5040-464: 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

5120-444: 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". Edison Machine Works The Edison Machine Works

5200-452: 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

5280-440: 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

5360-509: The wire coils located adjacent. It did away with the complicated parts of a steam engine/generator, but never caught on as 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

5440-417: 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 the 1870s without receiving a degree. He then gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in

5520-463: Was a lecturer at a military academy who wrote several textbooks on mathematics. Tesla's mother, Georgina "Đuka" Mandić (1822–1892), whose father 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

5600-432: Was a manufacturing company set up to produce dynamos , large electric motors , and other components of the electrical illumination system being built in the 1880s by Thomas A. Edison in New York City. The need for equipment in the development of a large-scale electric illumination " utility " in New York City, starting around 1880, soon outstripped the capacity of Thomas Edison's machine shop at Menlo Park . To alleviate

5680-400: 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

5760-539: Was better and safer than 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

5840-549: 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 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

5920-625: 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 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

6000-615: 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 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

6080-483: 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 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

6160-455: Was stuck in development. Westinghouse was paying a $ 15,000-a-year guaranteed royalty even though operating examples of 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

6240-590: Was subjected to a 1951 lawsuit in Marion, Indiana, and the devices were seized by the FDA. While their manufacture was prohibited in the US by case law, violet ray electrotherapy devices are still manufactured by companies outside of the US. Jon Burge of the Chicago Police Department , who was dismissed in 1992 following allegations of torture of suspects by Burge and detectives working under him in

6320-525: Was the fourth of five children. He had three sisters, Milka, Angelina, and Marica, and an older brother named Dane, who 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

6400-528: 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 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

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