My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

"The progressive development of man is virtually dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain." Nikola Tesla, uncelebrated oracle of the electronic age without whom our telephone, radio, automobile ignition, and television would have been unrealized, was born in Croatia in 1856. He studied physics and mathematics at Graz Poly Tech, then philosophy at the University of Prague. He went on to work as an electrical engineer in Budapest, Hungary, then France, and Germany. During this time he invented the alternating induction motor which allowed the possibility of the universal transmission and distribution of electricity. Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 and worked for Thomas Edison, becoming Edison's rival because Edison only believed in the merchandising of inferior DC electric power. However, Tesla was employed as the dynamo designer for the Edison Machine Works while he obtained more than 100 patents and designed 700 inventions. He made a power transmission which was an economic necessity, yet his inventions did not make him a wealthy man. When he died in 1943 in his room at the Hotel New Yorker, his notable research on wireless communication by fax machines, radar, and radio-guided missiles evidenced the validity of his theories. He said, "I am credited with being one of the hardest workers."