What if I asked: Which is the greatest scientist of all time? I bet a lot of people would answer: Albert Einstein. "Without freedom there would never be the possibility of enlightenment." So, let's talk a little bit about Albert Einstein. There's a legend that a journalist would have asked the German physicist what it felt like to be the smartest person in the world and Einstein would have replied: “You better ask that to Nikola Tesla”. It's not known to this day whether this story is true. But it's a rumor that says a lot about Tesla, considered one
of the greatest inventors of all time. Tesla was really one of the greatest geniuses that science has had and many of his inventions are part of our daily lives to this day. In fact, all you have to do is turn on the light in your room or use your refrigerator to understand how much Tesla has influence in your life and why the most famous electric car company in the world is named... Tesla, to honor a great inventor. Tesla's story is a reflection of the capitalism of the time he lived. It's full of commercial disputes, rivalries,
many hotel rooms and a race to finance projects and inventions that never went ahead for lack of money. And, even with a few small fortunes passing through Tesla's hand, you'll see that he didn't end his life as a huge millionaire, quite the contrary. And before we start our story, I'd like to ask you to leave your like by clicking below, it's very simple! I would also like to ask you to subscribe, there is a little red button down below, click there and subscribe, so whenever I post a new video you'll be notified and you can
come over here and watch the premiere with us. Special thanks to the Nostalgic Club Super Sayajin 3 members who've helped make this video happen. By becoming a member of the channel, you help us to continue producing these videos that you love so much, as well as receiving many benefits. To become a member and support us just click on the link I left in the description Thank you so much you sweethearts! Have you left a like? Subscribed? All done? So let's move on! [ PERSONALITIES, ENGINEER, INVENTOR, SCIENCE GENIUS ] [ NOSTALGIA PERSONALITIES ] Now let's talk
about science! [ SCIENCE ] Everyone agrees we live in a golden age of science, we've got inventions like touchscreen, 3D printers and augmented reality, right? We even joke about it saying "oh, it's so great to live in the future!" But did you know that people felt the same way in the late 19th century? This period is called the Age of Science, Because there was a feeling of enormous optimism about how science and technology could improve people's lives. There're several important advances from that time, such as the Theory of Evolution and the Periodic Table of Elements.
And also inventions like refrigerators, record players and movies. So, in the second half of the 19th century, we can say that the planet... exhaled science. And it takes us to a small town that's currently in Croatia and has only 400 inhabitants. [ THE BOY OF PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY ] In the middle of the 19th century, there was a village called Smiljan, which was in the former Austrian Empire and had about 2,000 people. There lived a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church named Milutin Tesla and his wife Duka. This family, which was of Serbian origin, had five
children, and the fourth child was born on July 10th, 1856, named Nikola Tesla. At the age of five, Nikola started going to school, learning math, religion and German. But the next year, the whole family moved to a bigger town called Gospic, where he attended elementary school and high school. Nikola enjoyed poking around mechanical devices to understand how they worked. But what was really impressive was his photographic memory. He just had to look at something and he'd remember every detail. He could even learn entire books by heart that way. In 1870 he went to study in
the city of Karlovac. Nikola did so well at this school that he finished a four-year course in just three years, because for him it was easy learning languages and could also do gigantic mathematical calculations in his head. But most importantly, t was at this school that he discovered the passion of his life, when the physics professor began to experiment to demonstrate the properties of electricity. Around the turn of the century electricity was beginning to have an impact on society. The boy was totally mad about this subject and became obsessed with electricity. Only after leaving high
school in 1873, the boy Tesla, at the height of his 17 years, experienced the terror of cholera. He caught this disease as soon as he returned to his parents' home. At that time, having cholera was common because of the lack of basic sanitation and as antibiotics did not exist yet, many people died from it. And Nikola came very close to dying. His father was so desperate that, even though he wanted his son to pursue a religious career, he even made a promise to send the boy to the best engineering college in the world if he
recovered. These were months of great suffering after all it's a disease that affects the small intestine and causes diarrhea, nausea, fever and violent cramps. It is a disease that can be very aggressive. But after spending months very sick, Nikola finally got better... And then he ran away from home! Exactly! In 1874, Nikola was 18 years old, so... He was old enough to be recruited into the army. But he didn't even want to hear about it, so he went into hiding in a little town near his house, and spent that time hanging around in the mountains,
reading books... It was like a 'gap' year. It was only in 1875 that he finally went to university, to study in the department of Chemistry and Technology at the Austrian Polytechnic College, in the city of Graz, Austria. There he began to change his life for good. [ EVERY DAY A DIFFERENT PLACE ] In his freshman year he passed nine courses, nearly the double what he needed. Then he went home for the holidays thinking he was going to be received like a genius, only his dad looked at his notes and said something like: “Nine good grades...nice.
Let's have lunch?" A very encouraging father right? Well, there is the other side of the coin. In his freshman year at college, Nikola studied every day from 3 am to 11 pm and teachers sent letters to his father saying that the boy was going to die from studying. So what is also believed is that his father ignored his grades so as not to encourage his son to overdo his studies. Too bad Nikola didn't discover this until years later, after his father's death, when he found these letters. But at the moment when his father reacted that
way, Nikola wouldn't think that was the reason. He just thought his dad was being a big asshole and decided that he would then study the subjects he liked best, like physics, mechanics and math. But young Nikola's life was not limited to studies. As soon as he started sophomore year, he went on parties. This happened in the following way: people made fun of him about the fact that he only studied all the time. So Nikola wanted to show that he could be part of the cool guys and started going to bars, playing cards... And the result
is that he became addicted to gambling! And it was really addictive! He couldn't stop playing. It got to the point where he lost his college tuition money on gambling. Luckily he managed to recover the money at the gaming table and ended up quitting his addiction. But by the end of his third year, the tests were due and Nikola hadn't studied at all, because he was staying at the bar or reading stuff he thought was cooler than the test subjects. He applied for more time to study, but the teachers wouldn't let him, so he didn't pass.
That's how it is! So he dropped out of college and went hiding in a town called Maribor, which is in Slovenia, because he didn't want his parents to know what had happened. Because he didn't get a grade, because he kept playing and loitering. He spent some time in this city working as a draftsman and playing cards with old people in the square, what a life! But one day, his father showed up there begging him to come home and that created an even bigger problem. Nikola didn't want to leave at all, but in the end he
returned home by order of the police, because he didn't have a permit to live in the city. Look: By that time Tesla was not even 25 years old and had already had cholera, fled the army, got addicted to gambling and almost got arrested! And people dare to say that scientists live boring lives! After he returned to his parents' house in Gospic, Tesla went to teach at the school where he had studied. But then his father died and his uncles saved money for him to go back to school. so in 1880, he moved to Prague to
study at Charles-Ferdinand University, one of the oldest in Europe. But as the enrollment date had passed and Tesla didn't speak Greek or Czech, which were mandatory languages to attend the course, he only attended philosophy classes as a listener, not getting any grades. But that didn't last long, because the following year he took off his job as chief electrician at a telegraph company in Budapest, Hungary. It was in that city that he had a vision that would change the world. He was brainstorming with a friend in a park and then he took a stick and started
drawing an engine on the ground. He looked at the drawing calmly and photographed the entire project in his head. And I'm going to ask you to do the same: keep this information and I'll talk a lot about this. In Budapest, Tesla worked with an inventor called Tivadar Puskás, who got him a job in Paris at the Continental Edison Company. Then in France, Tesla gained even more experience with electrical appliances and, to top it off, created improved versions of engines and dynamos: "Dynamos? What's a dynamo?" Dynamos are machines that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, That
means they work as electrical energy generators. That's when his boss Puskás was called to work with Thomas Edison himself in New York. Puskás wasted no time and took young Tesla with him. So, in June 1884, Tesla set foot in the United States for the first time to work at Edison Machine Works. [ WAR OF CURRENTS: TESLA X EDISON ] Some of you may be wondering, "Edison? You mean Thomas Edison?" Exactly! This factory was run by one of the greatest inventors of that time, Thomas Edison. He's invented the incandescent light bulb, which marked the beginning of
the Electricity Age... And also built the first electrical distribution system in New York. In addition to being an inventor, he was a businessman and his factories had hundreds of employees. Persistence, patience, perseverance. Edison represents for lots of people the essence of Yankee ingenuity. Tesla only worked with Edison for six months, and they only met a few times in that period. One time was when Tesla spent the entire night solving a problem with a ship's electrical system. When he was coming home early in the morning, he bumped into his supervisor and Edison, who joked that Tesla
had spent the night partying. Then Tesla explained that he'd actually worked all night, leaving Edison a little embarrassed. But it's not clear why Tesla quit his job at Thomas Edison's factory. One story tells he didn't get a bonus he should have received. Another story tells they promised Tesla $50,000 if he did 24 different machine designs. He made the projects and went to collect the money, but Thomas Edison changed the subject, saying it was just a joke. Not bad... That is not bad for an immigrant. So when will I be getting my $50,000? 50,000? Young man...
you don't seem to understand American humour. Such a funny man, right? Regardless of why Tesla quit, what is known is that Edison still offered a $10 raise to Tesla, who earned $18 a week. Not much. Tesla knew his work was worth way more than that, so he grabbed his things and went to work on his projects. One of them was something he'd started at Edison's company, involving arc lamps, which were heavily used at the time. He met two businessmen who agreed to support this idea, and then the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company emerged and
the project became an electric generator patented in Tesla's name, Along with other smaller inventions. For those who don't know, a patent works like this: if you invent something, you file a patent process and the invention is registered in your name. It's almost like the copyright of the invention. The patent for this power generator was Tesla's first in the United States and then he was hired to install this electrical system in a city in New Jersey. But what didn't come out of his head was that engine he had drawn with a stick in a park in
Budapest, which I told you to keep in your memory. At the time, electric motors were powered by direct current, that is, the electrons inside a wire move in the same direction. But in that drawing that Tesla did, the direction of the current varies with time, and electrons flow back and forth. This is called alternating current (AC). And how do these make a difference in our lives? What a complicated thing! Well, let's talk a little bit about electricity distribution. It's much more efficient when it's made at a high voltage, that is, with a high electrical voltage.
That's why power stations always have “beware, high voltage” signs. But one cannot use high voltage in their house. They need to lower this voltage, Otherwise this energy would be too dangerous. And since it's so easy to lower the voltage when it's transmitted by AC, this method of transmission turns out to be cheaper and more efficient. And Edisons design had one critical flaw. That would go only about 3/4 of a mile to a mile before it fades out entirely. AC has no such limitations. It can run at higher voltages. Allowing it to be transmitted for hundreds
of miles. Imagine a central power station with one generator. What kind of generator? Alternatinc current. So, Tesla wanted to produce electric motors powered by alternating current, but his partners thought this idea was too risky and backed off the project. As a result, Tesla's factory closed and he even lost control of the patents, which were in the company's hands. In other words, Tesla literally lost everything he had! He was 30 years old and had nothing. All he got was a job digging ditches while earning two dollars a day. He said that was one of the lowest
points in his life. Nikola Tesla leaves Edison's lab and for a while is unenployed, and has a hard time finding work. There's not a lot of work for experimental electricians at the time. But by the end of that year, 1886, luck faced Tesla again when he met an employee of the Western Union communications company. This guy had friend who was a lawyer and they were both experts at setting up companies to make money off inventions. Thus, a new partnership was born with the two of them supporting Tesla to create new things. And then the design
that Tesla had done in the park finally came to life in the form of an alternating current induction motor, powered by an electromagnetic field, which is one of Tesla's greatest contributions to science. Tesla allowed the world to be electrified. Not only that. Thanks to him, electricity went from being just something useful to becoming something universal, which could be used by society. Tesla is one of the most incredible geniuses mankind has ever known. One important thing is that alternating current was already known, but hardly anyone thought of it because generators of this type of current were
very rudimentary. But Tesla also perfected the alternating current generator to power its engine. So, he wasn't the first guy to mess with alternating current but it was thanks to him that we started using it. Tesla's partners immediately began to present this novelty at fairs, some of them the inventor attended himself. This caught the attention of the Westinghouse company, Which worked in electrical distribution and needed such an engine. Then they made a deal and Westinghouse licensed the engine, paying the Tesla people a fortune in cash and stock, and a royalty bonus. And they hired Tesla as
a consultant for a year, paying him monthly what would be like $60,000 today! One of his first jobs as a consultant was in Pittsburgh, where he created an AC system for the city's streetcars. But that didn't work because as the engine would only run at constant speed, the trams could not speed up. This story of course is just one of the inspirations for Elon Musk to start creating electric cars in his company called... Tesla. The reason it's called Tesla it's because we use an AC injection motor which is not technically a Tesla development and the
guy probably deserves a little more play than he gets in current society. This is our first business plan and we put that story in here. - Electric, he's talking about electric cars. - Look! - He wrote this in 1904. - Damn! He envisioned way beyond [in the future]! Now, one of the biggest consequences of Nikolas' invention was the War of Currents. If you think the war of streaming services is something aggressive, with each company going on top of the other, I can assure you that the War of Currents was much more savage. On one corner,
the Edison Companies, which advocated the continuous current that was standard at the time. On the other corner, Westinghouse, wanting to expand the use of alternating current. And so came into te game an engineer named Harold Brown. There had been some electrical accidents and this guy had started accusing Westinghouse of causing dozens of deaths, which was actually a huge exaggeration. Harold even publicly electrocuted stray dogs using alternating current to show how dangerous it was. He was such a twisted guy! This whole chatter started a phenomenon called the Electric Wire Panic. Electricity came to be seen as
a villain and no one wanted electrical wires over their homes. Can you believe it? And this war reached absurd levels when it even involved the death penalty. At the time, in the United States the most common form of criminal execution was by hanging. But this method didn't always work well, so politicians thought about using electricity. A lot of people were consulted about this, including Thomas Edison himself. And he took the opportunity to create a negative association with AC. Thomas was against the death penalty, but he said, "Look, if you guys really want to kill someone,"
"you better use that AC thing over at the Westinghouse, okay?" Therefore, the first electric chair execution in history used a Westinghouse generator. The company tried to prevent this in court, but the execution ended up happening, and in the worst possible way. The technicians didn't know how to use the thing, so the criminal, instead of dying on the spot, was frying in his chair for a while. Whoever watched said it was a horror show. Now, as much as it looked like Westinghouse was losing the war, the company turned the game and AC won. Firstly, because they
discovered that engineer Harold Brown got support and money from Thomas Edison's Company to criticize AC. Secondly, Edison's companies were bought by investors and he ended up being left out within his own organization, and went taking care of other inventions. But the war was decided once and for all when Westinghouse struck a deal to take care of lighting for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. This was one of the biggest events of the time, and the exhibit's lighting showed people once and for all that the AC system was safe and efficient. And without any exaggeration, it
changed the world. Before that, electricity was mainly used to light bulbs. But with alternating current and the Tesla engine, which was more powerful and efficient, people were able to use appliances inside their homes. Today, the energy that is available at an outlet in your house and that makes your refrigerator, stove and microwave work, is an alternating current. This doesn't mean that direct current has been put aside. It works well with low voltage devices, such as as with your cell phone charger. Alternating current is used in devices containing motors, such as fans, refrigerators and washing machines.
So, both are used, but the distribution of energy across cities, which is the most complex to achieve, is done with alternating current. But Tesla didn't live only out of working with alternating current. By the way, let's take a look at his inventions Created while this War of the Currents was unfolding! [ TESLA LIGHTS UP THE WORLD ] When Tesla got that money from the Westinghouse deal, he set up a lab in New York and continued his experiments. One of them was linked to the work of Heinrich Hertz, who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, including
radio waves. A "small" contribution to humanity, right? This discovery stuck into Tesla's head, who started working on it in his laboratory. But the electricity in these experiments involved such a high electrical voltage, or, as people say in everyday life, such a high voltage that it destroyed the coils Tesla was using. "What is a coil, Castanhari?" you ask me Electromagnetic coils, are very common devices made out of an electrical wire wound in a spiral shape. When an electrical current runs through the coil, a magnetic field is generated, storing energy. Then, he started digging through the coils
until he created one that he could use. Doing that he realized this new coil that used AC allowed him to reach very high voltages. Thus was born the famous Tesla Coil. Tesla reacted by turning showman and conducted experiments with alternating currents in front of large audience. The Tesla Coil is capable of creating a stunning effect with rays coming out of it... And that's why it was one of the highlights of the Chicago World's Fair. that huge event that took place in 1893 that I mentioned earlier. As the end of the 19th century was a time
of advances and inventions, the city of Chicago decided to hold this fair to show what the future would look like. The event lasted for months and was full of technological innovations, such as a primitive fax machine called a telautograph, sidewalks that worked like treadmills, and other stuff. Of course, looking back today the fair had pretty tacky things, like a replica of an Egyptian temples lit by electric light and panels showing pharaohs using telephones. Anyway, at the time, everyone was enchanted With the idea of seeing what the future could or would look like. And one of
the highlights of the fair was Tesla's exhibition. The highlight, of course, was the AC induction motor, but there were other things that shocked people. One of them had a very nice marketing strategy, because the official reason for the exhibition was to celebrate 400 years of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Have you heard the story about Christopher Columbus making an egg stand upright? They say that once, at a banquet, a guy told Christopher Columbus that if he hadn't discovered America, someone else would have. It was just a matter of time. Columbus' response was to
challenge people to put an egg upright. Of course no one achieved that. Then Columbus took an egg and tapped the end lightly, leaving the shell flat and placed the egg upright on the table. Everyone complained: “Well doing it like that of course it's a piece of cake. You hit the egg...” and Columbus replied: “But nobody here thought about it”. Columbus' idea was to show that anyone could have discovered America but nobody thought about doing it. “So stop bugging me and let me enjoy the feast. I'm the one who discovered America.” Nobody knows for sure if
this really happened with Columbus. But Tesla took advantage of the fair and created an experiment called Columbus' Egg, putting a copper egg upright to demonstrate his induction motor. In fact, 1893 was one of the best years in the life of Tesla, not only because of the fair. This year was already being planned the building of the hydroelectric plant of Niagara falls on the border of state of New York with Canada. Tesla was called in to check this out and concluded that the best way to run the electrical energy generated at the plant would be with
alternating current, and Westinghouse secured the contract to take care of the plant's system. Using Niagara Falls as a source of hydroelectric power Tesla's system could light up the entire northwest. There was no comparison. Tesla was a quantum leap ahead. The project coordinator was so impressed with Tesla That together they assembled the Nikola Tesla Company, to build the inventor's designs. Now, let's think, the Chicago Fair, hydroelectric power plant, well Westinghouse and Tesla can only be counting the money, right? Sort of. When that War of the Currents was still going on, there was a financial crisis known
as the Panic of 1890 or Baring crisis. Westinghouse was forced to cut costs and that affected Tesla, who received nearly $15,000 a year just from royalties. $15,000 back then was a lot of money. So the owner of the company sat down with Tesla and said “Look, if I don't cut the company's expenses," "I'm going to lose control of the company," "and then you're going to have to fight with the banks to receive the royalties” So Tesla decided to give up the money he was receiving. Of course it was good for him to have a company
like Westinghouse developing and promoting the induction engine, so he preserved that partnership. But by giving up royalties from the induction motor he received from the company, Tesla, who became a US citizen at that time, literally gave up becoming a millionaire, because as his AC motor came to be used in more and more places, that $15,000 would have turned into a fortune in a few years. Time passed, and seven years later, in 1897, Westinghouse had already recovered financially and made a new agreement on the patent of the induction motor now paying a good amount money to
Nikola Tesla, who at least did not get out with nothing this time. [ AN ECENTRIC GENIUS ] Now, what about Tesla's family? We are about his inventions, experiments... But what about marriage, children? Affairs? Did Tesla not have a private life? Well, to put it short, no. Tesla practically lived for his work. But his personal life sometimes seems more complex than some of his inventions. Imagine a guy almost 1,90m and weighing 60 kilos, who was always wearing ironed clothes, regardless of time and day. That was Tesla. And if he passed you by, you could be sure
he was thinking of some invention or scientific problem. Have you ever heard that a genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration? In Tesla's case, this is true, because he slept two hours a night. His routine was very well defined: He'd arrive at the laboratory at 9 am and stayed there until 6 pm. Then he would go out to dinner and then go to the laboratory until 3 am. The next day he'd be there at 9 am sharp. And he still found time to walk ten miles every day to exercise! And that privileged mind he had
in his adolescence was only improving, especially his photographic memory. Tesla continued to memorize entire books without much effort and spoke no fewer than eight languages. An interesting thing is that Tesla thought through images. An inventor usually has an idea, designs the project and then starts building it, right? Tesla didn't draw. He imagined the invention with all the details and dimensions and built from there. In fact, he said that many of his inventions appeared in his head in sorts of visions. He claimed that as a child he had some hallucinations accompanied by flashes of light, and
that as he got older these visions started to become well-defined images of things he would invent. He saw an invention appear before his eyes in almost holographic detail. He claimed he could spin those visions. Tesla credits his mom for his interest in invention. Đuka Mandić invented small household appliances in her spare time. She had an eidetic [photographic] memory, The ability to recall an image from memory with high precision. And she passed this on to her son. As he immersed in work, reaching the point where he once spent 84 hours straight awake in his lab, he
never got married. In fact, he didn't even have girlfriends. Tesla spent his life single, claiming that not having romantic relationships helped his job. In fact, he said that he would never be worthy of any woman, because they were superior in everything. Everyone knew Tesla was very strict when it came to his routine. But what maybe few people know, is that his routine included some weird habits. One of them is that he used to dine every day at the same restaurant And he'd always have to be served by the same waiter. Tesla wiggled his toes before
going to sleep, exactly 100 times for each foot, claiming it stimulated his brain. He also had germs and dirt phobia and was obsessed with number three, According to Nikola Tesla, three, six, nine is a key to the universe. Tesla became so obsessed that he'd drive around the building three times before going inside of it. He cleaned the place with 18 napkins. He did everything in sets of three. Of course at the time he must have been seen as a madman because of these things. Nowadays many people believe that Tesla actually had OCD, or obsessive compulsive
disorder, And that he couldn't be at peace if he didn't complete these rituals. People don't realize it, but Tesla suffered from a mental illness. It impaired his work later in life. Other people are rating his patents... Other people are capitalizing on his work without giving a proper credit... and he was suffering from mental illness. Now, we're talking about a guy who doesn't sleep, who's quirky and on top of that he experiments with electricity. So it's easy to think of Tesla as the classic mad scientist, right? But this is far from the truth. Tesla was an
indoor guy but when he attended social events such as receptions or dinners, everyone noticed that he was extremely kind, considerate And he knew about many subjects, not just science. Oh, so Tesla was a polite, smart guy, almost an angel blessed with scientific knowledge? No, not exactly. He had some extremely problematic opinions. Since looks were really important to him, he even got into big fights with employees when he thought they were poorly dressed. And he also fat-shamed people even going so far as to fire a secretary because of her body shape. But his worst flaw was
something called eugenics. Eugenics defends that the best way to improve society is eliminating its unwanted elements. In the late 19th century, several pseudo-scientific theories emerged. Which distorted the Evolution Theory, created by Charles Darwin, to claim that human beings of "superior races" or heritages should prevail over those who were seen as inferior or inadequate. Eugenics was purposed as the scientific solution for social problems. It was the combination of hope and aspiration on one side and on the other side it was about fear. Today we know that these theories are completely bogus and that this is actually
racism disguised as science. But at the end of the 19th century a lot of people accepted this kind of nonsense and that includes Tesla, who even made statements approving these ideas. It almos a mania that swept through the country, and there was that kind of naive, optimistic view of eugenics, like: "Hey, let's get together and make better people." One of the things I enjoy most about these biographical videos of scientists, is to show that great scientists are people just like you or me, with flaws and qualities. Those who've watched our documentaries on Einstein and Stephen
Hawking you know very well what I'm talking about. And that goes for Tesla, who was a genius in his inventions but at the same time had some completely silly opinions about the world and the people who existed outside his lab. But now let's put that aside and get on with our story, because there was still a lot to happen in Tesla's life. [ A WORLD OF INVENTIONS ] First off, we need to talk about a tragedy that happened in Tesla's life, when his laboratory caught fire in 1895. The fire started in the basement of the
building, but it got so bad that the laboratory that was on the fourth floor collapsed and ended up on the second floor! Tesla was devastated, because a lot of notes, designs and even objects from the Chicago Fair got lost forever. But he moved on, and built a new laboratory to continued his experiments. After all, Tesla's inventions were never created overnight, Because he spent years trying to put an idea into practice, while experimenting with other projects. In other words, he was always developing a lot of ideas at the same time, so he had a lot of
projects in many different areas. An example is his study with X-rays. X-rays were discovered in 1895 by German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen. Now, what if I told you that Tesla got an X-Ray image weeks before this guy? In 1894, Tesla was experimenting with electricity. and then he saw that a piece of photographic film he'd used looked damaged. Then he started to investigate what could have happened, sure that it got damaged because of some invisible energy. Only the film was not damaged. Tesla had actually taken an X-ray image by accident, having no idea what it was. It
wasn't until Röntgen announced his discovery that Tesla understood what had happened in his experiment. Now, the fact that another guy discovered X-Rays didn't discourage Tesla. He started to investigate this further, and created several different devices to produce X-rays. And he was also one of the first scientists to prove that working with X-rays wasn't 100% safe, reporting that these experiments caused skin damage. At that time the effects of radiation were little known. Early X-ray technicians started having skin problems on their hands Thir skin would get dry and scally, or they'd get burns, or their hair ould
fall out. After a while the damage would be so severe, they'd have to amputate fingers, hands, sometimes whole arms. Dozens of people died from radiation exposure. Another technology that also has a Tesla touch is more a part of your daily life than you might think. You like to open your car door by pressing a button or use the remote to open the door to your garage or to switch a channel? Then thank Tesla. In 1898 he made a public presentation of some experiments, including something he called telautomaton. Despite the strange name, This was nothing less,
than a small boat powered by remote control through radio waves. Today, this is quite common, we even have toys like that. But at the time people didn't see much use in it. Tesla tried to sell the idea to the army as a way to build a radio guided torpedo, but they didn't even want to talk. Could it be that the American generals, who thought that Tesla's invention had no practical application regretted it in World War I, when several countries start using radio controlled bombs? Chances are, they regretted it.. But the great importance of teleautomaton Is
that it was the starting point of one of the biggest dreams in Tesla's life, which is also very common nowadays, and maybe you're using it right now: wireless communication. Since the invention of the Tesla Coil in 1891, he realized it was possible to take advantage of the high voltage generated by the device to transmit eletric power without the use of electrical wires. He even gave demonstrations by turning on wireless light bulbs from meters away. And, even working on other inventions, he was sure that it was possible to transmit not only electricity, but also able to
transmit communication signals wirelessly. Yes, he was thinking of something like the Wi-Fi we use today. He set up a field of light bulbs, just light bulbs, not connected to anythng, just stuck in the ground. And power of the induction that was coming out of his coils actually lit these lights in the darkness. So he was proving that it was possible to transmit electricity wirelessly. [ THE WIRELESS WORLD OF TESLA ] Until the end of the 19th century, the most common and efficient way of communicating at a distance was with the telegraph, a device that sends
coded messages through wires, using electricity. But as you just saw, Tesla thought it was possible to transmit not only electrical energy wirelessly, but also signs of communication. And he had two paths to move forward with that idea. The first one was using radio waves, but studies on this were still very recent and people believed that radio waves only worked at a close range. The second path was based on another belief at the time, which said that the Earth's atmosphere could be used as an electrical conductor. So Tesla thought of a system of balloons floating almost
10,000 meters high that would receive and send signals over enormous distances. At this high altitude it's because he thought it would be easier to transmit electricity where atmospheric pressure is lower. But he could never study it properly in New York, which is at sea level. Then, in 1899, he went to Colorado Springs, a city in Colorado at 2,000 meters high. To do this, he convinced a businessman to invest money in the Nikola Tesla Company. This guy thought the money would be used to create a wireless lighting system, but Tesla used the money to do the
research in Colorado. By the way, this investor was named John Jacob Astor the IV and he was one of the victims of the Titanic in 1912. When he arrived in Colorado Springs, Tesla set up a gigantic laboratory containing, among other things, a monstrous Tesla Coil with 15 meters in diameter! And since he made a deal with an electrical distribution company, He was given free energy and began experimenting using millions of volts. The lab had giant light bulbs, which glowed even when they were turned off. Anyone walking near the place would see electrical sparks at their
feet and on the ground, and some horses got accidentally electrocuted because their metal shoes were in contact with the ground. Not to mention that once Tesla burned the generator of his eletrical energy supplier, causing a blackout in the area. But Tesla's Colorado studies got even more famous when he received signals from another planet. Yes, Tesla discovered extraterrestrial life! Or at least that's how the story was shown on newspapers. Tesla reported this otherworldly communication and proclaimed his belief in extraterrestrials in February of 1901. Tesla became obsessed with trying to receive radio communication from other planets. He
announced that he had received communication from some intelligent life form, and journalists deduced that these messages came from Mars. In fact, the messages came from the Earth, because Tesla probably picked up the transmission from some other experiment with wireless communication. In fact, many people believe that he received by accident a broadcast by the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, who would have sent these signals at a wireless communication demonstration over there in Europe. Pay attention, because Marconi will appear a lot in the video from now on. Still remember the 15 meter diameter Tesla Coil in the Colorado
lab? Tesla soon realized that it wasn't enough. So he went back to New York looking for investors to build a gigantic tower that would be used for wireless transmissions. So he got the attention of a guy named JP Morgan, who was one of the biggest Wall Street moguls at the time. After talking, Morgan agreed to fund the project for an amount that would be about 5 million dollars nowadays. Tesla immediately bought land in an area of New York, where the businessman was building a condominium called Wardenclyffe-On-Sound, and began to prepare to build the tower, which
came to be known as the Wardenclyffe Tower. But it is also called, of course, the Tesla Tower. And the project was monumental, with the tower planned to be nearly 60 meters high. For a comparison, the Christ the Redeemer statue, in Rio de Janeiro, is 38 meters high. And, on top of the tower, there would be a dome with more than 20 meters in diameter. In fact, Tesla's plans went far beyond the tower. He started to imagine an entire city with facilities and companies where all his inventions would be manufactured. And, underneath the tower, there would
be a building with a laboratory for Tesla, an instrument room, another with a boiler, and one with a huge generator. And that would just be the first step in Tesla's plan, who visualized 30 buildings like this one around the world, transmitting information and electrical energy everywhere. But Marconi, that Italian guy who also researched wireless transmission, he advanced more and more with his researches. So Tesla started to refine his plans, so the tower could also broadcast phone calls and even pictures. All, of course, wirelessly, via radio waves! So let me quickly explain how this works, which
is fascinating: A radio wave is an electromagnetic wave. And it behaves in a way similar to the water of a lake when you throw a rock at it and it scatters. But this electromagnetic wave moves very fast and is capable of taking information with it. Imagine a radio announcer. The microphone picks up what he's speaking and turns that sound into an electromagnetic wave, which is transmitted through the air at a specific frequency. Radios tuned to this frequency capture that wave and transform that signal into an electrical current that contains that sound information, which is decoded
and goes to the speaker. Okay, but this works for a radio and Tesla wanted to broadcast images. How was he going to do that? The process is exactly the same. When we talk about sound or an image, we are talking about information. So if you have a device capable of encoding this information And a receiver capable of understanding this information, it can be transmitted over radio waves. There are several types of waves and some of the best known are AM and FM. AM, which means amplitude modulated, it is more sensitive to noise and static, but
has a longer range. On the other hand, FM, or modulated frequency, has a shorter range but suffers less interference. It's through it that images can be broadcasted. Now that you know this, let's go back to Tesla's tower. All these changes he made to improve the tower made the project more expensive, and JP Morgan warned that he would not give any more money and even demanded an accounting of the money he had already sent. As a bonus, this guy got involved in a crisis on the Stock Exchange, making life even more difficult for Tesla. Anyway, the
construction started in September 1901, and it turned out to be one of the most difficult periods in Tesla's life, who kept begging Morgan for money and never got an answer. To worsen it all, in December, the other inventor, Marconi, announced to the world that he had done the first wireless communication transmission, through radio across the Atlantic Ocean. Tesla was devastated! Construction of the Tower continued and in June 1902, Tesla moved his laboratory to the building below the tower. At the end of the year, the construction was completed and Tesla was still unsuccessful trying to convince
his investor JP Morgan that his system was better than Marconi's. But come on, Tesla didn't help himself much either, because he didn't tell anyone what he was doing in that tower. Whenever journalists asked, he just said he was sending messages through the tower, but that he had no concrete business plan. The problem is that investors were increasingly betting on the Marconi system, and this got worse when some journalists started saying that that tower was a hoax set up by Tesla. In his day, Tesla and his theories used to be considered bizarre, ridiculous or in other
words, crazy. I invested in you because I knew about your outstanding abilities! But after what I've seen today, I still need a radio! Mr Morgan... Sir! Gradually, the project weakened, and in 1905, it was interrupted for good. And so Tesla was completely broken. That same year, the patents for alternating current motors and electricity distribution had expired, and he stopped receiving any money for it. In addition, Tesla's lifestyle Didn't help much when it comes to the bills at the end of the month. Since 1900, he started living in hotels. And he didn't choose apartments with a
bed, a small table and a bathroom. No, he simply moved to the Waldorf Astoria, one of the most luxurious hotels in New York. Of course, at one point he owed the hotel a fortune. Then, in 1904, he mortgaged the tower property, leaving it as a guarantee that he would pay the hotel bill. In 1908, he mortgaged the property again to cover expenses. In 1911, the tower facilities began to be left abandoned and soon everything started to deteriorate from lack of maintenance. At that time, he opened several offices to market and handle patents, But he couldn't
always pay the rent of these places. And the money he earned from patents registered in European countries had ended when World War I broke out in 1914. And there were two things going on in 1915 that could give Tesla some money, but they ended up not coming to anything. First, he tried to sue Marconi's company. In 1909 Marconi won the Nobel Prize and Tesla was furious about it. Then, in 1915, he filed a lawsuit claiming that the radio broadcast of the Italian had only happened thanks to some of your inventions, but the process did not
go forward. Marconi?! Marconi?! I want you to know that I was three years ahead of Marconi, that simpleton! And that Russian Popov! In 1893, I developed my first radio. Five years before them! Later that year there was a rumor that the Nobel Prize in Physics would be split between Tesla and Thomas Edison, but that ended up not happening. And what is said is that each would have refused to share the prize with the other. The Nobel Foundation said this was absurd and a person could only refuse the prize after being announced as the winner. But
there are rumors of nitpicking between the two, like one wouldn't accept to receive the award after the other or that Edison didn't want Tesla to receive the $20,000 prize money. Anyway, none of this has ever been confirmed. But the fact is: Tesla never got a Nobel. What matters is that Tesla remained a penniless man. In 1915, he lost ownership of the tower to the hotel owner, which, two years later, demolished everything. And so, Tesla's biggest dream in life turned into scrap metal and was sold to the junkyard for $1,750. And do you know what makes
it even sadder? Tesla's plan for the tower would be for it to be used for free by the people. Of course Tesla needed and wanted to make money from his inventions, but his priority has always been to make technology benefit the world. No company or corporation intends to provide their technology for free. And Tesla was prevented from giving the world energy for free. In 1973, in the middle of the First World War the tower which could have been the beginning of free electricity was destroyed. [ INVENTIONS, FORECASTS… AND PIGEONS! ] Now, in the years Tesla
struggled to keep the tower project, he still found time to create other inventions. One of them was demonstrated when he turned 50, in 1906. He wanted to find an alternative to the piston engine in early cars, so he created a turbine that didn't use blades, but rather disks that rotated and made the engine run. And do you know what is most curious? This engine, which he patented in 1913 and became known as the Tesla Turbine, it was more efficient than the engines used in automobiles at the time. But it was never commercially successful and is
still rarely used, most often within laboratories for handling fluids and liquids. One of Tesla's dreams was that this turbine was a tool for using geothermal energy, that has its origin in the heat of the planet. This is very important: Tesla was ahead of his time also in his way of seeing the world. He was an environmentalist and advocated the use of renewable fuels to decrease the consumption of the Earth's natural resources, something that is much more discussed nowadays. Tesla said there was a difference between progress and technology. Progress benefits humanity. Technology doesn't necessarily do that.
If a technology is polluting the planet, that's not progress. A few years later, during the World War I, Tesla stated the following: "An electrical beam with enormous frequency" "could be used to find the location of submarines," "as vehicles would reflect this signal, and it could be captured on a screen." In case you haven't noticed, Tesla was talking about radars, that would only be invented in the 1930s, in France. And he was right, because the first radars they worked as he said, with the vehicles reflecting a high-frequency signal. Even though he got it right about the
radars, He got specifically wrong about submarines, because today we know that high frequency waves do not penetrate the water very much. When Tesla made this statement in 1917, he was already over 60 years old. At this stage, he began to have an even more eccentric way of life. He continued to live in luxury hotels for years, until it was clear he wasn't going to pay the bills. Then he was invited to leave and moved to another hotel. Another problem Tesla brought to the hotels had to do with his new hobby: pigeons. And they weren't carrier
pigeons with wireless transmission systems who passed the message from one to the other... No, nothing like that. They were actual pigeons, which he loved to feed every day in a park. The problem is that he fed the pigeons not only in the park, but also in his bedroom window. If you passed in front of the hotel, it was easy to find out which apartment Tesla was in. You'd just look up and see which window had dozens of pigeons. In fact, one day, one of the pigeons that landed on Tesla's window was injured. Guess what? He
created a device so that the bird could stand up until it recovered, The problem is that, to take care of this pigeon, Tesla spent 2,000 dollars he didn't have. So, Tesla was moved from one hotel to another and taking care of pigeons, but of course he never stopped thinking about new inventions, even if at a slower pace. One of the ideas he had at that time Was an airplane capable of taking off completely vertically. Of course, many people said that it was useless and even crazy, but today the American army has an aircraft very similar
to this. Now, the great importance of this plane is not in it to be used or not, but rather that this was the last patent Tesla ever received. This happened in 1928, he same time it closed permanently the office where he ran his business. So, we can say that then, Tesla, who was 72 years old, retired. But that doesn't mean he was forgotten. On the contrary, in 1931, a journalist who became a friend of the inventor Organized a party to celebrate his 75 years. And that event showed the world the importance of Nikola Tesla's name.
He was the main subject of a special feature that made the cover of Time Magazine, and he received dozens of messages from scientists and engineers. Among them was a letter from Albert Einstein. Tesla was a great critic of the Theory of Relativity formulated by Einstein. In fact, in 1937, he said he had developed a theory of dynamic gravity that would go against Einstein's theory that space curved, but he never brought it up again. But let's get back to Tesla's 75th birthday celebration. He liked the idea so much that he decided to repeat the event every
year, Calling journalists to hear his stories and taste the meals he cooked himself. Oh, and probably Tesla himself didn't try all the meals he used to make, because at the end of his life he became a vegetarian. The best thing about these parties is that they staged some of the biggest stories about Tesla. In 1932, he said he had invented an engine that ran on cosmic rays, which are protons that move barely at light speed. The following year, he said he was about to prove the existence of a form of energy, that went against everything
Einstein said. But one of the most famous stories took place in 1934, when he said he had created a super weapon known as "the death ray". Nikola Tesla introduced his particle beam weapon under the name Teleforce. The company however soon dubbed it Tesla's Death Ray, a name that frustrated the then 78-year-old inventor. This kind of crazy idea was a reasonably famous thing at the time and several scientists, like Marconi himself, claimed that at some point have had researched or invented something like that, like the death ray. Tesla never gave in much detail about the inventions
he talked about at these parties, but this death ray project was discovered in the 1880s. It was a kind of tube that would fire mercury capsules charged with electricity, forming a beam that could be aimed at the enemy. In other words, it was like gun from a sci-fi B movie. Tesla claimed that his "death beam" would be able to destroy an entire enemy air fleet. He said that this would also be able to stop an enemy army. Another story that became very famous was about your earthquake machine. This was actually a device that he had
created back in the 19th century, called mechanical oscillator, which worked on steam and was able to produce electricity. At his 79th birthday party, Tesla said that this apparatus was so powerful that had caused a small earthquake in New York in 1898. But in 2006, the Myth Busters put it to the test with this device, And they concluded that Tesla had exaggerated a little. So imagine what the Myth Busters wouldn't do with the camera that photographs the person's retina to record their thoughts? Yes, Tesla said at one of these parties that he was working on this
invention. My first contact with Tesla was while reading a book... which said he was the inventor of the hydroelectric power system, induction motor, fluorescent neon lights, remote control, robots, particle beam weapons. He had cell phone technology in 1901. Now, the subjects at these parties weren't just science and fancy inventions, because Tesla took the opportunity to give his opinions on various subjects. And some of the most interesting were about religion. As you remember, Tesla grew up in a religious family, but he claimed to be against any kind of religious fanaticism and, at the end of his
life, he began to say that he did not consider himself a person of great faith. Maybe that's why he said that, in his opinion, the human spirit was just the sum of the person's bodily functions. When these functions would die, so would do the soul. He also saw the universe as a huge machine, something that was just like him. Now... Parties, dinners... Who paid for all this? Well, by 1934, Tesla had already lived in several hotels in New York. Then he moved to the Hotel New Yorker and he was probably just going to stay there
until the owners realized he was never going to pay the bill. Do you remember Westinghouse, the company that was by his side in the War of the Currents? As Tesla's name was still very much associated with the company, this lack of money from the inventor did not sitick well with them. So, starting in 1934, they started to pay for his accommodation at the hotel and to pay a monthly salary as a consultant. Of course he didn't do any consulting for the guys, but that was the way they found to sponsor Tesla during his last years.
And it's so sad to see a genius like him Practically living on the edge and without a penny in the pocket. But that's exactly how he lived, with his manias and feeding his pigeons... Until being run over. That's right. In 1937 Tesla, at 81 years old, was run over. He was crossing the street and a taxi hit him. Tesla got really hurt, he broke several ribs. But no one was ever quite sure how bad the injuries were, because the inventor hated going to doctors. He fixed himself with some bandages, but he never fully recovered. Then,
in early 1943, Tesla's hotel room kept locked up for two days. The maid walked down the hall, saw the “do not disturb” sign on the door, and continued on. But on January 7th she got suspicious, entered the room and was terrified. Soon the news began to spread: Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors in history, had been found dead in his hotel room at the age of 86. Tesla died alone, accompanied only by his pigeons that stood in the window, and the exam determined that the cause of death was a coronary thrombosis, which is a
blockage in the arteries of the heart. Even before the funeral, The FBI seized all of Tesla's belongings, because of course they wanted to go through the scientist's projects who had studied various types of energy and who'd claimed to have invented a death beam. They sent everything to a professor to analyze it and after three days, this guy claimed that no Tesla project represented a national threat. and that most of his work in recent years was speculative, philosophical and without practical applications. Oh, this professor's name was John G. Trump, uncle of a guy who until recently
was president of the United States. These documents are amazing! It's a report by Trump and it's signed by John G. Trump. He's President Trump's uncle! - Really? - Yeah, it's awesome! Now, have you ever wondered if John Trump decided to take the death ray and left it as an inheritance to his nephew?! Years later, all of Tesla's material was sent to one of his nephews, who was considered the inventor's heir by justice. But there are documents that show that not everyone at the FBI agreed to this, and there are suspicions that some Tesla projects have
never been returned and are still stored in some basement of the agency. Something doesn't smell right. There's no reason for a guy of such importance, With immense historical value, to be practically erased from history. And what we have on him, what we know exists is locked away and they don't want to show us! One more thing: In 1943, the US Supreme Court ruled that some patents involving the first radio broadcast were not Marconi's. With this, several inventors who made discoveries who helped make it happen were recognized. Among them, Tesla, who officially came to be seen
as one of the fathers of wireless communication. As we saw here, this recognition was deserved, but unfortunately, it came too late. Months before this happened, on January 12th of 1943, About two thousand people attended Tesla's funeral in New York. His body was cremated, but his story still had one more trip, in 1957, when his ashes were taken to Belgrade. Today, they are in an urn at the Nikola Tesla Museum. So, whoever visits this museum can see the remains of a man who literally changed world's history. Nikola Tesla owned the patent of over 300 inventions and
left books and scientific articles that are studied until today. But perhaps Tesla's greatest contribution is his history. Tesla was a guy who had to face a lot to make science transform society. He faced illnesses, lack of money and support, still he was never discouraged. He never gave up on changing the world. And Tesla is different from many other famous scientists He wasn't just a theorist, he was always looking to put things into practice. Not all of his inventions worked. Some were just concreted after his lifetime. But those which worked have had an influence in our
lives to this day. That's why I want to end this video by going back to that little village where our story began. Believe me, Nikola Tesla was born during a very strong lightning storm. The midwife thought this was a sign of bad omen and told the mother that "this baby is going to be of darkness". But his mother didn't agree with that and replied that “no, he will be a person of light”. As I said at the beginning of the video, you can simply turn on the light in your room to realize that Tesla's mother
was right. So, I want you to think about how much Tesla is a part of our lives by remembering his quotation: “The present is theirs;" "the future, for which I really worked, is mine.” Fortunately, today we know that Tesla was absolutely right. Nikola Tesla, July 10th 1856 - January 7th 1943 Guys, this was the Nostalgia Documentary on Nikola Tesla! If you liked this work, leave your like. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and also follow me on Instagram @fecastanhari. And now you can also support our videos through a new button, right beside the "share"
button, through it you can donate to the Channel in case you think this video has turn out really good! Your donation remains visible to everyone in the comments and we'll be eternally grateful! If you want to donate, do it sincerely! Comment down below which other scientist do you want to know more about but wait, don't leave yet! You can click on here to watch our documentary about Albert Einstein or about Stephen Hawking! Thanks for watching and for the love! Kisses, stay safe! Bye!
