he grew up to be over six feet tall a
fashionable dresser and friends with
some of the most famous Americans of his
time but he started his life in a corner
of the Austrian Empire in today's video
we're talking about the great Nikola
Tesla
[Music]
when Nikola Tesla was born the Austrian
Empire it still existed an ethnic Serb
he came into the world in modern-day
Croatia on July the 10th 1856
his birth seemed to foreshadow his
life's work as his mother was in labor
during a massive lightning storm the
lining that flashed during Tesla's birth
was considered to be an ill omen by the
midwife but Tesla's mother didn't agree
instead she proclaimed that he will be a
child of light his mother was not wrong
as we know today Tesla is the reason we
have alternating current electricity but
on top of that starting in childhood
Tesla saw flashes of light that
reportedly came to him before he had
ideas there is another side to the story
of these flashes of light that has
emerged however it's possible that these
flashes or visions were actually caused
by a traumatic events that he witnessed
in his childhood when Tesla was just 5
years old he saw his only brother Dane
died in a horse riding accident it was
after this that Tesla began having the
flashes of light and his visions these
were something that would stay with him
for the rest of his life the family they
lived in a modest home one that has
since been rebuilt and has a statue of
Tesla in the yard
Tesla's father was an Eastern Orthodox
minister and his mother was a brilliant
woman
who was an inventor herself she created
mechanical appliances to use around the
house and her tinkering and creative
thinking undoubtedly influenced her son
Tesla's mother also had an incredible
memory she could memorise entire epic
poems and Tesla credited his own
photographic memory to the genes that he
inherited from its mother he memorized
entire books he visualized his projects
and ideas and he spoke several languages
in his early years of school Tesla
studies focused on German maths and
religion by the time he entered the
later years of his education science had
become a key focus he moved away from
his family in order to attends the
higher real gymnasium here Tesla was
accused of cheating because of his
photographic memory his outstanding
memory allowed him to perform integral
calculus using only as Minds
no pen or paper was required and this
led his teachers to become suspicious
nonetheless Tesla was able to finish the
necessary work to graduate in only three
years instead of the customary for
during his three years of the high real
gymnasium Tesla was introduced to a
phenomenon that ultimately defined his
career and how he's remembered today
in this physics class the teacher
demonstrated electricity and Tesla was
utterly fascinated by it but it would be
some time before he could launch a
career studying and using electricity he
became ill shortly after graduating in
1873 for nine months he was bedridden
with cholera and only narrowly escaped
death his brush with death helped form
Tesla's lifelong germaphobic tendencies
he was so fearful of germs that it took
him 18 napkins to get through a single
meal in 1874 Tesla was expected to be
conscripted into the military and he had
no interest in serving so he managed to
escape the requirements by running away
to a mountainous region where he was
able to disguise himself as a hunter
after a year Tesla was able to emerge
from mountains and start seriously
studying science he began attending
classes at Austria Polytechnic where he
quickly showed himself to be both a
talented and diligent students in fact
he may actually have been a little too
diligence years after he left the school
and after his father had died Tesla
discovered a pile of letters that the
school sent to his father warning them
that Tesla was overworking himself
according to Tesla himself he was
working incredibly hard getting up at
3:00 a.m. and not going to bed until
11:00 p.m. during that time he was fully
focused on his studies he didn't even
take off holidays or Sundays from this
routine by the time his first year was
over he had passed twice as many exams
as he needed to and received the highest
grades that were possible but even
someone with a brain like Tesla's
couldn't sustain that kind of schedule
his second year in school was a complete
reversal from his first after losing a
scholarship at the end of his second
year Tesla began gambling gambling
wasn't just a pastime for him though he
was totally addicted to it he lost his
tuition money gambling and then when
final exams rolled around he was
unprepared to take them indeed he never
did take them and he never graduated
unwilling to face his family and tell
them that he never graduated Tesla
simply fled to the town of Maribor and
took up work as a draftsman
it was here that he started gambling
again playing cards on the street at
first some of Tesla's friends thought
that he had drowned but Tesla's father
figured out the truth eventually he
tried to get his son to return home
Tesla he adamantly refused eventually he
was forced to return home when he was
arrested for not
a residence permit brilliant Tesla
worked as a teacher in caustic the town
rose family lived but his extended
family they wanted to help him get back
to school so they pooled their funds and
after Prague he went but it wasn't an
easy jump back into academia he arrived
too late to actually enroll and even if
he hadn't been late Tesla was missing
some of the key studies required to
enroll namely these were Czech and Greek
so Tesla once again did not achieve his
academic dreams but by 1881 he was able
to find work in his preferred field he
had found a job as an electrical
engineer with the central telephone
company in Budapest while working there
he and a friend had a habit of walking
through the park one day during the walk
Tesla got one of his visions he knew how
to build an induction motor he picked up
a stick found a patch of dirt and
sketched out his idea there and then he
then went on to build a prototype of
this motor it made sense to him and he
knew the importance of it but he
couldn't drum up much interest for his
invention in Europe
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while Tesla was working in Europe Thomas
Edison had launched his Edison company
which included a branch in Paris
Tesla secured a job at the Continental
Edison Company helping with the
installation of lighting in Paris his
talents were soon taken advantage of for
design and for troubleshooting within
two years he was recruited to travel to
America and work edison directly in new
york he and hundreds of others worked in
manhattan installing lights and building
out an electric utility for New York
City Tesla described his experiences and
impressions of Edison thusly I came from
Paris in the spring of 1880 forum was
brought in intimate contact with him
Thomas Edison we experimented day and
night his existence was made up of
alternate periods of work and sleep in
the laboratory he had no hobby cared for
no sport or amusement of any kinds and
lived in utter disregard of the most
elementary rules of Hygiene there can be
no doubt that if he had not married
later a woman of exceptional
intelligence who made it the one object
of her life to preserve him he would
have died many years ago from
consequences of sheer neglect so great
and uncontrollable was his passion for
work but as he had in his first year of
school Tesla was also a non-stop worker
one story relates that he stayed out all
night working and took some jobs from
people for being out all night when
Edison found out he was actually out of
working Tesla and Edison this respect
working for Edison it wasn't ideal for
Tesla though he only lasted six months
of the company Edison and Tesla
disagreed over alternating current and
direct currents with Tesla favoring
alternating currents and Edison favoring
direct but it's still unclear if this
disagreement was the primary reason why
Tesla ended up dating the company Tesla
and Edison also differed in their
approaches to business and science
Edison was attuned to the marketing side
of things while Tesla was highly focused
on the scientific invention and
innovation part of his work it's
possible his leaving may have been
precipitated by a bonus that he thought
he was getting which he was later
refused a manager at the Edison Company
had challenged employees to design two
different machines the first person to
successfully do so would receive a huge
bonus $50,000 which translates to
millions of dollars by today's standards
Tesla jumped at the chance to tangle
this invention and earn a huge amount of
money he completed the task presented
his work
and was denied the bonus the manager and
Edison claimed that the challenge had
been issued jokingly and Edison himself
told an upset Tesla Tesla you don't
understand our American humor regardless
of the reason the fact is that Tesla
departed from Edison's company only
after a few short months he had it in
his mind that he was going to start his
own company where he would research and
work with alternating current
[Music]
it wasn't so easy to get started though
when Tesla quit Edison's company he had
to earn money to live on by digging
ditches for only $2 a day my high
education in various branches of science
mechanics and literature seemed to me
like a mockery he said of this time
while he was doing that though he was
pitching investors he founds people who
liked what they heard and trusted the
scientific knowledge of this young
immigrants by 1885 he was working on
getting his art lighting system patented
and had a funding promise from two
businessman to start Tesla electric
light and manufacturing only a year into
the venture though they pulled out and
left Tesla in the lurch yet again the
inventor was penniless in 1886 though he
met two men who were looking to invest
in scientific inventions they set her up
with a laboratory in New York City
established a profit-sharing structure
and the Tesla Electric Company was born
in only a year Tesla had created an
induction motor that ran on alternating
currents this time he had two business
partners who were ready and willing to
handle the marketing and business end of
things
soon after Tesla published a paper
entitled a new system of alternating
current motors and transformers it laid
out his ideas and he got him noticed
George Westinghouse as one of the people
who read the paper and he liked what he
read Westinghouse licensed Tesla's
induction motor and also gave him a
consulting job at the Westinghouse
Electric and manufacturing lab in
Pittsburgh Westinghouse wanted to be the
person who provided the United States
with long-distance power and he believed
Tesla was the person who was going to
help him achieve that goal in the early
1890s Westinghouse and Edison were
competing heavily in the electric
industry Edison was throwing out claims
that Tesla's AC current wasn't safe and
meanwhile Westinghouse was facing
financial difficulties but Westinghouse
paid Tesla for the licensing and so he
had the ability to continue working on
projects that he wanted to one of those
projects you might actually have heard
of and that would be the Tesla coil the
Tesla coil which he patented in 1891
allowed electricity to be transmitted
wirelessly it was the first invention of
its kind and it was used in antennas
that were used to send Telegraph's and
even though the original design isn't
used anymore a different version of this
is still used
in TV and radio to this very day 1891
was also another landmark in Tesla's
life for it was the year that he was
granted US citizenship Tesla continued
its relationship with Westinghouse into
the 1890s as they sought his help for
the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago
Westinghouse was in charge of lighting
the entire event but also had their own
display there here he gave
demonstrations to the public showing how
AC current worked
[Music]
Tesla's next major project it came
Niagara Falls power was being generated
by the force but there was need for an
efficient transmission system based on
Tesla's recommendation Westinghouse was
hired to build an AC generation system
at Niagara Tesla did the design work and
the resulting hydroelectric power plant
began providing electricity to the City
of Buffalo New York with all of these
projects Tesla was gaining visibility
both in America and the rest of the
world he was also getting to know many
high-profile people and not all of them
were in the scientific sphere one of the
American celebrities that Tesla got to
know was Mark Twain even when he was
living in Croatia Tesla was reading
Twain's books the two met in New York
City having crossed paths at a social
event Twain had always been interested
in technological innovation so the two
spent much time together in Tesla's lab
a photograph of Twain's hands that Tesla
took using light from Crookes tubes
brought Tesla right to the edge of
discovering x-rays unfortunately though
he didn't realize quite how close he had
come until x-rays were actually
discovered and the use of Crookes tubes
in the invention was made known this is
not the only experiment that Twain was a
part of though there was also an
experiment that was specifically
designed to address Twain's digestive
issues train was often constipated and
he wasn't shy about complaining of this
condition Tesla had developed a
vibrating disc that would essentially
shake whoever stood on top of it
yeahit's author friend climb on board
the device and literally have his
digestion issues solved by shaking his
bowels loose when Tesla thought that
Twain nerds add enough of the shaking
treatments he told him to get off bus
well Twain he didn't want to get off he
stayed on top of the disk and was
continued to be shaken ignoring Tesla's
urgings he should not have ignored
Tesla's urgings though because
eventually the shaking did its job and
then son the famous author quite
literally went to the bathroom in his
suit in the middle of Nikola Tesla's
laboratory Tesla never stopped inventing
he said that he only slept two hours per
night and was always looking for the
next project wireless transmission of
electricity was one of his main goals
but he needed funding to achieve it
living in New York he had ample access
to wealthy people he was able to
convince J Pierpont Morgan of the
viability of wireless transmission and
the banker provided him with one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to build a
transmission
Tower he was competing with Marconi to
transmit wireless messages but Marconi
got their first investors including
Morgan pulled their funds from Tesla's
project and he was forced to abandon the
effort in 1906 when the project was
abandoned Tesla didn't just have to stop
construction he actually had to mortgage
the property Tesla and he owed huge
amounts of money to the waldorf-astoria
he lived at the lavish hotel and he
lived large spending $20,000 which is
nearly half a million dollars today in
the short time he lived there in 1917
the transmission tower it was demolished
after Tesla lost it in foreclosure he
also tried to sue Marconi asserting that
he had stolen Tesla's ideas in order to
create his wireless transmission
technology
[Music]
Tesla was a genius there's no doubt
about it but he was also a difficult man
he had many quirks and obsessions and
was completely utterly focused on his
work he never married thinking that a
woman in his life would interfere with
his work as he said I do not think you
can name many great inventions that have
been made by married men but there are
also indications that Tesla perhaps
didn't think he was worthy of women he
also became dissatisfied with the
attitude of modern women in the 1920s in
a 1924 interview Tesla explained his
thoughts on women I had always thought
of women as possessing those delicate
qualities of mind and soul that made her
in these respects far superior to man I
had put her on a lofty pedestal I
worshiped at the feet of the creature
I'd raised to this height and like every
true worshipper I felt myself unworthy
of the object of my worship as all this
was in the past now the soft voiced
gentle women of my reverent worship has
all but vanished in a place has come the
woman who thinks that her chief success
in life lies in making herself as much
as possible like man in dress voice and
actions in sports and achievements of
every kind
Tesla put some of his social and
nurturing energy that he wasn't putting
towards women towards the pigeons that
flocked around New York City and Swann
pigeon in particular caught his
attention I've been feeding pigeons
thousands of them for years but there
was one a beautiful bird pure white with
light gray tips on its wings that one
was different it was a female I had only
to wish and call her and she would come
flying to me I loved that pigeon as man
loves women
and she loved me as long as I had her
there was purpose to my life when that
pigeon was hurt Tesla invented a device
that would help heal its wing and leg
[Music]
Tesla lived out the rest of his life in
New York City he never married but he
did surround himself with the famous and
intellectual people of the day he
invented constantly right up through the
1930s until he was well in his 70s in
January 1943 and they decided to enter
Tesla's hotel room even though he had
put up a Do Not Disturb sign this sign
had been in place for 48 hours and when
the maid opened the door she was
confronted with the site of the famous
inventors body he died of coronary
thrombosis at the age of 86 behind him
Tesla left a legacy of invention
innovation and scientific exploration he
played a crucial role in the spread of
electricity and the creation of devices
that led to the technologies that we all
have today so I really hope you enjoyed
that video if you did please do hit that
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also check out some of our videos from
the archives over there on the right and
as always thank you for watching
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