Tesla : The Man and the Myth

My Inventions : Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla, born 10th July 1856, Smiljan, Croatia. Recently, I've read his autobiography “My Inventions”. He was God gifted serial innovator and from very illustrios family. His mother belonged to one of the oldest families of the region having impeccable record as inventors and who invented several tools and implements. His father was military officer and later on turned to work as priest. Infact, his grandfather served in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. From childhood he was suffering from light flashes and he could intuitively imagine the exact drawings without any assistance of pen or paper. He had clarity of vision but knowledge of principles of physics was a limiting factor in his earlier life. Firstly he proposed to transport letters and packages across seas through submarine tube in spherical containers. The pumping plant would force the water through the tube. In yet another project he proposed to construct a ring around equator to float freely, which could be arrested in its spinning motion by reactionary forces enabling high speed travel. His Alternating Current (AC) for power transmission was a landmark development but sadly it was pitted against Edison’s DC model which led to ugly controversy in USA. 

    Infact attempts were made to defame Tesla and his AC system by fake accidents and his lab was burnt in 1895. He proposed “The World-System” which comprised of The Tesla Transformer, Magnifying Transformer, Tesla Wireless system, Art of Individualisation, Terrestrial Stationary Waves. This was supposed to transmit data on real-time basis. As he stated: 

What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the work into primeval barbarism. Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races, and we are still far from this blissful realisation.” 

Tesla in 1914 predicted World War “It is regrettable that a punitive policy was adopted in framing terms of peace, because a few years hence it’ll be possible for nations to fight without armies, ship or guns, by weapons far more terrible to the destructive action with no limit."

He led a life of chastity and abstinence, slept for only 2 hrs. With 300+ patents in his name, he didn’t opted for many patents as he considered them for general use. He is profound figure in scientific history whose signatures can be seen even today in all fields. 

The book is in interesting read.