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nikola tesla circa 1890, photo by Napoleon Sarony
“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
                                                                                                                      Nikola Tesla         
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian-American engineer, physicist and inventor, who made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology, more than other 300 invention mostly concerning electricity and power, a real child of light, like his mother said about him when giving birth to him.
Nikola Tesla was unsually tall, about 1,90m, and all through his life, he was particular about the way how he looked and dressed, even in his most difficult times.

Toward the end of his life, while living in New York Waldof hotel, he was in debt, but every day when going out for lunch, he was always impeccably dressed, the stuff in the restaurants thought he was one of the most elegant men in New York.
Alternating current:

The Edison Company’s electric generators used direct current in their power plants; Tesla had the idea and came up with the design to use alternating current (AC) which was much more efficient and could transmit electricity long distances.  He ran his own small company for a few years until he signed a contract with George Westinghouse.  At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Westinghouse and Tesla introduced visitors to AC power.  Within a few years, Westinghouse was installing power plants and selling electricity all over the world.  Westinghouse asked Tesla to release Westinghouse from a contract signed earlier that would have made Tesla the world’s first billionaire, and Tesla tore it up.  Meanwhile Thomas Edison stubbornly stuck to his inefficient direct current generators
Free energy:


« Si nous devions saisir et éliminer de notre monde industriel les résultats des travaux de monsieur Tesla, les roues de l’industrie s’arrêteraient, les trains seraient immobilisés, nos villes seraient jetées dans la pénombre et nos usines seraient mortes […] Son nom marque une époque dans l’avancement de la science électrique. De ce travail jaillit une révolution. »


— B.A. Behrend, président de l’American Institute of Electrical Engineers
On women:
In an interview with the Galveston Daily Newson 10 August 1924 he stated, "In place of the soft voiced, gentle woman of my reverent worship, has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man—in dress, voice and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind ... The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me"
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Elon Musk
Books:
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 Des éclairs
A novel about Nicola Tesla by Jean Echenoz

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 My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla


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