My Inventions, Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

A brilliant scientist and visionary, Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the village of Smiljan (modern-day Croatia). He was gifted with an eidetic memory and displayed remarkable creativity since his schooling days. Throughout his life, he made groundbreaking discoveries. His inventions are extraordinary, such as the system of power generation and transmission through alternating current—it powers much of the world today. Tesla’s lifelong obsession with a wireless transmission of energy began when he showed such a transmission to the world through a teleautomatic boat guided by a remote control. He even made the discovery of terrestrial waves which proved that the earth could be used as a conductor and made to resonate at a certain frequency. He, allegedly, had also worked on a death-ray and claimed to receive signals from another planet. Tesla talked of tapping the sun’s energy by using an antennae, he talked of controlling the weather with electrical energy, he envisaged a global system of wireless communication—to the people of his time, this was nothing more than science fiction, but this did not dampen his spirit. His visions have been realised, and there exists little technology in our modern world that has not been influenced in some way by his discoveries and inventions.