Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Tesla's Trauma and Alternating Current

Nikola Tesla began his univesity education at the Graz Polytechnic Institute, pursuing studies of the subject that fascinated him above all others: electricity.

Tesla was an extraordinary student who frequently enraged his professors, questioning the technological status quo. He rebelled against the generally accepted belief that direct current (DC) was the sole means of delivering electrical power.

It was obvious to Tesla that DC was inefficient and incapable of adequately transmitting power over long distances. There had to be a better way. At the time, an “alternating current system” was nothing more than a theory.

In the middle of Tesla's second year at Graz, his father was felled by a stroke. Nikola returned home, and his father died soon after. Lacking funds for tuition, he took a job at a government telegraph office.

Tesla was upset that his education had been interrupted, but held on to his dream of becoming an electrical pioneer.

It was at this time that Tesla endured an ordeal with hypersensitivity that reduced him to a bedridden invalid. Considering the depressing turns his life had just taken, the bizarre affliction could possibly have been psychosomatic in origin. Whatever its cause, when Tesla finally emerged from the prolonged fugue state, he was armed with a powerful new insight on how AC could be successfully attained.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Tesla: SI Unit of Magnetic Field

The tesla (symbol T) is the SI derived unit of magnetic field.

The tesla is equal to one weber per square metre and was defined in 1960 in honor of inventor, scientist and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla.

Some examples for perspective:


A coin-sized neodymium magnet can lift more than 9 kg, and can pinch skin and erase credit cards.

Medical magnetic resonance imaging systems utilize fields from 1.5 to 3 T in practice, experimentally up to 7 T.

To levitate a frog, 16 T is required.

The strongest continuous magnetic field yet produced in a laboratory (Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, USA), was 45 T.

The strongest (pulsed) magnetic field yet obtained non-destructively in a laboratory (Los Alamos National Laboratory) was 100 T.

The strongest (pulsed) magnetic field ever obtained (with explosives) in a laboratory (VNIIEF in Sarov, Russia, 1998) was 2.8 kT.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Tesla-A Brief Biography





















Saturday, September 29, 2007

Tesla "Experiments" on Mark Twain

Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain were great friends.

Twain paid many visits to Tesla's laboratory.

In this photograph from the spring of 1894, high voltage high frequency is being passed through Twain's body to light the lamp. Twain is holding the loop above the resonating coil, and you can see Tesla standing in the background.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Remote Control: In 1893!

The first demonstration of an apparatus for radio transmission and reception was conducted by Tesla in 1893 during a presentation in St. Louis before the National Electric Light Association.

The small radio-controlled boat in the picture (Tesla called it a telautomaton; note the antennas) was first demonstrated to the public in 1898 at New York City's old Madison Square Garden.

A patent with the long title "Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles" (No. 613,809) was granted to Tesla in the same year.

Tesla's two radio-controlled boats were built in the 1897-98 period. While they could withstand submersion, they had a slight positive buoyancy and no diving planes, and thus were not true submarines, as they are sometimes described. These boats were actually surface running torpedoes. The patent shows a detonator in the forward compartment.

They can be considered as the direct predecessor of guided missiles developed during World War 2 by the United States, Germany and Japan, and present day precision guided weapons.

Remote control photo reconnaissance drones, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that are used in hazardous environments, and planetary exploration vehicles such as the Mars rovers Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity all trace their lineage back to these two devices.

Friday, September 21, 2007

The Prestige


Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Tesla: Inventor of Radio

This blog will explore the accomplishments of Nikola Tesla. He invented radio and remote control and made alternating current a worldwide standard. He also investigated technologies not in common use today such as broadcasting power.