Who Was Tesla

Antenna Measurement Techniques Association

POSTER PAPER

October 22-25, 2001

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Who Was The Real Dr. Nikola Tesla?
(A Look At His Professional Credentials)
by W.C. Wysock*, J.F. Corum, J.M. Hardesty** and K.L. Corum

“We think of his contribution much oftener than that of Ampere and Ohm . . . the induction motor and our power system are enduring monuments to Nikola Tesla.” Dr.E.F.W. Alexanderson1 (keywords: electrical history)

Unlike with so many narrowly specialized pioneers in electrical history, the query as to who Nikola Tesla really was has many responses, depending upon the perspective of the questioner. Despite the fact that many of his technical publications are still accessible, that several biographies are available, and that he has had a rather widespreadimpact (not only upon the electrical engineering profession but also society at large) few people today actually have a balanced grasp of who he was and what he did. This is particularly true of his seminal contributions to RF technology. A remarkable number of items have been composed for the general public about Tesla probably as many as any other single scientist in history. (There exist TVspecials, plays, recitals, poetry, and even award winning popular songs about the man.) An annotated Tesla bibliography was published twenty-two years ago that contained over 3,000 references (and the number has grown dramatically since then).
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journals, societies and even “web-rings” have been created as media exclusively devoted to the discussion of his activities. While volumes could (and have)been written about the gentleman, the present authors will view his work from our perspectives as scientists and engineers. Tesla received his formal education at the Polytechnic matriculated Institute with at Graz, in Austria (he degrees mathematics,

mechanical engineering and electrical engineering) and at the University of Prague (where he performed graduate studies in Physics). After aperiod of professional practice at Budapest (where, in 1882, he conceived the idea of a rotating magnetic field to drive electrical machinery), Strasbourg (where he constructed the first polyphase motor), and Paris, he immigrated to the US at age 28 in 1884. With his discovery of the rotating magnetic field and the publication of his celebrated 1888 paper on a new system of AC motors and transformers,his position in the history of electrical science and technology was forever established.3 After showering words of praise upon the inventor before a meeting of the Royal Society in London in 1892, Lord Rayleigh

Several magazines,

* Tesla Technology Research, Inc., 2527 Treelane Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016-4951 (email: Wysock@ttr.com) ** PV Scientific Instruments, Inc., 309 Second St., Ithaca,NY 14850 (email: pvsci@arcsandsparks.com)

Antenna Measurement Techniques Association

POSTER PAPER

October 22-25, 2001

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declared that Tesla possessed a great gift for electrical discovery. By 1896, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Lord Kelvin would say, “Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time.” His fundamental discoveries andcreations span basic science, systems, technology and components. He was one of the earliest scientists to grasp the distinction between lumped and distributed resonance and, after conferring in 1892 with Heinrich Hertz at Bonn, he
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function

without
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Tesla's

first

and

greatest

contributions.”

However, most electrical engineers are unaware that, as late as 1943, on the basisof his “Apparatus” patents, he (not Marconi‡) was recognized by the US Supreme Court as having priority in the invention of “Radio”.9,10,11,12 Even fewer computer scientists are aware that, when certain computer manufacturers attempted to patent digital logic gates after World War II, the US Patent Office asserted Tesla's (turn of the century) priority in the electrical implementation of logic...