But his life was full of controversy and mystery, and he was even forgotten by the scientific community. Obviously, when we were young, we learned about Edison in textbooks. Everyone knows this great inventor, but we seldom hear about Tesla's deeds.
I only vaguely heard that he was related to alternating current, and later I learned more about him through the internet and rumors. Strangely, Tesla, which is rarely mentioned in the scientific community, has been deified by people in the folk;
I think he is the closest person to God. Because his thoughts were too advanced, no one understood Tesla at that time. Even now, some ideas of Tesla are advanced.
Let's take a look at this legendary great inventor who is between madman, man and God.
1856 July 10 Tesla was born in Croatia. Just like the dog blood TV series we have seen, the birth of great men is always accompanied by abnormal astronomical phenomena, and Tesla is no exception.
It is said that there was a thunderstorm when he was born, and the midwife at that time was superstitious, thinking that this kind of lightning was an ominous sign, but Tesla's mother didn't think so. She said that her son is the son of light. Maybe this lightning means the birth of the father of human alternating current.
When he was a child, Tesla didn't show anything extraordinary like a normal child, but he was very interested in mathematics and physics, and like all successful scientists, he was full of curiosity about unknown nature.
But his parents don't have much hope for this little son, because they think Tesla is not as smart as his brother Dane.
When Tesla was five years old, his brother unfortunately fell off his horse and died, which made his parents very sad and worried about Tesla, because he was thin and often sick.
So his father decided that Gentes would go to a school near his village and become a priest when he grew up. /kloc-when he was 0/7 years old, Tesla graduated from high school and soon became infected with cholera, almost losing his life.
When he was ill, Tesla begged his parents to send him to study engineering if he could live. He doesn't want to be a priest. Desperate parents agreed to their son's request.
1875 Tesla studied physics, mathematics and mechanics at Graz University of Technology, Austria. Universities are also intermittent, because of the tuition problem and the national turmoil at that time.
Until 1882, 26-year-old Tesla found his first job in life and began to complain to his life rival Edison.
His first job was as an engineer in Edison's Paris branch, during which Tesla designed the model of induction motor.
At this time, Edison has achieved great success and his career is in full swing. Edison is not so much an inventor as a very shrewd businessman. He not only makes money, but also is good at managing his reputation. This is why Edison's reputation is louder and better than Tesla's.
Now we think that the electric light bulb was invented by Edison in 1879, but this statement is not completely accurate.
The first electric lamp was an arc lamp, which was invented by Sir humphry davy in 1807. In the next 50 years, many inventors are committed to perfecting this kind of electric lamp and improving its service life and safety;
But lighting needs not only electric lights, but also a set of equipment and systems for generating and transmitting electric energy. This is where Edison comes into play. Edison bought the patent of electric light, but it perfected the design of electric light, enabling it to be mass-produced and put into use.
Most importantly, Edison invented the direct current (DC) system, which realized the transmission of electric energy and made it possible for electric lights to illuminate people.
But the efficiency of DC system is very low, and with the increase of distance, electric energy will begin to lose in the form of heat. It is impossible to realize ultra-long distance transmission, which has great disadvantages.
At the same time, young Tesla in Paris had different ideas, and he also knew the problems in DC system, so he designed an induction motor, which can use alternating current to transfer kinetic energy and generate alternating current with higher voltage.
The advantages of alternating current are low cost, high efficiency, long-distance transmission and low energy consumption in this process.
1884, Tesla was introduced to Edison's laboratory. This is Tesla's first close contact with Edison, and it is this unpleasant cooperation that has settled them down.
In two years' work, Tesla solved many design problems for Edison and redesigned the DC system for him, but Edison's promised reward for Tesla fell through.
Moreover, Edison has always opposed Tesla's idea of using alternating current, so Tesla left Edison's laboratory angrily and set up his own company.
Although Tesla designed an induction motor and a complete set of AC power generation and transmission system, it has been suppressed and discredited by Edison.
Edison encouraged his supporters to March against the use of alternating current and published many articles slandering Tesla. He also planned a series of incidents in which stray cats and dogs were electrocuted by alternating current, and also used the relationship to execute death row inmates by alternating current.
It gives people a subconscious that alternating current is very dangerous, which makes people feel that alternating current will endanger the safety of public facilities and household electricity. Under the pressure of Edison, Tesla, who was still unknown at that time, certainly could not complete the important task of promoting alternating current.
So he sold his patent to Westinghouse Electric Company (a competitor of Edison Company) and got a large patent fee, which is estimated to be the most profitable one for Tesla in this life.
Malicious smearing can never hide the advantages of alternating current over direct current.
1893, Westinghouse Electric Company won the lighting contract for the Chicago World Expo, and alternating current showed its advantages and reliability for the first time in front of the world, and finally became the American power standard.
This is the most practical and greatest achievement left by Tesla to mankind, and it is also the proudest time of Tesla's first half of his life. After alternating current, Tesla always likes to spend his time on some ideas that seem very unconstrained. Some of these ideas have been realized, and some seem to be illusions.
Moreover, when Tesla pursued these imaginative ideas, he missed the Nobel Prize twice.
Tesla was the first person to propose wireless power transmission and wireless information transmission. The source of this idea is his high-voltage high-frequency transformer, commonly known as Tesla coil.
189 1 year, he showed his Tesla coil to people in the lecture hall of Columbia University in new york. A voltage of 250,000 volts surrounded his body with a corona, which lit up the cathode fluorescent lamp in his hand from a distance.
This magical phenomenon fascinated Tesla, who spent the rest of his life studying wireless lighting and wireless long-distance transmission.
In an experiment, he used a light-emitting tube to illuminate the camera sensitive film in the box to expose the film. Tesla discovered this phenomenon and thought that something had penetrated the box, but without further study, he concluded that it was caused by an unknown particle.
Later, Roentgen also saw the same phenomenon and found that X-rays with strong penetrating ability won the Nobel Prize. Tesla's research on X-rays was also destroyed by a fire in 1895.
Similarly, he gave up his earliest prediction of radio signal transmission, but insisted on devoting all his energy to wireless power transmission. Obviously, radio signal transmission is much easier to realize. Marconi finally transmitted radio signals from Britain to the other side of the ocean for the first time in 1899. He won the Nobel Prize and became the father of radio.
It can be said that Tesla coil made Tesla deviate from the direction in future research. If you are not so obsessed with the possibility of wireless power brought by Tesla coils, Tesla can come up with some practical inventions.
It was Tesla who made himself poor in order to realize the dream of long-distance transmission. 190 1 He is already in financial difficulties, asking for help everywhere, hoping that someone can help him. Finally, Tesla persuaded Morgan, a rich man at that time, to build Walden Tower.
This 60-meter-high electric tower is actually an enlarged version of Tesla coil, which has no other function except making amazing artificial lightning, and it is also scary;
With the development and maturity of radio signal transmission, Morgan also gave up funding for Tesla. Since then, Tesla has not only been unable to carry out research in this field, but also put himself in debt. Finally, this big electric tower was also demolished.
In his later years, Tesla lived in seclusion, living a hard life, and food and clothing became a problem. Of course, he can't pursue his dreams. Besides, he basically has no friends and doesn't associate with anyone. People thought he was seriously mentally ill and always said things that people didn't understand at that time.
He no longer has practical inventions, but will propose something beyond that era. For example, he once predicted the earliest mobile communication, that is, the modern mobile phone, saying that people could put this thing in their pockets in the future to realize long-distance communication.
Tesla also said that radio waves can be used to detect objects, that is, radars that appeared later, as well as weapons made by autonomous driving and particle accelerators, which can emit death rays and instantly destroy enemies.
You see, these ideas are too advanced, and now it seems that most of them have come true. It's just that the wireless transmission he said is still impossible in our opinion.
Tesla lived in a hotel in new york in his later years, and his former employer Westinghouse paid him 125 USD in rent and "consulting fee" every month. Until the end of Tesla's life, it was said that it was a consulting fee, but it was just a good intention.
Tesla died at the New Yorker Hotel on 1943 at the age of 86. No one was with him when he died, because he had never been married. There are rumors that Tesla is not interested in women. Some people say that Tesla has been busy with his ideals all his life and thinks that women will disturb his thoughts.
Two days after Tesla's death, a maid found him and the doctor ruled that he died of a heart attack.
Tesla is undoubtedly a pure inventor. He initiated a new electrical era for mankind. He has hundreds of patents in his life. He is indifferent to fame and fortune. He is not a businessman who understands the world like Edison, but he is withdrawn, so he has never left a good impression. That's why we always hear about Edison, but seldom about nikola tesla.
Therefore, he left many legends among the people. For example, some people say that the big electric tower in Nikola Tesla caused the Tunguska Big Bang, while others say that Tesla discovered the vibration frequency of the earth and could break the earth with its big electric tower.
These are all hearsay and incorrect rumors. He is an inventor who has been indifferent to fame and fortune all his life.
Obviously, elon musk, the best entrepreneur and engineer today, is a die-hard fan of nikola tesla.