Nikola Tesla, The Pioneering Inventor Who Was One Of The Smartest People In The World
Public DomainNikola Tesla is often celebrated as one of the most brilliant inventors in history, though he died in relative obscurity.
Before Elon Musk was using his name to sell electric cars, Nikola Tesla was associated with some of the most groundbreaking and innovative inventions in history.
From a young age, Tesla displayed a remarkable aptitude for mathematics and physics, as well as a prodigious memory and a fascinating ability for conceptualization. As a young adult, he studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic School in Graz and later attended Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, though his formal education was cut short.
In any event, Tesla began working for various electrical companies in Europe before moving to the United States in 1884. Here, he worked for a time with another famous inventor, Thomas Edison, but the two had a falling out due to their differing views on the electrical power system.
Edison was famously a proponent of direct current (DC) power systems, whereas Tesla was an advocate of alternating current (AC) systems, which proved to be more efficient for transmitting electricity over long distances, leading to the development of the modern electrical grid. Of course, most electronic devices use DC current power supplies, so there are cases for both systems.
That said, Tesla was determined to prove that the AC current was superior, and Edison was determined to prove the opposite. In 1887, Nikola Tesla developed the induction motor and transformer utilizing the alternating current. This caught the attention of George Westinghouse, who invested in Tesla’s ideas and helped bring AC power to widespread use.
The power of the alternating current was on full display once again at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the subsequent construction of the Niagara Falls power plant.
Tesla would then go on to work on radio technology, though his contributions are often overshadowed by Guglielmo Marconi. But Tesla had a grand plan for another project that, if it had succeeded, would have introduced technology far ahead of its time. Known as the Wardenclyffe Tower, the project was intended to be a global wireless transmission system for power and communication, which would have revolutionized technology. Unfortunately, it was cut short due to financial reasons.
That was, sadly, the case for many of Tesla’s projects. His eccentric personality often put him at odds with the world of business — a world that his rival, Edison, dominated with ease. As a result, Tesla died in relative obscurity in 1943, his greatest creations having never come to fruition. Still, his enduring legacy makes him a candidate for the smartest person in the world.
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