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Nikola Tesla And The Industrial Revolution

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Nikola Tesla The life of an immigrant’s success will inspire many inventors, and will initiate the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Nikola Tesla was born on July 9 or 10 on the brink of midnight, 1856, in Smiljan, Austria-Hungary (now in Croatia). His parents were Serbian. He was often sick during his boyhood. Nikola moved with his family from Smiljan to Gospic, Croatia when he was seven. He attended the local schools. His family thought he would become a clergyman, like his father. But he did so well in math and science that it became clear he wanted a career in science. By the time Nikola was in his early teens, he spoke four languages fluently. In 1884, leaving the warfare of his birthplace behind, Tesla moved to the United States …show more content…

For the rest of their lives, Edison - the "Wizard of Menlo Park," as he was often referred to - would duel with Tesla - the "Master of Lightning" and creator of the tesla coil - to see which man was the world's greatest inventor. Then a prestigious engineering society sought to honor Tesla. The bad news? The prize had been named the Edison Medal. "You would be honoring Edison with that prize!" Tesla roared. On award night, Tesla actually sat outside the hall and fed the pigeons, until frantic event organizers finally convinced him to come inside and accept the medal. And when newspapers reported that Edison and Tesla had been nominated as co-recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics, there was even talk that they might both decline it, rather than accept the award together. (In fact, we'll never know: The award committee selected two other scientists instead. One major break is when Tesla invented the Tesla coil, a coil of copper wire that builds up such a huge electrical voltage that the air around it becomes a pathway for electrons. Light bulbs just need to be near the coil; they don't need to touch it. Tesla thought that if he built a big enough Tesla coil, people could have power in their homes …show more content…

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with a Tesla coil. For one thing, it makes a lot of noise. Building one big enough to power homes would have the neighbors complaining all the time. And it needs to always be running. You can never turn off the lights! Maybe that idea didn't work, but if not for Tesla's many other inventions, we might still be reading by candlelight. Tesla died on Jan. 7, 1943. Later that year, the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated most of the patents held by the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi for radio communications equipment. It gave Tesla credit for the invention of the radio. The credit was based on various patents in Tesla's name that predated Marconi's. In 1956, in honor of Tesla's many engineering achievements, the scientific community named a unit of magnetic field

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