[Music] on the 7th of January 1943 a maid working at The New Yorker Hotel entered room 3327 where one of their permanent residents was staying inside she found the body of an 86 year old man who had died alone in a room he had been living in for the last nine years of his life the man was broke and had been living on a diet of milk and crackers using the little resources he had left to feed and take care of the local pigeons this man went by the name of Nikola Tesla seen Tesla in
his final years it would have been hard to believe he was one of the greatest minds of the modern era his genius shaped the world we know today pioneering the alternating current the electrical system which powers our homes around the globe his influence can be seen all around us from remote control and radio to wireless communication perhaps most impressive of all Tesla's work and creations came out of his passion for science with his earnings being sunk into projects aimed at the betterment of humanity rather than for greed and profit Tesla was born on the 10th
of July 1856 in modern-day croatia his mother came from a line of inventors and had an incredible memory been able to memorize the entirety of Serbian epic poems and so she trained her son with exercises and memorization as time went on Tesla was known to have an eidetic memory later speaking eight different languages which he credited his mother's efforts in his youth at the age of five Tesla witnessed the death of his older brother in a horse riding accident the image of which would stay with him for his entire life after this Tesla began experiencing
flashes of light and images making it hard to separate the reality from his imagination he claimed his inventions would come to him in these flashes of light conceptualizing their entire design in his head and correcting their floors without ever putting pen to paper in an interview from 1919 he described this process stating I do not rush into actual work when I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination I changed the construction make improvements and operate the device in my mind it is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my
turbine in thought or test it in my shop invariably my device works as I conceived that it should and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it in 20 years there has not been a single exception Tesla excelled in the education system but ended up dropping out of university due to a gambling addiction and other personal issues inspired by Electrical demonstrations by his physics professor Tesla went and got a job with the Paris branch of the Continental Edison Company in 1882 installing indoor lighting around the city management soon realized that his talents were wasted
on such a job and tasked him with constructing and improving dynamos and motors he was so insightful in his innovations that the company soon had him travelling around Europe fixing problems at other Edison installations in 1884 at the age of 28 Tesla's manager offered him a job at Edison machine works in New York City an offer he accepted he soon moved to America where he would spend a majority of his life becoming a naturalized citizen seven years later in 1891 he soon came into contact with company owner Thomas Edison and the two initially got on
with Tesla describing Edison as an inspirational figure an Edison stating to Tesla I have had many hard-working assistants but do you take the cake this mutual admiration would not last long however with a lifelong rivalry soon developing the main source of animosity between the two resulted from a disagreement about the type of current each man preferred Edison's company owned the patents for DC or direct current a system where electric charge only flows in one direction Tesla however was an advocate for alternating current or AC a system where the electric charge changes direction periodically these changes
in direction allow AC current to maintain power over longer distances it is also possible to use devices called transformers to change the magnitude of AC voltage allowing a current to travel at a high voltage and then be reduced to a lower voltage for safe use in homes Tesla tried explaining the benefits of alternating current to Edison but Edison wouldn't listen as it could ruin the sails for direct current to which he owned all the patents Edison then offered Tesla a large bonus of $50,000 if he redesigned 24 of his obsolete machines upon completion Edison refused
to pay and revealed that the task had been a practical joke saying Tesla you don't understand our American humor Tesla resigned after six months at the company and set out on his own he wanted to change the world and he knew he could he spent the next year setting up his own company developing his ideas on alternating current however his investors showed little interest and decided to take the company including all the patents he created he was left digging ditches in the street to survive fortunes would soon change for Tesla however with his ideas on
an alternating current motor catching the eye of a new investor helping established the Tesla Electric Company in 1887 he then designed a motor which was much cheaper and easier to maintain than the ones using a direct current he revealed his motor at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers the following year a display that caught the attention of a businessman named George Westinghouse Westinghouse was a major player in the electric market and needed Tesla's motor to complete his alternating current system a system that would compete against Thomas Edison Westinghouse bought the motor and hired Tesla as
a consultant for the equivalent of fifty five thousand dollars a month along with royalties for inch horsepower produced by his motors things for Tesla were looking good and so began the war of the currents Edison started going to extreme lengths to discredit Tesla's AC system he began paying schoolchildren 25 cents to bring him household pets where he would set up a public stage and electrocute the animals in an attempt to show the public that Tesla's AC system was not safe over time electrocutions increased in scale with a horse eventually being executed in public Edison continued
executing animals many years after the War of the currents had concluded with Edison film company producing a short film in 1903 titled electrocuting an elephant the film showed the electrocution of Topsy a former circus elephant who was killed when 6600 volts were shot through her body despite the negative press generated by Edison Tesla and Westinghouse continued to develop their alternating current system the opportunity to show that alternating current was both safe and viable for large-scale use came at the World's Columbian Exposition hosted in Chicago in 1893 Edison had put forward an offer too light to
the fair but Westinghouse underbid him winning the contract and with it the chance to outshine Edison while it was a struggle to provide lighting at the low cost put forward Westinghouse and Tesla succeeded showing the world the strength of alternating current their success continued with Westinghouse Electric being chosen over Edison's company General Electric to construct a hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls Tesla drew up designs for the plant which was a massive success eventually power in part of New York City alternating current continued to grow in popularity and became the system we all use to power
our homes today with direct current being phased out over the next decade while Westinghouse won the war of the currents his company was left on the verge of bankruptcy with ten million dollars of debt he turned to Tesla for help asking him to temporarily reduce his royalties to help him keep his company afloat compelled by compassion for his friend instead of reducing his royalties Tesla tore up his contract eliminating them entirely the money he gave up would be worth 300 million dollars in today's money but this was of little concern to Tesla who was more
interested in the pursuit of science over financial gain this act saved Westinghouse who would go on to buy Tesla's AC patent for two hundred sixteen thousand dollars in 1897 this is equivalent to about six million dollars today money that Tesla used to set up new laboratories in New York and fully dedicate himself to invention [Music] Tesla had become an international figure with his laboratories frequently visited by the rich and powerful including his close friend and father of American literature Mark Twain Tesla's inventions were numerous with him a machine almost 300 patents in his career he
created an early version of neon light in a highly efficient bladeless turbine for automobiles and was the pioneer in x-ray technology been one of the first to warn of it's dangerous to humans one of his most famous inventions was his renowned Tesla coil a device capable of producing large amounts of high-voltage electricity a standout invention was a remote-controlled boat displayed at Madison Square Garden in 1898 this boat was such an amazing advance in wireless technology and so ahead of its time that the audience initially thought he was using magic or telepathy to make it move
there were even claims that there was a monkey hidden inside the boat who was trained to operate it while Tesla was an amazing inventor he struggled to market his creations always looking towards the next invention rather than working out how to sell what he had already made many of his ideas went on written and the ones that were noted down often went without legal patent this method of operating caused Tesla serious issues when he began working on radio at the end of the 19th century he came up with the idea of radio in 1892 and
was soon ready to transmit a signal to a location 50 miles away but disaster struck with his work being destroyed in a lab fire in 1895 Tesla had not submitted a patent application and only did so after two years of rebuilding his research at the same time an Italian inventor named Marconi had also been working on radio establishing patent rights in England but when he tried to acquire them in the United States he was turned down as his ideas were deemed too similar to Tesla's unfortunately for Tesla Marconi was able to make the world's first
transatlantic radio message in 1901 using 17 of Tesla's patents Thomas Edison then through his financial weight behind Marconi with the US Patent Office suddenly changing its mind on its previous rulings Marconi now had rights in the United States with Edison able to take a cut of the profits Tesla initially let the issue slide but the last straw came when Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1911 for his development of radio something which was only possible due to Tesla's uncredited work Tesla tried to sue Marconi but the cases dragged on for years only being resolved in
Tesla's favor eight months after his death Tesla's most radical idea came about at the turn of the 20th century he aimed to create a world wireless system which would be capable of dispersing energy to anywhere in the world Tesla received funding for this project in 1901 and soon purchased land on Long Island New York where he would construct his device over the next year a great wooden tower was constructed standing 187 feet tall with a metal dome 68 feet in diameter he named the facility Wardenclyffe tower and believed it would radically advanced wireless technology with
what he called communication devices the likes of which would not be seen for another century a telephone subscriber here may call up and talk to any other subscriber on the globe an inexpensive receiver not bigger than a watch will enable him to listen anywhere on land or sea to a speech delivered or music played in some other place however distant in the same manner any picture character drawing or print can be transferred from one to another place millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind the tower also had other
applications including universal and accurate timekeeping global music distribution and a marine system which would allow ships to determine their exact location and steer perfectly without the need for a compass despite his amazing ideas Tesla soon suffered many setbacks Marconi's 1901 radio broadcast had drawn attention away from Wardenclyffe tower with the media beginning to think of the project as a hoax the investors Tesla had been able to gather soon realized that there was no way to regulate and therefore profit from the energy produced by the tower this led many investors to back out leaving Tesla who
was now in his 50s in financial ruin Tesla struggled on for over a decade trying to complete his plans in vain he then had a nervous breakdown and his debt reached so high he lost Wardenclyffe to foreclosure in 1915 the land soon passed to another owner who destroyed the tower to make space for real estate Tesla was now bankrupt and his mental health started to significantly decline he began living in a string of hotels and started caring for pigeons taking time every day to feed and care for them in his late 70s he ended up
at The New Yorker Hotel where he would stay for the rest of his life this was largely thanks to the Westinghouse Electric and manufacturing company who saw the dire conditions he was in and decided to pay his rent as a way to thank him for saving them all those years ago Tesla went on to live until the age of 86 dying in his hotel room on the 7th of January 1943 Nikola Tesla was a man ahead of his time his advancements in electricity radical helping to usher in the modern age with his influence seen in
anything from x-rays to remote control his world wireless system had the potential to advance technology by nearly a century while also providing free energy to the globe unlike so many of his era Tesla did not work for financial gain instead working to advance humanity perhaps it is not surprising that a man so far ahead of his time has only found his place in the 21st century an age shaped by his technological brilliance [Music] you
