Schoolcraft College Nikola Tesla

           Nikola Tesla was a very strange, but brilliant man and inventor. He was born 1856 and died in 1943. Arguably one of the greatest inventors in history and yet he is a relatively unknown person. How can a man this influential be forgotten. I originally found out about him while watching The Men Who Built America a 4 episode series about some of the most influential people in American history. Now they had touched on some of his achievements during the show but again the most talked about inventor during the show was Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison was a great inventor and very brilliant but in my own opinion he gets to much credit. When Nikola Tesla immigrated to America he had a note from one of Edison’s business associates in Europe. The note read “Dear Mr. Edison: I know of two great men and you are one of them. The other is this young man.” Nikola Tesla worked for Edison and improved his DC generators for what he thought was $50,000. After he completed his work he didn’t receive any money and Edison told him that he was joking about the money. We can’t know which side of the story is true because neither man changed their stance.

          After this argument Tesla resigned and began trying to make a life on his own in America. He then began to do his own work backed by investors and created his first alternating current motor. George Westinghouse discovered Tesla and his AC and decided to purchase the patents and make a deal with him to spread the use of AC. This is when the war on currents began, Edison’s Direct current vs. Tesla and Westinghouse’s AC. Edison started to use propaganda to try and show how dangerous AC was. One of the more famous instances of this was when Edison was employed to create the first electric chair. The government wanted to have a better way to execute people and thought electricity may be the way to go. Edison insisted that Westinghouse AC generators must power the chair because of how much more dangerous it was than his DC. The execution didn’t go as planned as reports ranging from his heart still pumping and that he was alive much after the electricity to blood spilling everywhere when blood vessels popped. Either way both Edison and Tesla’s reputations took hits for the electric chair. The next battle in the war of currents was the battle to light up the Chicago worlds fair. This battle was won by Tesla, they won the bid by underbidding Edison and General Electric or GE. GE had bid that they could do it for 1,000,000 dollars Tesla and Westinghouse bid half that because of how much less Copper wire would be needed using AC. Nikola Tesla using 100,000 Light bulbs lit the fair up like never before and showed the world that AC power was the way of the future. With this victory Tesla and Westinghouse were chosen to create the powerhouse on the Niagara river one of the most powerful rivers in the world. After heavy losses Westinghouse asked Tesla if he would release himself from the contract because the royalties were bankrupting the company. Allegedly Tesla tore the contract up remembering how he was one of the only men to believe in him and wanted to further the advancement of technology regardless of personal gain. After this he began experimentation again and started to develop inventions to use electricity more efficiently like fluorescent lighting. He also created the first neon illuminations, the first x-ray photographs, and over 100 other U.S. patents but these inventions were nothing like method to send electricity wirelessly. Today we are still trying to master this form of technology that Tesla was able to discover in the 1890s. How does a man like this get forgotten and thrown out of the history books?

           Some people say that he was to generous or allowed others to profit from his inventions and their fame and power stole the spotlight from him. Other people say that his accomplishments are being over valued because of the internet and that people are taking his accomplishments out of context. While others still say that his inventions were ahead of his time and that it caused him to not get the credit at his own time. Things like a more efficient light source was not as commercially available for homes across America and this caused his inventions as great as they were to not be spread from home to home. Some people think the fact that he was different from the average person was the reason for him being forgotten. Things like his disgust for pearl necklaces which was so profound that he would send his secretary home when she would wear one. My opinion for why he was forgotten is that Americans and the world in general celebrate those who are financially successful. Tesla who was not focused on making a business or becoming wealthy beyond his wildest dreams ended up dying with little money and alone. While I was walking through the electrical portion of the Smithsonian, a place that received funding from Edison, there was little mention of Tesla. Even though the lights illuminating the displays were fluorescent lighting. Without him able to donate or help build museums and books his legacy was not carried on as easily. Today with the help of the internet Tesla is beginning to get more credit and starting to become a more well known person. How many other great or influential men that changed the world do we still not know about? History never changes but what we know about history changes every day. Thank you any questions?

 

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