Nikola Tesla was a brilliant engineer and inventor whose findings alternating current electricity are used to this day.
There is just so much that can be said about this man. Therefore, we have decided to change it up for you guys a little. This week, we are going to highlight 10 of his more interesting and unusual facts.
1. Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in what is now known as Croatia. There was a severe lightning storm raging at the time, and his midwife was said to have thought this was a bad omen. She believed he was going to be a "child of darkness." However, his mother believed the opposite and replied, "He will be a child of the light."
2. He once tried to fly by jumping off a barn while holding an umbrella.
3. He developed Smartphone technology in 1901. He believed that he could create a new means of communication that would gather stock quotes and telegram messages. He would then encode the information and assign it new frequencies where it would then be broadcast to a handheld device. He basically envisioned the smart phone and internet decades before modern day scientists.
4. He was a germophobe and used up to 17 towels a day.
5. He also had an aversion to pearls. His assistant wore a pearl necklace to work one day and was sent home immediately.
6. Thomas Edison and Tesla worked together for a time until Tesla decided to pursue his own project. They had both created ways to harness energy which put them in direct competition with one another.
7. The Tesla Coil laid the ground work for wireless telecommunications and are still found in radios today. He had hoped to create an electrical system that was completely wireless instead of the power lines we live with today. Make your own Tesla Coil.
8. Having been mesmerized by Niagara Falls as a child, he designed the first hydroelectric plant that harnessed the power of the falls to create clean energy.
9. Teslas are units used to measure the strength of magnetic fields and are named after the inventor.
10. He died in a hotel in New York of heart failure on January 7, 1943 penniless and alone.
Source Articles:
http://www.biography.com/people/nikola-tesla-9504443
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla/
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla
http://energy.gov/articles/top-11-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla