Who Was Nikola Tesla?
Did you have a cup of coffee this morning? Eat a piece of toast? How about turn on a light or use a computer sometime during your day? If you’ve used any device that uses electricity, you can thank Nikola Tesla. Tesla was an engineer and inventor born in 1856 in what is now the country of Croatia. He immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-seven and later became an American citizen. Tesla made some of the most important contributions to the development of electrical power distribution systems - i.e., the system that delivers electricity to your coffee maker, toaster, lights, and computer.
During the early development of power distribution systems, the leading type of electricity used was direct current, which severely limits the distance over which electricity can be efficiently transmitted through power lines. The various solutions to this limitation are expensive - sometimes prohibitively so. Tesla believed that relatively inexpensive power systems could use alternating current, which is efficiently transmitted over great distances. Using transformers and induction motors, Tesla designed one of the earliest, commercially feasible alternating current power systems. His designs and theories are the foundation of our modern electrical power systems.
Due to his work in the field of electrical power, Tesla has been called “the man who invented the twentieth century.” Tesla also made significant contributions to the fields of radio, radar, and x-rays.