TESLA

TESLA

The greatest American inventor was probably Nikola Tesla. He was a Serbian born in Croatia in 1856 and was a naturalized (1931) American citizen who died here impoverished in 1943 at the age of 86. His specialties were electricity and magnetism but he delved into many related disciplines.

When he came to America, he went to work for Thomas Edison. He solved problems with motors and generators for the Edison Company which provided electricity on the east coast. He had a falling out with Edison over money and theory. Tesla was a proponent of alternating current and poly-phase current. Edison was convinced that direct current was the way to go. Of course, the electrical current in your house is alternating current and the high voltage lines that carry electricity across the country carry poly-phase alternating current.

The Supreme Court of the United States in 1943 affirmed that Tesla was the inventor of the radio though Marconi had received a Nobel prize for it. He invented and has the original patents for many devices and the principles on which many more devices are based including the induction motor, x-ray machines, wireless transmission of power, turbine engines, compressors, spark plugs, alternators, lightning protectors, electric vehicles, VTOL aircraft, remote control devices, robotics, and many, many more.

In 1898 he demonstrated a remote controlled boat to the US military. Toys like this were first manufactured in the 1960's and the military started using remote controlled boats and planes in the 1990's.

When Tesla died, with him went his claim that he had developed a ray gun and a "dynamic theory of gravity". The US government confiscated all of his possessions upon his death and classified his papers as top secret. Nothing more of his work was ever attributed to him.