If you don’t know Nikola Tesla, you absolutely should. This scientific genius, holder of about 300 patents, pioneered technology we take for granted (and frequently attribute to other people) today, and was a man out of time. Not only a genius, but an insatiable searcher - his biggest legacy is his tendency to "fix things that aren’t broken", opening up entire fields of research and experimentation in the process.
Personally, he would have been described as eccentric - OCD, a proponent of eugenics, and a lifelong celibate who avoided romance because it would interfere with his work. Very tall and extremely thin, he was a distinguished sort of handsome - many women fell in love with him over the years, but if he noticed, he didn’t care - although he was a proponent of women’s rights, believing that women will become the dominant gender in the future. He memorized entire books - once he read one work by an author, he then had to read that author’s entire library. He claimed to never have slept more than two hours at a time, spending all of his time isolated in his lab - with the exception of a nightly dinner at Delmonico’s, from exactly 8pm to exactly 10pm.
A complete history of his work would take volumes. The man was a machine - in his early school years, a headmaster wrote to Tesla’s father claiming that if Nikola were allowed to remain in school, he would work himself literally to death. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, because where would we be without...
Electricity
But Edison invented electricity! No, he didn’t. He figured out how to make the lightbulb a commodity. It was Tesla and his early work with electrical currents that brought about electricity as we know and use it today. Tesla actually worked for Edison, hired to solve the lingering problems remaining on various projects, including direct-current electricity. He solved those problems and developed alternating current electrical power - using Edison’s DC power, we would need power stations every square mile. Tesla’s AC power was better able to travel distances and could be more easily regulated, and he even figured out how to transmit electrical power wirelessly.
So how did Edison thank him for his hard work? By refusing him the large bonus (rumored to be anywhere from $50,000 to 1 million dollars) he promised before the work commenced, and instead giving him an $8/week raise. Gee whiz.
X-Rays
Nikola Tesla was the first person to capture an X-ray image, albeit accidentally. He was playing around trying to photograph Mark Twain (of all people) using a particular type of gas discharge tube, but the only thing that showed up on the film was the camera’s metal screw.
Personally, he would have been described as eccentric - OCD, a proponent of eugenics, and a lifelong celibate who avoided romance because it would interfere with his work. Very tall and extremely thin, he was a distinguished sort of handsome - many women fell in love with him over the years, but if he noticed, he didn’t care - although he was a proponent of women’s rights, believing that women will become the dominant gender in the future. He memorized entire books - once he read one work by an author, he then had to read that author’s entire library. He claimed to never have slept more than two hours at a time, spending all of his time isolated in his lab - with the exception of a nightly dinner at Delmonico’s, from exactly 8pm to exactly 10pm.
A complete history of his work would take volumes. The man was a machine - in his early school years, a headmaster wrote to Tesla’s father claiming that if Nikola were allowed to remain in school, he would work himself literally to death. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, because where would we be without...
Electricity
But Edison invented electricity! No, he didn’t. He figured out how to make the lightbulb a commodity. It was Tesla and his early work with electrical currents that brought about electricity as we know and use it today. Tesla actually worked for Edison, hired to solve the lingering problems remaining on various projects, including direct-current electricity. He solved those problems and developed alternating current electrical power - using Edison’s DC power, we would need power stations every square mile. Tesla’s AC power was better able to travel distances and could be more easily regulated, and he even figured out how to transmit electrical power wirelessly.
So how did Edison thank him for his hard work? By refusing him the large bonus (rumored to be anywhere from $50,000 to 1 million dollars) he promised before the work commenced, and instead giving him an $8/week raise. Gee whiz.
X-Rays
Nikola Tesla was the first person to capture an X-ray image, albeit accidentally. He was playing around trying to photograph Mark Twain (of all people) using a particular type of gas discharge tube, but the only thing that showed up on the film was the camera’s metal screw.
