NICKOLA TESLAGROWING UP

By: Maddie Christensen

Nickola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother, Djuka Mandic, a very intelligent woman although unschooled, was somewhat of an inventor in her own ways of household appliances, some say she created things such as a mechanical eggbeater. Tesla watched his mother invent things to make her everyday housework be a little easier.

Tesla studied engineering at

the Austrian Polytechnic

School. In the beginning of

his studies he was interested

in physics and mathematics,

but soon became captivated

with electricity. He started

off working as an electrical

engineer with a telephone

company in Budapest in

1881.

Tesla moved to Strasbourg

in 1883, there he privately

built an example of the

induction motor and ran it

productively. He was

unsuccessful in catching

anyone’s interest in

Europe with this device so

he accepted an offer to

work for Thomas Edison in

New York.

Tesla came to the United

States in 1884. He spent the

next fifty-nine years of his

productive life living in New

York. While working in the

United States he became so

eager in improving Edison’s

line of dynamos while

working in the lab in New

Jersey that disagreements of

opinion with Edison over

direct current (DC) versus

alternating current (AC)

began. Disagreements

peaked and soon became war.

Tesla went on to working

for Westinghouse in 1888

in order to develop the

alternating current

system. During this

time, electricity was still

new and feared by the

public due to fires and

electric shocks, and it

didn’t help that Edison

was using scare tactics

to scare the community

into believing that

alternating current was

much more dangerous

than direct current.

Built in 1895 the new

hydroelectric power plant

transmitted electricity an

outstanding twenty miles

away. Large AC

generating stations would

eventually connected

across the nation and

became the type of power

supplied to homes today.

On January 7, 1943, Tesla died at the

age of 87 of a heart attack in his bed at

the Hotel New Yorker where he lived. He

had never married, he spent his life

creating, inventing and discovering.

Before his death, he owned over 700

patents, which included the modern

electric motor, remote control, wireless

transmission of energy, basic laser and

radar technology, the first neon and

fluorescent illumination, the first x-ray

photographs, the wireless vacuum tube,

the air-friction speedometer for

automobiles and the Tesla coil, used in

radio, T.V. sets, and other electronic

equipment.