The Mad Boy Wonder

+* The Mad Boy Wonder*+

Nikola Tesla is the most forgotten father of modern technology since Melvin Swartz, father of the sleeper yo yo.    (Joke)

Tesla was born in what is now Croatia in 1856. He was a sickly child with a photographic memory and a fondness for poetry. He was a lonely boy who lived mostly in his own mind.

As a young man, he studied engineering at the Technical University of Austria, and later, philosophy in Prague.  

He became an electrical engineer, and a brilliant  inventor. Many of his electronic and other inventions  are  in common use today.

He invented rotating, magnetic, alternating current (electric motors) before immigrating to New York City in 1884.

When he arrived, he had four cents in his pocket, and calculations for a flying machine. He was ready to go to work.

He then sold his invention to George Westinghouse for operating expenses for his beloved research.

Next, he invented the Tesla Coil, to be used in radio technology. The Tesla Coil is still used in many electronic devices, such as radios and televisions.

Always in need of funding, Nikola went to work for the notorious entrepreneur and successful inventor, Thomas Edison, for a promise of $50, 000 to work the many bugs out of Edison's  less-effient D/C electricity.

Tesla's alternating current was able to travel over long distances, as opposed to the inferior direct current power source Edison was invested in.

After Edison reneged on his offer, Tesla quit him and  opened-up his own research facility jn order to develop various forms of lighting.

His first invention he produced in his lab was the electric arc lamp.

In one demonstration of his genius, Tesla let electricity flow through his body  to power a light bulb he was holding.

Westinghouse used Tesla's A/C power to light-up the Colombian Exposition of Chicago in 1893.

The first hydro-eledctric generator was demonstrated at Niagara falls in 1898. The falls were lit in spectacular style.

For the moment, Tesla was the  man!

In  a later demonstration, Nikola  lit 200 lamps, 25 miles  away, by sending electricity though the air.

In still another mind -blowing demonstration, he created man-made lightning between two metal poles, 135 feet apart.

He claimed to have received signals from another planet, but that was never verified. He was a bit eccentric, so they say.

Tesla invented the transformer, which made it possible to send electricity through wires over great distances.  (Those dark cans on top of power poles)

He invented air-core transformers.
They allowed radio signals to be broadcast over the airways, eventually unleashing Rush Limbaugh upon an unprotected world.

Tesla came up with what he called the magnetic transmitter. That is what he used to send electric current through the air in that demonstration, earlier in the write.

Tesla's turbine was used in a piston-driven engine to transmit  power to the drive wheels, using  fluid adhesion, rather than friction.
(Your automatic transmission)

There was something he called a "shadow graph."  We now call them X rays.

He invented neon lights which could be used to form words and patterns, like you see all over Las Vegas.

His induction motor now powers your vacuum cleaner,  hair dryer, dad's power tools, and  anything else needing a plug-in motor.

His radio-controlled boat was a remotely-operated device. Tesler had control over lights, power and steering, just like the drones, remote-controlled cars and  planes  of today. He pioneered robot technology.

Over the many years of  his creative  gifts to us, he held over 300 patents, but only got credit for some of them. His I.Q. was between 160 And 310, depending on the particular test he was given.

He was an electrical and engineering genius, such as
 the world had never seen.

He said his wireless inventions would someday lead to one global brain we could all access with our small, mobile devices.

Among his few  friends was Mark Twain. Tesler was impractical in business, eccentric in nature, and highly germaphobic.

He compulsively demanded 18 napkins on his dinner table at every meal.

 He counted his steps, and  was obsessed with  the  numbers 3,  6, and 9.

His last few years were spent in cheap hotel rooms, alone, broke and in debt.

The F.B.I. broke into his tiny hotel room and confiscated all of his notes and research papers. They were looking for the dreaded "death ray" Tesler had claimed he had invented.

When the world began to forget him, he withdrew from the world. He spent his hours alone in the company of his pigeons.

One white, female pigeon caught his eye. He said of her, after she had died, "As long as I had her, there was purpose to my life. I loved her as a man loves a woman."

After his nephew heard Tesler had died, he rushed to the tiny hotel room and found  his uncle's body had disappeared, along with his remaining notes and files.
                   (Epilogue)
In 1926, Tesla said in an interview that in the future, the world would be freed from hard labor by means of mechanization.

He foresaw thinking machines we would communicate with by way of  a small, electronic device we could carry in our breast pockets.

He predicted an electronic, global brain. He predicted that computers would radically reshape every aspect of our lives. Over a hundred years later...we are here!  

Thank you, at last, Nikola Tesla!