Unit10-Part2-Reading

Nikola Tesla was an inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and physicist.

He began his career as an electrical engineer with a telephone company in Budapest in 1881.

He went to the United States in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison in New Jersey.

Tesla started to disagree with Edison and pointed out the inefficiency of Edison's direct

current electrical powerhouses.

The secret he felt lay in the use of alternating current because, to him, all energies were cyclic.

After falling out with Edison, he continued working on his alternating current system.

In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental principle in physics.

It started the industrial revolution at the turn of the century.

Alternating current became standard power in the 20th century and still is.

This accomplishment changed the world.

Tesla designed the first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls in 1895, which was the

final victory of alternating current.

Some of his other discoveries are the fluorescent light, laser beam, wireless communications,

wireless transmission of electrical energy, remote control, robotics, and Tesla's turbines.

Tesla is the father of the radio and the modern electrical transmission systems.

In 1915, a New York Times article announced that Tesla and Edison should share the Nobel

Prize for physics.

Oddly, neither man received the prize.

Today, many people think that Edison is the father of the electrical age.

However, perhaps it was Tesla who made the most important contributions.

He could speak eight languages and visualize devices in his mind and build them without

a sketch.

That's why some people regard Edison as a successful entrepreneur while they consider

Tesla a true scientist and a genius.