The Man, the Myths, the Mystery…Tesla

When we hear the name, “Tesla” the majority of us might associate it with Elon Musk’s iconic and impressive line of electric cars. Yet Mr. Musk was giving a nod to the namesake behind these innovative vehicles – Nikola Tesla. Among his many other innovations, Tesla invented the architecture of AC induction motors, the basis of the Tesla car. Indeed, Elon Musk believes that Nikola Tesla deserves more credit than he receives in our current society. Many agree.

Much has been written about Nikola Tesla. Especially the War of the Currents with his once former employer, Thomas Edison. The battle to power America raged between Edison’s Direct Current (DC) and Tesla’s Alternating Current (AC). As history shows, Thomas Edison became the more famous of the two, and as the saying goes, “History is written by the victor.” Edison became an American icon of almost mythological proportion with his enormous array of inventions, his tenacity, and most of all his business acumen. Americans need heroes and Thomas Alva Edison was happy to oblige.

Yet to what lengths did Edison go to diminish Tesla. According to documented accounts, Edison promised to pay Tesla $50,000 (over $1 million today) if he could improve Edison’s DC generator design. After months of toiling on the project and developing a solution, Edison reneged on the agreement suggesting that the promise of money was a joke only an American would understand. To prove the potency of Tesla’s AC, Edison electrocuted dogs, cats, and horses as a means of demonstration. It was at his suggestion that AC power be used for human electrocution.

Although Tesla may have been the more brilliant, scientific mind, he lacked business acumen. Edison understood business, marketing, and self-promotion. While Edison gets the credit for the first electric light bulb, Tesla by most accounts should be credited with creating the electric industry because it is his AC that powers the grid worldwide. Yet despite this disparity in accomplishment, Americans are taught that Edison was one of America’s greatest inventors. While Tesla was a visionary genius inventing for the sake of inventing, Edison understood how to commercialize his inventions and make money. In 1931 when Edison died, he was worth about $12 million ($170 million in today’s value). Tesla died penniless in 1943 (penniless in today’s value).

There is no shortage of tidbit data points about Tesla and his oddities. But brilliant personalities are rarely understood by examining disparate information in silos. Perhaps the best way to fully appreciate the complexity of Nikola Tesla is to weave together a tableau of the man and the less known information about him.

The Mystical Child

Nikola Tesla was born July 10, 1856, in what is now known as Croatia during a major lightning storm. Considered a bad omen, the midwife fretted over the child who would be doomed. Yet unconcerned, Nikola’s mother, Djuka Mandic declared prophetically that her son would be a “child of light.”

His father, Milutin Tesla, a Serbian orthodox priest and a writer had plans that his son would join the priesthood. Young Nikola had other ideas with his love for science.

When Nikola was seven, he witnessed the death of his older brother, Dane in a riding accident. Shortly thereafter, Nikola began having visions of and experiencing otherworldly things. He was able to somewhat tame them during his adult years, but as he aged, his affinity for New York City’s pigeons was based on his claim that he could communicate with them.

Tesla was unique from an incredibly early age. He could memorize entire books, store logarithmic tables in his head, and was fluent in eight languages. Enrolled in electrical engineering, Nikola became obsessed with thinking about electromagnetic fields and a hypothetical motor powered by AC. So obsessed, his studies suffered from poor working and sleeping habits that were killing him. Tesla became addicted to gambling using his tuition, dropped out of school, and suffered his first nervous breakdown. While living in Budapest in 1881, having recovered from the breakdown, Tesla had a vision. Using a stick in the dirt, Tesla drew a motor using the principle of rotating magnetic fields created by two or more alternating currents. A quest was born.

Coming to America

In 1884, a 28-year-old Tesla arrived in New York with four pennies and a letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison from Charles Batchelor, one of Edison's business associates in Europe. Yet after the $50,000 American debacle, Tesla left Edison’s employment and founded his own electric company. To make ends meet, he dug ditches for $2 a day. Recognizing the potential of Tesla’s invention, he was hired by Western Union to design an AC powered system that is still in use today. Every detail of this invention was worked out in his mind and performed just as he imagined. As his reputation grew, Tesla garnered the attention of George Westinghouse – an Edison rival. Together, Westinghouse and Tesla took Edison to task in the “War of the Currents” but at a high cost. The "war" ended in 1893, when Westinghouse (using Tesla’s AC), was selected to power the Chicago World’s Fair and not Edison’s General Electric Company. Edison’s disdain for Tesla, however, did not end. Their rivalry would make it into the history books as a clash of egos, eccentricities, and obsessions.

Not for the Love of Money

Westinghouse licensed Tesla’s patents for $60,000 cash and stock with the promise of royalties based on the amount of electricity used. Following the rounds of litigation with Edison, Westinghouse realized that those royalties would be needed to keep his company afloat. Grateful to the man who never abused his talent or relationship, Tesla tore up the royalty contract which would subsequently be worth millions if not billions based on the amount of electricity consumed.

Tangled Webs

With about 300 patents (some claim more), Tesla’s mind knew no bounds. Before the turn of the 20th century, he had invented the “Tesla Coil” that could generate high voltages and frequencies. This would lead to new types of light like neon, X-rays, and fluorescent. The “Tesla Coil” made it possible to transmit and receive powerful radio signals. He filed a patent before Italian inventor Marconi. Yet when Marconi’s signal was sent from England to Newfoundland – it was he who was credited with inventing the radio. In 1911, Marconi won the Nobel Prize infuriating Tesla who knew his ideas were the basis for this success. Without sufficient money to sue the Marconi Company for patent infringement, Tesla could not defend his intellectual property. During Tesla’s lifetime, Marconi’s reputation as the inventor of the radio was solidified. In a cruel but calculated twist of fate, just months after Tesla’s death in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his radio patent. A ruling silent in the history books. This decision restored the priority of Tesla’s patent over Marconi. Conveniently, this also subsequently dismissed the Marconi Company’s suit for patent infringement against the U.S. Government.

A Tale of Two Men and Constipation Relief

Before arriving in the U.S. during one of Tesla’s bouts with illness, he read several volumes of Mark Twain’s earlier works. Tesla told the author that the books were so captivating they made him escape the torment of his illness. Hearing this, Twain became emotional and the unlikely duo developed a friendship.

Intrigued by Tesla’s experiments, Twain frequented the inventor’s lab where he was working on a mechanical oscillating machine. With its significant vibration, Tesla was curious if exposure to these vibrations would produce a therapeutic benefit. Knowing his friend Twain suffered from digestive problems, Tesla encouraged him to partake of the oscillator as a proposed experiment for a cure. After some time on the machine, Twain claimed to feel invigorated, full of vitality and enjoyed the effects. Tesla reportedly urged his friend to step off the machine – and Twain did when he had to make a mad rush to the restroom. Apparently, physical oscillation worked as a laxative. Twain and Tesla would remain friends engaging their feisty minds.

Genius, Visionary, Mental Illness

There is no question, Tesla was a genius. Few would doubt he was also mentally ill. If Tesla were alive today, in all likelihood he would be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He required 18 napkins at each meal, abhorred pearls even sending an employee home for wearing them, walked three times around a building before entering, and only stayed in hotel rooms divisible by three. He didn’t like human hair, was germaphobic, and wouldn’t touch anything round.

To be kind, we might use euphemisms such as quirky, eccentric, or idiosyncratic to describe a man who would thrive on two or three hours of sleep, work 84 hours straight, drink whisky every day believing he’d live to 150 years old, swim 33 laps in a pool and start over if he lost count. He squished his toes 100 times per day to boost his brainpower. This same mind with an eidetic memory was able to recall entire books, do 3-D modeling mentally, and build elaborate inventions without so much as a sketch pad.

A mind born well before a time that could recognize its genius, futuristic thoughts, and perhaps otherworldly connection. Many of the necessities and luxuries we use today were born from Tesla’s genius. His creations are the basis for the electron microscope, radar, remote controls, microwave ovens, robotics, TV and radio transmissions, spark plugs, and numerous other technologies we enjoy. So visionary, Tesla imagined the internet and smartphone, “When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.”

And still, the same man would sit in his hotel room engaged in conversation with a white pigeon with whom he fell in love.

Environmentalist and Humanist

Long before global warming and climate change were a part of our lexicon, Tesla was concerned about renewable energy, using non-fossil fuels. In an era of robber barons who amassed fortunes by any means, Tesla worried about the availability of nature’s resources for future generations. He was concerned that humans were using up the Earth’s resources too quickly and needed to find alternative sources. He and Westinghouse built the first hydro-electric power plant in Niagara Falls. He researched ways to collect natural energy from the ground and the sky. More than 120 Years ago, Tesla advocated green energy. He supported hydro, geothermal, and solar power long before it was vogue to do so.

While Tesla was not religious, he held a deep regard for humanity. Indeed, the drive behind his inventions was for the betterment of humanity and not wealth. He saw within his science humanity’s connection and oneness. “We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only one which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science too recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals…”

Clandestine and Pacifist

The press dubbed, Tesla’s “teleforce” the “Death Ray,” a weapon he claimed capable of destroying up to 10,000 enemy aircraft at distances of up to 250 miles by harnessing a beam of metal ions hurtling along at 270,000 miles per hour. Such a weapon, could, “…make any country, large or small, impregnable against armies, airplanes, and other means for attack."

Ironically, the ideology behind this weapon was not to advance war but to introduce something so lethal it would end the spectacle of war. For Tesla, the pacifist, creating the “teleforce” would render warfare pointless.

Given his accomplishments, his assertions about other potential technologies like the “Death Ray” were taken seriously. It was after all, Tesla, and no one would later want to be the person who ignored him.

Many trunks containing Tesla artifacts were left behind at the various New York hotels he resided in as collateral for his debts. These trunks would subsequently be auctioned to unwitting recipients who had no idea of Tesla’s legacy and the contents would ultimately vanish. Additionally, according to Tesla biographer Marc Seifer, thousands of Tesla’s files mysteriously disappeared shortly after his death in 1943. The mystery swirls around the denial of their existence and/or their clandestine status. When Tesla’s nephew and executor Sava Kosanovic arrived to collect his uncle’s property, the Office of Alien Property had already been to work. This former U.S. Government agency seized the property of alien enemies during the World Wars. Many of Tesla’s documents were restricted as classified by the U.S. Government, denying unprivileged eyes access. In January 2017, President Obama declassified CIA files, including those connected to Nikola Tesla. Their existence had been denied for decades and some believe that there are still documents that have not been released.

An Almost Feminist

Although a confirmed bachelor wed to his work, women were attracted to Tesla. Despite the position women held during his lifetime, Tesla had an advanced view of their role. Perhaps being raised by a mother who was an inventor and would build small electrical appliances when he was a child gave him an enlightened view. In a 1926 interview, Nikola saw women in a vastly different light than public opinion. “This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior…. It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.” His views toward women would change as he aged seeing their “manly” dress and desire to compete with men as a reduction in the feminine power.

Other-Worldly and Conspiracy Fodder

In 1889 while working in a field laboratory in Colorado Springs, Tesla’s equipment picked up a series of beeps. After ruling out extraneous solar and terrestrial causes, he concluded a message was being broadcast from another planet. “Brethren!” We have a message from another world…It reads: one…two…three.” The communication would be dismissed as utter nonsense by the scientific community. About a hundred years later, scientists replicated Tesla’s experiment and published a study that showed the signal was indeed otherworldly when the moon Io passed through Jupiter’s magnetic field.

Tesla himself believed his brain was a receiver that communicated with extraterrestrials. Perhaps he was an ET phoning home. There are reports that he experimented with time travel through an electromagnetic field. He claimed he could concurrently see past, present, and future. Tesla dabbled in using technology to talk to ghosts. Then again, so did Edison. A large number of conspiracy theorists posit that Tesla’s inventions were borne from his contact with entities from the Pleiades.

Tragic Recluse

In his later years, Tesla moved from hotel to hotel in New York City with each successively lowering room rates. Some information suggests that Westinghouse covered his former colleague’s hotel expense. In the Hotel New York, on the 33rd floor in room 3327 – an impoverished Nikola Tesla spent the last years of his life, spiraling downward, loving his pigeons, and perhaps still dreaming otherworldly thoughts. From genius to pauper to near obscurity, Tesla died in his hotel room, naked but for socks, and completely alone. From a Nova in the scientific sky, his light arced and flared.

Tesla the Rockstar Scientist

Tesla the man has become more of a cult figure today and seen as a victim of Edison and others. Many believe the U.S. Government confiscated (a nice euphemism for stole) Tesla’s documents. Tesla is a rock-star to many entrepreneurs. He was a disruptor and a Maker. He broke the rules, risked it all, and followed the drumbeat in his head. Whether a message from aliens, mental illness, or sheer creativity, he did it with a fervent desire to benefit humankind. Like all prophets in their own time, Tesla was not given his due recognition. Say Tesla today and eyes light up with, “Aah.” Say Edison, “Meh.” The cool factor still shines on Tesla. He was an underrated genius who would have perhaps been lauded today. In his own words, “The present is theirs, the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”