Tesla Herald of Lightning

 

The Son of a Thunderstorm

Nikola Tesla was born during the night in Smiljan in the Austrian Empire, now Croatia, during the night on July , 1856. During that night and up to 10 of July it is reported that Smiljan had a strong thunderstorm.

It is reported that his father wished that Tesla became a Priest, but during his childhood Tesla fell seriously ill, and people thought he would not survive, and he made his father promise that if he recovered, he would allow him to become an engineer.

The engineering student

In the 1870s he trained for an engineering career. He attended the Technical University of Graz, Austria, and the University of Prague thanks to a scoolarship from militar autorities. It is reported by reseatchers that Tesla Tried to study the first two years of engineer in one year.[1] p.38

If Tesla had studied in Mexico, he would have been in ESIME Zacatenco, the best school in the Mexico for some engineering. Unfortunately in the second year he has no longer avaible the schoolarship, due to that Tesla cannot continue formal studies. 

The self Taught path

Later, in Budapest, he discovered the principle of the rotating magnetic field and developed blueprints for an induction motor that would become his first step toward the utilization of AC. The AC can reach longer distances without the big decay of Differential Potential of Direct Current.

Tesla was a big fan of Edison and dreamed of working with him. He wished that Edison could electrify the world with his AC.

In 1882 Nikola Tesla started to work in Paris for the Continental Edison Company, which was the company of Thomas Alva Edison. While he was working there, in 1883 he constructed his first induction motor. If Tesla had been the same money that Edison, he would have had his own company probably called something similar to the Continental Tesla Company.

In 1884 Nikola Tesla went to USA; he arrived in New York. It is reported that Tesla arrived with less than a dollar to USA, some resources said that He has only 4 cents when He arrived.

His first job was with Thomas Alva Edison, but the two inventors had different methods and ideas; therefore, their separation was inevitable. Edison reportedly thought Tesla's AC Idea was nonsense. It is reportedly the Edison never paid Tesla the promised wages, even though Tesla had improved all the devices at one of his generating sites. Edison refused to raise Tesla's salary a few cents, even though he was one of his best "engineers". Edison then promised Tesla a big paycheck once he solves a persisting problem that his DC project was facing and Tesla did but Edison didn't pay his promise. This pushed Tesla to leave the company and look for funding for his AC company.

The Entrepreneur

In May of 1888 he sold his patent rights of the polyphase system of dynamos, transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse, who headed the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh. This was his first mistake; he shouldn’t have sold his patent rights. He should have been sharper.

Tesla soon established his own laboratory where he discovered X-rays in 1895 and performed other experiments, such as the carbon button lamp, the power of electrical resonance, and various types of lighting. If I had been Tesla, I would have created a time machine.

The War of the Currents

Later, Westinghouse used Tesla’s alternating current system to light the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. With this success, Westinghouse won the contract to install the first electrical machinery at Niagara Falls. The project brought electricity to Buffalo in 1896. If Tesla hadn’t sold his patent rights, he would have been rich.  

The mage of the flaming sword

It is reported that Tesla Had many unusual skills, inluding eidetic memory sometimes called photographic memory. Media, newspaper, engineers and peopple who nkew Tesla claimed that he possessed Eidetic Memory, and could recite large books and manuals, draw diagrams with astonishing details an make arithmetic calculations of large numbers an decimals in the blink of an eye. The Tesla's diagrams found had no mistakes in calculations, it is said that Tesla always make the components that he visualized in the first try. 
But it was Usually that Tesla made mistakes with Mechanics of Materials, thermodynamics and other topics that were not well know at those times.

Also is known that Tesla had developed a skill common to many engineers  wich is to visualize and design 3D objects with no problem. Tesla was also a creative thinker and problem solver.
All those skill joined allowed Tesla to design gadgets and devices like our modern computer programs

Due to his skills Tesla made more than 300 patents around the world, he developed the foundations of telecommunications, some basis of robotics, submarines, radio and electrical component and devices that today are used in almost any house including AC motors and devices.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he stayed from May 1899 until early 1900, Tesla made what he considered his most important discovery: terrestrial standing waves. If Tesla hadn't been so interested in giving people free energy, he wouldn't have discovered that. 

With this discovery, he demonstrated that the Earth could be used as a conductor and made to resonate at a certain electrical frequency. He also lit 200 wireless lamps from a distance of 40 km and created artificial lightning, flashes of 41 meters high were caused by his experiments.

It is reported that a fire broke into the laboratory of Wardenclift, probably a result of lack of knowledge of thermodynamics of material of the devices. Westinghouse refused to invest in the wireless electricity again, in a curios analogy to Edison with AC.

At one point, he was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory; some scientific journals mocked Tesla and claimed he was a buffoon.

Upon returning to New York in 1900, Tesla began construction on Long Island of a worldwide wireless transmission tower, with a capital of $150,000 from lender J.P. Morgan. Tesla told J.P. Morgan that he would be able to use the earth as an electrical conductor. 

With that money, he hoped to provide worldwide communications and facilities for sending pictures, messages, weather alerts, and stock market reports. An idea that is very similar to what we know today as the Internet.

The project was abandoned due to the financial crisis, labor problems, and Morgan's withdrawal of support. It was Tesla's greatest defeat. Some people believe that if Tesla had received enough funding he would have brought electricity to many more people.

The naive gentle scientist and the "Modern Prometheus"

During 1887 at Niagara Waterfalls Westinghouse informed Tesla that due to the cost of the War of the Currents Westinghouse couldn't afford to continue with the electrification unless Tesla waived his Royalties. Those Royalties were betwen 2 and 3% of the profits for AC generation, and for the use of his patents.

Tesla wished to generate free electricity for every person in the world, and the wireless electricity that he proposed during Wardenclift could stop the profits for the wire transmition of electricity. So Tesla stoped obtaining resources from Westing House, Morgan and Banks. At that moment Tesla became a threat for electricity profits, their old partners and media create a lot of propaganda forgetting all their discoveries and inventions and he has treated like a crazy scientist.

Jhon Jaboc Astor IV said that the Wireless project of tesla was worth of 100 million dollars. Tesla also found investors from other countries and the middle East. Unfortunately they boarded into the Titanic strangely Morgan disembarked at the last moment before departure.

After this Tesla cannot longer get enough financing and died in poverty and defamed despite all his discoveries.