The real story of Nikola tesla

 

 Nikola tesla 

The human mind is truly an incredible thing, capable of speech, thought, critical thinking, and imagination. When we think of the great legendary minds of this world, we think of the brilliance of people like Einstein. He taught us many things about the low-level rules that govern our universe, fundamental things like time, space and matter, but in terms of practical discoveries that are the basis for the technologies we use each and every day, it was Nikola Tesla. 

Who was the most brilliant of all? He had a mind of the rarest kind. He can memorize entire books and visualize inventions with pinpoint accuracy. Once he had the concept of an invention fully visualized, he then undertook the hard work of bringing it to reality. In comparison, most other scientists and engineers are unwittingly narrow-minded in their thinking. 

How is it that such a man exists vaguely in the public consciousness, only as a fuzzy haze of distant knowledge? Today, let's change that. In this video, you'll learn all about Nikola Tesla and the way he changed the world you live in now. Let's begin. Tesla of Serbian heritage was born in 1856 in a small village within the Austrian Empire or modern-day Croatia. Tesla's birth was during a particularly violent lightning storm. Reading this as a bad omen, the midwife said to Tesla's mother that Tesla would be a child of darkness. Tesla's mom immediately replied: "No, he will be a child of light." As we'll see later, this statement was significant. From an early age, it was clear that Tesla was a remarkable kid. 

While in high school, he had the ability to perform integral calculus in his head. It was so unusual that his teachers thought he was cheating. Tesla also possessed an eidetic memory, which means he could recall entire books and images in great detail — a gift which he attributes to his mother. He allegedly used his imagination to temper visions and vivid nightmares that he had as a child. Unsurprisingly, Tesla finished high school early. At age 17 though, Tesla had a brush with death after contracting cholera in which he pleaded he might live if his father let him study engineering instead of the planned path of a priest, or a career in the army. 

Tesla's father agreed. Despite being bedridden and incredibly ill at the time, to the astonishment of his family, he miraculously recovered. Keeping true to his agreement, Tesla's father allowed the teenager to study engineering at university. And the course of history would be changed forever at that moment. During University in Austria, at age 21, Tesla got the highest grades possible, could speak eight languages and was called a star student of the first rank by the University's dean. Tesla claimed to work from 3:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily. And because of this, professors wrote a letter to Tesla's father stating that his son may be killed due to overwork. At the end of his second year, things took a turn. 

Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling, and by his third year, Tesla had gambled away his entire allowance and tuition money. He did, however, manage to gamble back the losses and return the balance back to his family, but the damage to his studies had been done. When exam time came around, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an extension to study, but he was denied. He never graduated from the university and did not receive grades for his last semester. In December of 1878, to hide the fact that he had dropped out of university, Tesla cut all ties with his family. 

It was so sudden that his friends had thought he had drowned in a river in North Croatia. In 1880, he moved to Budapest and then finally to America with just four cents in his pocket. After taking up a few odd jobs here and there, Tesla began his work for Thomas Edison at conscience Edison company, in 1882. Here's a word on Edison: Many people today consider Thomas Edison as the father of the light bulb, but he was more along the lines of the Steve Jobs of the light bulb. That is, Edison figured out how to sell the light bulb by improving on ideas of 22 other men before him. Thomas Edison went on to found General Electric, which I also have a video on, so if you want to see that, check the description below. Okay, so back to this story. In 1885, Tesla said that he could redesign Edison's DC motors and generators which were very inefficient at the time, and had a tendency to spark and break down.

 Edison liked the idea and offered Tesla 1 million US dollars in today's currency for the job. Tesla got to work and did as he was promised, fixing all the problems with the motors. The new motors and generators were now simpler, didn't spark, and were much more reliable. In fact, Tesla's design was so good that it still used today for the motors that power anything from household appliances to water pumps, power tools, disk drives, smartphone haptics feedback systems, and, of course, the Tesla electric car. 

When Tesla had completed this job and asked for the money, Edison laughed and stated: "Mr.Tesla, you do not understand our American humor." Tesla had just been ripped off big time and left Edison's company. He'd had enough. Meanwhile, at this time, something monumental was happening: the electrical revolution was just about to take place. Electricity was the next big thing to change the entire planet. It created an investment startup bubble, much greater than the fever that was the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. Billion-dollar industries arose out of nowhere, and the American economy was lifted into an enhanced growth period that would last for decades. 

This was due to sudden quantum leaps in manufacturing, household technology, and general efficiency of work. Work and life were simply easier. We simply just can't comprehend this change today. Why you might be asking. Because everyone alive today was born with electricity. The sheer magnitude of technological change that resulted from household electricity was truly astonishing So, after being cheated by Edison, Tesla decided to put his energy into joining the electric revolution in the form of the research of alternating current, or AC. 

While he searched for financial backers to support his vision of an AC powered world, Tesla took up a job of digging ditches for $2 a day, or $50 in today's currency to make ends meet. He described this period as very painful. Tesla eventually struck up a partnership with Westinghouse. This would put him in direct competition with Edison and his direct current or DC system backed by General Electric. Edison's DC system created dangerous sparks, couldn't transmit electricity very far, required a power plant every few kilometers with cables as thick as your arm. In other words, it was pretty terribly suited to power every home on this planet. 

Tesla's AC system, on the other hand, used thinner wires, had higher voltages, and could transmit electricity over long distances. The fight was on, and the prize for the winner was the privilege of lighting up the entire world. By 1893, there had been many shady business deals, stolen ideas, and patent suppression that Edison and his money interests wielded over Tesla's inventions. The feud had reached boiling point, and with this, the war of the currents had reached its peak. Deep down, Edison knew that his system was inferior to Teslas. But, of course, he didn't want the public to know this. He needed a way to make the public despise AC and accept DC. But how? Families living near Edison's laboratory began to notice something a little strange. 

Their pets suddenly began to disappear These mysterious disappearances weren't the work of aliens, but of a group of schoolboys paid 25 cents for each animal that they stole. This was Edison's solution. Once Edison gathered the cats, dogs, and other animals from the schoolboys, he publicly electrocuted them using Tesla's AC current to prove that it was dangerous, too dangerous to be used in any home. In addition to this, Edison aided in the creation of the electric chair making sure that it used AC current. Tesla responded to all of this by demonstrating that AC was perfectly safe by famously shooting electric current through his own body to produce light at the 1893 World Fair. This was a checkmate to Edison and a symbolic turning point. 

As the years went on, AC increased in popularity and became the standard due to its technical advantages. As a result of his inventions, Tesla was shot into the stratosphere of stardom, rubbing shoulders with the most important people of the day. He was universally loved by citizens because he helped to make their lives easier. From arriving with just four cents in his pocket to now have unprecedented fame, things have certainly changed for Tesla, and his brilliance and hard work had paid off for him. Meanwhile, Edison became more and more despised by others within General Electric and eventually lost control of the company after a series of mergers with all of that being said, to give Edison some credit, he did invent the phonograph and motion the picture camera, so he also has contributed greatly to society. 

During the War of the currents, Tesla designed AC motors, generators, transformers, and power transmission technologies, resulting in 25 of the most valuable patents since the invention of the telephone. These designs were so good that we still use them today in all the systems that power our homes, a fact which we take for granted. This in itself was an incredible achievement by Tesla, but he was just getting started. Over the next few years, Tesla would invent a few foundational technologies that drove the 20th century and still hold relevance today. 

We'll take a look at that in a second, but before we do, I think it's time for a quick break, so grab a bite to eat get comfortable, readjust, and we'll be back in a bit okay so we are back let's take a look at the many things that Tesla discovered or invented but sometimes didn't fully get credit for number one Radio many people mistakenly think that glamma Marconi was the inventor of radio to this day however his work was based on the work done by Nikola Tesla Tesla theorized that radio waves could transmit information as far back as 1893 in lecture demonstrations in 1898 Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat which he dubbed telly automation that kind of sounds pretty standard today but you have to understand that this was 1898 the crowd that witnessed.

The demonstration was so shocked that they literally claimed Tesla was using magic telepathy or had a trained monkey hidden inside controlling the boat when Marconi became world famous for sending the first transatlantic message Tesla said the following Marconi is a good fellow let him continue he is using 17 of my patents number to x-ray this one's a pretty interesting story x-rays were discovered by Tesla before Wilhelm röntgen was credited with the discovery in fact Tesla took the very first x-ray photos for some reason after Wilhelm claimed discovery it was believed that x-rays could cure blindness and other ailments despite Tesla warning that x-rays could be dangerous Edison tested it on one of his employees Clarence Dulli who after having his arms amputated eventually died from cancer Edison also fired x-rays into his own eyes during experiments when questioned about it in 1903 Edison said don't talk to me about x-rays I'm afraid of them number three hydro electricity Tesla designed the first hydroelectric plant that was powerful enough to light a city at Niagara Falls proving to the world that waterfalls could make a practical energy source on a large scale a lot of people told him that it wouldn't but Tesla had already envisioned how a generator could harness energy from moving water when he was still a child people were shocked but also delighted to see his vision power whole major US cities number four the earthquake machine.

Tesla created a little pocket-sized machine that when placed on a building in wall street and set to the building's natural frequency made the structure wobble so much that steel workers came down to the ground in a panic believing that there must have been an earthquake when the police were called Tesla put the device back in his pocket and walked away test the claim that if he had ten minutes more he could have laid that building to the ground and using the same device could have dropped the Brooklyn Bridge in less than one hour Tesla also figured out the resonant frequency of the earth 50 years before the technology allowed scientists to catch up with his discovery and lastly the Tesla Tower so far the previous inventions were all things that made it to reality but one of Tesla's most ambitious projects was actually a failure although now it's become a Tesla legend forever romanticized I'm of course talking about the famous Wardenclyffe Tower otherwise known as the Tesla Tower set to deliver free energy to the world by using the Earth's ionosphere as part of the transmission device or was it the story goes that financial backer JP Morgan shut the project down when he discovered it wouldn't make any money this isn't entirely true that Tesla had actually sold the project to Morgan as a wireless communications tower not as a means of producing or transmitting energy the financial backing from JP Morgan was only pulled when Marconi sent the first radio waves across the Atlantic making Morgan change his mind the project dragged on without Morgan and ran way over time and ridiculously over budget until it finally collapsed aside from this what in science today says that the Tesla tower wouldn't have worked this is mainly due to technicalities such as energy loss during transmission and Tesla's misunderstanding of the physics of radio waves this was Tesla's first major failure which brought him great shame this would set him on a downward path that eventually led to the decline of the legend more on this later in the video all right so we're almost at the end of the video but before we begin to conclude let's take a look at four facts about Tesla number one Tesla loved humanity as a humanist Tesla believed in improving the quality of human life but not for financial gains he is a quote from Tesla himself money doesn't mean as much to me as it does to others all my money has gone into inventions to make man's life a little easier number two Tesla envisioned a wireless Internet in 1901.

while Tesla was developing the transatlantic radio he envisioned a system of collecting information encoding it and broadcasting that information to a handheld device this is basically what we have now as the mobile internet on our phones pretty impressive for site for 1901 number 3 Tesla actually lost everything at one stage as Tesla was working tirelessly and discovering many things about wireless energy transfer his lab burnt down in a fire forcing him to start his entire life's work all over again number 4 Tesla may have had obsessive compulsive behavior and insomnia Tesla claimed that he only needed two hours of sleep a night it's unclear whether that was because he wanted to or because he couldn't actually sleep any more than that Tesla was also obsessed with the number three and used 18 napkins to clean his dining room before eating his evening meals he also detested round objects jewelry shaking hands and touching hair as you can tell by that last fact being such a genius and having a mind that was activated to such a high degree came with some consequences his great mind became his downfall Tesla's life story of rise to international prestige and fame was followed by an equally dramatic retreat into public shame depression and loneliness denial of his failures starting with the Tesla Tower led to further failure and further denial a downward spiral which eventually led Tesla to a mental breakdown by the latter part of his life he was clinically insane Tesla hallucinating to such an extent that the boundaries between reality and his imagination became blur this caused him to work alone in this lab tirelessly he often stated that his lab was the only place where he was truly happy as an example of his mental condition he is a quote from one of Nikola Tesla's final interviews .

I have been feeding pigeons thousands of them for years but there was one pigeon a beautiful bird pure white with light gray tips on the wings that one was different no matter where I was that pigeon would find me when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me I loved that pigeon I loved her as much as a man loves a woman and she loves me then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark solving problems, as usual, she flew through the open window and stood at my desk and knew she wanted to tell me something important so I got up and went to her as I looked at her and you she wanted to tell me she was dying and then as I got her message there came a light from her eyes powerful beams of light I don't think there's anything else to say there over his lifetime Tesla had obtained more than 100 patents and 700 inventions but despite all of this he was dirt poor for many years he worked alone in this room at the hotel New Yorker

 where he died in 1943 living on a diet of milk and Nabisco crackers so a lot of you would be asking how did this happen how did Tesla end up so poor it is true Tesla could have been the world's first billionaire by a longshot but he just really didn't care about money he is an example after the War of the currents Westinghouse was in trouble they were almost bankrupt and about to go under so Westinghouse pleaded with Tesla to temporarily cut back his royalties just so the Westinghouse company could get through this tough time and survive shockingly.

Tesla ripped up the contract right there and then on the spot this would have amounted to three hundred billion dollars for Tesla Tesla simply stated that he was just happy that Westinghouse believed in him when no one else would I guess having a huge part in changing the world was enough of a reward in itself for him the rest of the remaining money that Tesla had accumulated over his life all got spent on numerous failed projects such as the Tesla Tower Tesla's ideas helped America grow into an industrial nation and a powerhouse of the 20th century yet his marginalization was prevalent then and continues today he is almost non-existent if you look through many of today's text books this is mainly because Tesla did not care about profit fame or fortune he only wanted to make the world a better place this was the polar opposite of most of the businessmen of that day who unfortunately took advantage of Tesla's nature profiting from his work and leaving him with nothing it could be a lesson to us all have the purest intentions but stand up for yourself and know your to finish off he is one last quote from Tesla the present is theirs the future for which I have really worked is mine and that is the story of Nikola Tesla thanks for readding.