Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla

Born July 10, 1856, Nikola Tesla was an American inventor and engineer of Serbian descent. He was born in the village of Smiljan in the Austrian Empire; today, the village is located in Croatia. Though his mother never had any formal education, she had an excellent memory, which Tesla inherited.

In 1875, at the age of 19, Tesla began taking courses at Austrian Polytechnic (today known as the Graz University of Technology) where he enjoyed an outstanding first year. However, during his second year, Tesla was distracted by off-campus activity, revealing a compulsion to gamble. Though he claimed to overcome the addiction, the damage was done: he lost his scholarship and never officially graduated from the university.

For the next several years, Tesla audited university courses in Prague, taught classes at one of his childhood schools, and worked in a telegraph office. Eventually he gained a position as a chief electrician for the Budapest Telephone Exchange. In 1882, he began working for the French branch of one of Thomas Edison's companies, the Continental Edison Company, where he designed and improved electrical instruments. Two years later, he moved to New York, hired by Thomas Edison himself.

Tesla claimed he could improve on Edison's direct current generators, and boasted that Edison offered him $50,000 if he could in fact do it. Months passed and Tesla succeeded. However, when he went to Edison who was known for his stinginess Edison claimed the $50,000 had been a joke, though he did offer Tesla a raise. And how did Tesla respond? He quit.

A genius in his own right, it was not long before Tesla was able to acquire funding and backing for his electrical projects; in 1886, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing opened its doors. Unfortunately his backers were more interested in immediate profits than new ideas, and it wasn't long before they pushed him out of the business that bore his name.

Tesla hit rock bottom, digging ditches for $2 a day. The following year, 1887, brought Tesla to an acquaintance with two new partners: Alfred Brown and Charles Peck. The three established the Tesla Electric Company. In the same year, Tesla developed an alternating current induction motor, and in 1888 he patented an alternating current electric generator.

1891 was a banner year for Tesla. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in July, moved into his new workspace on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and patented his famed Tesla Coil. Tesla's plasma lamp is often used to teach students about electric currents. His future experiments would include studies of X-ray imaging, radio, meteorology, and aviation.

A student experiments with Tesla's plasma lamp.

In 1899, Tesla moved his laboratory to Colorado Springs, Colorado, which afforded more space for his endeavors, including an experiment that resulted in the creation of bolts of artificial lightning. People miles away often felt the thunder of Tesla's experiments.

Nikola Tesla is one of the most colorful characters in the history of technology, his inventions and experiments continuing to fascinate us today. He died in 1943 of a blood clot in his heart; he was 86 and, regardless of his many successes, penniless and alone.