“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
–NIKOLA TESLA
Nikola Tesla, a Serbian physicist, an engineer and an inventor who obtained around 200 patents worldwide during his lifetime. To be precise, there are 278 patents issued in the name of Tesla out of which 112 are granted in the US. He is well known for designing the alternating current (AC) electric system, which is a predominant electrical system used across the world today and is also the inventor of ‘Tesla coil’ used in radio technology.
Throughout his career, Tesla discovered and developed various important inventions. He was a pioneer in the discovery of radar and X-ray technology used by us today. This article to a certain extent will try to throw light upon some of those wonderful patents granted in his name.
COIL FOR ELECTRO MAGNETS [US512340]– 9th January 1894
The Electro-magnetic coil or famously known as the Tesla coil uses two coils that store energy. The Tesla Coil can shoot lightning bolts; send electric currents through the body. He developed this innovation because he was obsessed with powering cities wirelessly. Today, the Coil is mostly used for entertainment and can be seen in places like science centers and museums, and some elements of it are also used in radios.
TURBINE [US1061206] – 6TH May 1913
In the early 20th century, in an attempt to compete against the piston engine, Tesla developed his own turbine. Its discs worked when fuel was combusted before entering the main chamber that contained the discs. The combustion would make the disks rotate, which ran the engine. Tesla’s test got 60 percent fuel efficiency in that time where even today we only get 42% fuel to energy conversion rates.
ELECTROMAGNETIC MOTOR [US381968] – 1st May 1888
Tesla’s motor uses alternating current and essentially has two parts – a stator and a rotor. In the 1880s, there were two people who were working separately on the motor, the other person was Galileo Ferrari. However, Tesla had filed his patents first. The induction motor was incredibly influential and is still used in everyday products like vacuums, blow dryers, and power tools.
SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY (RADIO) [US645576] – 20TH March 1900
Tesla discovered that he could transmit and receive powerful radio signals when they were tuned to resonate at the same frequency. By early 1895, Tesla was ready to transmit a signal 50 miles to West Point, New York, but in that same year, disaster struck. A building fire consumed Tesla’s lab, destroying his work.
People think Guglielmo Marconi as the father of radio, and Tesla is unknown for his work in radio. Marconi claimed all the first patents for radio, something originally developed by Tesla. Nikola Tesla tried to prove that he was the creator of radio but it wasn’t until 1943, where Marconi’s patents were deemed invalid. In 1943, a few months after Tesla’s death the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s radio patent.
The above list can easily prove that Tesla was a man with big ideas; he was way ahead of his time. It is alleged that a lot of his brilliant ideas for the patent were lost due to fire at his laboratory in 1895, yet the man was a brilliant inventor who gave the world some amazing and pioneering inventions. Tesla died of coronary thrombosis on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86 in New York City. However, the legacy of his work keeps him alive to this day.
