Nikola Tesla

I was born in Smiljan, then in the Austrian Empire, to an Orthodox priest and a mother whose hands fashioned useful devices. I studied engineering in Graz and briefly in Prague, then learned my trade in Budapest and Paris. In 1884 I crossed the Atlantic, worked a short while for Thomas Edison, and soon resolved to pursue my own designs.

My chief work was the polyphase alternating-current system and the induction motor, patented in 1887 and 1888. After my 1888 lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, George Westinghouse licensed my patents. Alternating current lit the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and, on a grander scale, turned the cataract at Niagara Falls into orderly power transmitted over distance.

High-frequency phenomena drew me further. With the Tesla coil of 1891 I studied resonance, discharges, and principles of wireless transmission; I also investigated X-rays and new forms of lighting. In 1898, before a New York audience, I guided a wireless craft by radio—an early demonstration of remote control. In 1943 the United States Supreme Court cited my radio patents, narrowing some claims attributed to Marconi.

My boldest scheme was the Wardenclyffe installation on Long Island (1901–1906), supported in part by J. P. Morgan, intended for transatlantic telephony and experiments in resonant power transfer. Funds and clear prospects failed; the tower fell in 1917. I continued to devise turbines and electrical apparatus, but I withdrew into New York hotels, lecturing and calculating in quieter rooms. I died in 1943.