The 20th century had just begun and everyone in the world was looking forward to what the future would bring. Science had just made many contributions to science with providing the blueprints to creating the first public cars and the first man flight plane had just been invented during the first decade of the 20th century. Science was contributing to daily life and effecting scientists all around the world, but perhaps the most influential scientist from this decade was the Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla who is most famous for his discoveries on electricity and magnetic fields.

Tesla was born in a village called Smiljan of the Austrian Empire in 1856. He started studying electrical engineering at the early age of nineteen at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, which marked the beginning of his career as a scientist in the electric and magnetic field. In 1880, Tesla was highly influenced by the Epistemological teaching of Ernst Mach. As a teenager and during his childhood, Tesla claimed to have seen many flashes of light and hallucinations which apparently directed him to a lot of his later research. Also, in the same year of 1880, Tesla became the chief engineer of the National Telephone Company in Hungary and started gaining popularity of his work. In France of 1882, Tesla invented and patented the first induction motor, a device that provides power through electromagnetic induction. In 1884, Tesla moved to New York City, where he would do all of the scientific research in his life.

Tesla amazingly enhanced technology by creating an efficient alternating current of power. His source of power rivaled that of Edison’s direct current of power, and could raise high distance transmission due to its extremely high voltage. In 1882, Tesla discovered the rotation of magnetic fields and used that concept to develop frequencies and electrical currents.

In 1896, Tesla invented the first hydropowered electric system, which made him more popular than before. He discovered that the current of water could be used to harvest energy. In 1900, Tesla discovered the concept of terrestrial stationary waves. Through this concept, he could use the Earth as a conductor of electricity on a certain frequency. He started his experiment in 1900 in Wardenclyffe, but his experiment was eventually brought down by J.P. Morgan. One of the most controversial and secret inventions Tesla tried to invent was his “Deathray”, a laser beam weapon that was supposed to revolutionize warfare. Sadly, all his work on the Deathray was taken away by the government and was never revealed is kept highly classified even today.

Nikola Tesla is arguably one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. He revolutionized magnetic and electronic engineering. He has left a legacy of science with his inventions and clever use of nature’s magnetic fields. Even today, we still use Tesla’s concepts to advance technology further. In honor of Tesla’s discoveries, the SI unit of magnetic flux density is called a tesla(T). Although he is one of the world’s greatest scientists to ever live, he is also one of the most unrecognized.

Sources:

Nikola Tesla: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

Nikola Tesla: http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jul/tesla.html

Niokola Tesla: http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/