FREE ESSAY ON NIKOLA TESLA

NIKOLA TESLA

My great grandmother was born on September 30, 1895 in Strum, Wisconsin, and used to tell
us the most important invention for the home, in her lifetime, was the clothes washing
machine. Now history always seems to make the present era seem more civilized, when in
fact, it is probably only cleaner, thanks to my grandmother's favorite invention. But, I
wonder if it is easier. Certainly, there were many patents issued in the 1880's for
inventions that truly would change the lives of future generations, and a handful of
these amazing contrivances would have a great impact on that which is truly important to
an industrialized nation: the machinery that speeds business, business being the true
backbone of a country, but to a country girl whose family depended on farming, the
clothes washing machine still stands out as the one that saved her the most time.
So this essay will delve into the era of the 1880's and focus on one of the most
important inventors that ever lived, Nikola Tesla. Many business machines were patented
before Nikola Tesla patented the alternating-current electromagnetic motor in 1888 (while
the popular Thomas Edison was stubbornly clinging to direct-current motors), but soon
more and more inventors were realizing this new source of harnessed power could bring
glorious miracles to business, thus providing them with even more glorious profits. But
first, the washing machine, truly in honor of my great grandmother, who will be 105 years
old this year.
Before the days of washing machines, people got dirt out of their clothes by pounding
them on rocks and washing the dirt away in streams. Sand was used as an abrasive to free
the dirt. Soap was discovered at Rome's Sapo Hill where ashes containing the fat of
sacrificial animals were found to have good cleaning powers. The earliest washing machine
- the scrub board - was invented in 1797. 
In 1874 William Blackstone, a Bluffton, Indiana merchant and manufacturer of corn
planters, built a birthday present for his wife. It was a machine that removed and washed
away dirt from clothes. It consisted of a wooden tub in which there was a flat piece of
wood containing six small wooden pegs. The inner mechanism looked something like a small
milking stool. It was moved back and forth by means of a handle and an arrangement of
gears. Dirty clothes were snagged on the wooden pegs and swished about in hot soapy
water. Mr. Blackstone began to build and sell his washers for $2.50 each. Five years
later he moved his company to Jamestown, New York where it is located today and where it
still produces washing machines. 
Competitors moved in quickly - there have been more than 200 washing machine
manufacturers in the U.S. in the past century. Competition has kept keep prices down.
Many early washing machines cost less than $10. 
A wringer, invented in 1861, was added to the washer. Metal tubs replaced wooden types
around 1900. Drive belts made possible use of steam or gasoline engines in the early
1900s and electric motor power for the first time in 1906. A rotary handle and a flywheel
underneath operated Maytag's first washer, built in 1907. In 1875 there had been more
than 2,000 patents issued for various washing devices. Not every idea worked, of course.
One company built a machine designed to wash only one item at a time. 
What may have been the first laundromat was opened in 1851 by a gold miner and a
carpenter in California. 10 donkeys powered their 12-shirt machine. Earliest washers were
hand powered by means of a wheel, pump handle, or similar device. One was driven by
twisted ropes that powered the washer by unwinding somewhat like the use of a rubber band
to power model airplanes. One washer contained rollers that were pushed back and forth by
hand to squeeze out dirt. Several featured stomping devices and one - called a
Loca-motive was moved rapidly back and forth on a track washing the clothes by slamming
them against the walls of the tub. 
Now, a little about that inventor, Nikola Tesla: 
NikolaTesla was born in Smijlan, Croatia in 1856. He had an extraordinary memory and
spoke six languages. He spent four years at the Polytechnic Institute at Gratz studying
math, physics, and mechanics. What made Tesla great, however, was his amazing
understanding of electricity. Remember that this was a time when electricity was still in
its infancy. The light bulb hadn't even been invented yet. 
When Tesla first came to the United States in 1884, he worked for Thomas Edison. Edison
had just patented the light bulb, so he needed a system to distribute electricity. Edison
had all sorts of problems with his DC system of electricity. He promised Tesla big bucks
in bonuses if he could get the bugs out of the system. Tesla ended up saving Edison over
$100,000 (millions of dollars by today's standards), but Edison refused to live up to his
end of the bargain. Tesla quit and Edison spent the rest of his life trying to squash
Tesla's genius (and the main reason Tesla is unknown today). 
Tesla devised a better system for electrical transmission, alternating current, or AC. AC
offered great advantages over the DC system. By using Tesla's newly developed
transformers, AC voltages could be stepped up and transmitted over long distances through
thin wires. DC could not (requiring a large power plant every square mile while
transmitting through very thick cables). Of course, a system of transmission would be
incomplete without devices to run on them. So, he invented the motors. This was no simple
achievement - scientists of the late 1800's were convinced that no motor could be devised
for an alternating current system, making the use of AC a waste of time. After all, if
the current reverses direction 60 times a second, the motor will rock back and forth and
never get anywhere. 
If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence
of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search.'' I was
a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have
saved him ninety per cent of his labor.'' - Nikola Tesla 
Tesla solved this problem easily and proved everyone wrong. He was using fluorescent
bulbs in his lab some forty years before industry invented them. At World's Fairs and
similar exhibitions, he took glass tubes and molded them into the shapes of famous
scientists' names - the first neon signs that we 
See all around us today. I almost forgot - Tesla designed the world's first hydroelectric
plant, located in Niagara Falls. He also patented the first speedometer for cars. 
Word began to spread about his AC system and it eventually reached the ears of one George
Westinghouse. Tesla signed a contract with Westinghouse under which he would receive
$2.50 for each kilowatt of AC electricity sold. Suddenly, Tesla had the cash to start
conducting all the experiments he ever dreamed of. But Edison had too much money invested
in his DC system, so Tommy did his best to discredit Tesla around every turn. Edison
constantly tried to show that AC electricity was far more dangerous than his DC power. 
'George Westinghouse was, in my opinion, the only man on this globe who could take my
alternating-current system under the circumstances then existing and win the battle
against prejudice and money power. He was a pioneer of imposing stature, one of the
world's true nobleman of whom America may well be proud and to whom humanity owes an
immense debt of gratitude. - Nikola Tesla 
Tesla counteracted by staging his own marketing campaign. At the 1893 World Exposition in
Chicago (attended by 21 million people), he demonstrated how safe AC electricity was by
passing high frequency AC power through his body to power light bulbs. He then was able
to shoot large lightning bolts from his Tesla coils to the crowd without harm. Nice
trick! 
When the royalties owed to Tesla started to exceed $1 million, Westinghouse ran into
financial trouble. Tesla realized that if his contract remained in effect, Westinghouse
would be out of business and he had no desire to deal with the creditors. His dream was
to have cheap AC electric available to all people. Tesla took his contract and ripped it
up! Instead of becoming the world's first billionaire, he was paid $216,600 outright for
his patents. 
In 1898, he demonstrated to the world the first remote controlled model boa t in Madison
Square Garden. Tesla had a dream of providing free energy to the world. In 1900, backed
by $150,000 from financier J.P. Morgan, Tesla began construction of his so-called
Wireless Broadcasting System tower on Long Island, New York. This broadcasting tower was
intended to link the world's telephone and telegraph services, as well as transmit
pictures, stock reports, and weather information worldwide. Unfortunately, Morgan cut
funding when he realized that it meant FREE energy for the world. Tesla ran into
financial trouble after Morgan cut funding for the project and the tower was sold for
scrap to pay off creditors. 
The world thought he was nuts - after all, transmission of voice, picture, and
electricity was unheard of at this time. What they didn't know was that Tesla had already
demonstrated the principles behind radio nearly ten years before Marconi's supposed
invention. In fact, in 1943 (the year Tesla died), the Supreme Court ruled that Marconi's
patents were invalid due to Tesla's previous descriptions. Still, most references do not
credit Tesla with the invention of radio. (Side note: Marconi's radio did not transmit
voices - it transmitted a signal - something Tesla had demonstrated years before.) At
this point, the press started to exaggerate Tesla's claims. Tesla reported that he had
received radio signals from Mars and Venus. Today we know that he was actually receiving
the signals from distant stars, but too little was known about the universe at that time.
Instead, the press had a field day with his outrageous claims. 
In his Manhattan lab, Tesla made the earth into an electric tuning fork. He managed to
get a steam-driven oscillator to vibrate at the same frequency as the ground beneath him
the result? An earthquake on all the surrounding city blocks. The buildings trembled, the
windows broke and the plaster fell off the walls. Tesla contended that, in theory, the
same principle could be used to destroy the Empire State Building or even possibly split
the Earth in two. Tesla had accurately determined the resonant frequencies of the Earth
almost 60 years before science could confirm his results. Don't think he didn't attempt
something like splitting the Earth open (well, sort of). 
In his Colorado Springs lab in 1899, he sent waves of energy all the way through the
Earth, causing them to bounce back to the source. When the waves came back, he added more
electricity to it. The result? The largest man-made lightning bolt ever recorded - 130
feet! - A world's record still unbroken! The accompanying thunder was heard 22 miles
away. The entire meadow surrounding his lab had a strange blue glow, similar to that of
St. Elmo's Fire. But, this was only a warm-up for his real experiment! Unfortunately, he
blew out the local power plant's equipment and he was never able to repeat the
experiment. 
At the beginning of World War I, the government desperately searched for a way to detect
German submarines. The government put Thomas Edison in charge of the search for a good
method. Tesla proposed the use of energy waves - what we know today as radar - to detect
these ships. Edison rejected Tesla's idea as ludicrous and the world had to wait another
25 years until it was invented. His reward for a lifetime of creativity? The prized (to
everyone but Tesla) Edison Medal! A real slap in the face after all the verbal abuse
Tesla took from Edison. The stories go on and on. 
Industry's attempt (obviously very successful) to purge him from the scientific
literature had driven him into exile for nearly twenty years. Lacking capital, he was
forced to place his untested theories into countless notebooks. The man who invented the
modern world died nearly penniless at age 86 on January 7, 1943. More than two thousand
people attended his funeral. In his lifetime, Tesla received over 800 different patents.
He probably would have exceeded Edison's record number if he wasn't always broke - he
could afford very few patent applications during the last thirty years of his life.
Unlike Edison, Tesla was an original thinker whose ideas typically had no precedent in
science. Unfortunately, the world does not financially reward people of Tesla's
originality. We only award those that take these concepts and turn them into a refined,
useful product. 
Bibliography
Cheney, Margaret, Tesla: Man Out of Time (Dell Publishing, 1981)
Tesla, N., Electrical Experiment (1919)
Tesla, N., The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla (unknown publishing date or place used) Book
actually red on web page:www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~biodam/tesla/tesla.pdf
Web Pages:
www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdam/tesla/bio.thm
www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdam/tesla/chicago.htm
www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdam//tesla/niagara.htm
www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~biodam/tesla/tesla.pdf