The Tragic Story of Nikola Tesla - Documentary

[Music] how did one of the most fantastic Geniuses of the modern era an architect for the age of electricity Nikola Tesla died penniless insane and alone in the bed of a New York City hotel room Tesla's inventions would shape the technological Revolution at the turn of the 20th century but Tesla's life was not a story of Triumph Or Glory it would instead be defined by a constant struggle against adversity that he would never truly overcome today we are uncovering the real story behind the tragic life of Nikola Tesla on July 9 1856 a powerful lightning storm erupted over the remote Croatian Village of smilian under a black midnight sky illuminated by flashes of electric light and surrounded by the low rumbles of Thunder a baby was born the Midwife backed away in fear warning that the lightning had signaled a bad Omen she declared this child will be a child of Darkness to which the mother replied no he will be a Child of Light this is not a fairy tale this is only the opening chapter to the dramatic story of Nikola Tesla a mystical figure and eccentric inventor who would go on to harness the power of lightning and illuminate the world with electrical energy here in the 21st century we still rely on the Innovations of Nikola Tesla to power our daily lives the electricity that flows from the wall sockets in your house is there thanks to Tesla's work with alternating current or AC power the first electrical grid ever established in North America was built on an entirely different system called direct current or DC power this was a technology championed by none other than the legendary Thomas Edison the inventor of the electric light bulb and like a hundred other incredibly useful things Edison's DC current was revolutionary and it replaced people's gas-fired lanterns with the soft glow of incandescent bulbs but this direct one-way stream of electric current was fundamentally flawed by its inability to be converted to higher or lower voltages the low voltage current that was needed to power Edison's household electric lights was only able to transmit over relatively short distances and that required a high frequency of generating stations to be built in the middle of urban neighborhoods the AC current champion by Nikola Tesla had the advantage of being converted from high voltage to low voltage through a Transformer this allowed the long-distance transmission of electricity through high voltage networks which would then be converted at smaller substations to a lower voltage distribution network for home use we can see this at work in our modern electrical grid wooden poles that line the streets carry the lower voltage distribution system while those giant metal structures carry the high voltage transmission lines that connect cities and towns with distant generating stations Chief among Tesla's inventions was the AC induction motor he was the first person to convert alternating current electricity into mechanical work by using a rotating magnetic field to spin the drive axle on an electric motor Tesla's work with AC generators led him to create the giant turbines that harness the power of Niagara Falls and Supply clean hydroelectric energy to millions of people this technology is still widely used to this day you'll find Tesla's motor in your washing machine ceiling fan and hair dryer among countless other tools and appliances when Elon Musk released his first electric vehicle in 2008 he borrowed the great inventor's name for the title of his company but Elon also put Tesla's AC induction motor at the heart of every Model S and model X vehicle growing up was not an easy time for Nikola Tesla he showed signs of his intellectual gift even as a young boy he could solve complex math problems in his mind so effectively that his teachers assumed he must be cheating Tesla quickly developed eidetic memory which basically means he could remember everything that he was ever shown or taught in Vivid detail the young Nikola also benefited from a powerful imagination that brought luminous imagery to his Mind's Eye Tesla's fascination with electricity began early in his childhood when he struck Sparks of static electricity on the fur of his pet cat Nicola was desperate to understand how the light and sound was created however tragedy would strike early for the Tesla family in 1863 at the age of seven Nicola witnessed the violent death of his older brother in a horseback riding accident accounts seem to indicate that this trauma probably caused an imbalance in the powerful but developing mind of Nicolette Tesla his vivid imagination would turn hallucinatory and uncontrollable with the boy sometimes struggling to distinguish imagination from reality even more troubling as he Grew Older Tesla quickly developed an unusual string of phobias and fixations he hated when women wore pearls and was repulsed by hair Tesla obsessively counted his steps throughout the day and measured the volume of every food that he ate against the odds the young Tesla learned to harness the erratic power of his mind and apply his vibrant imagination to creating new ideas and inventions even much later in life Tesla would hardly ever make drawings or diagrams for his inventions he was able to engineer test and assemble a complex machine all within his own mind in spite of his natural aptitude for mathematics physics and electrical engineering Nicholas father pushed his son towards studying religious theology with the expectation that he would continue the Emily Legacy of priesthood and service to the church the turning point for young Nikola Tesla comes at the age of 17. Upon returning home from Seminary School Tesla contracts a serious case of Cholera and is bedridden at his parents home for nine months fearing the brink of death his father desperately promises that if he can recover from the illness then Nicola will be allowed to study engineering at University obviously Tesla would survive his brush with death and his father would honor their deal to send the teenage Nicola away to the finest technical school in Austria but there was still one more obstacle to clear as a young man of the austro-hungarian Empire Tesla was compelled to spend three years in the military service given his weakened physical health Nicola's father didn't believe that his son would survive a term in the Army so Nicola was sent a way to avoid conscription he escaped to the rugged mountains of central Croatia Tesla brought only a hunter's pack and a bundle of books including his favorite author Mark Twain Tesla's own account would say that this connection with nature made him stronger in body and in mind by 1875 Nikola Tesla had finally made it to the Austrian Polytechnic school to study Engineering in his first year Tesla never missed a class made the highest grades possible and was known to study from 3 AM to 7pm every day the School faculty even expressed concerns to Tesla's father that the young man would work himself to death in addition to his near constant studying Tesla also found the time to begin his first experiments with alternating current electricity he began to conflict with his professors who did not believe in Tesla's theories of improving the DC motor by inducing a rotating magnetic field by the end of his second year Tesla had lost interest in school completely his grades are declined and he now filled his time with gambling instead of study by the third year Tesla had lost his scholarship money failed his exams and dropped out of University Tesla left Austria in defeat and wound up in mirabor Slovenia where he spent most of his time indulging his vice at a pub called the happy peasant playing rounds of cards and chess for money this went on for a year until Tesla was rounded up by police and deported from Slovenia back to Croatia where he ended up back with his family shortly after Nicholas return his father came down with an unknown illness and died unexpectedly at the age of 60. in a last-ditch effort to save Nicholas Potential from being wasted his uncles provide him the money to leave Croatia once and for all he travels to Prague and arrives at Carl Ferdinand University Tesla does not have the qualifications to enroll at the University but he sits in on lectures and spends his time in the city's libraries and cafes absorbing as much knowledge as his overactive mind can take in 1881 Tesla began his early career as the chief electrician at The Budapest telephone exchange in Hungary it's here that Tesla begins to innovate creating numerous improvements to existing Telecom equipment and even developing his own signal amplifier device even with a successful career in progress Tesla cannot shake his obsession with alternating current he dedicates the entirety of his non-working hours to developing the induction motor the task consumes him to the point where Tesla would suffer a complete mental breakdown in 1882 that would again bring him near death again Tesla would recover and find his strength in nature on a walk through the city park of Budapest with his close friend Anthony sagitti Tesla would suddenly have the design of his induction motor come to him in a vision seeing the machine flash into existence before his eyes Tesla grabbed a stick and drew a diagram of the motor into the sand to show His companion what he had just created the next year Tesla and segeti would move on to Paris and take jobs with the recently formed Continental Edison Company Tesla was put to work installing electric Lighting systems in the Paris Opera House Tesla continued his Relentless Innovation and quickly submitted his own plan for improving Edison's mechanical designs which is approved by the company in 1884 Nikola Tesla arrived in America to finally meet Thomas Edison and further his work in the field of electrical energy Tesla was personally referred to by one of Edison's closest friends Charles Batchelor who wrote in Nicola's reference letter I know two great men one is you Thomas Edison and the other is this young man in typical fashion Tesla's journey to America was yet another struggle on board the ship he was robbed of his money and most of his possessions then in the middle of the Atlantic a violent Mutiny broke Out Among the crew and Tesla was nearly thrown overboard he arrived in New York City with the clothes on his back four cents in his pocket and a few books of poetry still Nicola was undeterred he wasted no time and went directly to see Edison the day he arrived in America Thomas Edison saw the potential in Tesla and hired him on the spot although he immediately dismissed any of Tesla's theories on alternating current Tesla immediately went to work fixing broken DC motors and generators he redesigns 24 different types of machines that becomes standard and replace the originals created by Thomas Edison himself even while working for Edison's dc-powered Electrical Company Tesla continued to Champion alternating current and in 1885 he was given the opportunity to start his own operation the Tesla electric light company was funded by investors who hoped Tesla would develop an improved system for electric Arc Street lamps powered by high voltage AC current in the nearby state of New Jersey Tesla invented a unique and beautiful new Street Lamp with automatic adjustment for maximum efficiency the engineering and design was a resounding success however in the first of what would become many examples Tesla was proven to be a much better scientist than he was a businessman when Nikola pushed for more money to develop the new AC motor and electrical transmission equipment the investors turned on Tesla they pulled their funding and took the patents for the arc lamps with them leaving Tesla with nothing but worthless stock certificates to show for his work having resigned from the Edison Company Tesla was back to another low point in his life the smartest man in New York spent the winter of 1886 and 87 digging ditches for two dollars a day in the spring of 1887 Nikola Tesla would finally catch a break after demonstrating his AC induction motor to a pair of wealthy Venture capitalists the Tesla electric company was funded and Tesla was given his own laboratory at the corner of Liberty and Broadway in New York City it was here that Tesla created his first Masterwork a paper titled a new system of alternate current Motors and Transformers Tesla's plan laid out everything that would become the modern day electrical grid and he was given the opportunity to present and his work to the American Institute of electrical engineers at Columbia University following this Tesla is able to sell patents for his AC system to George Westinghouse for twenty five thousand dollars in cash 50 000 in stock and a royalty of two dollars and fifty cents per horsepower for every electric motor produced Westinghouse is impressed by Tesla's Innovation and he is the first to truly believe that alternating current will power America Tesla spends a year in Pittsburgh at the Westinghouse electric company headquarters where he finalizes the design for the alternating current Motors Transformers and generators as Westinghouse spreads AC power across the Eastern Seaboard Thomas Edison refuses to let his direct current systems go down without a fight this era would come to be known as The War of the currents there's nothing fundamentally wrong with DC power and it does still have many important applications in the modern world batteries produce direct current power and most small electronic devices require AC power to be converted into DC power think of anything you plug in that has a plastic brick or a box on the power cable that is converting AC back to DC the thing DC does not work for is generating and transmitting electricity under Edison's system there had to be one Coal Fire Generating Station for every two miles of electrical cable and the low voltage energy delivered to households was only enough to power Edison's light bulb and not much more still in spite of the obvious flaws Edison defended his position and attempted to sway public opinion away from AC power by pointing out the dangers of high voltage transmission which is a fair point safety standards were not very high in the late 1800s and people did often get fried by errant power lines but that high voltage transmission enabled AC power to flow for miles in all directions and power everything from street cars to bedroom lamps there are some conflicting reports about Edison conducting a bunch of screwed up experiments where he would electrocute animals with high voltage AC current to prove the danger it's also possible that Edison championed the introduction of the electric chair as a new form of capital punishment and recommended Westinghouse AC generators be used to deliver the Fatal shock just to drive home the killer potential of AC in all of this madness the Edison Manufacturing Company released a documentary film entitled electrocuting an elephant where they yeah they actually did that the high water mark for Nikola Tesla's career would come in the 1890s throughout this decade he would rack up Milestone achievements and discoveries but it would come at a cost Tesla used his Westinghouse payout to establish a gigantic new laboratory in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City occupying an entire floor of a six-story building it was here that Tesla would make some of his greatest accomplishments among them was the fluorescent light bulb and neon light tubes by using high frequency AC current Tesla could energize certain gases and bring them to a state of incandescence two more of his inventions that are still used widely in the present day by 1891 Tesla was beginning to experiment with wireless electric Lightning by broadcasting extremely high frequency and high voltage AC current through the air Tesla could illuminate tubes of phosphorescent gas so imagine you have a fluorescent light bulb just sitting on a desk you flick a switch across the room and the bulb lights out up all on its own in order to make this possible the inventor developed his namesake Tesla coil we best know these today as Lightning machines you've probably seen one at a science museum and they've become pretty popular at events like Coachella and burning man shooting lightning bolts is definitely a cool feature of the Tesla coil but that's not really what they were designed for a Tesla coil is an electrical resonant Transformer what it does is generate high voltage high frequency AC electricity and it broadcasts it out through low frequency long wavelength radio so in a very similar way that we transmit sound through radio waves Tesla was transmitting electricity if this idea had panned out then our lives would be radically different today instead of power lines feeding electricity into your house the neighborhood would just have a gigantic Tesla coil broadcasting out electricity you would never need to plug things in or even have wires in your house the electricity would be in the air sounds cool but also kind of terrifying it's not a surprise that this idea didn't catch on Tesla did his best to sell the wonders of his wireless electricity the inventor is best known today for the images of him holding giant bulbs in his hand seemingly lit by Magic and the famous photograph of Tesla just casually chilling and reading a book in a room full of lightning this era of Nikola Tesla as the master showman is how he is most widely remembered today and was famously portrayed by David Bowie in Christopher Nolan's 2006 film The Prestige Tesla spent the early 1890s touring the world to give lectures on the potential of alternating current and wireless electricity this culminated with the Colombian Exposition at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 where Tesla and the Westinghouse company built an AC power system that generated enough electricity to power the entire city of Chicago go three times over the fairground was so brightly illuminated by Tesla's AC electricity and fluorescent lighting that it became a spectacle unlike anything the world had seen before this accomplishment secured the victory for AC power in the war of the currents by October of that year Westinghouse was awarded the contract to build a hydroelectric Generating Station that will harness the power of Niagara Falls using Tesla's alternating current generators as if that wasn't enough around this same time Nikola Tesla was accelerating his early work with radio signals he found that if two of his Tesla coils were tuned to resonate at the same frequency then they could transmit and receive powerful radio signals using this method Tesla was able to transmit a radio signal over 50 miles from New York City to West Point Tesla would also be the first to demonstrate radio control on a mechanical vehicle at the electrical exhibition of 1898 Tesla demonstrated a four foot long battery-powered steel motorboat that he could control wirelessly through radio waves Tesla's remote controlled boat was so revolutionary that his fellow scientists literally had to see it to even believe such a thing was possible Tesla is not credited with the invention of the X-ray process but he would create the first ever x-ray photograph of a human body using his own homemade x-ray tubes of course this is the life of Nikola Tesla we are talking about so we know there would never be Triumph without hardship in the early 1890s even as alternating current was gaining momentum and pushing towards a complete takeover of the electrical grid the Westinghouse company was experiencing financial trouble George Westinghouse went to Nikola Tesla and basically said we can't afford to pay your royalties and continue to develop the technology at the same time Tesla responded immediately by tearing up his Westinghouse contract and forfeiting 100 of his induction motor royalties a Savvy businessman probably would have worked out a more nuanced deal here maybe reduced royalties or even suspended payments until Westinghouse can get back on their feet but remember that this guy was supposed to earn 2.50 for every one horsepower produced under his patent he would have been set for life but Tesla gave it all up every single penny because he thought that the success of West house and alternating current was more important than his personal wealth unfortunately Karma did not reward Tesla's selflessness in 1895 his New York City laboratory burned and took most of his early work along with it despite this Tesla would go on to patent his radio wave inventions in 1897. at the same time a young Guillermo Marconi was working on solving Wireless telegraphy in England Marconi had his own Wireless transmission system but it could only work over long distances when being Amplified by a Tesla Oscillator this is how Marconi made his first broadcast across the English Channel Marconi was an Italian nobleman and had wide support from the British Royals and Wealthy Americans including Thomas Edison the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company had massive success on the New York Stock Exchange moving from three dollars per share to 22 dollars in just one year by December 1901 Marconi made the first radio broadcast across the Atlantic Ocean Nikola Tesla was unbothered by Marconi's success knowing that the young inventor was using 17 of Tesla's own patents to enable his long-range Transmissions but Tesla's calm confidence was shattered in 1904 4 when the U.S patent office suddenly and surprisingly made the decision to Grant gulielma Marconi with a patent for the invention of radio it has never been fully explained why Tesla's existing claims on the technology were ignored the simple answer would probably be that Marconi was surrounded by wealth and royalty while Tesla chose to reject such things Marconi would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1911 for the invention of radio Tesla was Furious he finally sued the Marconi company for copyright infringement in 1915 but had no money to back up his case it was not until 1943 after both Tesla and Marconi were dead that the U.S Supreme Court would uphold Tesla's initial radio patent and they only did that so the U.S military could weasel out of paying royalties to the Marconi company for the use of radio technology the middle period of Tesla's career would be dominated by his folly pursuit of terrestrial stationary waves this is where things really started to fall apart his theory was that the Earth itself had a massive potential for conducting electricity and that by using a giant version of the Tesla coil called a magnifying transmitter he would harness electromagnetic waves within the surface of the Earth to transmit unlimited amounts of electric current to a receiver on the other side of the globe Tesla's first small-scale demonstration of this technology was at a facility he constructed in Colorado Springs Tesla built a coil that was 52 feet in diameter and nine feet high it was connected to a giant 142 foot rod with a metal ball on top the goal was to produce electrical discharges that were on the scale of natural lightning and it was successful Tesla harnessed millions of volts of electricity through his his creation generating contained storms of lightning and thunder that electrified the ground people nearby could strike Sparks on their shoes just by walking Tesla's claim was that the giant coil was able to transmit electricity over 26 miles away to wirelessly light a collection of incandescent bulbs now there's no known evidence that this ever happened and even if it did the experiment would demonstrate the inefficiency of ground transmission four million volts at the source only to light up a few bulbs in the next town over it's hardly an example of Unlimited wireless energy still Tesla was able to secure a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in funding from Mr JP Morgan in 1901 Tesla used this money to construct his final great invention the warden Cliff tower on Long Island in his mind this gargantuan Ultra high-powered Tesla coil would transmit electricity messages sound and even facsimile image changes across the ocean using the Earth as a conductor in concept Tesla had imagined Wireless telephones fax machines and essentially a Victorian time internet in reality Warden Cliff never did much of anything really Tesla blew all of the money on construction and when he went back to Morgan for additional funding he was refused JP Morgan saw more profit investing his money in Marconi's radio still Tesla continued to write Morgan letter after letter promising more and more grandiose possibilities like unlimited free wireless energy and Communications across the entire world when JP eventually died in 1913 Tesla took up writing to his sons in a tireless desperate effort for more money Tesla sold off his possessions and took out loans in an effort to complete Warden Cliff but he again comes up empty-handed Tesla loses everything and is forced to abandon his project entirely by 1906 6. there's no evidence that the giant Tower was ever fully operational or that Tesla accomplished anything at all in his research there the only known sign of activity came One Night in 1903 when Nikola Tesla flew into a rage over yet another letter of rejection from JP Morgan Tesla cranked the generators to maximum and Warden Cliff erupted with gigantic bolts of lightning that flashed over the New York skyline a decade later the tower was demolished and sold for scrap all of the money went to Tesla's creditors the later period of Tesla's career was marked by a significant decline in his abilities and influence after 1916 Tesla was liquidated and bankrupt he'll continue to make some small Innovations to measuring devices like speedometers and frequency meters and that will net him enough income to avoid homelessness although Tesla never settles into a home of his own anyways he bounces between New York City hotels often leaving without paying his full Bill Tesla remains poor through the 1920s retreating from the professional world and public eye spends the majority of his time feeding pigeons in Bryant Park so much that the city would formally name a section Nikola Tesla Corner which is essentially the most clear illustration of the tragedy of Nikola Tesla there are locations all around New York City where Tesla accomplished amazing revolutionary things he had multiple Laboratories across Lower Manhattan and yet his name is found over the corner of Park where he slowly went mad feeding the pigeons Tesla's relationship with the pigeons has a few levels of Mythology some say he talked to them which is fairly normal for a lonely old man others say he believed the pigeons were talking back to him still others allege that Tesla was in love with a female pigeon and believed that they shared a romantic relationship the fact that Nikola Tesla suffered from mental illness is not hard to see he wasn't some prophetic Wizard and he wasn't a lunatic either Tesla was an incredibly smart yet naive man whose extraordinary brain proved to be as much of a curse as it was a blessing going back to those stories of Tesla's childhood the hallucinatory Visions the neurotic fixations they're pretty clear markers of what likely became obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia as the man aged of course it was the 1920s so this was never properly diagnosed or treated Nikola Tesla's Swanson came on his 75th birthday in 1931 Tesla's face appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and he received birthday congratulations from the most esteemed scientists of the world including Albert ponstein in the final years of his life Nikola Tesla would hold a yearly press conference on his birthday where he would emerge from his hotel room to inform a collection of reporters about his latest inventions and discoveries none of these announcements were legitimate but Tesla seemed to find joy in sharing his thoughts and the Press kept returning every year to listen Tesla's claims range from a motor propelled by cosmic rays and interplanetary Communications to the discovery of a brand new never-before-known source of energy Tesla promised that he would disprove Einstein's theory of relativity and claimed that splitting the atom would not release energy because Tesla had already split the atom using 15 million volts of electricity and nothing happened most famously of these announcements Tesla revealed that he had invented a particle beam weapon or death ray a device so horrifically powerful that it would end War completely because no one would be able to defend against it the US military took this seriously enough to confiscate all of Tesla's property and estate after he died but given that we clearly saw the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese in 1944 and not a laser death ray that should be taken as proof that Einstein was in fact correct and Tesla was not Tesla also reported that he would wiggle his toes hundreds of times every night before bed and believed this action would tone his body and increase his lifespan to 135 years he may have been onto something with that one he didn't make it to 135 but Nikola Tesla lived a long life for his time finally passing away in 1943 at the age of 86. he was alone in the bed of his hotel room Nikola Tesla was a man far ahead of his own time he had the unique Vision that could find solutions to problems that were thought unsolvable and we owe a lot of our Modern Life to the innovations that Tesla provided at the same time though the 20th century world that Tesla helped create would go on to eat him alive Tesla was too naive for capitalism not Cutthroat enough for competition his mind was a Battleground that even Nikola Tesla could never truly command we hope you enjoyed our first attempt at a longer form documentary style video here on the channel if you did and would like to see more please let us know by liking the video and supporting us on patreon so we can create more content like this in the future

Channel: The Tesla Space

Views: 203,907

Keywords: nikola tesla documentary, nikola tesla explained, nikola tesla vs thomas edison, nikola tesla biography, nikola tesla, tesla, documentary, tech documentary, full documentary, history, nikola tesla film, nikola tesla movie, ac current explained, ac current, ac current flow, alternating current, alternating current explained, thomas edison, edison vs tesla, edison vs tesla documentary

Id: KJhmHMQrXHI

Length: 31min 47sec (1907 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023