Early Life
"Our first endeavors are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing. But those early impulses, tho[ugh] not immediately productive, are of the greatest moment and may shape our very destinies."-Nikola Tesla, The Electrical Experimenter (1919)
Childhood and Education“At that time I was under the sway of the Serbian national poetry and full of admiration for the feats of the heroes...I used to spend hours in mowing down my enemies in the form of corn- stalks which ruined the crops and netted me several spankings from my mother.”-Nikola Tesla Tesla came from a religious, Serbian family living in Croatia and was greatly influenced by his parents Milutin and Djuka. Though he was born in Smilijan in 1856, his family moved to Gospic. As a child, Tesla played with a cat, Macak, developing his first interest in electricity.
|
|
“It was dusk of the evening and I felt impelled to stroke Macak’s back. Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the place.” What was this? the young boy wondered to his father. “‘Well,’ [his father] finally remarked, ‘this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see on the trees in a storm.’ I was thinking abstractedly. Is nature a giant cat? If so, who strokes its back? It can only be God, I concluded…. Day after day I asked myself what is electricity and found no answer.”-Nikola Tesla
Lighting Work
“The present incandescent system, compared to the Tesla idea is as primitive as an ox cart with two solid wooden wheels compared to modern railroading.”-Arthur Brisbane, New York Work (1894)
Tesla was employed by the Edison Company, and it eventually led him to immigrate to America. He developed patents for many arc light and gaslight improvements, but quit his job due to lack of recognition. After quitting, he started two of his own electric companies.
“I was thrilled to the marrow by meeting Edison, who began my American education right then and there. I wanted to have my shoes shined, something I considered below my dignity. Edison said, ‘You will shine the shoes yourself and like it.’ He impressed me tremendously. I shined my shoes and liked it.”-Nikola Tesla