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Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla@nikola_tesla
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Electrical & Power Engineering · Mechanical Design · Signals & Telecommunications

Generated 6 days ago233
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@nikola_tesla

Nikola Tesla

I am an electrical engineer, inventor and futurist. My engineering work on the induction motor and the polyphase system helped design the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply.

AboutExperienceCasesThinking
Proof · case studies

Cases

The situation, the work, the outcome. Ranked by how much the work proves.

1

I released Westinghouse from my motor royalty

1888 — 1891
Situation
The war of currents between Westinghouse, Edison and Thomson-Houston, followed by the financial panic of 1890 that put Westinghouse Electric under its lenders' control.
Action
In July 1888 my backers negotiated a licence of my polyphase motor and transformer designs to George Westinghouse for $60,000 in cash and stock plus $2.50 per AC horsepower. In 1891 I released the company from that royalty to keep it championing the motor.
Outcome
A business decision that traded future royalty income for keeping my technology alive in the market.
licensingpatentsalternating current
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2

I built a self-starting AC motor with no commutator

1887 — 1888
Situation
Working from a Liberty Street laboratory funded by Alfred S. Brown and Charles Fletcher Peck through the Tesla Electric Company, formed April 1887.
Action
In 1887 I developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current, using polyphase current to make a rotating magnetic field. I patented it in May 1888 and demonstrated it at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Outcome
Engineering that removed the brushes and commutator removed the sparking and maintenance that held motor technology back.
electrical engineeringalternating currentinduction motor
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3

I raised $150,000 from J. P. Morgan for Wardenclyffe

1901 — 1905
Situation
My wireless power programme, aimed at sending signals and eventually power across the Atlantic without wires.
Action
In March 1901 J. P. Morgan put $150,000 into my plan for transatlantic wireless transmission in return for 51% of the resulting patents; I built the Wardenclyffe facility at Shoreham, New York, until the project halted in 1905.
Outcome
Ambitious engineering that lost a technology race — Marconi sent the letter S across the Atlantic first, in December 1901.
wireless powerradiofundraising
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4

I ran giant coils at a high-altitude Colorado station

1899 — 1900
Situation
Wireless power research, with alternating current supplied free by the El Paso Electric Light Company.
Action
In 1899 I set up an experimental station at Colorado Springs to study how low-pressure air conducts and to run much larger coils than my New York lab allowed, then published the findings in The Century Magazine in June 1900.
Outcome
Research at a scale my city lab could not hold — and a lesson that big observations can still lead to a wrong conclusion.
wireless powerhigh voltageresearch
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5

I steered a boat by radio at Madison Square Garden in 1898

1898 — 1899
Situation
Wireless research in my New York laboratory, later presented as "Teleautomatics" to the Commercial Club in Chicago on 13 May 1899.
Action
In 1898 I publicly demonstrated a coherer-based radio-controlled boat, my "telautomaton", at an electrical exhibition in Madison Square Garden, and offered it to the U.S. military as a radio-controlled torpedo.
Outcome
Early engineering of remote control by radio — technology that let a machine act on signals sent through the air.
radioremote controlwireless
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6

I lit lamps across a stage with no wires attached

1890 — 1893

After 1890 I used high AC voltages from my Tesla coil to transmit power by inductive and capacitive coupling, and lit Geissler tubes and incandescent bulbs from across a stage in public demonstrations.

wireless powerhigh frequencydemonstration
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7

My polyphase system lit the 1893 Columbian Exposition

1893 — 1893
Situation
Westinghouse engineers Charles F. Scott and Benjamin G. Lamme had made my induction motor efficient, and Lamme's rotary converter let polyphase supply older AC and DC systems.
Action
Westinghouse branded its polyphase AC system the "Tesla Polyphase System" and won the bid to light the 1893 Chicago fair, showing the public that AC was safe, reliable and efficient at scale.
Outcome
The moment my engineering stopped being a patent and became public technology the whole fair ran on.
alternating currentpolyphaseelectrical engineering
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