Nikola Tesla
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart
like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain
unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget
food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”
~ Nikola Tesla
“Instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.”
~ Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla, a true visionary, was born on midnight between July 9th and 10th 1856 in Smiljan, Province of Lika, Croatia.(then part of the Austrian Empire).
He was a genius who revolutionized the world we live in today - a man before his time. There have been a number of books and articles written about him. So why do I feel the need to write about him? For me, he is inspiring. He is an enigma, someone so mysterious, and I am left with only my imagination to who he may truly have been. There is information out there on Tesla; however it seems fragmented. He is responsible for numerous inventions. Nikola Tesla had 700 patents in the US and Europe. Tesla's discoveries include the Tesla Coil, fluorescent light, radio, remote control, wireless transmission of electrical energy, Electric Motor , The first Hydro-electric power plant Niagara Falls NY, AC inventor and much more. It seems he had visions which he describes as real. He would wave his hand and only then did he know it was a vision, and not reality. He said these visions would be a collection of pictures and flashes of light. Later, he would be able to view this as a gift and the source of his genius. Tesla is said to have had many strange rituals. For instance when he would eat in a restaurant, he would call ahead and order, requesting that 18 napkins be by his table so he could clean the silverware. It’s believed that he had a phobia for germs. Sounds a little Howard Hughes to me. He like things to be in threes or divided by three.
On June 6, 1884, Tesla first arrived in the US in New York City. He had little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor - his manager in his previous job. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Charles Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." Edison hired Tesla to work for his company Edison Machine Works. Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving the company's most difficult problems. Tesla was offered the task to do a complete redesign of the Edison company's direct current generators. Edison promised to pay him $50,000 if he can improve the performance of the D.C. dynamo. Tesla succeeded beyond Edison's expectations, but he went back on his promise to pay Tesla. Edison is quoted as stating to Tesla, " You don't understand our American humor." Deeply hurt Tesla resigned.
He was forced to work as a ditch digger for $2.00 a day.
George Westinghouse Jr, an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry contacted Tesla to obtain patent rights to his AC motor. The wide scale introduction of the polyphase AC motor began. Tesla conceived a three -phase AC at 60 Hz, chosen at a rate high enough to minimize light flickering, but low enough to reduce reactive losses. This work led to the modern US power-distribution scheme. Westinghouse's promotion of AC power distribution led him into a bitter confrontation with Edison and his DC power system
While there is a lot of information about Tesla, it is incredibly hard to find the real truth about him. Edison engaged in a propaganda war called the War of the Currents. By using Tesla's transformers, AC voltages could be stepped up (or down) and transmitted over long distances through thin wires. DC could not as it required a large power plant every square mile and had to be transmitted through very thick cables. Edison claimed that high voltage systems were inherently dangerous but Tesla and Westinghouse believed that the risks could be managed and were out weighed by the benefits. Edison tried to have legislation to limit power transmission voltages to 800 volts, but failed. He saw a last opportunity to defeat his rival. and hired an outside engineer named Harold P. Brown, who could pretend to be impartial. There is footage of Edison electrocuting an Elephant, emphasizing how dangerous the AC was. It is also said that he paid neighborhood children 25 cents for every dog they could bring him. Edison then told the state board that AC was so deadly that it would kill instantly, making it the ideal method for execution. This idea was adopted by the state. Harold P. Brown then went on to sell gear for performing electric execution to the state for $8,000. Tesla was distraught that is AC would be used in such a way.
This was how low Edison went to discredit Tesla's name.
Topsy the elephant 1903
Tesla believed that ultra fine corpuscles from the sun permeated the entire earth, manifesting as static charge. Tesla further conjectured that these rays came primarily from the sun, since it was ejecting matter "at excessively high voltages". If this were so, reasoned Tesla, then sunlight contained something of this electro-active component ... and it was certainly possible to derive electrical energy from sunlight.
Nikola Tesla announced these facts in 1894, finding only the silencing ridicule of academicians already hating his very name. When Tesla declared that "rays from space" were "bombarding the earth" he was absolutely rejected by the academic club who rejected these claims as "superstitious". Upbraiding his findings, they later claimed for themselves the very same discovery (Hess 1912, Millikan 1932).
Tesla stated that the electrical energy released by the sun is a far greater, more permeating supply than sunlight itself. He certainly believed it should be considered as a first rate natural electrical source of enormous potential for commercial applications. His assertion was based on experimentally verified facts when, measuring steadily growing charge states in vacuum tubes, it occurred to him that earth charge was sourced in solar activity.
Tesla also demonstrated the extraction of free electrical power from solar energy. A grounded mica capacitor is surmounted by a highly polished zinc plate. This plate may be poised in a highly evacuated glass container to best advantage, the zinc not exposed to corrosive influences. The tube is elevated and exposed to sunlight. The mica capacitor is connected in series with the vacuum tube. After only several minutes of exposure time, the stored electrical energy is formidable, producing a powerful white arc discharge. Tesla patented this device.
It would seem that Nikola Tesla was interested in Vedic Philosophy. And was friends with Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda belonged to that branch of Vedanta that held that no one can be truly free until all of us are. Even the desire for personal salvation has to be given up, and only tireless work for the salvation of others is the true mark of the enlightened person. He founded the Sri Ramakrishna Math and Mission on the principle of Atmano Mokshartham Jagat-hitaya cha (for one's own salvation and for the welfare of the World).
Nikola Tesla, after listening to Vivekananda's speech on Sankhya Philosophy, was much interested in its cosmogony and its rational theories of the Kalpas (cycles), Prana and Akasha. His notion based on the Vedanta led him to think that matter is a manifestation of energy. After attending a lecture on Vedanta by Vivekananda, Tesla also concluded that modern science can look for the solution of cosmological problems in Sankhya philosophy, and he could prove that mass can be reduced to potential energy mathematically.
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