Reference
- Tesla, Nikola (1856-1943)Serbian-born US physicist and electrical engineer who was one of the great pioneers of the use of alternating-current electricity. In particular, he invented the alternating-current induction motor and the high-frequency coil that bears his name.
Tesla was born at midnight between 9 and 10 July 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary). His father was a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Tesla was very clever as a child and grew up with a liking for writing poetry and experimentation. It was intended that he should follow his father and become a priest, but Tesla developed an interest in scientific pursuits while he was at the Real Gymnasium in Karlovac. On leaving school he studied engineering at the Technical University at Graz, Austria. In 1880 he went to the University of Prague to continue his studies but the death of his father caused him to leave without graduating.
In 1881, Tesla went to Budapest as an engineer for a telephone company and a year later took up a similar position in Paris. He went to the USA in 1884, and worked for Thomas Edison for a year before setting up on his own. From 1888, Tesla was associated with the industrialist George Westinghouse, who bought and successfully exploited Tesla's patents, leading to the introduction of alternating current for power transmission. Tesla became a US citizen in 1889, and after 1892, when his mother died, became increasingly withdrawn and eccentric. In 1912 both he and Edison were proposed for the Nobel Prize for Physics but Tesla refused to be associated with Edison, who had conducted an unscrupulous campaign for the adoption of direct current. In the event, neither received the prize. Tesla neglected to patent many of his discoveries and made little profit from them. He lived his last years as a recluse and died in New York on 7 January 1943...
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Perspectives
Wizard
This vivid, revelatory, exhaustively researched biography rescues Tesla from cult status and restores him to his rightful place as a principle architect of the modern age.
Nikola Tesla
As a scientist, inventor, and engineer, Nikola Tesla was devoted to discovery, registering over 700 patents in his lifetime. Today, he is mostly celebrated as the father of modern electricity, shaping technology that came after. Tesla's fascinating life story is the focus of this accessible volume, which includes beautifully reproduced documents from Tesla's personal archives. Readers will be especially interested in original diagrams and drawings of his ingenious machines, which--along with comprehensible explanations--will familiarize them with the essential curricular concepts of X-ray, radar, and electricity.
Inventor Nikola Tesla
Readers will delight in the high-interest educational topics addressed in this book, which is aligned to the 3rd grade Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts. Age-appropriate language, vivid imagery, and a relatable narrative will grab students' attention, keeping them engaged while also equipping them with the skills they need to become thoughtful readers. This book provides additional learning opportunities through a graphic organizer, glossary, and index. Rosen Common Core Readers can be paired with InfoMax Common Core Readers to provide another perspective to parallel topics. Nikola Tesla was one of the world's greatest inventors, and readers discover the work of this often-overlooked genius in this account of his life. CCSS English Language Arts Standards: RI.3.8., L.3.4c.
Nikola Tesla Lights the World
Readers will delight in the high-interest educational topics addressed in this book, which is aligned to the 3rd grade Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts. Age-appropriate language, vivid imagery, and a relatable narrative will grab students' attention, keeping them engaged while also equipping them with the skills they need to become thoughtful readers. This book provides additional learning opportunities through a graphic organizer, glossary, and index. Readers explore the life and work of Nikola Tesla, one the brightest inventors in history. CCSS English Language Arts Standards: RI.3.2., L.3.5a.
Nikola Tesla: Mad Scientist?
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
Nikola Tesla's alternating current power system paved the way for our modern electric conveniences. Tesla said, "Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more."
Tesla Coil and Wireless Energy
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowAt the beginning of the 20th century Nikola Tesla's accomplishments were celebrated. He died in 1943, virtually destitute and discredited. The FBI amassed a secret file on Tesla and when he died the U.S. government took charge of his scientific papers.
Edison vs Tesla
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla are two of the most famous minds in American History... yet their lives and work are filled with facts you'd never even imagine.
Online Resources
- Encouraging a “Romantic Understanding” of Science: The Effect of the Nikola Tesla StoryThe purpose of this paper is to discuss and apply the notion of romantic understanding by outlining its features and its potential role in science education, to identify its features in the story of Nikola Tesla, and to describe an empirical study conducted to determine the effect of telling such a story to Grade 9 students. Elaborated features of the story are the humanization of meaning, an association with heroes and heroic qualities, the limits of reality and extremes of experience, a sense of wonder, and a contesting of conventions and conventional ideas. The study demonstrates the learning benefits of encouraging a romantic understanding through a story that is structured explicitly around the identified features, in this instance in the context of the production and transmission of alternating current electricity. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of journal entries showed that the group of students who were encouraged to understand the concept of alternating current romantically (the experimental group) became more involved with both the content and the context of the story than a comparison group of students who were taught the concept explicitly, without a context (the control group). The students in the experimental group also performed statistically better on a science-content test taken 1 week and again 8 weeks after the indicated teaching intervention. This finding, along with the content analyses of students’ journals, provided evidence of romantic understanding of the science content for those students who listened to the Tesla story.
- Nikola Tesla discovered ‘very special radiation’ or x-radiationNikola Tesla was an ingenious and briliant scintifist which contributed to the science and technology prosperity of the world. Nikola Tesla discovered high frequency oscillator 1891 year, and afterwards, single electrode X-ray tube without target electrode, electron (“particles charged with electricity”), Bremsstrahlung or “breaking radiation” or “very special radiation” (X-radiation) in 1892 year, biological hazards of X-rays, and more about 700 inventions, and 112 patents. Tesla's research work in the field of X-rays was stopped in 1895 because burned in his laboratory. When W. C. Röntgen 1895, recognition X-rays, Tesla restored his work on this field and sent Röntgen a telegram with congratilations and Röntgen shows obtained with X-ray tubes which operated with high frequency currents. Tesla discovered many secret of nature.
Nikola Tesla
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowNikola Tesla was a Serbian inventor who differed greatly from Edison in manner and style. He believed electricity could be transmitted over farther differences with a different type of current.