What comes to mind when you think of the term, “a bright idea?”
The man who transfixed that burning bulb was known as Thomas Edison, but may be better known as Nikola Tesla.
Tesla was the father of electric light. He may not have completed his work with Edison on the lightbulb, which Edison finished November 4, 1879 and kicked Tesla to the curb without paying him. Tesla did provide the world with two of today’s most used inventions: electromagnetic power also known as alternating current and electromagnetic communication or radio.
Edison’s direct current energy source powered his little bulb, but couldn’t do nearly as much as Tesla’s alternating current and electro-coil, which led to the eventual development of the television and computer.
Edison’s only use of alternating current was used for harm – he put 25 cents on the heads of pets (cats and dogs) around his laboratory to smear Tesla just to display how electrifying Tesla’s invention could be.
Tesla’s mad mind (he attributed his concepts to images he perceived) is the cause of today’s madness.
Without Tesla, we wouldn’t be able to share the amounts of information at the speed we do, and we wouldn’t be able to do that wirelessly if Tesla was unable to harness radio waves.
Tesla’s goal for humanity was to make life simpler for people in the future through the use of his inventions. It is evident today that we are far more fortunate than we were in the past–we have direct access, provided you have a device that connects to the internet and access to a wireless connection, to all of the information in the world if it is readily available.
His Tesla coil, a lightning and thunder-making machine, is a coined image of Tesla’s alternating current at work. The high voltage hums and high voltage lightning of a Tesla coil may remind you of black and white movies featuring mad scientists.
Without this magnificent coil, we’d be without television.
He devoted his entire life to understanding electricity, and his later life to solely pigeons, yet was forgotten for his groundwork in the inventions we use today.
Tesla is the posthumous harbinger of the electronic age.