Tesla: The Life and Times of a Electric Messiah

Despite being incredibly popular during his time, Nikola Tesla today remains largely overlooked among the greatest inventors and scientists of the modern era. Thomas Edison gets all the glory for discovering the lightbulb, but it was his one-time assistant and life-long arch-nemesis, Tesla, who made the breakthrough in alternating-current technology. Edison and Tesla carried on a bitter feud for years, but it was Tesla’s AC generators that illuminated the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago the first time that an event of such magnitude had ever taken place under artificial light. Today, all homes and electrical appliances run on Tesla’s AC current.

Born in Croatia in 1856, Tesla spoke eight languages and almost single-handedly developed household electricity. During his life he patented more than 700 inventions. He invented electrical generators, FM radio,remote control robots, spark plugs and fluorescent lights. He had a photographic memory and did advanced calculus and physics equations in his head.

Although he was never awarded a Nobel Prize, three Nobel laureates lauded him as one of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times.