"On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena" lecture is given before the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia.
"On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena" lecture is given before the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis, Missouri.
n 1892 George Westinghouse won the contract to power the Columbian Exposition. The Westinghouse company, with Tesla's guidance, built a power system for the exposition that produced three times more energy than was being utilized by the entire remainder of Chicago.
Tesla had a large display including phosphorescent lighting (a precursor to fluorescent lamps) powered without wires by high-frequency fields and the Egg of Columbus. The success of the Tesla Polyphase System installed at the exposition ensured Westinghouse would be selected to harness Niagara.
"Mechanical and Electrical Oscillators" lecture is given before the members of the International Electrical Congress at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Westinghouse is awarded the initial Niagara Falls contract signifying the end of "The War of the Currents."
"Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency" lecture is given before the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the following day before The Royal Institution of Great Brittain, both in London, England.
"Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency" lecture is given before the Societe Francaise de Physique in Paris, France. A second lecture was planned for Paris but was cancelled when Tesla received a telegram from his Uncle Petar notifying him of his mother's failing health.
Tesla rushed to his mother's side as she lay dying, arriving from Paris hours before her death. Her last words to him were: "You've arrived, Nidžo, my pride." Tesla's mother died on the Easter Sunday at one o'clock in the morning and was buried later that day beside her husband at the Jasikovac cemetery in Divoselo, Croatia. After her death, Tesla fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating in Gospić and the village of Tomingaj near Gračac, a village in the southern part of Lika, Croatia, his
mother's birthplace.
While in Europe, Tesla visits the Croatian capital Zagreb where he gave a lecture about alternating current and the construction of a hydroelectric generating station at Plitvice Lakes. On the occasion Tesla said, "As a son of my homeland I feel it is my duty to help the city of Zagreb in every respect with my advice and work." A commemorative monument of Tesla echoes these words.
Tesla arrived in Belgrade due to the call from Belgrade municipality. Several thousand people greeted him at the Belgrade train station. He addressed the gathered crowd, who saluted him: "There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exiting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb. Long live Serbdom!..." Tesla met the young Serbian King, Alexander Obrenović, the following day. The king awarded Tesla with the Medal of St. Sava for extraordinary contribution to science the following year.
After three years in the Astor House, Tesla moved to the Hotel Gerlach, which was a much more modern hotel equipped with elevators, electric lights and sumptuous dining rooms. The hotel was fireproof and was located just a few blocks from the newly finished Madison Square Garden.
Tesla was elected vice president of the AIEE for two consecutive years.
With high frequencies, Tesla developed some of the first neon and fluorescent illumination. He also took the first x-ray photographs. But these discoveries paled in comparison to his illuminating a vacuum tube wirelessly - having transmitted energy through the air. This was the beginning of Tesla's lifelong obsession - the wireless transmission of energy.
As part of an Edison-sponsored smear campaign against Westinghouse, H.P. Brown, an Edison ally and manufacturer of electric chairs, began electrocuting animals with A.C. The process was termed "Westinghoused" and was used to demonstrate the dangers of the new technology. That same year, the state of New York convicted William Kemmler of killing his mistress with an axe and sentenced him to die in the electric chair. Edison provided his staff to assist Brown in an effort to further damage Westinghouse's public image. The execution was a total disaster and Westinghouse suffered a great blow.
After failing to adapt to the higher frequency Westinghouse engineers required, work on the Tesla induction is abandoned. Tesla and Westinghouse renegotiate and Tesla agrees to remove the royalties clause from their contract. This was a fateful decision and a sacrifice that would haunt Tesla for the rest of his life.
There are no documented reasons for Tesla's relocation of his laboratory from Grand St. to 33-35 South 5th Ave. (now called West Broadway). Perhaps it was a more convenient location or provided more space, as the new laboratory took up the entire fourth floor of the six-story building. What is clear is that some of Tesla's greatest accomplishments occurred in this lab before it was destroyed by fire in 1895.
"Experiments with Alternate Currents of Very High Frequency and Their Application to Methods of Artificial Illumination" lecture is given before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now the IEEE) at Columbia University in New York.
L.L. Nunn, a Colorado lawyer and manager of the Gold King Mine, signed a contract with Westinghouse to install the Tesla A.C. power system. The plan was to harness a river below the mine and replace the costly coal powered steam generators. This facility became known as the Ames Power Plant and was the first power station in the world to transmit alternating current at high voltage for power purposes, for a long distance.
Tesla becomes an American citizen. He often told friends that he valued this citizenship more than any scientific honors he'd received.
August 26th, 1891: Did Tesla Discover Electrons?
One could argue that Nikola Tesla was the first to discover the electron. This is evidenced by his article "Reply to J.J. Thomson's note," published on this date in "Electrical Engineer, New York." In this article, Tesla claims that his experiments prove the existence of charged particles ("small charged balls"), while J.J. Thomson
denied this. It was only five years later that Thomson proved the existence of electrons using another experiment.
Maybe not the most successful of Tesla's invention, but certainly the invention he is most famous for. The Tesla coil was originally developed to power Tesla's new wireless lighting systems, but later became the basis of the ill-fated World-Wide Wireless System, otherwise known as Wardenclyffe.
Upon returning to New York, Tesla located a new laboratory at 175 Grand St. There is little information known about this laboratory, but here Tesla would begin work with high frequency apparatus, wireless transmission and theories on the relationship between electromagnetic radiation and light.
1889: Tesla Moves To Astor House
Tesla toured several hotels after his return to New York and chose the Astor House for his new abode. It was a posh, five-story establishment situated by a trolley line in the heart of the city.
Tesla visited Paris for the Universal Exposition and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower. While he was there he met Professor Wilhelm Bjerknes, a Norwegian physicist from the University of Stockholm. Bjerknes had replicated the work of Henrich Hertz and allowed Tesla to study his oscillator. Tesla also visited his homeland, including Smiljan, Raduc, Tomingaj and Plitivice Lakes before returning to New York.