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Tesla Biography

updated 2010-06-28

Nikola Tesla

born at midnight, on the morning of 7/10/1856
murdered 1/7/1943.

New York State and many other states in the USA
proclaimed July 10, Tesla’s birthday - Nikola Tesla Day.

"He'll be a child of the storm." commented the midwife who assisted his birth, "at the stroke of midnight" while lightning was striking during a thunderstorm.
His mother replied, "No, of light."

Tesla invented not just one but many things which revolutionized the world, not the least of his inventions is the ac electric motor and generator, which was thought impossible at the time, and which has changed the world. He also invented radio (not Marconi) and radar, fluorescent and neon lights. He invented a precursor to the loudspeaker. He never bothered to get a patent on it. His Tesla Coil is used in every TV set. He instituted lead shielding to keep people safe around x-ray machines. A whole branch of medicine, electrotherapy, was founded on the healing effects of certain Tesla coil frequencies. He never patented in the area but did announce his findings to the medical community, and a number of devices were patented and marketed by others. He gave us the knowledge needed to produce the Electron-Microscope. He lighted 200 50-watt lamps wirelessly from a distance of 25 miles.

Tesla was able to fully construct, develop and perfect his inventions completely in his mind before committing them to paper. There are things he invented which we, today, do not know how he did it. Including a wireless source of alternating current, electricity, from space, "dark energy" aka "radiant energy", enough to power a car, a large ship, a train, it was limitless. This, and other things he did and spoke of, have given others the incentive to experiment and discover/invent things that no one would have thought of otherwise.

From his ac motor royalties alone, Tesla would have become, the world's first billionaire had he not voluntarily given up his royalties being paid to him by Westinghouse. [Edison and J.P.Morgan were already trying to put Westinghouse out of business and terminate Tesla.]

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Today, in the US alone, almost 55 percent of the nation's [AC] electricity is consumed by [AC] electric motors. AC power runs on much smaller gauge wiring, lowering materials costs. A wiring distance of only 35 feet is enough for AC to be more efficient than DC! For example, if the wiring distance between light fixtures and battery bank will be 35 feet or more in length, AC lighting should be considered to save on wiring and fixture costs - a greater saving than the cost of the inverter.

1. Tesla invented the induction AC motor, which is a massive improvement over a DC motor for several reasons:
   • it does not require magnets (which for a high efficiency motor are rare earth magnets)
   • by being able to vary both the frequency and voltage, unlike a DC you are able to better tune an induction motor for efficient operation.
   • its brushless operation, which many at the time was believed impossible. (In fact, brushless DC motors have only been commercially possible since 1962 and still require complex electronic speed controllers to run.)
   • more torque per weight and efficiency, reliability, reduced noise, longer lifetime (no brush and commutator erosion), elimination of ionizing sparks from the commutator, more power, and overall reduction of electromagnetic interference (EMI)
2. The US government notes that only ~8% of energy loses are a result of power transmission and distribution. This is on par with the loses on the charge/discharge cycle of a lead acid battery. Also from a cost perspective, the Western Governors Report on renewable energy concluded that only 11% of the cost of power comes from the cost of distribution.
3. High Voltage DC is important, but it's worth noting the downsides: Specifically AC is great because so long as your in sync anyone can basically add or take power off a line. H.V. DC is basically point to point -- You need to have a source and a load. It's not like AC where you can string a few separate plants and have the lines run to 20 sub stations. Also varying DC voltages is a royal PITA, so having a wind farm all output a single consistent deliverable is almost impossible in a DC world.

Imagine the muck we would still be stuck in had Edison and J.P. Morgan succeeded in suppressing Tesla and Westinghouse with their scams, propaganda, lies, arson, and bribes. Consider the muck we are all mired in today because J.P. Morgan did succeed in stopping (extinguishing the light of) Tesla's construction of Wardenclyffe which would have transmitted power (and communication) wirelessly around the country! Consider the muck-racking, slandering, and lying suppression that goes on today when anyone mentions the subject of tapping into the unlimited source of electric power that Tesla almost succeeded in giving us for free. "We still don't know how he did it." In Colorado Springs and elsewhere before starting construction at Wardenclyffe ... "He lighted 200 50-watt lamps wirelessly from a distance of 25 miles."

Mark Twain, English journalist Chauncey McGovern, and actor Joseph Jefferson visit Tesla's lab.

"Not to stagger on being shown through the laboratory of Nikola Tesla," McGovern would later recall, "requires the possession of an uncommonly sturdy mind...

Fancy yourself seated in a large, well-lighted room, with mountains of curious-looking machinery on all sides. A tall, thin young man walks up to you, and by merely snapping his fingers creates instantaneously a ball of leaping red flame [light], and holds it calmly in his hands. As you gaze you are surprised to see it does not burn his fingers. He lets it fall upon his clothing, on his hair, into your lap, and finally, puts the ball of flame into a wooden box. You are amazed to see that nowhere does the flame leave the slightest trace, and you rub your eyes to make sure you are not asleep."

If McGovern was baffled by Tesla's fireball, he was at least not alone. None of his contemporaries could explain how Tesla produced this oft-repeated effect, and no one can explain it today. [only suggest: it was more accurately, a light-ball, not a fire-ball. Still, how?!? We have no clue.]

The odd flame having been extinguished as mysteriously as it appeared, Tesla switched off the lights, and the room became black as a cave.

"Now, my friends, I will make for you some daylight." Suddenly, the whole laboratory was flooded with strange beautiful light. McGovern, Twain, and Jefferson cast their eyes around the room, but they could find no trace of the source of the illumination. McGovern wondered vaguely if this eerie effect might somehow be connected with a demonstration Tesla had reportedly given in Paris in which he had produced illumination between two large plates set at each side of a stage, yet with no source of light apparent. (To this day, no one has duplicated this demonstration).
Tesla: Man out of Time - M. Cheney; page 4

Incredible as it seems, Nikola had an older brother, Dane, who "was gifted to an extraordinary degree", but died in an accident when Nikola was only 7 yrs old. Nikola, later, reflects on him saying "The recollection of his attainments made every effort of mine seem dull by comparison ... so I grew up with little confidence in myself"

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Tesla was fluent or conversant in many languages including Serbian-Croatian, English, Czech, Hungarian, French, German, Latin, and Italian.

Education:
Elementary school: Gospic
Secondary school: Karlovac
Baccalaureate of Physics: Austrian Polytechnic Institute (Graz)
Baccalaureate of Mathematics: Austrian Polytechnic Institute (Graz)
Baccalaureate of Mechanical Engineering: Austrian Polytechnic Institute (Graz)
Baccalaureate of Electrical Engineering: Austrian Polytechnic Institute (Graz)
Graduate studies:
Physics at Charles University in Prague
Docteur Honoris Causa:
For his work Tesla received numerous honorary doctoral degrees from a number of universities to include: Columbia University, Graz Polytechnic Institute,University of Zagreb, Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, University of Belgrade, University of Brno, University of Grenoble, University of Paris, University de Poitiers, Charles University in Prague, University of Sofia, Vienna Polytechnic Institute, and Yale University

Photos: childhood home and family (Tesla Society, NY)

An early biography, Prodigal Genius, the Life of Nikola Tesla, by John J. O'Neill, was initially published three times in November, 1944. The three publishings in the same month were not due to landslide sales at the bookstores, but rather to O'Neill's having been threatened and censored by the FBI, and forced to republish several times because of their deletion and censoring of material which to this day is still classified.

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Tesla invents the AC motor, which enables the electric age!

In Feb of 1882, Tesla took a walk in the city of Budapest with a former classmate, [Szigeti, who was forcing him to get up and recover from a "severe nervous collapse" see Wizard: the life and times of Nikola Tesla : biography of a genius]. While a glorious sunset overspread the sky, Tesla engaged in one of his favorite hobbies-reciting poetry. The setting sun reminded Tesla of some of Goethe's beautiful lines [from Faust]

Suddenly, Tesla snapped into a rigid pose as if he had fallen into a trance. "Watch me!" he said, "Watch me reverse it!"

Tesla's friend said, "I see nothing, are you ill?" [again?]

"You do not understand," said Tesla, "It is my alternating-current motor I am talking about. Can't you see it right here in front of me, running almost silently? It is the rotating magnetic field that does it. See how the magnetic field rotates and drags the armature around with it? Isn't it beautiful? I have solved the problem." [the "problem" which he had been working on to the point of "severe nervous collapse" only days before]

from Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John Jacob

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The First Practical Phosphorescent Lamp

Credit for the first practical phosphorescent lamp belongs to Tesla. Phosphorescent substances are slower to emit light than fluorescent ones, and they continue to glow for some time after the power is turned off.
Tesla's earliest lighting inventions had operated as conventional filament or arc devices, but with high-frequency currents supplying power. As he quickly discovered, such currents could be made to bring diffuse gases to incandescence, or cause light emission in various solid materials. His innovations in this field, though influential and disclosed in a series of celebrated lectures, were seldom patented.

Inasmuch as Tesla created for himself more powerful apparatus, to operate at higher frequency and voltage than was available to anyone else, he was capable by 1890 of generating fields that would light up, without any wires, phosphorescent tubes across his laboratory. (His assistants recall these lamps strewn casually around the lab and working by their eerie green glow.) The energy is just long wavelength radio, from Tesla's high-frequency generators — though in this case the signal is very strong, strong enough to be useful as power, rather than as a means of communication.

His first demonstrations of wireless power—presented always with superb showmanship—left the electrical profession agog. And the general public, exposed to these mysteries at Tesla's lighting exhibit in the Columbian Exposition of 1893, came away with the impression that an age of scientific miracles was dawning.

from pbs.org

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Tesla invented the radio

With his newly created Tesla coils, the inventor soon discovered that he could transmit and receive powerful radio signals when they were tuned to resonate at the same frequency. When a coil is tuned to a signal of a particular frequency, it literally magnifies the incoming electrical energy through resonant action. By early 1895, Tesla was ready to transmit a signal 50 miles to West Point, New York... But in that same year, disaster struck. A building fire consumed Tesla's lab, destroying his work.

The timing could not have been worse. In England, a young Italian experimenter named Guglielmo Marconi had been hard at work building a device for wireless telegraphy. The young Marconi took out the first wireless telegraphy patent in England in 1896. His device had only a two-circuit system, which some said could not transmit "across a pond." Later, in 1901, Marconi set up long-distance demonstrations, using a Tesla oscillator, Tesla coil, to transmit the signals across the English Channel.

Tesla had filed his own basic radio patent applications in Sept. 1897. They were granted in 1900. Marconi's first patent application in America, an attempt to re-patent Tesla's oscillator (coil), filed on November 10, 1900, was turned down. Marconi's revised applications over the next three years were repeatedly rejected because of the priority of Tesla and other inventors.

The Patent Office made the following comment in 1903:

"Many of the claims are not patentable over Tesla patent numbers 645,576 and 649,621, of record, the amendment to overcome said references as well as Marconi's pretended ignorance of the nature of a "Tesla oscillator" (a.k.a. Tesla Coil) being little short of absurd... the term "Tesla oscillator" has become a household word on both continents [Europe and North America]."   [in other words, Marconi lied.]

But no patent is truly safe, as Tesla's career demonstrates. In 1900, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd. began thriving in the stock markets-due primarily to Marconi's family connections with English aristocracy. British Marconi stock soared from $3 to $22 per share and the glamorous young Italian nobleman was internationally acclaimed. Both Edison and Andrew Carnegie invested in Marconi and Edison became a consulting engineer of American Marconi. Then, on December 12, 1901, Marconi for the first time transmitted and received signals across the Atlantic Ocean.

Otis Pond, an engineer then working for Tesla, said, "Looks as if Marconi got the jump on you." Tesla replied, "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents."

But Tesla's calm confidence was shattered in 1904, when the U.S. Patent Office suddenly and surprisingly reversed its previous decisions and gave Marconi a patent for the invention of radio. The reasons for this have never been fully explained, but the powerful financial backing [Edison-J.P.Morgan-Rockefeller] for Marconi in the United States suggests the explanation.

Edison/Morgan was not only ruthless but extremely thorough

Edison’s UK group already had an electrical scientist consultant - Dr. John Ambrose Fleming in England. Fleming became consultant to the Edison group in 1881 and continued as such for 10 years. Fleming was [believed by the public to be] an honorable and ethical man, and of course would not personally engage in skullduggery. [so they believed]

advice to Marconi as to how to circumvent Tesla’s prior art and patents

Here’s a little more insight into John Ambrose Fleming. He was not so "lily white" after all, as witness his advice to Marconi as to how to circumvent Tesla’s prior art and patents.

Hong, Sungook, in his Wireless: From Marconi's Black-Box to the Audion, MIT Press, 2001, p. 72. "In his letter to Marconi on February 19, 1901, Fleming reassured him by saying that Tesla could not do anything, and that ‘if you can receive there [in America], you will establish priority" [Hong, 2001: 72]. Comment: This establishes that Fleming was knowingly connected with suppressing Nikola Tesla by 1901, and in fact was in contact with Marconi to advise him (Marconi) in trying to bypass Tesla’s actual patents and prior art. When Marconi later tried to bring lawsuit against the US Army Signal Corp, he lost. Tesla had already demonstrated priority of art.

google - radio?! go to Google, click "feedback" and "NO!!"
even go to Tesla Motors and tell them of their investor's (google owners) error!

In U.S. Patent 0454622, System of Electric Lighting (1891 June 23), Tesla described this early disruptive coil. It was devised for the purpose of converting and supplying electrical energy in a form suited for the production of certain novel electrical phenomena, which require currents of higher frequency and potential. It also specified an energy storage capacitor and discharger mechanism on the primary side of a radio-frequency transformer. This is the first-ever disclosure of a practical RF power supply capable of exciting an antenna to emit powerful electromagnetic radiation.

Tesla was embroiled in other problems at the time, but when Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1911, Tesla was furious. He sued the Marconi Company for infringement in 1915, but was in no financial condition to litigate a case against a major corporation. It wasn't until 1943 - a few months after Tesla's death - that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla's radio patent number 645,576. The Court had a selfish reason for doing so. The Marconi Company was suing the United States Government for use of its patents in World War I. The Court simply avoided the action by restoring the priority of Tesla's patent over Marconi. [but, by then, J.P.Morgan had given Marconi the Nobel Prize and written him into all the textbooks. Everyone "knew" that Marconi invented radio and no-one knew about the court decision - or Morgan's hand in writing Tesla out of the History books. "History is written by the winner"-? and Morgan had already won.]

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Tesla's AC electricity used around the world

George Westinghouse purchased Tesla's basic AC patents in 1888 for cash and shares amounting to $60,000 and a royalty on electrical horsepower sold. ($1 / hp) By agreement the two principals cancelled the mostly unpaid royalty in 1897; the lump sum Westinghouse negotiated has never been firmly determined, though a check record for $216,000 does exist. ["It was Morgan's pressure on Westinghouse, whom he also financed, that caused the cancellation of Tesla's dollar-a-horsepower contract and the loss of millions in royalties to Tesla for his ac motors and system."] More importantly Tesla acquired a resourceful and tenacious champion in the Westinghouse Corporation.

A fierce, often underhanded competition raged for years between the General Electric Co. (a creature of J.P. Morgan) and Westinghouse. GE's strategy, when mere engineering would not avail, was to invent ghastly tales of AC hazards and misadventures. In 1890 the company went so far as to license, through an agent, the Westinghouse system in order to power a death contraption which they called an "electric chair." Sing Sing Prison, in upstate New York, was persuaded to use it, with the gratifying results for GE that the press for a while played headlines in which prisoners were "Westinghoused."

The War of the Currents almost bankrupted
the Westinghouse Electric Company

and almost got Tesla murdered! [much Later, he was.]

By 1897, the War of the Currents between AC and DC or between Westinghouse and Edison continued unabated. In 1895, Tesla's laboratory in New York City was totally destroyed by fire. Half a lifetime of priceless inventions were destroyed. Tesla usually worked through the night, but that particular night he was not in his shop, and miraculously escaped death. [one step in wrecking Tesla's future was accomplished, even if they failed to "take him out" and could not risk trying it again, they would, next, have to terminate Tesla's income, his royalties, force Tesla to sign over everything to Morgan, even shut down Westinghouse Electric Co, if possible]

Huge mergers took place between J. P. Morgan and Rockefeller controlled companies like Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric to form the present day General Electric Company. This new General Electric Company tried to take over Westinghouse and force them to abandon AC. They insisted that Westinghouse STOP paying royalties to Tesla:

"One of the requirements was that Westinghouse get rid of the contract with Tesla calling for royalty payments of $1.00 per horsepower on all alternating current articles sold under his patents. Financial advisers pointed out that if the business which Westinghouse expected the company would do under the Tesla patents in the ensuing year was anywhere near as great as estimated, the amount to be paid out under this contract would be tremendous, totaling millions of dollars; and this, at the time of reorganization, appeared a dangerous burden, imperiling the ability which they were trying to attain for the new organization. Westinghouse strenuously objected to the procedure. This patent-royalty payment, he insisted, was in accordance with usual procedures and would not be a burden on the company, as it was included in costs of production, was paid for by the customers, and did not come out of the company's earnings. Westinghouse, himself an inventor of first magnitude, had a strong sense of justice in his dealings with inventors." (O'Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 79).

Tesla saved the Westinghouse Electric Company by tearing up his royalty contract!!

In one of the most magnanimous acts ever recorded in human history, Tesla tore up his royalty contract with George Westinghouse in order to save his company from bankruptcy and the AC system from destruction. Tesla stood to lose over 12 million dollars in royalty payments:

"It would be a tough job for any executive, no matter how shrewd or clever, to talk a man out of a contract that would net many millions of dollars, or induce him to accept a reduction in rates amounting to millions. Westinghouse called on Tesla, meeting him in the same South 5th Avenue laboratory where he had purchased the patents four years before. Without preliminaries or apologies Westinghouse explained the situation.
"Your decision," said the Pittsburgh magnate, "determines the fate of the Westinghouse Company." "Suppose I should refuse to give up my contract; what would you do then?" asked Tesla.
"In that event you would have to deal with the bankers, for I would no longer have any power in the situation," Westinghouse replied.
"And if I give up the contract you will save your company and retain control so you can proceed with your plans to give my polyphase system to the world?" Tesla continued.
"I believe your polyphase system is the greatest discovery in the field of electricity," Westinghouse explained. "It was my efforts to give it to the world that brought on the present difficulty, but I intend to continue, no matter what happens, to proceed with my original plans to put the country on an alternating current basis."
"Mr. Westinghouse," said Tesla, drawing himself up to full height of six feet two inches and beaming down on the Pittsburgh magnate who was himself a big man, "you have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead and pay me a million dollars when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own engineers lacked vision to see the big things ahead that you and I saw; you have stood by me as a friend. The benefits that will come to civilization from my polyphase system mean more to me than the money involved. Mr. Westinghouse, you will save your company so that you can develop my inventions. Here is your contract and here is my contract—I will tear both of them to pieces and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties. Is that sufficient?"
Matching his actions to his words Tesla tore up the contract and threw it in the waste basket; and Westinghouse, thanks to Tesla's magnificent gesture, was able to return to Pittsburgh and use the facilities of the reorganized company, which became the present Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, to make good his promise to Tesla to make his alternating current system available to the world." (O'Neill, Prodigal Genius, pp. 81-82).

By cheating him out of millions in royalty payments, Morgan and Rockefeller put a financial squeeze on the great inventor. Tesla had already lost a fortune because of the arson to his laboratory, and now he was severely strapped for cash to perfect his latest inventions. The arsonists could squeeze him financially, but they could NEVER stop the Niagara of new inventions that kept flowing from his fertile brain [They just denied him the funds to develop any of them, and made sure no one would take him, or any of his ideas, seriously. For what he had already invented, they started in motion fraud and corruption. Marconi had been trying to superceed/break Tesla's patents on radio, Morgan made sure he got what he wanted and made sure history got rewritten, ... and more ...].

Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla - by John Joseph O'Neill

When the publicity battles were over, and the superiority of AC systems apparent, Westinghouse was kept constantly in the courts, defending the patents-which the company did with ferocity. [so that no new ventures, no new inventions could be contemplated, wireless, free, transmission of power could not be an option]

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Tesla's radient-energy apparatus was patented in 1901:
"Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy."

* Wardenclyffe *

A local paper at the time announced the project:

Mr. Nikola Tesla, the world renowned scientist on Tuesday of this week, closed a contract for the immediate building of a wireless telegraph plant and electrical laboratory at Wardenclyffe, situated nine miles east of Port Jefferson, where on the 200 acres recently acquired by Mr. Tesla, he will within thirty days, begin the erection of a plant, which when completed will be the largest of its kind in the world. The first building will be 100 feet square with others to follow. The power plant will be 350-horse power. Mr. Tesla has for several years past maintained an extensive electrical laboratory at Houston Street in New York City, where he has discovered and developed many marvelous features in electrical power and usefulness. The above will draw to Wardenclyffe men in the highest scientific circles from many portions of the globe.
- Port Jefferson Echo, August 2nd 1901.

Tesla was nothing if not ambitious in his inventing, and he predicted that once the tower was completed:

It will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch [and we think, today, we are so smart because we can finally get our cell phones into our pockets. 100 years ago, we could have had them on our wrists!], will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place ...
- "The Future of the Wireless Art" in Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony (1908)

J. P. Morgan sinks Tesla

Tesla's ambitious World System came to an end when its principal financier, J. P. Morgan pulled the plug on funding. Morgan, the financial giant behind the formation of many monopolies in railroads, shipping, steel, banking, etc., was a major conduit of European capital into U. S. industrial development in the Robber Baron era. He looms large in Tesla's life. Morgan money was in the Niagara Falls project. He backed Edison, too. It was Morgan's pressure on Westinghouse, whom he also financed, that caused the cancellation of Tesla's dollar-a-horsepower contract and the loss of millions in royalties to Tesla for his ac motors and system. When Tesla's lab burned down (arson was suspected), one of Morgan's men promptly arrived offering aid, in the form of a contract with Morgan interests. Acceptance would have put Tesla firmly under Morgan's control. Tesla refused. [guess who was the arsonist!] And Tesla succeeded in preserving his autonomy until he became possessed with overwhelming ardor to fulfill the dream of his World system. Tesla was ready to sell his soul to finance Wardencliff, and J. P. Morgan was right there to buy it. In 1901 Tesla signed over to Morgan controlling interest in the patents he still owned, as well as all future ones, in lighting and radio. Morgan then put about $150,000 start-up funding into Wardencliff. Later he invested more, just enough to bring the project within sight of completion. Morgan then became elusive. Tesla tried desperately to communicate with the investor, but to no avail. When word was out on Wall Street that Morgan had withdrawn support, no one would touch the project. This finished Tesla as a functioning inventor.

Work on the Wardencliff tower came to a halt. Left to dereliction, the tower remained only as a curiosity to passersby. During World War I, the tower was unceremoniously dynamited to the ground.

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"Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has, as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity. ... What we want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride... Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment." Nikola Tesla, 1919

Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally. In my mind I change the construction, make improvements, and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch I can give the measurements of all parts to workmen, and when completed all these parts will fit, just as certainly as though I had made the actual drawings. It is immaterial to me whether I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop. The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked. In thirty years there has not been a single exception. My first electric motor, the vacuum wireless light, my turbine engine and many other devices have all been developed in exactly this way. -- Nikola Tesla, Autobiography

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TESLA: Man Out of Time

biography

by Margaret Cheney

"Falmboyant, eccentric, almost supernaturally gifted ... perhaps the greatest inventor the world has ever known ...He was a trailblazer who created astonishing, world-transforming devices, often without theoretical precedent." -- outside back cover

"there had been no truly successful AC motor until Tesla invented his - an induction motor that was the heart of a new system and a quantum jump ahead of the times" pg. 23

He did not just invent one simple AC motor. He "conceived of such practical alternating-current motors as polyphase induction, split-phase induction, and polyphase synchronous, as well as the whole polyphase and single-phase motor system ... indeed, "practically all electricity in the world, in time, would be generated, transmitted, distributed, and turned into mechanical power by means of the Tesla Polyphase System." pg. 24

In November and December of 1887, Tesla filed for seven U.S. patents in the field of polyphase AC motors and power transmission. These comprised a complete system of generators, transformers, transmission lines, motors and lighting. So original were the ideas that they were issued without a successful challenge, and would turn out to be the most valuable patents since the telephone.
pbs.org

"Because his motors required 60 cycle AC, that became the standard in the U.S. pg.41

He demonstrated "a motor that ran on only one wire, the return circuit occurring wirelessly through space. ... he spoke of the possibility of running motors without any wires at all." pg. 54

Tesla's Letterhead, Stationary

The "carbon-button lamp with which Tesla dazzled his audience at Columbia College on May 20, 1891, also embodied the concept of the point electron microscope. ... Tesla's description of the effect achieved with his carbon-button lamp ... stands with hardly a change in wording for a description of the million-magnification point electron microscope." ... developed by Vladimir R. Zworykin in 1939. pg. 57

"The Tesla Coil...which is today used, in one form or another, in every radio and television set was, in a very short time, to become part of the research equipment of every university science laboratory". pg. 61

"In the Electrical Experimenter of August 1917 he described the main features of modern military radar ... pulsed radar that would finally be practically developed in a crash program only months prior to the beginning of World War II." pg. 208

"in 1934, a French team under Dr. Emil Girardeau built and installed radar on both ships and land stations, using 'precisely apparatuses conceived according to the principles stated by Tesla,' says the Frenchman." pg. 213

By 1937 it was clear that war would soon break out in Europe. Frustrated in his attempts to generate interest and financing for his "peace beam," he sent an elaborate technical paper, including diagrams, to a number of Allied nations including the United States, Canada, England, France, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Titled "New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy Through Natural Media," the paper provided the first technical description of what is today called a charged particle beam weapon.

Of all the countries to receive Tesla's proposal, the greatest interest came from the Soviet Union. In 1937 Tesla presented a plan to the Amtorg Trading Corporation, an alleged Soviet arms front in New York City. Two years later, in 1939, one stage of the plan was tested in the USSR and Tesla received a check for $25,000.

Today ... his death beam bears an uncanny resemblance to the charged-particle beam weapon developed by both the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

Tesla "lectured to the New York Academy of Science on April 6, 1897, on the practical construction and safe operation of X-ray equipment" ... "He had already experimented with various metal protective devices, and soon thereafter lead shields came into general use." pg. 105

"Inventors of modern computer technology in the last half of the twentieth century repeatedly have been surprised, when seeking patents, to encounter Tesla's basic ones, already on file." pg.130

He built "high powered switches and spark gap switches" of kinds that even today "the knowledge has been lost; we don't know how he did it." pg. 282

"Ideas chased each other through his mind faster than he could nail them down. Once he understood exactly how an invention worked, in his mind, he tended to lose interest" pg. 13

"He worked not just in private, but...in secret. Thus any inventions which he did not patent or give freely to the world were more or less shrouded in mystery." pg. 268

To a Westinghouse manager, Tesla wrote "You should not be at all surprised, if some day you see me fly from New York to Colorado Springs in a contrivance which will resemble a gas stove and weigh as much." ... and could, if necessary enter and depart through a window. pg. 198

According to museum officials at The Nikola Tesla museum in Belgrade, "he left sketches of interplanetary ships. This information, however, has not been made available to western scholars." pg. 203

Tesla produced artificial fireballs (plasma) from a secondary coil in a transformer and "modern plasma physicists with the best equipped laboratories, have failed to produce plasmoids with anything near the stability of the true ball-lightning spheres that he created." pg. 281-2

Tesla, Einstein, and Steiglitz

"Tesla was nearly as famous as Albert Einstein in his prime.
Einstein personally sent Tesla a telegram for his birthday."

His "COLORADO SPRINGS NOTES when they appeared in English in 1978 ... were eagerly awaited by many scientists. But, even this work left important questions unanswered. ... The bulk of his papers having vanished ... Only by piecing together fragmentary information could the magnitude of his experiments be comprehended." pg. 269

"Around 1928...six boxes placed in storage by Nikola Tesla would be sold by the storage warehouse...for unpaid bills." But when a friend (John O'Neill) offered to try to buy them for Tesla, "Tesla hit the ceiling," ..."He forbid me to buy them or do anything in any way about them." ... "Shortly after the inventor died, O'Neill ... was never able to get a positive statement ...about the boxes..." and got "evasive assurances that there was no reason to worry." pg. 269-270

"A young American engineer * engaged in war work consulted Tesla on a ballistics engineering problem because he could not get time on an overworked computer, and Tesla's mind was known to offer the nearest thing to it. Soon he became fascinated with Tesla's scientific papers and was allowed to take batches of them home to his hotel room where he and another American engineer pored over them each night. They were returned the next day, a procedure which continued for about two weeks prior to the inventor's death." pg. 270

(* They must have been in college as 2 years later Bloyce D. Fitzgerald was only a private in the Army. If he had gotten his degree he would be an officer.)

"Tesla had received offers to work for Germany and Russia. After the inventor died, both engineers became concerned that critical scientific information might fall into foreign hands and alerted United States security agencies and high government officials." pg. 270

"The relevant records I have obtained from federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act reveal strange twisting and inconsistencies in the handling of the inventor's estate. Tesla left tons of papers, barrels and boxes full of them." pg. 270

Agent Foxworth of the Field Division of the New York Bureau of the FBI: "Bloyce D. Fitzgerald, an electrical engineer who had been quite close to Tesla during his lifetime," [the last few weeks] continued agent Foxworth, "advised the New York office ...Within the last month, Tesla told Fitzgerald that his experiments in connection with wireless transmission of electrical power had been completed and perfected ... that Tesla had conceived and designed a revolutionary type of torpedo ... the basic theories of these things are in the personal effects of Tesla ... Bureau is requested to advise immediately what, if any, action should be taken concerning the matter by the New York Field Division." pg. 272

"Curiously, the FBI released his estate to the Office of Alien Property, which promptly sealed the contents. ... a number of times Mr. K mentioned the fact that the custodian at the storage warehouse told him that some government guys were in to microfilm some of the papers.... Hoover denied categorically that the FBI had gone into the papers...." pg. 271

"On August 21, 1945, the Air Technical Service Command requested permission from the commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Force in Washington, D.C. for Private Bloyce D. Fitzgerald to go to Washington for a period of seven days ... asking for photostatic copies of the exhibits ... from the estate of Tesla." pg. 277

Also, "at least one set of Tesla's papers had reached Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, because on November 25, 1947 ... 'These reports are now in the possession of the Electronic Subdivision and are being evaluated.'" pg. 278

In 1933, Tesla was more pointed in his remarks about the introduction of his fuel-less generator. In the Philadelphia Public Ledger of November 2, is an interview with Tesla under the headline: Tesla 'Harnesses' Cosmic Energy. In it he was asked whether the sudden introduction of his principle would upset the present economic system, Dr. Tesla replied, "It is badly upset already." [aka Edison-Morgan]
He added: "Now as never before was the time ripe for the development of new resources." At a press conference to celebrate his 76th birthday, Tesla announced that he had invented a cosmic-ray motor.

Adam Trombly Reveals That Tesla Was Murdered

Tesla was scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C. To speak directly to FDR regarding weapons systems that he claimed would obviate the necessity for atomic weapons and also to reintroduce the Tesla Tower proposal to the President. He hoped to convince the President that the towers could provide a nationwide network accommodating the Earth/inductive, generation/communication of power, information, music etc. This of course followed on the first tower project on Long Island which was shut down after J.P. Morgan cut off funding in 1905. When Tesla wrote of this network of towers in 1904 for the New York Times he basically anticipated a generative world wide web.

Going to Washington was a big deal for Tesla not only because it was a face to face meeting with the President but because as an agoraphobe he was very hesitant to leave the building or the little park he rarely walked in across the street. Andrea Puharich told me about this detail. Andrea was brought in by the Feds to help translate many of Tesla’s copious handwritten notes as he was facile in both Serbian and the Serbo-Croatian dialect that Tesla wrote in at times.

Nikola Tesla was ultimately murdered in 1943 when he attempted to make contact with FDR regarding 'energy extraction from the active medium' currently known as the 'vacuum of space-time' (in its virtual state) and ZPE (Zero-Point-Energy, in the observable state). It was obviously feared that since Einstein was able to influence FDR to mobilize the 'atomic energy paradigm' with a massive 'governmental' effort, then quite possibly Tesla would have enabled just such a program for 'energy from the active medium' currently known as 'Energy From The Vacuum.'

Adam Trombly: "I have never mentioned this before, but when I spoke at the 1981 Conference at the University of Toronto, a detective, an older gentleman from New York, with a heavy New York accent, approached me afterwards and said that he was a detective at the time when Tesla had been found dead, and said he was involved with the investigation.

He said for National Security reasons, that nobody was to know that the Coroners report had indicated he had been poisoned.

I have never personally read the Coroner’s report, but the man was about the right age. He showed me a badge and I had no reason to doubt this man who had come all the way up to Toronto from New York, just to tell somebody after all those years.

The Coroner’s report did say he had been poisoned. Now it turns out that the only medium to my knowledge it actually cites that Tesla had been poisoned is the Yugoslavian film on Nikola Tesla called, "The Secret of Nikola Tesla." So everybody can rewatch the introduction, because they say it right at the beginning. And they also say perhaps that he was killed by the Nazi’s."

In 1943 he had proposed to FDR that perhaps we should look carefully at the fact that we can get all the energy we need from any space we happen to be in.

He didn’t show up for his meeting with the President. He was found dead in his apartment from, “Natural causes.”

There is some suspicion that maybe his visionary paranoia of poisoning was not exactly paranoia, ... but premonition.

I have never mentioned this before, but when I spoke at the 1981 Conference at the University of Toronto, a detective, an older gentleman from New York, with a heavy New York accent, approached me afterwards and said that he was a detective at the time when Tesla had been found dead. He showed me a badge and said he was involved with the investigation. He said for National Security reasons, that nobody was to know that the Coroners report had indicated that Tesla had been poisoned.

The Coroner’s report did say he had been poisoned. Now it turns out that the only medium to my knowledge it actually cites that Tesla had
been poisoned is the Yugoslavian film on Nikola Tesla called, “The Secret of Nikola Tesla.” So everybody can watch the introduction, because they
say it right at the beginning.
I did not really want to mention all this, but science cannot exist in an environment where science is not allowed to grow.

Transcript of Adam Trombly at the
1988 Tesla Conference, Colorado Springs

in 1981 I was a speaker at the First International Conference on Novel Energy Technologies held at the University of Toronto. After a very warm ovation I was approached by many individuals, as always happens at these events. One individual claimed to be a former New York City Police Department Detective. He was in his seventies. He said that one of his first cases as a Detective was the investigation of Nikola Tesla’s death. He said that at first it was assumed that Tesla had died of old age but that he had found a note in Tesla’s hand that said simply "I have been poisoned". He went into some detail regarding the rather primitive forensics available at that time. He did say that Nikola Tesla was "definitely murdered" but when he and a fellow officer tried to pursue the investigation further, "The Feds waltzed in and took over." He said all the public was "allowed to hear" was that Tesla had died of "natural causes".

As we were standing there another gentleman approached to introduce himself. Interesting to note this individual was a Captain in United States Naval Intelligence who later became one of my "handlers". I had no idea, at the time, who he was but I have always wondered about that interruption. He was very curious about what the detective had been telling me. Meanwhile (the) old detective excused himself and moved rather quickly out of the Auditorium. That was the last I heard from him.

Adam Trombly

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Why I Wrote About Tesla - Margret Cheney

In school I never heard of Tesla at all. And when I did hear about him, I was intrigued by the mystery about him. There are several reasons why Tesla is not well known. One was that he was a man who never married and had children. He never worked for universities or for corporations. He was very independent. And he was so far ahead of his time, so much a visionary, that his contemporary scientists really didn't understand what he was doing. The Smithsonian Institution has never adequately credited Tesla for his invention of radio. They have tended to call Marconi the "father of radio," and they have tended to give Edison credit for Tesla's work in alternating current, although Edison didn't work in that area at all. So, there are many reasons why we have not learned as much as we should about Tesla.

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For a personal look into Tesla's youth; he was a successful(+/-) gambler, got kicked out of school, he fell in love, and more:
Wizard: the life and times of Nikola Tesla : biography of a genius
By Marc J. Seifer

Honoring how Tesla towers over the computer programmers/hackers of today,
Tesla - The Greatest Hacker of all Time

 

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TESLA NEVER ADEQUATELY CREDITED AT THE SMITHSONIAN

THE BRAIN WASHERS

our country's premier museum, the Smithsonian Institution, deceives the public by writing biased history...and their curator is doing this in consort with the History Committee of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) at Rutgers University.

NOT ALL GUILTY

The majority of IEEE members are oblivious of the Smithsonian and the IEEE History Committee's biased agenda. Nevertheless, everyone must speak out against their wrongful depiction of electrical history.

A TRIP TO THE SMITHSONIAN

Please remember, at this time I was still naive about the Smithsonian's bias against Tesla; that is, until I saw......

YES, A BUST OF EDISON!

Next to Edison's bust I saw Tesla's invention that revolutionized the world. Here is a photograph of Tesla's rotating magnetic field device I saw, giving us polyphase AC and the AC motor...

Tesla's U.S. patent number was on his invention, but I could not find any recognition for Tesla.

When I asked Dr. Finn why he had placed Edison's bust on display next to Tesla's invention, he said, "The sculptor was a phrenologist and wanted to examine the bumps on Edison's head; this makes our display authentic."

The entire electrical display at the Smithsonian (including their web site) focuses on Edison's brief business enterprise which failed. This is not a story of invention, but of big business.

Edison used Direct Current (DC), a technology invented and developed by others (before his time), as a means of powering his incandescent lamp. Big business and the gullible media have exaggerated this story so much that now everyone believes Edison is the father of our system of electrical power.

It was Hans Christian Oersted discovering electromagnetism in 1820, followed by Michael Faraday making the first electromagnetic generator in 1831, who really opened the age of electric power. Tesla's rotating magnetic field principle indeed 'signaled the final major act in the revolutionary drama'...but that drama began with Oersted and Faraday, not with Edison at Menlo Park!

http://www.ntesla.org/provide_p.12.html

CREDIT GIVEN TO EDISON FOR TESLA'S INVENTION

Dr. Bernard S. Finn is Curator and first author of this Smithsonian publication. In his section entitled "The Beginning of the Electrical Age," he names 43 contributors to the science of electricity. Mr. Edison's name is cited many times along with his photographs, but Nikola Tesla's name is omitted.

Equally outrageous is the Niagara Falls power station picture of Tesla's AC generators on the last page...and Dr. Finn's concluding remark: "When the Niagara Falls power station began operating in 1895, it signaled the final major act in the revolutionary drama that began in Menlo Park in the fall of 1879."

BRAINWASHED

By this time the totally brainwashed reader is led to believe that our electrical world started with Mr. Edison at Menlo Park; then he finished electrifying America in 1895 by creating the Niagara Falls power station. Yet it was Tesla's nine basic U.S. patents that were used in that power plant's creation. Edison had no role in the project.

PHOTO OF PLAQUE ON ORIGINAL GENERATOR

Edison actually fought the adoption of AC bitterly by waging his infamous "War of the Currents," culminating in his creation of.........

THE FIRST ELECTRIC CHAIR (1890)

It was Thomas Edison who financed the invention of the electric chair to frighten people away from the use of Tesla's AC system of electricity.

Harold P. Brown was the U.S. inventor of the electric chair. He was hired by Thomas Edison to help develop the chair after he wrote an editorial for the New York Post describing how a young boy was killed after accidentally touching an exposed telegraph wire using alternating current.

"While the AC controversy raged, Harold Brown approached Thomas Edison to ask for the use of his laboratory to demonstrate that alternating current was more deadly than direct current. Edison recognized how he could use Brown to discredit alternating current and received Brown with great enthusiasm, assigning his chief electrician, Arthur Kennelly, to work with Brown. Much to Brown's delight, Edison himself promised to take a special interest in his work. Indeed, Edison wasted no time in writing to Henry Bergh of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, asking for some "good-sized" dogs on which to experiment." (Moran, Executioner's Current, p. 94).

Edison was known for paying children 25 cents for each stray dog they could bring him. In order to discredit AC, Edison electrocuted dogs, cats, sheep, horses and even an elephant! He held press conferences and electrocuted the animals at public gatherings in a desperate attempt to frighten people away from using AC. Yet, DC current is more deadly than AC!

http://www.ntesla.org/provide_p.9.html

The first man to die in the electric chair was William Kemmler. He was sentenced in May, 1889, and the sentence was carried out on August 6, 1890.
Edison was determined that the execution would be carried out by AC so he had Harold Brown secretly buy and install Westinghouse AC generators in the prison.
The first application of current was botched and Kemmler did not die until the current was fired up a second time. When he was dead, the newspapers said that he had been "Westinghoused."

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When you visit the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian you see this famous Wright Flyer which made man's first successful flight December 17, 1903. What Smithsonian officials do NOT tell you is that they snubbed the Wright brothers for 45 years, refusing to acknowledge their great accomplishment and install this famous plane in the museum.
They did this because their own head of the Smithsonian, Samuel P. Langley, built an airplane shortly before the Wright brothers...but it could NOT fly!

Further investigation revealed we were not the first group pressuring Dr. Finn to recognize Tesla. A congressman several years earlier had chided Finn to create a Tesla display. The display prepared by Dr. Finn consisted of a small glass showcase housing a few insignificant personal artifacts. The showcase was placed in a darkened hallway next to the Men's Room; their main gallery was devoted to an elaborate Edison display.

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THE NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME (NIHF)

Another example of biased history is the NIHF web site telling our children that Charles P. Steinmetz, an engineer at the General Electric Company, is the inventor of our electrical distribution system.
with his "System of Distribution by Alternating Currents", Patent No. 533,244.

This is such a preposterous absurdity ..., I am blowing the whistle on NIHF for being nothing more than puppets of industries eager to wave their own flags instead of telling factual history.
Mr. Steinmetz merely helped implement Tesla's discovery.