Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was born in the midst of a thunderstorm in Smiljan (Hungarian Austro Empire) in present-day Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla (1819-1879), was an Orthodox priest and his mother, Đuka Tesla (née Mandić; 1822-1892) was from a family of inventors. Milutin wanted Nikola to follow in his footsteps, but when he was 17, he contracted a serious illness that almost led to his death and his father promised that if he survived, he could study engineering.
He survived and studied electrical engineering at the Institute Polytechnic of Graz in 1873 in Austria. In 1881, moved to Budapest in Hungria to work as an electrical engineer in a telephone company. In 1882, he began working in Paris at Continental Edison Company and in the same year he discovered the Alternating Current. In 1884, he was invited to work at Thomas Edison's firm (1847-1931) in New York.
Tesla received several awards in his career, was a great inventor in the field of electronics and radioelectricity, leaving approximately 700 inventions and 40 patents. Two of the discoveries he left us of paramount importance were the Alternating Current (1882) and the Tesla Tower (1901-1917).
For years, Nikola Tesla lived at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York and then moved to the New Yorker Hotel in the same city, where he died at the age of 86, forgotten, lonely and poor. He never married and had no children.
Alternating Current is a type of energy current that works on long-distance, high-voltage transmission (voltage) that is used to this day. We can cite some practical examples such as: transmission of electric light, fans, vacuum cleaner, blender and solar inverter (generally used in photovoltaic solar energy).
The Tesla Tower was a telecommunications antenna that he designed with transatlantic commercial telephony transmission to demonstrate the wireless network that captured free energy from the ionosphere (Earth's atmospheric layer located from 60 km to 1000 km altitude and responsible for transmitting radio waves at that time). This energy was relayed through a ground wire, which was distributed outdoors to the entire planet, that is, as if it were a wireless network. In the end, the project did not go ahead due to economic problems. But we can mention inventions that use this principle of wireless energy transmission technology to this day, such as the remote control and the radio (invented by Tesla), the wireless network and the mobile cell phone (already imagined by him at that time).
"In all space there is energy... it is (only) a matter of time before men succeed in associating their mechanisms with the use of this energy."
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) inventor, mechanical and electrotechnical engineer, Elliott Cresson Medal, IEEE Edison Medal, John Scott Medal and National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
Reflection:
Nikola Tesla was a great inventor for mankind. He discovered the Alternating Current that is used in various equipment until today and the Wireless Network, telecommunications and Internet access technology, among other incredible discoveries. Despite all this, he was totally wronged because of the censorship and alienation of the society of that time.
How can we rescue and apply what he left us good?
Comment below.
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