The character arc of Nikola Tesla
Born 10 July 1856 in Smiljan. Died 7 January 1943 in a New York hotel room. Between the two sit a vision that arrived whole on a walk in Budapest, a falling out with Edison, a year digging ditches, the lecture that won the current war, a laboratory fire that took everything, the powering of Niagara, and a tower that ran out of money before it ran out of ideas. The line below draws that whole life in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Nikola Tesla?
He arrived with four cents and lit the world.
The idea that made the modern grid arrived whole, by his own account, on an evening walk in a Budapest park in 1882: a magnetic field that rotates, so a motor needs no sparking brushes at all. Two years later he landed in New York with, as he told it, four cents in his pocket and a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison. The two parted badly within a year, over money and over current, and for a while the inventor of the century dug ditches for two dollars a day.
The 1888 lecture on his alternating current system brought George Westinghouse, and together they won the current war in public: the 1893 World's Fair glowed on AC, and in 1896 Niagara Falls began sending his current to Buffalo. When Westinghouse hit financial trouble, Tesla tore up his own royalty contract to keep the company alive, a decision that cost him one of the great fortunes and kept the current flowing.
The last long bet, a tower at Wardenclyffe meant to send power and messages through the air, ran out of patience and money in 1906, and he spent his last decades in hotels, feeding pigeons, holding birthday press conferences. His line is worth reading for its stubborn arithmetic: the world runs on the patents, whoever banked the money.
The moments
Nikola Tesla's timeline.
The 1870s
Entered the Graz Polytechnic
Milestone. A scholarship student who at first slept four hours and took every course twice over.
Left Graz without a degree
Setback. The scholarship lapsed and the gambling tables did not help. He never graduated anywhere.
The 1880s
The rotating field vision
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The idea for the AC motor arrived whole, by his telling, on a walk in a Budapest park.
Landed in New York
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Four cents in his pocket, by his own account, and a letter of introduction to Edison.
The break with Edison
Setback. He quit over a promised bonus that turned out, by his account, to be a joke about American humour.
Dug ditches for a while
Setback, and it changed his direction. The first company bearing his name pushed him out; he laid cable for two dollars a day.
The AC lecture
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The polyphase system, laid out in one evening. Westinghouse bought the patents within weeks.
The 1890s
The Tesla coil
Milestone. The resonant transformer that became the signature of every demonstration after it.
Hold the royalties, or the company
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: tear up the royalty contract, taken, or hold Westinghouse to the deal. The decision cost him one of the great fortunes and kept the current flowing.
Lit the White City
Milestone, and it changed everything. The fair ran on alternating current, and the current war was effectively over.
The laboratory burned
Setback, and it changed his direction. The Fifth Avenue laboratory and everything in it, uninsured, in one night.
Niagara came online
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The falls sent his polyphase current to Buffalo, and the age of long distance power began.
The 1900s
Began Wardenclyffe
Milestone. A tower on Long Island meant to send messages, and one day power, through the air itself.
Wardenclyffe ran dry
Setback, and it changed his direction. Morgan stopped writing cheques. The tower stood unfinished until it was sold for scrap.
The 1910s
Accepted the Edison Medal
Everyday. The profession's highest honour, named, with a straight face, after the old adversary.
The line ends 7 Jan 1943, in New York. What it set moving has not ended: the grid that lights the world still runs on his current, and every inventor who turns out to be early rather than wrong is keeping his patience.
Your turn
Every story draws a unique line.
His took eighty six years and one park bench vision. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about three minutes.
Sources
- W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, 2013.
- Nikola Tesla, My Inventions, 1919.
- The AIEE lecture record of 16 May 1888.
- The Niagara Falls Power Company record, 1896.
- The Tesla collection, the Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade.