The Comment Factory

A recent May 5th article in the New York Times entitled: “A Battle to Preserve a Visionary’s Bold Failure,” discusses the potential sale of the remnants of Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe laboratory on Long Island and thus the potential loss of some of the last physical traces of one of humanity’s greatest minds. It also represents yet one more insult to one of the most misunderstood and unappreciated visionaries who sought only to aid all humanity.

2006 was the sesquicentennial of the birth of one of the worlds greatest geniuses, the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. UNESCO dubbed 2006 the “year of Nikola Tesla.” Though you may have heard of the word “Tesla” as a unit of magnetic field (e.g. produced by an MRI machine); the ubiquitous discharging Tesla Coil seen in the old Frankenstein movies and at the Boston Museum of Science; a famous rock group; the name of Belgrade’s airport; David Bowie in “The Prestige”; or as a recently-introduced electric car company, few people are actually aware of the tremendous contributions made for us all by the refined, attractive yet deeply eccentric gentleman behind the name.

Born in 1856 to Serbian parents in a small village, Smiljan (which I visited in 1988), in the Austro-Hungarian empire (today’s Croatia), Tesla’s story of coming to America at age 28 with four cents in his pocket and “transforming” all society as we know it with his inventions was the quintessential story of the immigrants who made America what it is today. After quitting his employment with Thomas Edison who betrayed him, the young inventor went on to single-handedly invent the polyphase system of current generation (known as Alternating Current or “AC”) which ultimately overtook Edison’s Direct Current system as the superior method to transport electrical energy long distances and convert that energy into useful mechanical work.

Tesla first harnessed the enormous power of Niagara Falls as he built the world’s first hydroelectric power station there. Significant fractions of nations’ budgets in e.g, China (Three Gorges Dam), Zambia (Kariba Dam), and our own country (Hoover Dam) are dedicated to developing hydropower where the benefits of “free” power (many Gigawatts) can last for centuries. Today’s nuclear power industry is fashioned on the same basic principles of hydropower: the expansion of steam turns a turbine/dynamo, generating electrical power. The 60 Hz standard of our AC was set by Tesla. His designs for the electric dynamo are still in use today. Tesla also developed the polyphase electric motor which was suited for alternating current as well as the transformer which allowed easy and highly efficient conversion of voltage. The washing machine, dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher, refrigerator, alternators, heat exchangers/air conditioners, fans, are all example of machines utilizing electric polyphase motors at their core. The Tesla Coil, popular in science museums and movies, enables the generation of enormous high frequency voltages sufficient to create lightning just as he did in Colorado Springs.

Tesla’s inventions had a far greater scope than just household-limited gadgets. His high frequency and high voltage research led to the development of the fluorescent light bulb, and he was likely the first person to create and study x-rays. He was also instrumental in developing the first particle accelerators due to his high voltage and high frequency contributions. Tesla invented the concept of “remote control” when he created a small remotely-controlled boat and submarine for the military. Sadly, the US military was far too primitive at the time to comprehend the use and scope of the invention until many years later. Tesla’s vision of modern warfare involved combat between robots and missiles instead of between human soldiers, thereby reducing casualties considerably. This closely resembles the modus operandi of today’s military (consider e.g. drones and guided missiles) except, tragically, that NATO, led by the US, illegally and viciously bombed his ancestral homeland slaughtering hundreds of civilians in Serbia in 1999 using the same technology that he enabled. So much for the gratitude of some American leaders!

Tesla was the first person to propose the concept of modern radar in 1900 and also invented a prototype spark plug for autos in 1898. Nikola Tesla was the true father of the radio, not Guglielmo Marconi, as recognized (posthumously by a few months) by the US Supreme Court in 1943. It was Tesla’s idea to use two tuned circuits (one for the transmitter, the other for the receiver) to broadcast information and energy from one to the other and reduce the chance of noise and interference between other transmitters. Without this concept, radio would be useless. Television, satellites, GPS, and cellular phones were all made possible by Tesla’s high frequency research and development of the wireless transmission of energy. Marconi visited Tesla’s lab in New York and incorporated Tesla’s inventions but never credited the inventor for this. Sadly, Marconi received the Nobel Prize and millions of dollars in royalties for his development of the radio. Tesla received nothing for his contribution.

Nikola Tesla was one of the most prolific inventors in human history with some 700 patents to his credit. Yet, for complex reasons, he is not given the credit sorely due him. Most of his failures can be ascribed to his lack of business sense, vicious competition from his rivals, and difficulties in securing the necessary funding for his work. He passed away on Orthodox Christmas, January 7, 1943 in the New Yorker Hotel, alone and a pauper. His cremated remains lie in a museum in Belgrade along with some of the papers/notebooks from his lifelong work.

It is my desire that Americans learn more about Nikola Tesla not only to develop some sense of appreciation for this gentleman’s tireless efforts, but that he also serve as an inspiration to us all in the realization of just how much one human being can do to improve the world. Tesla’s story is also a story of how important it is to fund innovation in an era where companies are increasingly looking to the “bottom line” and less inclined to fund research, and the US government, saddled with the costly occupation in Iraq also seems less interested in funding scientific research.

In a day and age where we worship entertainment “heroes” who honestly contribute little to bettering all humanity, we have completely lost perspective of who the real heroes are in our society – scientists and engineers such as Nikola Tesla — who more than anyone have improved all of our lives through their tireless and more often than not unrewarded sacrifices.

Nikola Tesla can rightly be considered the godfather of the 20th Century and beyond. When discussing the lack of credit for his achievements, Tesla once remarked: “The present is theirs, the future, for which I have really worked is mine.”

I encourage everyone to learn more about one of humanity’s greatest unsung heroes and remedy this gross neglect by recognizing his place in human history. A good start would be to declare his laboratory at Wardenclyffe a national historic monument. A website that is useful as a starting point for this goal is here.