Topic > Nikola Tesla and his enormous impact on technology

The famous writer Hugo Gernsback once said "if you mean the man who actually invented, in other words, he originated and discovered - not simply improved what had already been invented by others, then without a shadow of a doubt, Nikola Tesla is the greatest inventor in the world, not only today, but in all of history Powerful words from an influential man, and he was not wrong Say no to plagiarism tailored on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayNikola Tesla, born July 10, 1856 in what is now Croatia, is widely considered one of the most influential scientists who ever lived. It is very clear how he earned such a reputation by delving into three of his probably most significant inventions and roles: alternating current motors and the war of currents, the Tesla coil and the radio. In class we learned that in direct current the current only flows in one direction, while in current alternating current alternates in both directions, hence their names direct current and alternating current. The extensive debate that took place comparing the two began in 1884, the year Tesla began working for Thomas Edison. The two got along well, played pool and joked in their free time, and were generally nice, but one point they tended to disagree on was the topic of AC electricity. While working for Edison, Tesla created the first AC motor. He did this by taking Edison's dynamos and remaking them, replacing their long magnets with ones with short cores. He believed this was three times more efficient than the DC equivalent. In the late 1880s Edison created a cost-effective way to create DC electricity, dynamos, and machines to go with it. The problem was that there was no way to increase or decrease the voltage. It was in this respect that alternating current had the advantage, since it had the transformer. Transformers consist of two coils of wire wrapped around an iron core. When an electric current passes through one of them it causes the magnetization of the iron core which, in turn, induces an electric current in the other wire because, as we learned in class: “current can be induced to flow through a conductor in a change in the magnetic field.”(Faraday's Law) This transformer allowed companies using alternating current to increase or decrease the voltage depending on the ratio of the number of turns of wire in each coil. This magical device could increase power, decreasing voltage loss over long distances, and then reduce voltage again to safer values ​​for final delivery to the consumer. This began a huge controversy that became known as the War of the Currents as the stakes were very high for Edison and the power companies that used direct current electricity. So much so that Edison and a man named Harold Brown began spreading the news that AC electricity was dangerous and he would publicly electrocute stray dogs, cats, horses, and the famous Topsy the elephant to prove it to the public. prominent figure in the sale of electricity of the time, he began to experiment with a transformer created by Lucien Gaulard and John Gibbs, and in May 1888 Tesla presented a document to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers to convince everyone of the superiority of alternating current compared to direct current. , by that point Westinghouse had sold more alternating current power plants than all the DC power companies combined, and alternating current reigned victorious because of the obvious advantages. Another of Tesla's influential devices is the Tesla coil. Simply put, a Tesla coil is adevice that allows the wireless transfer of electricity. This whole invention started with a man named Heinrich Hertz, who was the first person to transmit and receive radio waves. Tesla took Hertz's basic designs and modified them to run on alternating current. This increased the frequency that the original device would output from a few hundred cycles per second to ten thousand to twenty thousand. Through experiments he eventually created the Tesla coil. The Tesla coil consists of two coils of wire, a step-up transformer, a top load, and a capacitor with a spark gap. In the device, the transformer increases the voltage in the circuit, the charge will then be stored in the capacitor of the primary coil. Here the current builds up to a critical point and creates its own voltage which tries to act as a bridge across the spark gap. This eventually closes the circuit and current explodes through the coils, causing a very strong magnetic field in the primary coil. This change in the magnetic field causes voltage to pass through the coils and the top load maximizes this energy received by the primary coil. The voltage produced is so incredibly high that it can break apart air molecules and push their electrons into arcs, creating huge sparks. This extraordinary device was used by Nikola Tesla himself to experiment and discover more about fluorescence, X-rays, radio, wireless power and the Earth's atmosphere. Different versions of it are currently also used in modern technology such as CRT displays, combustion engines, welding machines, lighters and even in special effects for the entertainment industry. Tesla's dream of a wireless world did not stop at the Tesla coil, but continued to be seen in many more of Tesla's works, including radio. Tesla first had the idea of ​​the radio in 1892, and in 1898 he created a radio-controlled robotic boat. This boat ran on batteries and had switches activated by radio signals that controlled the propeller, rudder and lights. Through various different frequencies Tesla could start and stop the boat, steer it, and turn the lights on and off again. In 1900, once he realized what could be done with radio, Tesla developed a transmitting tower at Wardenclyffe on Long Island. The purpose of this tower was to create radio broadcasting services available worldwide. Marconi had a similar idea, building a power transmitter himself at Poldhu in Cornwall, England. He managed to send a signal 320 kilometers away on December 12, 1901. Upon hearing this, an engineer working for Tesla, Otis Pond, reportedly said to Tesla "It seems Marconi got ahead of you." To which Tesla replied “Marconi is a good person. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." According to Tesla, Marconi had not believed that it was not even possible to send a signal across the Atlantic because the curvature of the Earth would produce a wall of water that the signal would not be able to pass. Despite all of this, credit for the invention is usually given to Guglielmo Marconi. This is due to the fact that Marconi obtained patents for his radio devices. Marconi even won the Nobel Prize for what should largely be considered the work of Tesla A 1912 National Press Reporter article summarizes it best by reporting that “Mr. Tesla in 1892 demonstrated that the true Hertzian effect was not a means by which it was possible for a transmitting station to communicate with a receiving station at a great distance. He also demonstrated that waves propagating at a transmitting station travel along the ground as a conductor. Today these opinions are recognized as correct. It was,.