Online Custom «Nikola Tesla» Essay Sample

Nikola Tesla was a very gifted person – a brilliant physicist, as well as a great inventor in the field of electrical and radio engineering. His contemporaries did not understand all the verities that he wanted to disclose to the mankind. His far-out and ambitious dreams seemed bizarre to other people. The famous scientist symbolizes a unifying force, as well as the great inspiration for the mankind in the name of science and peace (Vujovic). This paper seeks to analyze the controversial life and legacy of the great scientist.

Nikola’s father wanted a young boy to become a priest. However, Nikola had a different dream - he passionately wanted to become an engineer. His dream caused much controversy in the family. The father’s persistence extremely affected the impressionable boy and he fell ill. Nobody hoped for recovery, but Nicola said that if he received permission for technical education, his willpower would help him to recover. The young scientist actually recovered when the father reluctantly accepted his condition.

Electricity fascinated a young man more and more. Tesla considered it as a boundless world where great discoveries are only coming. He worked eighteen hours per day in order to discover the laws of physics. As a result, the bold idea to convert the work of electric cars to alternating current appeared in his head. Tesla's idea seemed absurd even for the most prominent scientists of his time. Therefore, becoming an engineer, he decided to go to New York to work with Thomas Edison as he believed that this scientist had the similar views to his own. In America, he landed hungry, without baggage, with four cents in his pocket and the recommendation from one of Edison's friends. Edison took the emigrant on a modest position of engineer to repair the electric motors and generators. However, Tesla worked with enthusiasm, knowing no rest. In this respect, he was very similar to Edison. In all other respects, they were completely different scientists and one year later, Tesla left Edison's laboratory. Fortunately, Tesla met wealthy men, who gave him a grant for the organization of his own electric company. He awarded one patent after another and invented more and more useful things. One day, George Westinghouse, the head of the famous firm, appeared in the laboratory. Being an inventor (creator of the famous train brakes), he realized the importance and prospects of Tesla's inventions. Westinghouse offered Tesla a million dollars to start and it was an extremely high reward for the scientist.

Soon Nikola Tesla became a rich man. He settled in the most expensive hotels, was smartly dressed and became a welcomed guest in any aristocratic house. However, it should be noted that the inventor avoided dinner receptions since he respected his freedom very much.

Reflecting on his own skills of self-management, Nikola Tesla assumed that the possibilities of willpower and self-control extremely attracted his vivid imagination. He trained much in order to discipline himself and began such trainings from his early childhood. Tesla remembered that he always shared a delicious cookie or a juicy apple with another boy. Indeed, it was tantalizing, but he felt both pain and satisfaction at the same time. When he had to do some grueling task, he got down to it again and again until it was done properly. Indeed, he practiced day after day, from the morning to the night. At first, this self-training required considerable mental efforts directed against the dreams and desires, but years passed, and this inner contradiction weakened. Finally, his will and desire became equal. Tesla believed that the secret of his success lied in these self-management skills. These experiences were closely connected with his discovery of the rotating magnetic field. Tesla considered them as a substantial part of his inventions. His dream to become a great engineer came true – he predicted the possibility of treatment by high-frequency currents, the appearance of fluorescent lamps and electronic microscopes. What is more, he mentioned the possibility of radiolocation of Venus and Mars. By his nature, Nikola Tesla was a reserved man. He remembered that even in the childhood, he liked books best of all (Tesla 7). Tesla did not let anyone join the world of his feelings, dreams and thoughts. The great inventor remained a lifelong bachelor, entirely devoting himself to creativity. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Nikola Tesla had only a few close friends. They were Mark Twain, Robert Underwood Johnson and Francis Marion Crawford. The researchers investigated that Tesla turned into a living machine that relentlessly made miraculous discoveries for decades.

Nikola Tesla believed that some beings send the signals from space to the people, and soon they will be adopted by mankind. The scientist also insisted on the importance of communication with the other worlds.

To draw the conclusion, one can say that Nikola Tesla is the greatest and the most mysterious scientist of the world history. The fluorescent light and digital clock, the engine that runs on solar energy and radio became the results of his genius. At the end of his life, Tesla worked over the fantastic projects, such as the creation of artificial intelligence, mind reading, the transfer of matter at a distance. Many of his discoveries are not known; it is believed that Tesla has destroyed his numerous records and diaries, considering their inventions as dangerous to mankind. Nikola Tesla lived in two worlds – the material and the spiritual one. Perhaps, he was born at the wrong time as the humanity was not ready for his discoveries. Nikola Tesla was the man of the future since only now the scientists became interested in his inventions.