Nikola Tesla was another guy who liked applying for patents. By the time of his death in 1943, he held more than 700 patents in the areas of induction motors, generators, fluorescent lights, and steam turbines. Tesla supposedly arrived in America in 1884 with 4¢ in his pocket. (Who knows, maybe it’s one of those stories that claimed a little less money every time Tesla retold it.) America’s tough when you’ve only got 4¢ to your name. In 1885, Tesla sold his patent rights to his system of alternating current to George Westinghouse, another inventor and industrialist who knew a good electrical system when he saw it.
Tesla established his own laboratory in New York City in 1887. Ever the prankster, he sometimes would use his own body as an electrical conductor to light lamps to show that alternating current was safe. It probably was a great way to impress prospective girlfriends as well. While Westinghouse raked in the big bucks from his newly acquired alternating-current system, Tesla eventually became the namesake for a unit of measurement for magnetic fields.
A tesla, as every amateur physicist knows, is equal to one weber (a unit of magnetic flux named after German physicist Wilhelm E. Weber, not the barbecue manufacturer) per square meter. Considered both a genius and an eccentric during his lifetime, Nikola Tesla laid much of the practical and theoretical groundwork for the communications and electrical systems we have today.
Tesla established his own laboratory in New York City in 1887. Ever the prankster, he sometimes would use his own body as an electrical conductor to light lamps to show that alternating current was safe. It probably was a great way to impress prospective girlfriends as well. While Westinghouse raked in the big bucks from his newly acquired alternating-current system, Tesla eventually became the namesake for a unit of measurement for magnetic fields.
A tesla, as every amateur physicist knows, is equal to one weber (a unit of magnetic flux named after German physicist Wilhelm E. Weber, not the barbecue manufacturer) per square meter. Considered both a genius and an eccentric during his lifetime, Nikola Tesla laid much of the practical and theoretical groundwork for the communications and electrical systems we have today.
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