Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Serbia. His father, Milutin Tesla, was a priest, and his mother had a talent for making simple home tools and memorizing long poems. She also had an amazing photographic memory. Nikola‘s genius was evident early on when he started school. His teachers sometimes thought he was cheating in exams – his answers to even the most difficult questions were exceptionally good. As Nikola grew, he became passionate about mathematics and science, and wanted to become an engineer. Nikola's father, however, wanted him to enter the priesthood. At age seventeen, he contracted cholera. Nikola persuaded his father to study engineering if he survived the disease. His wish came true. In 1875, Tesla started studying at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria, where he studied mechanical and electrical engineering.

In 1882, Tesla began working for the Continental Edison Company in France, designing and making improvements to electrical equipment.

In the following year Tesla promised Edison to improve Edison's motors and generators to make them better and more economical. Edison said, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you-if you can do it".

After several months of work, Tesla achieved what he had set out to do. He showed the improved motor to Edison and asked about payment. Edison told him that he was only joking. Tesla immediately resigned. In 1886, Tesla founded Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing in the United States. In the following year, Tesla started another company, the Tesla Electric Company, with the financial support of New York attorney Charles F. Peck.

In 1890’s, Edison and Tesla’s companies were in a war. Tesla’s alternative current was much cheaper and more powerful than Edison’s direct current. Tesla and his company started to dominate the market.

It was also during this time that Tesla became a citizen of the United States of America. He was proud of his new home. He told his friends that he valued his citizenship more than any scientific awards that he had ever received. On January 7, 1943, at the age of 86, Nikola Tesla died in New York as a poor man.

It is true that there was a great rivalry between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Edison stole many of Tesla’s work and claimed that they were his own. Many people today blame Edison for being only a dishonest businessman and an average inventor. Today, all over the world, we are using Tesla’s alternative current to power electrical motors, our blenders and washing machines. The young man who once had little chance of surviving cholera, went on to change our lives forever.