„I have devoted much of my time during the year to the perfecting of a new small and compact apparatus by which energy in considerable amounts can now be flashed through instellar space to any distance without the slightest dispersion.“
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary) on July 10, 1856, and died January 7, 1943.
He was the electrical engineer who invented the AC (alternating current) induction motor, which made the universal transmission and distribution of electricity possible.
Tesla began his studies in physics and mathematics at Graz Polytechnic, and then took philosophy at the University of Prague.
He worked as an electrical engineer in Budapest, Hungary, and subsequently in France and Germany.
In 1888 his discovery that a magnetic field could be made to rotate
if two coils at right angles are supplied with AC current 90 degrees
out of phase made possible the invention of the AC induction motor.
The major advantage of this motor being its brushless operation,
which many at the time believed impossible.
George Westinghouse purchased the patents to his induction motor,
and made it the basis of the Westinghouse power system which still
underlies the modern electrical power industry today. He also did
notable research on high-voltage electricity and wireless communication;
at one point creating an earthquake which shook the ground for several
miles around his New York laboratory. He also devised a system which
anticipated world-wide wireless communications, fax machines, radar,
radio-guided missiles and aircraft.
