Nikola Tesla: The Man Who Invented the 20th Century
Emma Ledford
Nikola Tesla: The Man Who Invented the 20th Century
Imagine a world without household electricity, radio, and remote control—technologies that would not exist without the work of Nikola Tesla, a revolutionary inventor who is unfortunately overlooked as the creator of many inventions that shaped 20th-century technology. Despite Tesla’s intelligence, he faced much doubt from investors; the uniqueness of his inventions made many believe he was unreliable and crazy. However, scientists of today look back at Tesla’s work and realize that he was far ahead of his time.
Nikola Tesla was born on July 10th, 1856, in a mountainous region of the Balkan Peninsula, located in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother, Djuka Tesla, and his father, Milutin Tesla, were of Serbian origin. Milutan was an Orthodox Priest, and Djuka was an unschooled, yet highly intelligent woman, who possessed the inventive instincts that inspired Tesla. She worked around the house and created technology to aid in everyday tasks, such as the egg beater. Tesla began his education as a homeschooled child, but he later attended Karlovac Gymnasium school where he excelled in his studies, specifically calculus. He was so skilled in this subject that he was able to perform integral calculus in his mind, causing his teachers to believe that he was cheating on his work. Tesla’s excellence in calculus and overall creativity sparked his interest in engineering. In 1875, he attended Graz University of Technology, where he studied electrical engineering. Tesla began visualizing and creating concepts that would lay the foundations for many of his groundbreaking inventions, such as alternating current (AC). However, Tesla left the university after his third year, in 1878, and moved to Prague to continue his studies at Karl-Ferdinand University by attending lectures, although he was not formally enrolled. In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest where he worked for the Budapest Telephone Exchange and developed plans for the induction motor: the first step toward the utilization of alternating current. Finally, in 1883, Tesla was in Paris working for the Continental Edison Company when he created his first induction motor.
At age 28, during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, Tesla set sail for America in hopes of expanding his knowledge and finding more opportunities to work on his inventions. Upon arrival, Tesla began looking for somebody to live with and endorse his work. He met Thomas Edison, owner of the Edison Electric Light Company. Not only was Edison the creator of direct current (D/C), but his company was financed by J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family, one of the most powerful captains of industry during this time. During his time with Edison, he was put to work on a variety of projects. He repaired the circuitry system on the Oregon, the first boat to be lit by direct current. Tesla was also given the task of improving Edison’s direct current system, and Edison even promised a bonus for completing this task. However, once Tesla completed this job, Edison claimed that his promise was just a joke, or “American humor,” and refused to compensate Tesla. On top of that, Edison showed no interest in Tesla’s development of alternating current; he refused to aid in the process and claimed this technology was dangerous. Tesla was extremely upset with the way he was treated by Edison and decided to set out on his own to pursue the development of alternating current. Tesla and Edison were very different men with different methods, backgrounds, and goals, and inevitably parted ways after less than a year of working together.
After quitting his work with Edison in 1885, Tesla ventured to find someone who would invest in his alternating current technology. Tesla worked for around two years as a grave digger until he was able to find a solid financier. In 1887, he had gained enough money to create his own factory in Manhattan, where he focused his energy on perfecting the alternating current motor. This hard work paid off because a few months later, Tesla received multiple patents for the different mechanics of this motor. George Westinghouse Jr., the chief competitor of Edison and Morgan in the battle of supplying cities with power, bought the patents to Tesla’s alternating current technologies, and the two began working together. This began the clash between Tesla’s alternating current and Edison’s direct current—the Battle of the Currents. Power demand was increasing due to the growing number of power plants and factories being built; a greater amount of energy was required to be transmitted across larger distances. Edison’s direct current was more expensive, yet less efficient. Large transmission distances lost more energy during travel. On the other hand, Tesla’s alternating current allowed electricity generated by power plants to be increased to high voltage and transferred over great distances with barely any energy loss. Not only was this a heated battle of creations between the two inventors, it was also a financial battle between J.P. Morgan and Westinghouse. Morgan and Edison created General Electric, and Tesla and Westinghouse created the Tesla Electric Company. The two companies fought to power the most factories, houses, and buildings. While Tesla’s alternating current was overall more efficient than Edison’s direct current, there had been fatal accidents involving engineers and operators working with A/C. Edison used these fatalities to his marketing advantage; he portrayed A/C as dangerous. In response to Edison’s claims, Tesla began his own campaign, where he worked in extremely close proximity to alternating current to prove that it was safe to run through homes and other buildings where many people would be present. The Battle of the Currents came to a close in 1893 when Tesla Electric Company’s A/C was chosen to power the Chicago World Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition) over General Electric’s D/C. This victory proved to Edison and the rest of the world that A/C could efficiently and safely transmit power over long distances, and alternating current became the standard for the modern power grid.
Although A/C technology is one of Tesla’s most well-known and influential inventions, he created many other works that shaped 20th-century technology, and even technology today. One of the items that were patented with his development of alternating current was the induction motor. Tesla’s induction motor was not the first to exist, but it was the first to function using A/C. It allowed the motor to move without a physical connection, making it more efficient and able to produce greater amounts of energy. Without this technology, the Industrial Revolution would not have been as successful. During the early 1890s, Tesla began to experiment with radio waves. He believed that radio waves could be used for wireless communication, but before he could make any significant conclusions based on the experiments he planned, his lab was destroyed by a fire. Due to this, Guglielmo Marconi is commonly known as the father of modern radio, even though both inventors applied for radio-based patents in the late 1890s. In 1943, however, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized Tesla as the inventor of the radio. The creation of the radio laid the foundation for wireless communication; later, people would be able to communicate with others around the world instantly. Tesla also performed many experiments in radiology. Even though he is not the creator of X-ray technology, his experiments displayed the value of X-rays as a diagnostic tool. Tesla became one of the first people to take X-ray images—or what Tesla called shadowgraphs—of the human body. He also examined the dangers of X-rays, ensuring that radiology could become the safe practice it is today. Tesla was also an early trailblazer in renewable energy; he wanted to draw energy directly from natural resources. To do this, he formulated experiments where he observed and determined ways to transfer energy from natural sources, such as waterfalls, to electricity. He used this discovery to power a power plant at Niagara Falls in 1890. This work allowed renewable energy to become an accepted form of energy production that is still widely used today. He also created the rotating magnetic field, the Tesla coil, the remote control, and one of the earliest robots, just to name a few. Tesla had over 112 registered U.S. patents, and over 200 patents worldwide; he created many inventions that aided in the development of later technology.
After the Battle of the Currents, Tesla did not make many more big business moves. He returned to New York in 1900 to work on a wireless world broadcasting tower on Long Island, and he received a loan to do this from J.P. Morgan. Unfortunately, this project failed due to financial panic, labor issues, and the withdrawal of J.P. Morgan’s support. Tesla became obsessed with wireless technology and performed many experiments. In one experiment he even claimed to have received a message from an alien civilization. These actions caused the public to ridicule Tesla; few people trusted his work, and many thought he was crazy. Tesla had few friends, no wife, no kids, and little money. His main priority was his inventions, but nobody was willing to invest in them. Towards the end of his life, he even claimed to have invented a “death ray” and he attempted to sell it to Allied governments during World War 2. However, few people believed that he was still as intelligent as he was during the Battle of the Currents, and nobody would buy this invention. In 1934, Tesla was forced to move into a hotel room in New York because he no longer had the finances to pay for his housing, and Westinghouse was obligated to pay for his stay at the Hotel New Yorker. Tesla rarely left the hotel, except to feed the pigeons. He stayed at this hotel for the final ten years of his life, constantly working on new inventions. On January 7, 1943, Tesla died of heart failure, alone in his hotel room.
After Tesla’s death, his work was immediately seized from his hotel room by the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to wartime security concerns. Eventually, these files were returned to Sava Kosanovic, the son of Tesla’s sister. His work now rests in Belgrade, Serbia, at the Nikola Tesla Museum.
Overall, Tesla was a revolutionary inventor who was underappreciated for his work during his lifetime. His creation of alternating current aided greatly in the expansion of the Industrial Revolution by efficiently powering many of the plants and factories needed. Tesla laid the foundations for 20th-century technology with his alternating current, and without his genius, many common machines of today would not exist. Despite all of his valuable contributions to 20th-century technology, his actions toward the end of his life led many to believe he was crazy. Although the final years of his life were not the most desirable to others, he was happy because he found joy in his work. Tesla did not work for money or fame, he worked for the future. As he once stated, “The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
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Posted Mar 15, 2025
Historical biography detailing Nikola Tesla's life and some of his most notable inventions.
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