Weekly photo of Nikola Tesla

[CheeseBadger]

Everyone's favourite Serbian inventor. Let's start with a classic.

Similar or just me?

That's uncanny - excellent spot.

I was worried that we were going run out of Tesla photos by Christmas, - there aren't that many in existence. Perhaps there's scope to put a few ringers in...

Found a colourised version of a previous photo. Mmmmm.

Just discovered this thread but sadly my favourite Tesla shot (on an American beach, as a lifeguard?) is yet to appear. Something to look forward too...

"We have many a monument of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greeks and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our scientific age, a true monument of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering"

From Nikola Tesla's speech at the opening ceremony of the world's first hydroelectric power station. Niagra Falls, 12th January 1897.

Go Tesla, go Tesla, go Tesla!

But those animals

Back in 1886, Alfred Brown and Charles Peck had joined up with Tesla to form the Tesla Electric Company. One of the patents the company eventually sold to Westinghouse was for an AC induction motor. The deal which the commercially minded Brown and Peck drew up required Westinghouse to hand over a massive $60,000 in cash and shares, and pay a $2.50 royalty for every horsepower produced by each motor built by Westinghouse.

By the mid-1890s and with the backdrop of a long term financial conflict with General Electric, Westinghouse Electric was being crippled by the royalties to Tesla, Peck and Brown. It is estimated that around $200,000 had changed hands in royalty payments by then. Tesla and his associates agreed to release Westinghouse from their agreement. They did well out of these negotiations as well, extracting a further $200,000 from Westinghouse in exchange for the AC induction patents.

This photograph shows a youthful looking 23 year old Nikola Tesla in 1879.

Nice neck-tie.

In addition to his work on alternating current, Tesla did something else rather important with oscillating electrical charges. He made radio waves. When Marconi sent the first trans-Atlantic radio transmission in December 1901, Tesla had been working on radio transmission for a decade. He'd had a basic design for radio since 1892. He had also designed, built and operated a radio controlled robotic boat in 1898.

On hearing about Marconi's achievement, Tesla is reported to have said:

"Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents."

This week's photograph, appropriately, shows Tesla in early old age adjusting a radio in his New York lab.

Shamelessly place marking. MRI scanners use Tesla as a measurement, named after Nikola Tesla.

Yes - the Tesla is the SI unit for magnetic field strength.

Tesla's experiments in radio were not an unqualified success. He believed that radio signals would only travel in straight lines, and therefore be useless for long range communication. His interest in radio frequency experiments was primarily to find a way to wirelessly transmit electrical power.

This week's photograph shows Nikola Tesla seated in front of an operating Tesla coil transformer in his Colorado Springs laboratory, 1899.

I'm so glad I found this, I do love Tesla. The picture of him in his bathers shows a completely different side to him. Thank you CheeseBadger.

The lecture looks amazing

I hope I'm not scuppering any future posts but this popped up on my news feed yesterday tesla drone warfare

They don't do lectures like that ^^ anymore!

During the first world war, Tesla proposed that high frequency electrical waves could be used to locate submarines by detecting reflected waves. This sounds very much like RADAR. Some people blame Edison for the idea not being taken up, as he was by this time the chair of the US Naval consulting board. In reality, Tesla's idea would not have worked.

This week's photograph shows Tesla holding a phosphor coated light bulb in the 1890s. Phosphor coated bulbs would become very popular many years later as fluorescent tubes.

Yaaaaaaay!

He looks very satisfied with his phosphor coated light bulb there. Thank you CheeseBadger!

Nikola here with some kind of ring from a steamer, or possibly a broken pan from a steel drum band.

Could be a sieve.

Plaque of Nikola Tesla on Radio Wave Building. Radio Wave Building located at 49 West 27th Street (between Broadway and Sixth Avenue), Lower Manhattan. It was the former Gerlach Hotel, where Tesla lived before the end of the century and experimented with Radio Waves, in 1896.

It looks a lot like the light shade in our room. Ikea stole their design from Tesla!

Thanks for this week's Tiggy. Start of term chaos chez Badger. And she's not even at school yet...

In 1894 Tesla took a photograph of Mark Twain, - the first ever to be illuminated using Crookes tubes. The negative was badly damaged. Following Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays, Tesla realised he had an X-ray image of the metalwork inside his camera superimposed on a photograph of Twain.

This week's photo shows Mark Twain and Joseph Jefferson standing either side of a fast moving Serbian in Tesla's New York laboratory in 1894.

Ooh my kind of people, as I thought I was the only one.