Yes, those are real electrical arcs and the man sitting under the 4 million volts of electricity flying through thin air is inventor Nicola Tesla. This is one of my favorite inventors because his work and legacy is incredibly interesting. Much of his work including alternating current electricity, x-rays, and wireless technology are currently extremely important in modern day applications.

Tesla came to the United States in 1884 and immediately started working for Thomas Edison at the Edison Machine Works. After a dispute over payment, Tesla left his job with Edison and this was the start of the largest inventing rivalry in history. Tesla would go on to develop an alternating current (AC) system that could generate huge voltages over long distances. While Edison pushed his direct current system, which was safer, but unable to match the massive energy of Tesla’s AC power. Despite Edison’s extreme measures (let’s just say PETA would have a field day with Edison if they had been around) to discredit Tesla, Tesla’s AC power ultimately won the War of Currents as he illuminated the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and even harnessed the energy of Niagara Falls providing Buffalo, New York electricity. To this day it is AC power that we use in our work places and homes when using anything plugged into our electrical outlets.

Tesla’s greatest asset as an inventor was his ability to envision complex ideas that no one had ever seen or imagined in such great detail that he was able to turn these ideas into reality with huge confidence. One such idea was that of transmitting power wirelessly over great distances. It is said that Tesla was able to transmit electricity wirelessly throughout Colorado Springs using low frequencies transmitted through the ground. This work on transmitting wireless energy led to one of the biggest mysteries behind Tesla’s legacy.

In 1898 Tesla began designing the Wardenclyffe Tower for wireless communications in hopes to make the first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission. Midway through the construction of the tower, Tesla adjusted the design of the tower to include a system that would draw free energy from the ionosphere and distribute it wirelessly everyone free of charge. Investors such as J.P. Morgan were not impressed and backed out of funding the project. Although lack of funding was probably the primary reason for the abandonment of this project, Tesla also claimed that the potential for misuse of the technology he was developing was too dangerous for mankind and could greatly harm the Earth.

Unfortunately, Tesla’s later years in life greatly damaged his reputation as a great inventor that changed the world for the better. His idiosyncrasies and far out ideas on alternative energies and other electrical devices including what was dubbed “Tesla’s Death Ray” perpetuated an evil mad scientist image that still plagues his name today. However, Tesla is slowly regaining some credibility as our current search for alternative energies becomes a more pressing matter. His life’s work includes many theories on alternative energy sources, and even more theoretical inventions that we still do not have the technology to implement.

In my research I came across a very interesting video on Tesla that I am embedding in this post, titled “Nicola Tesla – The Forgotten Wizard.” If that only wets your appetite search on YouTube for “Nicola Tesla – The Missing Secrets”, it’s broken up into four 10 minute videos (the first part will probably appear as the first related video after “The Forgotten Wizard”).

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 4:41 am and is filed under Great Inventors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.