Salt Lake Community College

The Hardships of Nikola Tesla

- Kayla Erosa-

Physics 1010
Professor Max Weiss
12/06/2015

Nikola Tesla was a fascinating scientist. He had a photographic memory

allowing him to remember things and solve problems without have to write
things down. He could do equations completely in his head. He was a genius
who had roughly 278 patents in 26 countries [4]. Lets take a look at some of
the trials, roadblocks and frustrations he encountered along his road to
success.
Teslas was born in Smiljan, Lika on July 10, 1856. His father Milutin
Tesla was a Serbian Orthodox Priest [3], who wished for Tesla to follow in his
footsteps and go to Seminary to join the Priesthood. Tesla was not interested
and wanted to pursue technical studies. Tesla had become ill with cholera,
and after he was better, his father changed his mind and decided to allow
Tesla to study electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz
Austria in 1875. Not much is known as to why his father changed his mind,
maybe it was the fact that his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor too.
While Tesla was in school, he earned good grades and worked very
hard for the first few years, but in his third year, Tesla developed a gambling
habit which caused him to lose all his money. After that, he did not continue
his studies and dropped out. It is believed that he was so ashamed to tell his
family, that he thought it would be easier to not speak to them. Enough time
passed by that his family thought the worst and assumed he was dead. Years
later Tesla reconciled with his family and was persuaded by his father to
attend Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. He attended there for 1 term,
then his father passed away. He never returned to school after that.

He became a telephone engineer in Budapest in 1881. Then he began

working for Thomas Edisons European company in France. As his desire to
work with Thomas Edison grew and with a recommendation from his
superior, Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an
introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison: I know two
great men, wrote Batchelor, one is you and the other is this young
man.[2] Tesla was confident he could make improvements to the equipment
the company used. Thomas Edison could see that Tesla was very talented
and a genius. Edison offered Tesla fifty thousand dollars if he could
increase the efficiency of his prototypical dynamos. When Tesla came back to
him with the finished product, and asked for the money, Edison told him that
it had been a joke and that someday when he was an American citizen he
would understand the joke. After that incident with Edison, Tesla resigned.
Tesla was determined more than ever to produce a better quality
alternative to the Direct Current electric system (the unit which Edison has
come up with). Tesla found promising investors. Unfortunately, they used his
company to steal his patents and left him without a job or money. While he
tried to figure out what he would do next, he became a ditch digger to earn a
living.
In 1886, he met some new investors and started working in a lab on an
Alternating Current. Tesla met George Westinghouse who wanted to perfect
the AC. Westinghouse hired Tesla as a consultant and paid him a large
amount of money and $2.50 per horsepower created by AC. Westinghouse

shared with Tesla the same dislike for Edison. Westinghouse wanted to
compete with Edison by using AC power more efficiently than DC power.
Even though DC worked and it was safe, it wasnt very efficient. In 1893
Westinghouse was invited to the Worlds Columbian Exhibition, to show that
AC power was safe, adaptable and reliable. Westinghouse won the war of
currents with a huge amount of help from Tesla.
A short period of time later, Westinghouse Electric became involved in
a legal battle with Thomas Edisons Company General Electric over legal and
patent rights. When they finally reached an agreement in 1896, the cost of
the fees were about to bankrupt Westinghouse Electric. Westinghouse spoke
to Tesla and informed him if they continued the $2.50 royalty payments, it
would bankrupt the company. Tesla was loyal to Westinghouse because of his
generosity and his help and didnt want the company to fail, so in order to
save Westinghouse Electric, Westinghouse and Tesla reached an agreement
of $216,600 and Tesla would not receive any more royalty payments.
Tesla had discovered the X-ray a few weeks before Rontgen and didnt
even realize it. When Rontgen announced his discovery of the X-ray, Tesla
realized what he had discovered weeks before. Tesla gave Rontgen full credit
for the discovery and even shared his x-ray photographs with him. Tesla
continued experimenting with x-rays but much of his research was destroyed
in a fire in 1895.

Tesla continued experimenting with electric phenomenon. He even

made a claim he could pick up messages from outer space with his radio
receivers. That claim along with a few others caused Tesla to be discredited
among other scientists. However today it is thought that he may have
actually intercepted quasar signals from Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian
electrical engineer who may have been working on long-distance radio
transmission around that time frame. When Marconis first transatlantic radio
transmission was a success, Tesla joked that Marconis system used 17 of his
patents.
Tesla had the idea of injecting a current into the earth to modulate
energy and send message anywhere. He was so close to building a
communications transmitter, and JP Morgan agreed to fund it but after Tesla
suggested that the transmitter could be used for wireless transmission of
power over distance and requested more money to help his project stand
out. JP Morgan refused which caused a falling out between JP Morgan and
Tesla. Tesla carried on with his project at Wardenclyffe, Long Island building
a 187ft tower (to ionize the atmosphere) complete with a shaft descending
120ft into the ground with horizontal roots radiating out to a distance of 300
ft. (to send current to the earth)[2]. JP Morgan still wouldnt budge on
releasing funds and Marconis system was cheaper and proven to work.
Unfortunately, Teslas project was thought to be a hoax and it was
abandoned in 1906.

Because Tesla had claimed that he could make contact with outer
space and his failure with his project on the communications transmitter, it
became harder for Tesla to get funded for projects and his research because
it appeared he was losing his credibility.
All in all the trials and hardships Nikola Tesla faced were numerous.
From not graduating from school, to losing his father, to being told he would
be paid a large amount of money for work on a discovery and not seeing any
of it, to having to work for money by digging ditches, I could go on
However, Tesla was also rewarded for some of his discoveries. I imagine that
by people in our day and age researching him and looking at all the things
that he brought to us, we are honoring his legacy.
References:

[1] Maggie Ryan Sandford (2012) AC/DC: The TeslaEdison Feud. Retrieved from:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30140/acdc-tesla%E2%80%93edison-feud-

[2] Written by: listland (2015) 10 Misconceptions About Nikola Teslas Life & Inventions.
Retrived from: http://www.listland.com/10-misconceptions-about-nikola-teslas-life-inventions/

[3] Dr. Ljubo Vujovic (1998) Tesla Biography-NIKOLA TESLA-THE GENIUS WHO LIT THE
WORLD. http://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm
[4] Jim Glenn (1994) List of Nikola Tesla patents-The Complete Patents of
Nikola Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nikola_Tesla_patents