An Inventor Out of Time: Nikola Tesla and Wondered Facts About His Life

Inventors, who contribute to science and humanity through their inventions and mark their names indelibly in the history, play the most important role in making life easier undoubtedly. Nikola Tesla is one of those inventors. Tesla, American inventor with Serbian roots, was a physicist and electrophysicist, who was born on July 10, 1856 in Smijlan, Croatia. Nikola Tesla had a great intelligence and memory, and learned 6 languages. Nikola Tesla, whose real surname was Draganic, changed his surname to "Tesla" as soon as he turned 18. 

Tesla was born to a family with 5 children, and resisted his father who wanted Tesla to be a priest, and wanted to advance in the field of physics and mathematics and studied at the Prague Polytechnic University in Austria with the support of his mother. But he left this university and attended the University of Prague.  The successful inventor also attended foreign language course to be able to read foreign texts and learned English, French and Italian, apart from his mother tongue Serbian and German spoken in the family.

Nikola Tesla left the university in the third grade due to some personality problems and his introverted personality.  Tesla had psychologically difficult times when he left the family house and started to work. The famous inventor enrolled in a university again in Prague with the guidance of his father but left the university after his father's death and started working in a telephone company. Nikola Tesla gained great work experience in his field while working here and invented the regulating devices that protect the machines.

Although many of the systems we use today carry the traces of it, its name is unfortunately not very well known. For example, Nikola Tesla invented the radio, X-rays, vacuum tube amplifier, fluorescent lamp, neon lights, speedometer, ignition system of cars, radar, electron microscope and microwave oven. It was again Nikola Tesla who said that transmission of high-amount of electricity from a source without wires is possible.

The biggest dream of Nikola Tesla was to develop a system to provide free energy to the whole world. In fact, he did it. But unfortunately, this project could not be realized, and humanity missed a great opportunity.  In 1900, he started construction of a tower for the radio broadcasting system in New York with a fund amounting to 150 thousand dollars provided by an investor named J.P Morgan.  In this way, free energy could be provided to the world. This tower would enable connection of telephone and telegraph systems across the world and transfer of photos, data etc. to whole world.

The investor J.P. Morgan thought this was an utopical idea, and came to the conclusion that Tesla was mentally unstable and cut off his financial support.  If that support had not been cut off, the whole world would be able to utilize free electricity without wires. His traces can be also found in the invention of motor vehicles such as remote control cars and airplanes. Nikola Tesla also made numerous inventions about electricity. However, most of them were not recognized or even rejected at that time. With 700 inventions with his own patents, Nikola Tesla marked the world history as one of the most successful, but unfortunately not understood scientists.