George Westinghouse and renewed hope in alternating current

After hearing of the genius of Tesla and how he quit working with Edison, George Westinghouse sought to make a move to partner with this genius. George Westinghouse was looking to make more money than what he already made from being the inventor of the compressed air brake for trains. Westinghouse decided to go to the lecture Tesla was giving for the American Institute of Engineers, he was throughly impressed by Tesla's genius and decided to have a meeting with him at Tesla's labortory. After meeting with Tesla in his laboratory and being so blown away by his immense amount of genius Westinghouse on the spot offered Tesla 1 million dollars for his alternating current patents. Tesla was shocked by the offer but calmly replied 1 million dollars and a 1 dollar royalty per horsepower. Westinghouse immediately agreed to the terms and after the men shook on the agreement westinghouse said there will be a contract and a check sent to you in a few days. Tesla was very excited about this deal because Westinghouse had also arranged that he work in Pittsburgh for a year inventing more things in his own lab for a "high salary". Westinghouse recieved these patents for a bargain price and Tesla got the fincial backing he so desired so he could keep working on new inventions. This partnership lasted happily for about 6 weeks until Westinghouse's workers had trouble making the motor run properly so Tesla came in to help solve the problem with his invention. After feeling throughly disrespected when no one would take his advice on how to fix his own invention Tesla angirly quit. Westinghouse let Tesla simmer down and a week later offered him $24,000 a year to stay with the company but Tesla now being wealthy declined and decided to work on his own again. So Tesla once again found himself alone but this time he had money, ambition and people interested in alternating current.

This is a short video of Nikola Tesla's history but mostly focuses on his inventions of the alternating current motor and his ability to harness the power of Niagra Falls and use it to generate electricity.

The above picture is of a radio reciever Tesla designed making radio possible. Tesla designed this in his laboratory that burned down and 2 years later rebuilt it which he then populaized once he recieved the patents.

Tesla

These pictures are of Nikola Tesla in his prime inventing age of 31. the first one was taken when he first arrived in America and the second one of him just as he left the Edison company.

Tesla and Edison the failed partnership

Tesla's main goal for coming to America was to meet, work with and show Thomas Edison his alternating current sysetem. So when tesla stepped out of the immigration office in the summer of 1884 he only had one thing on his mind impressing the great Thomas Edison enough to hire him. After picking up $20 from a repair man whom he assisted with a motor repair he bought a room for a night and some food near edison's workshop. The next morning Tesla met Edison with whom he was immediately impressed by because of how much he could accomplish in such a technical field like electricity considering his lack of education. Tesla soon was hired and started working as one of Edison's assistants imediately. Tesla workd from 10:30 am to 5 am on all days exploring the endless possibilities of electricity. Tesla was then enlisted for $50,000 to design a series of dynamos that work more efficently for direct current. Tesla after quickly completing this task and all the medial other ones assigned to him moved up in the ranks to head of designing and repairing various direct current electrical systems all across New York. When Tesla approached Edison about recieving the $50,000 he had earned Edison merely laughed and said 'you foreingers do not understand American humor there is no money for you". Tesla feeling cheated and disrespected quit immediately. Luckily for Tesla he had gained a good reputation of being a very talented elctrical enginner while being employed by Edison which led him to start the next phase in his quest to bring alternating current to the world.

Tesla's move to America

After working at Strassburg for a year Tesla finally decided he wanted to immigrate to America. Though as a man hard-pressed for cash he had barely enough to scrape by where he was now. In knowing this when he told his employers at Strassburg he wanted out they at first offereed him no money in exchange for the incredible contributions he made to the company. Tesla having barely enough money to feed himself was in no financial state to immigrate anywhere. his employers now realizing they needed to pay him some compensation for all the work he did offered him a meager $1000. Tesla as a man hard-pressed for money took it immediately even though he really should have gotten close to 25 times the amount of money he actually recieved. After paying Tesla off one of the administrators at his old company suggested Tesla make the move to America and work with Thomas Edison. Tesla a week later decided to do just that and bought himslef a ticket on a train that would take him to the steamship that would eventually land him in America. Though no move can be that easy so while he was waiting for his train he stepped away from his luggage for a mere second when someone stole his luggage which contained all of his money amd most importantly his ticket aboard the steamship. Luckily Tesla had enough spare mchange in his pockets to pay for the train ride but once he got to the steamship what would he do? Well he explained to the steamship's wary captain his situation although the captain may not have believed him when no one else showed up for Tesla'a reservation he let him aboard anyway. With that Tesla was off to America in hopes to work with the other great electrical engineer Thomas Edison.

Engineering college, a job and a close call with death

Tesla started at the University of Gratz at the age of 19 to study electrical engineering. Tesla enjoyed his studies so much he completed 9 examinations which was double what was required. He managed this while getting 4 hours of rest each night. This greatly worried Tesla's parents considering his brush with death not even a year before with his parents concerns in mind Tesla limited his studies for the upcoming term. In this upcoming term he would only take physics, mechanics and mathmatics courses. This is where tesla met the greatest motivator he had ever found for creating the alternating current engine, Professor Poeschl. Poeschl encouraged Tesla's mechanical abilities and encouraged him to present his alternaing current engines to the class while picking out all the flaws on his last prototype before he left college Poeschl said "tesla will accomplish many great things but never this alternating current engine". That last statement became Tesla's greatest motivation to date to build this alternating current engine. right after finishing engineering college Tesla had to get a job since his father had recently passed away and his mother was in need of money. Tesla then accepted a good paying position at a technical establishment in Maribor, he stayed for a year until he had saved enough money to pay his way through the University of Prague to continue his engineering studies. Tesla then moved to Budapest where he worked his way up to being in charge of all repairs and new designs of the telephone company. Unfortunately his 4 hours of rest a night and only 2 hours of actual sleep a night finally caught up to a now 25 year old Tesla. He then started to have syptoms like an acute sensitivity to all of the sense organs,uncontollable twitching and a very unstable/unpredictable pulse that led doctors to believe he was on his deathbed. These symptoms continued for 5 months but Tesla held on becauase he wanted to complete the alternating current engine his college professor said he couldn't.

Tesla's road to engineering college

Tesla finished the Higher Real Gymnasium in Gospic at the age of 14. Tesla figured his next logical step would be to go to engineering college. The problem was that Tesla was required to either go into the military or enter the ministry or face substantial jail time. This led to a deep depression in which Tesla could not get out of. Eventually this depression turned for the worse when this illness reached a critical stage and the physicians gave up on the hope of saving his life. Fortunately Tesla's father was not as easy to lose hope and worked on trying to nurse his very delicate son back to health. When this did not show much promise he promised his son he would make sure he went to engineering school for electrical engineering if he recovered. As if by magic Tesla's strength began to return to him where in 4 months time he recovered completely. Tesla's father kept his word and enrolled his son in the polytechnic institute at Gratz which was located in Austria. His father enrolled him for the term that began the following fall. Tesla's father also kept his word in not making his fragile son enlist in the military or enter the ministry even though there were serious consequences for not doing that. Instead he sent his son out into the mountains for one full year to get away from the call of the military. In this time Tesla conducted many experiments on elcticity conducted from water sources. That following fall as promised by his father on what many thought was his deathbed he entered the University of Gratz for electrical engineering.

Tesla's family and childhood

I'm only about 50 pages into the first chapter of the book. This chapter is called Light and Power and is divided into 8 different sections. The first 10 or so pages of the book is mostly the author telling the reader why Tesla is such a renowed inventor and why he deserves more praise then he currently gets. After this sorta introduction the author delves into the history of Nikola Tesla himslef. Tesla's parwents are Reverand Milutin Tesla and his wife Djouka. He was born in the border province of Lika which is now part of Yukaslovia.Tesla had 2 sisters and 3 brothers, the oldest of the Tesla boys Dane passed away when Nikola was only 5 years of age. Dane was an extremely brialliant boy and Nikola strived to be like him. Nikola attended the Normal school in his village until the age of 10 when he enrolled in the Real gymnasium which is the equivalent to our high school. He showed remarkable talent in the studies of mathmatics and the sciences.Though Tesla enjoyed school the experiments he did outside of it with water wheels and other electical works fasinated him more. After finishing the Real Gymnasium with exceptionally high marks he continued his education at the Higher Real Gymnasium in Croatia. The next section is about his experiences at the Higher Real Gymnasium and beyond which I will hear about as I continue reading.

First post!

My book Prodigal genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla just came in yesterday. The book starts out with a series of interesting pictures. The first picture is of a giant building that resembles the NBA championship trophy. above this building there is text that says WorldWireless, then underneath the building it says return to Nikola Tesla 8 West 40 St., NY. This indicates that it was a sketch of something he was trying to achieve and did not want it lost. The next picture is a portrait of Tesla himself. The next picture is a newspaper cut out that states a fire destroyed mechanisms he had in this workshop that were of inestimable value. Next post I will discuss chapter 1 of this book.