Sorry Mr. Mac, but I'm going to write this post about the great and wonderful Nikola Tesla (credit for inspiration to Brianna). Because he doesn't get the credit he deserves. This post will go in chronological order of his life, so lets start with the early life of this genius.
He was born in 1856 in Serbia, in the little town of Smiljan, which is a pretty great name. His father was a priest, and according to Wikipedia, his mother had a talent for memorizing epic Serbian poems. She seems like a pretty cool lady. But this post isn't about her, it's about her child. Who was accused of cheating by his teachers because he could do calculus in his head. Yeah, you know. Just calculus. So after an eventful early life in Serbia (it's actually really interesting, but really long, and I won't get into it here), he moved to New York City in 1884, when he was 28, to go and work for Thomas Edison. Because that's what young inventors would do in those days. Edison's place was where it was at for inventors, because Edison was like God. So off Tesla went, to go and work with the great and powerful Thomas Edison. But Edison and Tesla viewed inventing very differently. Edison was much more of a trial and error kind of guy, but Tesla could envision his inventions in his head, and solve all possible problems there too. So they fought a lot.
When Tesla arrived, Edison was working on direct current generators, which is a type of electricity. These were reeeaally inefficient, and Tesla, kind gent that he was, offered to fix them up. Edison told him that if he could do it, he would pay Tesla fifty thousand dollars. In today's money, that's a million dollars. A couple months later, when Tesla did what he said he would, did Edison pay up, like he said he would? No. He said "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." And then offered Tesla a small raise. Yes, Edison really did. So of course Tesla left.
He formed his own company, and started working on an alternating current generator. Alternating current is another form of electricity. This pitted him in a "War of the Currents" against Edison. But Edison's direct current required expensive copper cables to be buried in the streets with power stations every mile because direct current electricity cannot travel very far. So Edison's method was expensive and basically very pointless, but of course he couldn't admit defeat to the much cheaper and much less expensive to install alternating current. Never! Instead, he started electrocuting animals. Because of course. His plan was to show how dangerous alternating current was, when in fact direct current and alternating current are basically the same level of dangerousness, and he was using a much higher level of wattage than would actually be sent through wires into people's homes. But electrocuting elephants really makes a statement, so no one would buy into alternating current. But through several exhibitions, like the 1893 Chicago World's fair, Tesla was able to show the world that no, alternating current didn't electrocute animals. Come on, Edison.
But that's not even all he did. He invented the radio. No, Guglielmo Marconi did not invent the radio. As Nikola Tesla said, "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." (so in case you didn't get that, Marconi stole ideas from Tesla). Tesla also invented a spark plug for internal combustion engines in 1898, pitched the idea of radar to the U.S. military in 1917 (Edison was the head of R&D for the U.S. Navy though, and he just couldn't let that grudge go), started experimenting with x-rays two years before Wilhelm Rontgen (the guy who is credited with the discovery of x-rays) announced his discovery (at first, it was believed x-rays could cure ailments, but Tesla cautioned against it. Guess who ignored that? Edison x-rayed his lab assistant so much that the assistant had to have his arms amputated, and then later died of mediastinal cancer (your mediastinum is basically the cavity where your heart is). Edison also almost blinded himself by repeatedly x-raying his eyes. He is then later quoted as saying "Don't talk to me about x-rays, I am afraid of them."), built the first hydro-electric plant at Niagara plant, recorded radio waves from outer space, discovered the resonant frequency of Earth (it actually took 50 years for scientists to verify something Tesla had found out in 1890), built an earthquake machine that nearly demolished one of New York City's neighborhoods, successfully produced the extremely rare phenomenon of ball lightning (Nikola Tesla did it in the 1890s, but no one has been able to recreate it since), he held patents a hundred years ago that are now used to make transistors (an important component of computers), invented remote control, and sooo many other things. Basically he's a genius.
So what happens next is a little surprising. He has his moment in the sun, get's invited to all the parties, has fun electrical experiments with his best buddy Mary Twain (yeah). But Tesla was never the best business man, and his ideas were not really the best business. So he lost a lot of money. He ended up living alone in a little New York apartment, talking to pigeons and living off of Nabisco crackers. He died when he slipped and hit his head on ice, got back up, and walked to his apartment. He died unrecognized for all of his achievements, all of his contributions, all of his discoveries, everything that he did. It's really pretty sad.
So this is Nikola Tesla awareness post. Because he should be at least as well known Thomas Edison, if not more so. Recently, over one million dollars was raised to turn his old laboratory, Wardenclyffe, where, by the way, he planned to produce free energy for the entire world. See, the things he invented are just endless. Oh, the death ray story is really good, you should go look that one up because I should probably stop. Basically, Nikola Tesla deserves to be remembered. And this is certainly not really well written, but I think it conveys the idea of how smart he was well enough for me to be able to tell you that there's not a reason why Nikola Tesla shouldn't be a household name.