Sleepy History - Nikola Tesla

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

Nikola Tesla—a brilliant mind whose visions of the future transformed the world. From harnessing the power of alternating current to dreaming of wireless energy, Tesla’s innovations shaped modern technology and inspired generations. But who was the man behind the genius, and what drove his relentless curiosity? Tonight, explore the life, inventions, and enduring legacy of Nikola Tesla, as his extraordinary story gently guides you into a peaceful and imaginative sleep.Narrated by: Arif HodzicWritten by: Laila WeirAbout Sleepy History Delve into history's most intriguing stories, people, places, events, and mysteries, delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere. If you struggle to fall asleep and you have a curious mind, Sleepy History is the perfect bedtime companion. Our stories will gently grasp your attention, pulling your mind away from any racing thoughts, making room for the soothing music and calming narration to guide you into a peaceful sleep. Want to enjoy Sleepy History ad-free? Start your 7-day free trial of Sleepy History Premium: https://sleepyhistory.supercast.com/Have feedback or an episode request? Let us know at: slumberstudios.com/contactSleepy History is a production of Slumber Studios. To learn more, visit www.slumberstudios.com.

This is Sleepy History. Sleepy History is a production of Slimber Studios. To listen ad-free, get access to bonus episodes, and support the ongoing production of this show, check out our premium feed. Okay, well you know at Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149 and oh you'll like this. One can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store? Mmm, not far. Come on. Let's hurry then! To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one This is the sleepy history of Nikola Tesla, narrated by Arif Hantzek, written by Leila Weir.

Nikola Tesla. Today, he is a household name. He is known for his creativity and ingenious inventions. For many years, though, the man himself was nearly forgotten, all but erased from history, in part by the efforts of jealous or greedy rivals. During his life, Tesla tasted fabulous success, as well as dizzying loss. But who truly was this eccentric genius who was plagued by setbacks and mental illness, but whose inventions literally power the modern world? We'll delve into his story tonight. So just relax and let your mind drift as we explore the sleepy history of Nikola Tesla was a visionary who prophesied a world of wireless and even interplanetary communications, and whose inventions underpin

many modern technologies. He was also a complicated character who lived with hallucinations, phobias, and obsessions. His was a rare mind in which brilliance and delusion sometimes seemed two sides of the same coin. Feuds and grudges marked his rollercoaster career, as did deep and enduring friendships. His story is one of fortunes made and lost, titanic highs and lows, great accomplishments and peculiar fixations. But despite his challenges and disappointments, he succeeded in transforming the world and leaving an indelible mark on human society. Tesla was a Serb born in 1856 in the Austrian Empire, although the bulk of his scientific work would take place in the United States

after he immigrated to New York. There was an electric storm on the night he was born. It was a fitting welcome to the person who would later bring electricity to the masses when he invented key AC power systems. Tesla was one of five children raised in the small towns of what is now Croatia. Milutin Desla, was an Eastern Orthodox priest, teacher, writer, and poet. His mother, Diuka, ran the family's farm and household. Nicola later said that he got his inventiveness from Diuka, who came up with labor-saving devices in her spare time, such as a mechanical eggbeater. His mother also exhibited a prodigious memory, much like her brilliant son.

She wasn't able to read, but she memorized long works of literature. Similarly, Nikola could memorize whole books and he learned languages easily. His mother encouraged him to experiment and invent as a child. The boy spent much of his time outside, exploring nature and coming up with various contraptions. He loved animals, and the family cat in particular. Later, he would write in his autobiography about his earliest memory of inventing something. It was a novel method for catching frogs with a fishing hook. hook. The incident is telling, foreshadowing both his creativity and the interpersonal challenges that would be recurring themes throughout his life.

Tesla wrote, "...one of my playmates had come into the possession of a hook and fishing tackle, which created quite an excitement in the village. The next morning, all started out to catch frogs. I was left alone and deserted owing to a quarrel with this boy. Desperate not to miss out on trying this novelty, young Nicola managed to make his own hook from wire, despite never having seen a real fishing hook before. He succeeded and then experimented until he found the best way to catch frogs. The other boys weren't successful with their hook.

He kept his invention to himself for a time, he wrote, before finally relenting and sharing it with others. He also wrote of various other contraptions he made as a boy. For example, he invented a little motor powered by harnessed tunebugs, which flew thick in the Croatian countryside. He also took apart his grandfather's clocks and attempted to reassemble them until his grandfather took exception to the activity. And he came up with an ingenious design for a pop-gun,

another activity that got him into trouble after it, in Tesla's words, interfered with the window panes of the family's house. When he was seven years old, his older brother died in a riding accident. He was traumatized by his brother's death, as well as his parents' devastation over it and what he took as their rejection of him. He ran away briefly and spent a terrifying night alone. Tesla later reported that he began to see visions after the accident. He even needed his sisters to help him distinguish between hallucinations and reality at times.

between hallucinations and reality at times. This seems to be the first recorded incidence of the neural divergences that would drive persisted or recurred over his lifetime. For example, he wrote later that during this period he grew to detest women's earrings and pearls in particular. During elementary school, he excelled in academics. He became interested in math and science, as well as continuing to explore and experiment. explore, and experiment. Luckily for him, and for the world, his schoolroom contained mechanical models that inspired the boy. These sparked an interest in water turbines, and he began to experiment with making them, despite scoldings from an uncle for

wasting his time. He had seen photos of the magnificent Niagara Falls, and he later claimed that he envisioned a giant wheel run by the falls. Years later, his work would, in fact, be pivotal in harnessing the falls' power to produce electricity. When he was twelve years old, he fell terribly sick with malaria. He said that he got through the illness by reading Mark Twain, the legendary author best remembered for writing the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. As a teen, he went to live with his aunt and, so he could attend a school with a progressive

physics program. It was a four-year priest, but young Nicola had other ideas. However, when he went home after graduating, the delicate teen immediately fell ill with cholera and was bedridden for nine months. At one point, when it seemed like he might not make it, he commented to his worried father that he might get better if he were allowed to study engineering. It was the path he preferred to becoming a priest.

His father promised to send him to the world's best technical institution. When he duly recovered, his father kept his word. But first, he sent the teen to the mountains for a year, to recover his strength and also to avoid being drafted into the military. After that, he was sent to the Graz Polytechnic Institute in Austria, where he got a scholarship to study math and physics. At the Graz school, Tesla worked incredibly hard and barely slept. It was a pattern he would follow throughout his life, sleeping little and working through the night.

sleeping little and working through the night. While he was at the Graz Institute, professors from the school wrote to his family, warning them he could work himself to death at the rate he was going. One of the things fueling Tesla's feverish work was an idea he'd had during one of his classes. It was an idea that would fuel his later success and the world's electrical revolution. A professor showed the class an early electric power generator, a very exciting device at the time. After all, this was the era of candles and carriages, ice boxes and hand-washed laundry. People didn't yet have electric lights or electrically-powered appliances. Scientists and inventors were just figuring out how to harness electricity.

However, the early generator the professor demonstrated was not yet a well-functioning model, and it had problems with sparking. Tesla suggested a different construction that would avoid the sparking, but his professor maintained that the idea was impossible. He was determined to prove the professor wrong and find the way to build a better generator. This challenge set him on the path towards one of his greatest inventions, though many years would pass before it came to fruition. would pass before it came to fruition. Tesla became obsessed with finding a solution to the problem. In his head, he visualized different motors that would avoid the sparking. All his life, Tesla would work to solve problems mentally first, visualizing the solutions

and testing them out in his mind's eye. Despite intense efforts, though, he failed to find a solution for the time being. His intense work habits and the special attention and praise he received from professors alienated him from other students, who grew jealous or mocked the studious young man. Perhaps he burned himself out. At any rate, after a while, he developed a gambling habit and then began to fall behind on his studies. The brilliant, troubled, and sleepless young student gambled away all his money and lost his scholarship. He dropped out of school in his third year and never graduated. Still, his time at Graz had sparked the idea that would eventually lead to his great invention

and biggest legacy. After dropping out, Tesla stopped communicating with his family and moved to Slovenia. There he worked as a draftsman for a time and fell harder into his gambling addiction before ultimately returning to his family's home. Still Tesla continued to gamble away his time and money. He later wrote that his father frequently grew angry at his gambling, but it was his mother who finally got him to stop. Tesla wrote in his autobiography that one afternoon, he'd lost all his money and was craving for a game. His mother came to him with a roll of pills and said,

Go and enjoy yourself. The sooner you lose all we possess, the better it will be. I know that you will get over it." He claimed that he stopped gambling from then on. His father died suddenly, and Tesla decided to take work as a teacher at his childhood school so as to stay with his mother and siblings. During this time, he fell in love and developed a romance with a young woman, but ultimately, the relationship didn't work out.

He wanted to be an engineer, and she wanted a family. The next year, Tesla's uncles helped him leave to go to Prague. There, Tesla went to lectures as well as studying on his own. He continued to work on developing his idea for a better electrical motor and made some advances, but still didn't solve the problem. Eventually, Tesla decided that his family was sacrificing too much to support him. decided that his family was sacrificing too much to support him. He moved to Budapest to take a job with the new telephone exchange there, an exciting new invention arriving from the United States. While working at the telephone exchange, he continued to tinker and invent, and he wrote

later that he made various improvements to the telephone that he didn't report or patent. At the same time, he kept working on his pet project. Once again, he worked too hard, so hard in fact, that he wound up suffering a serious physical and mental breakdown. A doctor said Tesla would likely never recover, but the young man was determined. A friend convinced him to get outside and exercise, which helped, too. Slowly, the budding inventor began to get better. The friend was named Untal Anthony Seggetti. He would remain a lifelong friend to Tesla, and would eventually follow him to the United States to work on his projects there.

One evening as Tesla was recovering, the two friends went for a walk in the park. It was then that Tesla finally made his key breakthrough. It was 1882, and he was 26 years old. Tesla was reciting poetry. As he recited the lines, the idea for his AC motor struck him like a vision. He sketched a diagram in the sand of the path, where he and Sigetti were walking. where he and Sigetti were walking. He would show the same design to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers six years later. Within the year, Tesla moved to Paris and took a job with the Continental Edison Company. Continental Edison Company. It was the company of the famous inventor Thomas Edison, a pioneer of the light bulb,

phonograph, and many other innovations. Tesla worked for Edison's company installing electric lights, a cutting-edge technological wonder at the time, and making repairs to generators. Once again, he found ways to improve the systems he was working on. During his free time, he tried to bring his vision to reality and eventually built his first working model of his AC electrical motor. He tried without success to drum up interest in his AC motor, but was unable to find investors. He was also disappointed to receive less payment for his hard work at the Edison Company than he had expected. Finally, in 1884, he decided to try his luck in the United States.

He moved to New York with a few belongings, some of his poems and articles, a lot of calculations, and the ideas in his mind. Tesla's money had been stolen as he left Paris, and he arrived in his new home without funds. It's been reported that he had just four cents in his pocket. It has also been said that he arrived with a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison from his supervisor at the Continental Edison Company, although this may be myth rather than reality. My dear Edison, the letter is said to have begun. I know two great men, and you are one of them. The other is this young man.

The other is this young man. The letter may have been fictitious, and other letters suggest his supervisor didn't single Tesla out for distinction. Whatever the truth, the young Serb had been recruited to work for Thomas Edison's enterprise in the United States. And he soon was an engineer at Edison's Manhattan headquarters. He was 28 years old, very tall and very thin, with dark hair and mustache and deep, brooding

eyes. At first, Tesla impressed Edison with his hard work and clever ideas, but within the year, they parted ways on bad terms. It was the start of a lifelong rivalry. The two men had wildly different personalities. Edison was a consummate businessman and savvy marketer, while Tesla, in short, was not. During the time Tesla was at Edison's company, one of Edison's deputies reportedly remarked that they would give $50,000 for improvements to certain designs. It was a massive sum, equivalent to well over one and a half million dollars today. Tesla experimented for months and came up with the improvements.

But when he asked for payment, Edison said it had been a joke and told Tesla he didn't yet understand American humor. Tesla later wrote that the offer had been a practical joke, and that the realization had given him a painful shock. He quit. After leaving the Edison Company, Tesla decided to strike out on his own. It turned out to be a bumpy road. Over the coming years, he partnered with a series of wealthy backers with mixed results. The first froze him out after a couple of years, during which time he developed new lighting designs that earned U.S. patents. Tesla wanted to develop the AC motor of his vision, but the investors wanted nothing to do with it. Despite his inventions, Tesla had to resort to doing hard, manual labor to make

ends meet through the winter. He worked digging ditches for two dollars a day, but he never gave up on his vision. He needed a way to communicate his idea to investors so they would understand its potential. He finally came up with the gimmick that did the trick. He created a motor that could spin a brass egg and stand it on its end. He called it the Egg of Columbus after a story about Christopher Columbus. In the tale, which may or may not be true, Columbus convinced some doubters to support his project via an ingenious stunt. Columbus invited the doubters to stand an egg upright. They, of course, could not. Then, Columbus crushed the bottom of the egg and stood it on its flattened end.

At first, the others accused him of cheating, but Columbus convinced them that he had illustrated an important idea, that the impossible can become possible once you find a creative solution. Tesla told this story and then showed potential backers his electrically powered brass egg. Like Columbus' gimmick in the story, Tesla's egg did the trick. He finally got investors and was able to open his own laboratory in New York in 1887. He set to work making his vision a reality. He wrote later that he built the motor just as he'd envisioned it, with no need to change

the designs he'd seen in his mind and sketched in the Hungarian sand. Tesla was entering a period of great creative output, and he secured more than thirty patents for his inventions from 1887 and 1888 alone. Continuing the pattern from his youth, Tesla worked around the clock, driving himself to the point of collapse and concerning his colleagues. Over the coming years, he would make discoveries that would form the basis of neon would form the basis of neon and fluorescent lighting, X-ray technology, radio, and much more. Photos of Tesla show a dapper man with dark hair, parted in the middle and slicked down in the style of the day.

He moved in rarified circles in New York, rubbing shoulders with luminaries of the time. Through his social group, Tesla got to know leading lights in all sorts of fields, including Mark Twain. He recounted to the famous author how Twain's books had gotten him through his grave illness as a boy. The story brought tears to Twain's eyes. With his newfound success, Tesla was able to start sending money to his mother, his sister's families, and other relatives who had supported him in his studies and emigration. AC electricity and Tesla's invention would eventually electrify the world. But at the time that Tesla was working on his breakthrough, it wasn't yet clear exactly how people were going to harness electricity for human use. Many people, including Thomas Edison, were trying to find viable ways to transmit electricity

across long distances and use it to power homes and workplaces. Edison and others had been developing machines using direct current, or DC, electricity, very different from the alternating current machine of Tesla's dreams. However, a rival of Edison's, inventor-entrepreneur George Westinghouse, championed the AC power that Tesla favored. Westinghouse and Edison got into a much-publicized race to win public confidence and investor dollars. It was called the Battle of the Currents, or War of the Currents, beating AC power against DC. Nikola Tesla would play a key role in this fight.

Tirelessly pursuing his effort to create a functioning model of the AC motor he'd envisioned, Tesla began to attract notice. He was invited to speak to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers about his invention. Soon after, Westinghouse brought Tesla on board. Westinghouse negotiated an agreement to buy Tesla's patents for a combination of cash, stock, and royalties, and he equipped Tesla to pursue his invention. Edison, however, wanted to discredit AC power so as to promote his own DC systems. He believed AC power was too dangerous, and he put on an escalating series of publicity stunts to convince the world.

Edison cooperated with an electrical engineer who was upset over the deaths of colleagues working with electricity. Both DC and AC currents had killed people, but the man blamed AC. The man was pushing a scheme to have states execute criminals on death row using an electric chair, which would be powered by an AC current. Edison saw the opportunity to use this to publicly discredit Westinghouse, a champion of AC power. Ultimately, Edison turned George Westinghouse's name into a horrifying verb to describe an electrocution, to be Westinghoused, a term still used today.

It was not good publicity for the enemies within the Westinghouse Company. There were entrenched groups in the company that had been working on other types of electricity, and they didn't take to the newcomer. The different factions slowed progress on developing a viable model based on Tesla's patents. And the war of the currents was proving expensive and time-consuming. Finally, facing steep costs, internal divisions, and pressure from his financial backers, Westinghouse told Tesla the company was pulling the plug. They would no longer work on developing his AC motor.

This was not acceptable to Tesla. The outcome was that Westinghouse renegotiated his agreement with the inventor. Tesla waived his rights to receive royalties, walking away from what would have been a massive fortune. But Tesla seems to have gotten something that was, to him, even more important than money. Westinghouse indicated he would get the company to continue working on Tesla's AC motor. Tesla's AC motor. During the War of the Currents, Tesla exhibited some publicity savvy of his own. He put on theatrical demonstrations of his work during public talks to the science community, and some of them turned him into quite a celebrity. His most astonishing stunt was to let an AC electrical current run through his body

so that sparks and flames sprang from his fingers and the top of his head. He performed this feat in front of leading European scientists during a trip to London and Paris in 1892. It made a splash, and he got to know some of the most eminent scientists there. He was once again driven to exhaustion and the brink of collapse, however. Tesla was planning to visit his family while in Europe, and a concerned colleague urged him to go straight away and take a long rest. Tesla had been developing a strange amnesia-like illness. He couldn't remember details of his earlier life, although he could remember his research without trouble. Was it caused by exhaustion, stress, mental illness, or perhaps even by his stunts passing

electricity through his body? Whatever its cause, the inventor's state was worsening, and then he received word that his mother was dying. He rushed across the continent to be by her side. When Tesla's mother passed away, it devastated the sensitive inventor. He stayed in his homeland for another six weeks, recovering, then finally traveled back to the U.S. There, his AC vision would at last begin to prevail. The Westinghouse Corporation won a major victory in the War of the Currents the next year.

Chicago was hosting a World's Fair, a major event to showcase all the latest marvels of the age. The event's planners chose Westinghouse to provide electric lighting for the fair. It was a key win over Edison, who had submitted a rival bid. The 1893 Chicago Fair showed the world that the Tesla AC systems could safely provide great power. In conjunction with the fair, Tesla gave a talk to an electrical organization. Tales of his wizardry had spread by this point, and he was such a draw that the talk had to be moved to a room that could fit thousands, and still, it was stuffed full.

The inventor again made a series of sensational demonstrations, including sending electrical currents through his body. Once Tesla's motor was complete, however, he was ready to move on to other inventions. He worked as frantically as ever, creating heatless light bulbs and exploring all sorts of ideas, including a round, wireless transmission. He worked himself to the extreme as usual, and friends and colleagues were concerned at his gaunt appearance. He also lived an ascetic lifestyle, eating little, in a belief that it would prolong his life and health.

When a society woman and close friend urged him to come to Christmas dinner and relax, he responded, I get all the nourishment I need from my laboratory. He knew he was exhausting himself, he said, but he could not stop. His goal was nothing less than to save humanity itself. The inventor moved in influential circles at the time, alongside the VIPs of the day. But money concerns put cracks in some of his relationships. For example, Tesla was close with a writer who had championed him heavily. They partnered to produce a textbook of Tesla's work, but the inventor frustrated his partner by insisting on giving away too many copies for free.

In 1895, a fire broke out on the floor beneath Tesla's laboratory. It burned down, and with it went all his equipment and notes. It was a devastating blow that caused far-reaching financial woes, but Tesla pressed on. Despite their rivalry, Thomas Edison welcomed him to work in Edison's own lab for a time. Tesla then relocated to Colorado for a whileinghouse was used to harness the power of the thundering Niagara Falls in the world's first major hydroelectric plant. It transmitted power some 40 kilometers away to the city of Buffalo, New York. This was a huge success and, according to Tesla, the culmination of a childhood dream. It also demonstrated that Tesla's AC power systems could safely and affordably convey

power across long distances. Nikola Tesla had visions that were far ahead of his time, and over the coming years, he worked on increasingly futuristic and, some thought, outlandish inventions. He envisioned a system of wireless power that could provide free power to the world, not an appealing prospect to his most materialistically-minded competitors or investors. And he envisioned a wireless communication system that would transmit information instantaneously around the globe. At the turn of the 20th century, he began to pursue these dreams. He convinced financier J.P. Morgan to fund an enormous wireless transmission tower on Long Island.

In describing his plan, Tesla might as well have been talking about the age of the internet and the cell phone. He said, It will be possible for a businessman in New York to dictate instructions and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, music or song, the speech of a political leader, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner, any picture or print can be transferred from one to another place. Tesla even dreamed of sending signals to Mars to contact the Martians that many serious scientists at the time believed probably existed. The widespread belief was based on mistaken telescope observations that purported to show features like canals on the planet's surface.

Perhaps Tesla's ideas were too far ahead of his time. His grand project was hampered by problem after problem. He began to run out of money, and Morgan balked at giving him more. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi made headlines for pioneering radio transmissions, Giulielmo Marconi made headlines for pioneering radio transmissions drawing investor dollars, even though Tesla had filed relevant patents first. The two got into a patent battle in the courts, which favored Marconi long enough for the Italian to become rich and famous. The US Supreme Court would eventually rule in favor of Tesla, recognizing his role in inventing radio, but not until shortly after Tesla died. Finally, Tesla was out of money and in debt.

His enormous tower was abandoned and eventually destroyed to pay his debts. The inventor had another nervous breakdown. It is not a dream, Tesla is quoted as saying of his bold visions. It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive. Blind, faint-hearted, doubting world. He treated his mental and emotional struggles with self-administered electric shock, and found solace in work. Over the remaining decades of his life, his eccentricity and obsessions grew more pronounced. Having seen microbes through the microscopes of pioneering biologists,

he became germaphobic and washed compulsively. He also said he was extremely sensitive to sounds. He was fixated on the number three, reportedly washing his hands three times and walking in three circles around buildings before going inside. He lived in hotels and only stayed in rooms whose numbers could be divided by three. He frequently made bold predictions about the future. Some were prophetic, some wildly off base. While Tesla dreamed of using his mind to better the lot of humanity, he struggled against those who were motivated only, or mostly, by their own profit. His rivals took credit for some of his inventions and succeeded in erasing many of his

accomplishments from the history books for a time. Other men grew rich on his work, but Tesla had what none of them did – his mind. He continued to envision new inventions that he tested and perfected mentally during long, sleepless nights – much as he'd once done with the AC motor that changed the world. He wrote in his autobiography of the difficult task of the inventor, who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation, he wrote, in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the human race would have long ago perished.

When the aging Tesla was not meditating on science and mathematical equations, he spent his time feeding and caring for the pigeons of New York. He welcomed the birds into his hotel rooms. Despite close friendships and apparent flirtations with multiple women over his life, Tesla never married. He liked to say that no married man could make important inventions or accomplish great things. As he grew older, he bestowed his affections on the pigeons instead. Sometimes I feel that by not marrying, I made too great a sacrifice to my work," he told a

reporter. So I have decided to lavish all the affection of a man no longer young on the feathery tribe. I am satisfied if anything I do will live for posterity. But to care for those homeless, hungry, or sick birds is the delight of my life. It is my only means of playing." He even fell in love with one of the birds, a white female pigeon who he said he cared for as a man loves a woman. In 1922, he declared that the white pigeon came to his room 22, he declared that the white pigeon came to his room and told him she was dying. He said he saw two overwhelming beams of light shining from her eyes before she passed away in his arms.

The increasingly bizarre genius was reclusive and committed to his feathered companions, but he was not without human company as well. He spent time with old friends and corresponded with friends and acquaintances, receiving, for example, a note from Albert Einstein on his 75th birthday. He saw a nephew who had moved to the US and was also an inventor, and heaped hugs and kisses on the nephew's young son. heaped hugs and kisses on the nephew's young son. In the 1930s, Tesla announced that he had developed a death ray, which he called the teleforce, a particle beam weapon that he said could knock 10,000 airplanes from the sky. Tesla was a pacifist, and he imagined the weapon as

a protective shield that would make war impossible. He went to J.P. Morgan Jr. and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, trying to get funding to build the weapon, but they turned him down. The leaders of the new Soviet Union, however, reached out to him. They gave the octogenarian $25,000 in 1939 to work on the weapon, but the work apparently went nowhere. In his later years, the passed away at 86 years old. Some 2,000 people attended his funeral. The New York mayor read a eulogy over the radio, and the president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a note mourning his passing.

After his death, the FBI confiscated his possessions, including many trunks full of the reclusive inventor's papers, quite possibly because of Tesla's talk of a death ray and contact with the Soviet Union. Eventually, his papers were transferred to the Nikola Tesla Museum in Serbia, a nation that didn't exist when the inventor was born. Upon Tesla's death, one commentator wrote, It may be that, a long time from now, the critics will bracket Tesla with Da Vinci. The world as we run it today did not appreciate his peculiar greatness. Tesla left a legacy of inventions, both those he received credit for

and those he made anonymously, working for his various employers. These have driven the modern world in uncounted ways. Despite his disappointments, Tesla spent his life walking his own path and doing what he had always felt was his destiny. Ever since his youth in the Eastern European countryside, he dedicated himself to tinkering, experimenting, discovering, inventing, to harnessing the power of nature to benefit humankind. As one newspaper said after his death, granting that he was a difficult man to deal with, here, still, was an extraordinary man of genius. He was seeing a glimpse into that confused and mysterious frontier which divides the known and the unknown, trying with superb intelligence to find the answers. You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You. you