Nikola Tesla facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nikola Tesla
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Tesla c. 1896
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| Born | July 10, 1856 Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia)
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| Died | January 7, 1943 (aged 86) |
| Resting place | Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade, Serbia |
| Citizenship | Austrian (1856–1891) American (1891–1943) |
| Education | Graz University of Technology (dropped out) |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Electrical engineering Mechanical engineering |
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Nikola Tesla (born July 10, 1856 – died January 7, 1943) was a brilliant Serbian inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and physicist. He is most famous for helping to design the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. He was born in Smiljan, a village in what is now Croatia. Later, he became an American citizen.
Tesla got his first job in Budapest in 1882, working for a telephone company. A few years later, he moved to the United States. His most important invention was an electric motor that worked very well with AC power. Tesla passed away from a blood clot in his heart in a hotel room in Manhattan, New York City, on January 7, 1943.
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Nikola Tesla's Early Life
Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in Smiljan. This village was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is now Croatia. Tesla's father, Milutin Tesla, was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church. His mother, Georgina-Djuka, came from a family of inventors. She greatly influenced her son. She invented and made different tools for her home. She also wove beautiful designs with threads she spun herself. In 1862, the Tesla family moved to nearby Gospić. There, Tesla's father worked as a parish priest. Both his parents were born in Lika, Croatia.
Nikola was the fourth of five children. He had an older brother, Dane, who died when Tesla was five. He also had two older sisters, Angelina and Milka, and one younger sister, Marica. Nikola loved science. He worried that after his brother's accidental death, he would have to become a priest. This was a family tradition.
After graduating from a high school in Karlovac, Croatia, Nikola returned to Gospić. During that summer, he almost died from cholera. He asked his father if he could study engineering if he survived. Nikola's father promised his dying son he would send him to the best school. Nikola's health quickly improved. His father sent him to study at Graz University of Technology in Graz, Austria, in 1875.
Working with Electricity
Tesla worked in telephone and electrical engineering before moving to the United States in 1884. There, he worked for Thomas Edison. After Tesla and Edison had disagreements, Tesla found some investors. He then started working on his own. He set up laboratories and companies to create electrical devices.
His patented AC electric motor (called an induction motor) and transformer were very important. An American industrialist named George Westinghouse bought the rights to use these inventions. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year. Tesla helped him develop a power system using alternating current.
The big advantage of alternating current was using transformers. These allowed electricity to be sent over long distances. Tesla is also known for his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments. He did these in New York and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tesla also experimented with ideas used in the invention of radio communication. He even performed X-ray experiments.
Tesla's Visionary Ideas
Tesla was ahead of his time with the Wardenclyffe Tower project. He tried to show how people could communicate wirelessly. However, the project was not successful and was eventually stopped.
Tesla was also a great showman. He demonstrated his amazing inventions, which seemed like miracles. Even though he made a lot of money from his patents, he spent much of it on his experiments. For most of his life, he lived in different hotels in New York City. After he spent his patent money, he had financial difficulties. He had to live in much simpler conditions.
Tesla continued to invite the press to parties on his birthday. At these events, he would announce new inventions he was working on. He would sometimes make unusual statements. Because of his grand announcements without proof, Tesla gained the reputation of a "mad scientist." He died in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel on January 7, 1943.
Tesla's Legacy
Tesla's work was almost forgotten after his death. But since the 1990s, his reputation has grown. This is because his ideas have been used in many modern inventions. His work and reported inventions are also part of many conspiracy theories. They have also been used to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and New Age occultism.
In 1960, the General Conference on Weights and Measures honored Tesla. They named the SI unit measure for magnetic field strength "tesla."
Nikola Tesla Quotes
- “I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own.”
- “Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.”
- “We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences.”
- The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed, we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified."
- Instinct is something which transcends knowledge."
Interesting Facts About Nikola Tesla
- Nikola Tesla was born during a lightning storm.
- His father was a priest, but Nikola loved science, like his mother.
- Nikola developed ideas that are now used in smartphone technology.
- Tesla had a fantastic sense of humor.
- One of Tesla's famous friends was conservationist John Muir. Muir loved Tesla's idea of a hydroelectric power system. He liked it because it was a clean energy system.
- The first hydroelectric power plant, designed by Tesla, was built at Niagara Falls. It was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York.
- Tesla refused to speak to women if they were wearing pearls.
- Tesla was afraid of germs.
- He had a photographic memory and could imagine things in 3D.
- Some of Tesla's inventions are still secret.
Related Pages
Images for kids
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Tesla, aged 34, in 1890, photo by Napoleon Sarony
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Tesla's birthplace
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Nikola Tesla's father Milutin, Orthodox priest in the village of Smiljan
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Mark Twain in Tesla's South Fifth Avenue laboratory, 1894
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Tesla demonstrating wireless lighting by "electrostatic induction" during an 1891 lecture at Columbia College via two long Geissler tubes (similar to neon tubes) in his hands
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X-ray of a hand, taken by Tesla
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In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat which he hoped to sell as a guided torpedo to navies around the world.
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Nikola Tesla on the cover of Time in 1931
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A drawing of Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower
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Tesla on the banknote of 100 Serbian dinars
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Nikola Tesla's laboratory in Colorado Springs
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Tesla sitting in front of a spiral coil used in his wireless power experiments at his East Houston St. laboratory
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Tesla's Colorado Springs laboratory
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Tesla's Wardenclyffe plant on Long Island in 1904. From this facility, Tesla hoped to demonstrate wireless transmission of electrical energy across the Atlantic.
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Tesla's bladeless turbine design
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Second banquet meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers, April 23, 1915. Tesla is seen standing in the center.
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Newspaper representation of the thought camera Tesla described at his 1933 birthday party
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Gilded urn with Tesla's ashes, in his favorite geometrical object, a sphere (Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade)
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Tesla circa 1885
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Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia
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Nikola Tesla Corner in New York City
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Nikola Tesla statue in Niagara Falls, Ontario
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See also
In Spanish: Nikola Tesla para niños
