Who Was…? biography series for middle grade aw-inspires with the story of Nikola Tesla who was one of the most brilliant and influential scientists of all time, whose experiments with electricity, remote control, and wireless communication changed the world.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was born in Smiljan,
now Croatia. His family was Serbian. Nikola from childhood had a natural
instinct for figuring things out. His mother was not educated but she had an
inventive side.
When he was four, he followed his mother’s
example by experimenting and coming up with his own ideas.
When he was five, he created a spinning wheel
on a stream, which showed him how energy was created to spin the wheel.
When he was seven, his family moved to Gospic
town. Nikola didn’t like the city. He missed his village where he experimented
with his waterwheels. To fill the void, he became an avid reader, reading
through the night. In one of the books, he read about Niagara Falls. It became
his dream to create a giant waterwheel to create power.
At school, he proved to be very good at math.
He could easily solve an equation in his head.
At Gymnasium, he liked electrical and
mechanical experiments the most.
At Higher Gymnasium (High School), he was
impressed with his science classes and experiments. He always had a thousand
questions after an experiment.
His heart was set on research and made up his
mind to become an electrical engineer, but his father wanted him to become a
priest. It was during a time when cholera broke out and Nikola got sick. When
Nikola was fighting for his life, his father agreed for him to study electrical
engineering.
Nikola went to university in Gratz, Austria. As
always, he worked tirelessly. He slept only four hours a night. In his second
year, a machine arrived from Paris which forced an electrical current to move
in only one direction. Nikola argued it would be better to let the current flow
back and forth, but it was never done to power a motor. He couldn’t get it work
and got frustrated and dropped out in his third year.
When his father died, he felt an obligation to
help in supporting his mother. Thus, he looked for a job. His uncle’s friend
built a telephone exchange in Budapest, Hungary. Nikola worked as its chief
engineer. He made many improvements. Meanwhile, he was still thinking about
alternating current (AC).
One day, when he walked in a park with his
friend reciting poetry, it came to him. The answer were the magnets to reverse
the direction of an electric current.
In 1882, Nikola went to Paris to work for
Edison Company. In his spare time, he built a model, but he couldn’t find an
investor to build an entire system. His boss suggested that he went to New York
to work for Edison Company.
In New York, he worked long hours as Thomas
Edison himself. When Nikola completed a project and didn’t receive a promised
bonus, he left Edison.
He was broke and hungry. He went to dig ditches
which turned out to be his big break. The foreman overheard him talking about
his AC (Alternating Current) motor, and he knew an expert electrician, who was
Alfred Brown.
Nikola and Alfred opened a laboratory in NYC in
1886 to develop patents on AC technology. His patent ideas got an attention of
George Westinghouse, the owner of the Westinghouse Electric Company, who was a
competitor of Thomas Edison. Westinghouse offered a huge amount for the patents
and Nikola accepted.
Now, Nikola had freedom to open his own
laboratory and work on his ideas.
Westinghouse Corporation was awarded contract
to build turbines and generators for Niagara Falls using Nikola’s patents and
AC technology.
Nikola’s next goal was wireless communication.
His ideas were way ahead of his time, but technology had to catch up to his
ideas.
Later, his ideas were getting stranger.
Nevertheless, after his death, his reputation
grew and he continued to be honored for his brilliance and his many scientific
developments.
This biography exhibits a man who was way ahead
of his time. His mind was influenced by his mother’s curiosity to experiment.
From childhood, that propelled Nikola to explore his natural instinct with
experiments, mostly the ones exploring energy that led to electricity as it
fascinated him the most. Despite some challenges, he never lost his fuel for
his passion.
Source: Penguin Workshop, 2018
TRENDING INSPIRATION: “My brain is just a
receiver. There is an essence in the universe from which we derive knowledge,
power, and inspiration.” – Nikola Tesla
Traits:
·
From childhood, he had a natural instinct for
figuring things out.
·
He followed his mother’s example by experimenting
and coming up with his own ideas.
·
At five, he created a spinning wheel on a
stream in search of energy.
·
When he couldn’t experiment, he read book after
book.
·
When he read about Niagara Falls, he dreamed
big of building a giant waterwheel.
·
At school, he always had a thousand questions
after an experiment.
·
At school, as always, he worked tirelessly but
that didn’t lead him to success. Rather, he got so frustrated when he couldn’t
figure out what he cared about the most that he dropped out of school, and
never graduated.
·
Only when he relaxed the mind while walking in
a park and reciting poetry, the answer came to him.
“The present is theirs, but the future, is
mine, the future for which I worked so hard.” – Nikola Tesla
“I don’t care that they stole my idea…I care
that they don’t have any.” – Nikola Tesla
“If your hate could be turned into electricity,
it would light up the whole world.” – Nikola Tesla
“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be
alone, that is when ideas are born.” – Nikola Tesla
“The human being is a self-propelled automaton
entirely under the control of external influences.” – Nikola Tesla
FURTHER INSPIRATION AND RECOMMENDATION:
Nikola Tesla had to go through some humility lessons in his life in order to allow his genius to be exposed to the world.
Dr.
Wayne Dyer explores the subject of Humility in his book “Wisdom of the Ages,”
where he further explains the subject by bringing an example of an English poet
and satirist Alexander Pope, whose body was deformed. Pope “lived in Windsor
Forest outside London. He had a curvature of the spine and a tubercular
infection that limited his height to four feet, six inches, and he had suffered
severe headaches throughout his life. His deformity and illness made him
particularly sensitive to physical and mental pain, and therefore the solitude
of nature, and the ability to be self-sufficient away from the noise and mayhem
of the crowds, was a subject of his poetry.”
As
Dyer explains the words of cited poem by Pope, he further explains how
important it is to get away from every day noise, to breathe clean air, and
find self-sufficiency in nature.
It’s
important to take time to study what interests us and to take time to ease any
pressure we feel by doing what we enjoy. It’s kind of a meditation which we
should practice daily (not necessarily the strict pose and trying to quiet our
mind, but by doing what we enjoy).
Highly
evolved people subdue their egos and live as silent sages. They seek no credits
for their great gifts.
The
measure of greatness and happiness is achieved when we remove ego, and have no
need for taking credit for accomplishments, not needing gratitude or applause,
not needing good opinions of others, and just doing what we do because it is
our purpose to do so.
“Learn
to live unseen and unknown, free of the need to be noticed. Do what you do
because you feel guided, and retreat in dignity and peace. (…) The greatest
teachers are aware of the need to maintain anonymity and humility.”
