Nikola Tesla
Source: Wikipedia
The eponymous “mad scientist”, Nikola Tesla was known for all his badass inventions and eccentric lifestyle. The electromagnetic genius hailed from Serbia, and was responsible for creating an alternating current system that provides electricity over long distances, and now powers houses and business all over the world.
Tesla avidly pursued technical innovation, particularly wireless lighting and electricity distribution with his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments across the States.
Source: Wikiepedia
Outside of lab settings Tesla avoided any kind of physical chemistry and spent his life celibate, flitting like a pigeon (the birds for which he had a major affinity) from different hotel rooms, refusing billion dollar contracts for his inventions.
Tesla’s contemporaries regarded him as mad, and he had a well known rivalry with Thomas Edison, who he initially worked for. On his deathbed, Edison cracked and admitted that Tesla’s alternating current was ridiculously genius. Tesla eventually died in a Manhattan hotel room, flat broke.
