Did you know that Nikola Tesla had around 300 inventions?! These are his most interesting
inventions that helped make him a legend! Tesla Coil
One of his most famous inventions was the Tesla coil, which he invented back in 1891.
The Tesla coil is technically an electrical resonant transformer circuit. We’re not
gonna go into how it works, because, honestly we don’t know the mechanics of how it works.
But we’re gonna tell you some of the cool things it can do.
Tesla ran a whole bunch of experiments with the Tesla coil, including electrical lighting,
x-ray generation, and high frequency alternating currents. The most ridiculous thing it can
do is wirelessly transmit electricity. Oh yeah, the Tesla coil is also a radio transmitter!
It might have actually been the world’s first radio, and we’ll get into that story
a little later. But Tesla coils are mainly used today for entertainment and educational
displays. Basically it’s just because of how awesome the effects look. However, Tesla
coils are dangerous. Tesla coils, by their nature, produce electrical arcing that can
travel unpredictably in any direction. And they can strike pretty far so these arcs can
be quite dangerous. But, if things fell one way instead of another, who knows, maybe the
world today would be getting electricity completely differently!
Tesla Tower The Tesla coil attracted a lot of attention.
And Tesla himself attracted a lot of INVESTOR attention! Tesla was backed with $150,000,
which is a little over 4 and a half million dollars in today’s money. He was backed
by one of the greatest bankers of our time, J.P. Morgan.
Tesla wanted to build a tower that would have been able to transmit wireless communication
by voice, images, and text! You know, kinda like what we’re doing today with our phones.
Except WAY earlier. The tower would have injected electricity into the earth at the right frequency,
and harness what Tesla believed to be the earth’s own electrical charge. Basically,
it was supposed to be a huge Tesla coil! The coolest thing about the tower is that
it would have been able to transmit wireless electricity! Tesla had the vision of providing
free energy for the world. J.P. Morgan signed on because he was extremely interested in
the wireless capabilities. However, you did hear about that last part about wanting free
energy for the world right? Well that was sort of a big problem for our guy JP here.
If the energy was free all over the world, how would he have made any money? J.P. couldn’t
figure out how to meter and charge for the electricity that would have been going on
with the tower, so he decided to abruptly pull his funding, and that was a wrap for
the tower. Teleforce
Tesla also had another interesting invention that was supposed to be a defensive weapon
that he called the Teleforce. However, it was conveniently called the Death ray by the
media. It wasn’t a machine that could shoot laser beams like something out of Star Wars,
but instead it relied on energy in the air and electrical force to shoot particles at
whatever it’s aimed at. Tesla claimed that his superweapon supposedly
would have been able to put an end to all war, as it would have been able to bring down
quote, “a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending
nation's border and will cause armies to drop dead in their tracks”. Tesla attempted to
get funding from J. P. Morgan's son, Jack Morgan, but that didn’t happen. He then
tried to get some countries to fund his device, but only the Soviets partially tested it.
For some reason, it wasn’t ever manufactured by any country.
Tesla claimed that thieves had tried to steal his teleforce invention, but the thieves,
or spies, left empty-handed. He said that there was no danger that his invention could
be stolen. That’s because all the plans and blueprints for the Teleforce weapon were
all in his head! X-ray
The x-ray actually is implemented today. However, here’s a little interesting fact about X-rays.
Tesla accidentally produced the first x-ray images in the US in his laboratory when he
was experimenting with Crookes tubes. That was an early experimental electrical discharge
tube that shot out electrons. Tesla started noticing damaged film in his
lab, so he became super curious and decided to study the x-rays, which was still unknown
and unnamed at the time. He produced his first x-ray images when he tried to take a photo
of Mark Twain. He eventually managed to get images of the human body, which he called
shadowgraphs. Unfortunately, a lot of his early work in
x-rays were lost when his lab in New York caught fire and burned down. This is a big
reason why Tesla wasn’t credited with the discovery of X-rays!
Earthquake Machine Then there was Tesla’s concept of an earthquake
machine. The earthquake machine was a steam-powered electric generator that was patented by Tesla
back in 1893. However, what Tesla had actually intended his machine for wasn’t to create
earthquakes. It was supposed to be a replacement for the inefficient reciprocating steam engines
used to turn generators back then. Tesla was really fascinated with resonance,
so he did a lot of experimentation related to resonance. The oscillation of the machine
was adjustable, and Tesla used the machine to set frequency in experiments. Tesla claimed
that one time he was running tests with a small version of the oscillator in New York
City, and the oscillator generated resonance in several buildings. This is basically a
fancy way of saying an earthquake. The shaking grew larger and larger, and for
some reason, he wasn’t able to shut it down so he was forced to break his machine with
a sledgehammer! He later claimed that he was able to build one of these machines that could
destroy the Empire State Building. We don’t know what the practical application for an
earthquake machine could be. Who knows, maybe a Bond villain would have a use for it!
Radio Controversy Tesla was one of the early experimenters of
the radio back in the late 19th century. However he got into another situation just like the
x-ray. He came out with a radio controlled boat that he called the Teleautomaton. He
showed off the boat during an exhibition at Madison Square Garden, and he had hoped to
sell his idea to the U.S. Military as an application, but there was little interest.
Although Tesla wasn’t the first to experiment with radio, there’s been a lot of debate
on who’s the real inventor of the radio. Here’s what happened. Tesla had discovered
his Tesla coils could send and receive radio signals when they were tuned to resonate at
the same time. In early 1895, Tesla was ready to send out
a signal from his lab, but the same fire I had talked about earlier took out this work
in the lab too! You would think they would have back up copies of important papers back
then right? Unfortunately for Tesla, Italian inventor
Guglielmo Marconi was working on his own wireless telegraphy device, and Marconi filed for a
patent in England in 1896. Tesla, filed his patent in 1897 in the US, and was granted
the patent in 1900. Marconi tried to file a patent in the U.S.
in 1900, but of course Tesla already had his patent in place so it was rejected. Marconi
then revised his application for the next three years and suddenly in 1904, the U.S.
Patent Office reversed its previous decisions and decided to give Marconi the patent! But
wait, this story gets better! Fast forward to 1943. The patent office reversed its decision
in 1904 and restored Tesla’s patent, although they declared their reversal had no bearing
on Marconi’s claim to be the first to achieve radio transmission. What?! How does that even
make sense? Induction Motor
Tesla came up with his first induction motor back in 1887. George Westinghouse, owner of
Westinghouse Electrical Company, heard about Tesla’s development. He wanted Tesla’s
motor and related power system. He negotiated a deal for Tesla’s designs, and hired Tesla
as a consultant to work for him. However, in the end, Tesla’s induction motor
still needed much further development. Westinghouse was strapped for cash so the development of
Tesla’s induction motor stopped. This is another instance of Tesla almost bringing
the future to the public much faster. Maybe if certain things had happened differently,
our parents would have been already driving electric cars for decades!
Watch this next video to find out how this kid is living the GTA lifestyle!