Hourly History - Nikola Tesla: A Life From Beginning to End

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You love your smartphone. That goes without question. There are probably many other things in your life that you love, too. Bet you couldn't get along without your refrigerator, oven or microwave. What about your electric lights? Don't you just hate it when the lights go out?

What happened to that alternating current? Since you're now sitting in the dark with only a lone candle to comfort you, you could think about how we came to have all of these modern conveniences.

They make life so convenient. So comfortable. Whom do we have to thank for that? Well, you could start with Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was many things in his life, but best known for his designs in modern alternating current, or AC. Power supplies and even our modern electrical grids wouldn't have been possible without him.

Nikola Tesla's life was a complicated one, and his brilliance would lead to a tortured existence. Tesla believed his mind to be superior to everyone else's - and he let others know it. Some of the smartest inventors of his time would work with him, but Tesla was already figuring out mathematical equations and complex scientific problems in his head.

Unfortunately, many of his inventions went no further than his head. So, take a look at what Nikola Tesla was all about. Relegated to virtual obscurity after his death in 1943, many of his projects have been gaining popular interest in the last twenty years.

You might say Nikola Tesla was an electrical genius. He certainly would qualify for a modern-day electrical engineer and physicist and would have loved the world of wireless connectivity we have today.

Tesla's brilliance would never be appreciated by the world in which he lived. He was creative in his own way, thinking about an idea, forming it fully in his mind, and then creating it for all the world to see. No one knows what Tesla's IQ score was, and no one should care; IQ is no longer looked on as the #1 magic bullet to a life of success. Many other factors are necessary in order to be someone who makes a difference during their lifetime.

Tesla relied on his imagination to fuel his life. More successful people come to mind when you think about who invented electricity or the radio. This could be because opportunities didn't always present themselves at opportune times to Nikola Tesla.

Whatever you know, or think you know, let's have a look at this marvel of a man whom some called brilliant, others called a mad scientist, and everyone came to acknowledge as extremely necessary to life as we know it in the 21st century.

Nikola Tesla was born in Europe, in modern-day Croatia, in the small village of Smiljian. Tesla was born on July 10, 1856. His father Milutin Tesla was an Eastern Orthodox priest and his mother Duka Tesla had an affinity for making home-crafted tools and appliances.

Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had an older brother Dane, and three sisters, Milka, Angelina, and Marica. When little Nikola was five years old, his brother Dane was killed in a horse-riding accident.

Although his mother never received any formal education, Tesla was sent to the primary school in Smiljian. There he began to learn arithmetic, religion, and German. When Tesla was seven, his family moved to the village of Gospic, where his father served the church there. Even when he was a child, Tesla loved to tinker with all kinds of machinery, and family and friends would marvel at his spectacular memory. Tesla always credited his photographic memory and his creative abilities to his mother's side of the family.

Nikola completed primary and middle school, and by 1870 he moved to Karlovac to attend school at the Higher Real Gymnasium. In Europe, a gymnasium is a type of school with a strong emphasis on academic learning. This type of secondary school was meant to prepare students for university life and advanced academic study.

From a very early age, Nikola Tesla could memorize entire books and mathematical tables that utterly befuddled those around him. He was able to learn new languages easily and never needed much sleep. During his time in school, Tesla discovered electricity through his physics professor. He knew nothing about it, only that he wanted to know more about this wonderful thing.

Because Tesla could perform integral calculus in his head, some of his teachers thought he was cheating. Tesla was able to complete four years of study in just three, graduating in 1873. After graduating, Tesla returned to Smiljian, where he contracted cholera. He was sick for nine months, and his family believed he would die. Tesla did recover, and in 1874 he ran away to the woods rather than be conscripted (drafted) into the Austro-Hungarian Army. During this time, he read many books and believed that his time in the outdoors made him stronger both physically and mentally.

In 1875 Tesla enrolled in Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria, on a scholarship. During his first year there, he never missed a class, passed nine exams (twice as many as were required), and he quickly became one of the star students. In his second year, Tesla found himself at odds with one of his professors over perceived design flaws in the direct-current (DC) motors that were being demonstrated in class.

At this point in his life, Tesla worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, seven days a week, including Sundays and holidays. His professors believed he was working himself into an early grave, but Tesla continued on this schedule. At the end of his second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling. In his third year, he gambled away his allowance and his tuition money. He eventually did win back his initial losses and paid back his family.

Tesla did not graduate from the university, and he received no grades for his third year. By 1878, Tesla left the university and cut all ties with his family. He did not want them to know he had dropped out of school. He worked as a draftsman in Slovenia for a while and continued gambling.

At this time, Tesla's father Milutin came to him, begging him to come home. Tesla refused, suffering a nervous breakdown. The following year, 1879, Tesla's father died from an unknown illness. Some say he suffered a stroke. Tesla returned to his high school, the Real Gymnasium, where he taught a large class of students.

In 1880, two of Tesla's uncles saved up enough money for him to leave for Prague and study at Charles-Ferdinand University. He arrived there too late to enroll; he didn't know Greek, which was a required subject; and he couldn't write in Czech. He did attend some classes, which he attended as an auditor, which meant he did not receive grades for them.

In 1881 Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary. There he worked for the Budapest Telephone Exchange. While walking through a park one day with a friend, Tesla had a vision, and he quickly drew a diagram in the dirt to demonstrate for his friend a motor using the principle of rotating magnetic fields created by two or more alternating currents. There were no motors run on alternating current at the time, and there wouldn't be until Tesla came up with the idea of the induction motor several years later.

While in Budapest, Tesla developed a sketch for a rotating magnetic field an idea which is still today used in many electromechanical devices. This would be the foundation from which many of his future inventions would spring.

In 1882, Tesla moved to France and continued making improvements to electrical equipment, but no one showed any particular interest in his ideas. In June 1884 Tesla immigrated to New York City with only four cents in his pocket. Immediately Tesla was hired by Thomas Edison to work at his Edison Machine Works on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.