Nikola Tesla – His Life and Legacy Supplement
Tesla’s Early Years
Left: Tesla's father Right: Tesla at age 23
Niagara Falls, from Goat Island, circa 1867 (Courtesy Library of Congress)
In 1939, Tesla wrote the story of his first childhood encounter with electricity. Share this online, illustrated version of A Story of Youth Told By Agewith another curious, young mind.
Gramme dynamo, 1877 (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)
Coming to America
Left: Tesla at age 29 Right: Thomas Edison
Edison System Central Station on Pearl Street, 1883 (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)
View Tesla's electric arc lamp patent.
View Tesla's alternating motor patent
Edison jumbo dynamo from Pearl Street
Stock certificate for the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company
War of the CurrentsTwo-phase induction motor
George Westinghouse, 1906
Early Tesla induction motor
"Court of Honor" at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893
View AC motor patents 381,968, 390,414, 417,794, and555,190.
Learn more about the differences betweenAC and DC.
Harnessing Niagara
Catch a ride on a current and see how hydroelectric power works. Our virtual journeytakes you from waterfall to generator to power line.
Niagara Falls, from Goat Island, cira 1867 (courtesy Library of Congress)
Lord Kelvin visiting the Westinghouse Company, 1897
A Niagara generator under construction at Westinghouse in Pittsburg, 1894
Edward Dean Adams power station at Niagara (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)
George and Marguerite Westinghouse at Niagara Falls, circa 1895
High Frequency
First photograph exposed by phosphorescent light, taken of Tesla in his laboratory
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Woodcut from Electrical World depicting a Tesla lecture on high frequency, 1891
Neon lights first displayed at Columbian Exposition, 1893
Mark Twain in Tesla's laboratory, 1895
Visit our virtual laboratory to see how a Tesla coiland high-frequency lightingreally work.
Who Invented Radio?
Tesla demonstrates "wireless" power transmission in his Houston Street laboratory, 1899
U.S. patent number 649,621, still the fundamental means for transmitting and receiving radio waves
Marconi with early system of wireless telegraphy
U.S. patent office, circa 1900
U.S. Navy shipboard transmitter.
Take a closer look at Tesla'sradio transmission device
Race of Robots
Take a closer look at Tesla's remote controltechnology.
The first practicalremote-controlled robot
View Tesla's remote control patent.
Interior of Tesla's remote-controlled boat
Submergible version of Tesla's remote-controlled craft
View Tesla's "Method of Signaling" patent
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak, circa 1900
Experimental station
Tesla seated by coil
Illustrations of earth pump
Bulb glowing in ground
Letter to American Red Cross
Take a closer look at a Tesla coil.
Tower of Dreams
World Wide Wireless illustration
J.P. Morgan
Wardenclyffe interior
Tesla's tower with dome frame, completed in 1904
View Tesla's "Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy" patent
Poet and Visionary
Tesla at age 64
Tesla turbine
Tesla's white pigeon
Tesla's pigeon feed menu
Conceptual aircraft design
“Apparatus for Aerial Transportation”
Poem, "Fragments of Olympian Gossip"
A Weapon to End War
Tesla at 79
Illustration of war in the future
Drawing showing a component of Tesla's beam weapon
Drawing showing Tesla's high potential terminal and powerhouse
The Missing Papers
Tesla's suite at the hotel New Yorker following his funeral, 1943
Articles in Tesla's hotel room after his death
Model of Tesla's remote-controlled boat
Library archives at the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Suspected Soviet beam weapon installation
Death mask of Nikola Tesla
Samples of Documents from Tesla's FBI File
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