Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century

by Sean Patrick

indoctrinated to believe that the higher the IQ, the more likely one is to succeed in life.

the relation between IQ and success follows the law of diminishing returns.

A scientist with an IQ of 130 is just as likely to rise to the top of his discipline as one with an IQ of 180.

you. There comes a point, however, when height just doesn’t matter much anymore. Just because someone is seven feet tall doesn’t mean he’s a better player than someone who’s six foot six (Michael Jordan’s height).

life. You only have to be smart enough to fulfill the intellectual requirements for success.

While some people display innate talents for certain activities early on, amazingly average people have become champions in all manner of endeavors.

history. Henry Ford failed in business several times and was flat broke five times before he founded the Ford Motor Company.

Beethoven was so awkward on the violin that his teachers believed him hopeless as a composer.

While many theories were put forth, there was one common factor that researchers recognized in all great performers: they practiced so hard and intensely that it hurt.

Studies of people with extraordinary abilities, like Ted Williams, have given rise to what Swedish psychologist Dr. K Anders Ericsson called the “10,000 hour” rule. The rule’s premise is that, regardless of whether one has an innate aptitude for an activity or not, mastery of it takes around ten thousand hours of focused, intentional practice.

First, that the seed of greatness exists in every human being.

opportunities—conditions that often appear to be plain old dumb luck.

An extra year of play against players younger than you is a huge advantage.

“accumulative advantage.”

Whether we’re talking birthdays in sports, or the fact that Bill Gates just happened to go to a high school that housed one of the most advanced computers of the time—a computer that most colleges didn’t even have—we can easily see that being in the right place (physical, educational, societal, or otherwise) at the right time can influence our destinies as much as anything else.

Opportunities are whispers, not foghorns.

Well, as the preeminent mythologist Joseph Campbell said, deep down inside, we don’t seek the meaning of life, but the experience of being alive. And that’s what the nature of genius is ultimately about.

“Facts and ideas are dead in themselves and it is the imagination that gives life to them.” -W. I. B. Beveridge

a chemical called carbolic acid reduced the incidence of disease among the people and cattle of a nearby small English town.

He continues to work along this line and establishes antisepsis as a basic principle of surgery.

The year was 1882. Only two years earlier, Edison had patented a system for electricity distribution using direct current generators, which produced a flow of electricity in one direction.

In fact, seven years earlier, his professor at a college in Austria ridiculed him for suggesting that direct current generators could be modified to produce an efficient alternating current.

current dynamos.

One by one, wealthy businessmen that couldn’t understand the device and didn’t see the commercial value in it rejected him.

here. In every field of human endeavor, the more visionary the work, the less likely it is to be quickly understood and embraced by lesser minds.

“I know two

great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.”

calculations for a flying machine he dreamed of building one day,

So, when Tesla explained that alternating current would be the future of electricity, Edison dismissed it as fanciful and unnecessary.

profitable. Edison was thoroughly impressed, but when Tesla asked to be paid, Edison laughed and claimed he was only joking about the reward.

This was the beginning of a lifelong feud between these two great inventors—one that Edison would later lament as his “greatest mistake.”

Tesla Electric Company,

“The motors I built there,” Tesla later said, “were exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as expected.”

In November 1887, Tesla filed for seven U.S. Patents for his inventions, which were so original that they were issued without challenge. These patents comprised a complete system of generators, transformers, transmission lines, motors, and lighting. They would become the most valuable patents since the telephone.

George Westinghouse,

His studies led him to discover what we now know as X-rays, and how to use them to produce radiographs.

X-rays were the first of several groundbreaking discoveries of Tesla’s that would wind up misattributed to others.

Leaflets about the dangers of alternating current were distributed.

Disgusted by Edison’s shameless cruelty and dishonesty, Tesla began performing regular exhibitions of his technology in his laboratory in which he lighted lamps by allowing alternating current electricity to flow through his body.

dishonesty. Imagine the pressure Tesla faced: both the world’s most powerful financier—one of the last enemies you’d want—and the world’s greatest inventor were trying to draw a bead on him and pull the trigger.

electricity. Two decades earlier, James Clerk Maxwell had proven mathematically that light was electromagnetic radiation—electricity that was vibrating at an extremely high frequency.

“Tesla coil.”

In 1891, in his New York City lab, Tesla proved that energy could be transmitted through the air by wirelessly lighting lamps. This discovery fascinated Tesla, sparking his lifelong obsession with wireless energy. He immediately envisioned a network of transmission stations that would provide free, wireless energy to not only the United States, but the world.

He had accidentally built the first radio transmitter and made the first transmissions, methods he would patent within two years.

“War of the Currents”

Tesla even had the idea to bend the glass tubes and thus spell the names of famous scientists. Thus, the world’s first neon signs.

Tesla was praised worldwide as a hero, and was referred to as the “Wizard of the West.”

hallmarks. He spread rumors to Wall Street that Westinghouse’s company was financially unstable, which dissuaded investors from giving Westinghouse the capital that he needed to expand the production and installation of his alternating current generators. Morgan then began an attack through stock manipulation, and moved to gain control of The Westinghouse Corporation, and thus Tesla’s patents.

Here is your contract, and here is my contract. I will tear them both to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties.”

In time, these royalties would’ve made Tesla the world’s first billionaire.