Nikola Tesla

Who was Tesla? - An overview of his biography

Nikola Tesla was a physicist and electrical engineer who was very busy with electromagnetism during his lifetime and is now considered one of the most ingenious scientists of all time. He was born in 1856 in Smiljan - a small town in Croatia. At the age of five, he already experimented with various technical applications. He designed his first invention at the age of just twelve: a vacuum-operated pump. He later developed this to his famous Tesla turbine.

After school, Nikola Tesla began studying mechanical engineering at Graz University of Technology. However, he did not finish this. His second attempt to graduate, was also unsuccessful. Instead, he preferred to move to Budapest to work as a telegraph technician. Here, the Hungarian inventor Tivadar Puskás offered him a job in Paris, where Nikola Tesla was to make electrical installations in public buildings for the Continental Edison Company. During this time he began to study the design of an AC motor.

From Paris Nikola Tesla decided to go to New York. Here he first worked in the company of Thomas Edison. Later, however, he founded his own company: The Tesla Electric Company. There he continued his work on a rotating magnetic field alternating current system, for which he eventually applied for a patent. In contrast to Edison's direct current system, Nikola Tesla's invention was able to pass on the current without difficulty even over greater distances. This innovation earned him, almost overnight, great recognition among the entire engineering profession of the United States of America.

In the following years Nikola Tesla continued to experiment. For example, he looked at Edison's light bulb to find a solution for their minimal use of electricity. However, since he did not apply for a patent for this invention, numerous imitations already existed after a short time. In 1900, Nikola Tesla accepted an offer from J.P. Morgan to build a radio for $ 150,000 that could send transatlantic signals. He also developed the famous Tesla turbine during this time. He died in New York at the age of 86 in 1943.

What else has Nikola Tesla invented?

Nikola Tesla was particularly known for making many inventions in the field of AC technology during his lifetime. He contributed a not insignificant part to the fact that electrical energy can be transmitted today by means of alternating current. Other great inventions were the first remote control, the first radio station and the Tesla transformer. This is able to generate alternating current with very high frequency. Throughout his life, Nikola Tesla has also been working on wirelessly transmitting electricity or electrical energy using electromagnetic waves.

Other groundbreaking inventions by Nikola Tesla were:

  • frequency meter
  • lightning rod
  • Tachometer
  • High Frequency Lamp
  • First devices for using solar energy
  • Nikola Tesla's car with free, cosmic energy

Nikola Tesla and the magnetism: what can be measured with the unit Tesla?

Tesla (T) is a unit of measurement that describes the magnetic flux density. The unit was named in 1960 after the scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla. Carl Friedrich Gauss, a mathematician of the 19th century, contributed in 1831 a significant part of the development of the magnetometer. With the device, the field strengths of magnets can be measured. This strength of the magnetic field, for example, is also often given in the unit Tesla.


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