There are few people who have changed the world to such an extent and yet have become confined to relative obscurity than Tesla. You would not be reading this had Tesla not invented alternating current (AC) as a means of producing and distributing electricity. He quite literally has powered the world for over a century. Born in Serbia in 1856, he emigrated to America in 1884 where he found employment with Edison for one year until Edison failed to pay him for work he had done repairing machinery and they parted company.
Tesla went on to become renowned for his electrical inventions that were far ahead of their time. He created alternating current power generation, alternating current transmission, radio, auto ignition, the first hydro-electric power station at Niagara Falls, fluorescent tubes, a version of the X-ray, the Induction Motor, Tesla Coil, Bladeless Turbine, and Laser Beam to name but a few.
As a consequence of his work on the wireless transmission of energy through the earth he was theoretically able to transmit energy to light a bulb anywhere on the planet without the use of wires. His dream was to give ‘free energy to all’ and, financed by JP Morgan, he built a magnifying transmitter at Wardenclyffe on Long Island between 1901 and 1905 designed to broadcast both signals and power. Morgan pulled the plug on the project with the comment ‘If anyone can draw the power, where do we put the meter?’
This technology even went as far as testing an electric car which used no batteries, just transmitted energy and an 80 horsepower alternating current motor. It drove around for a week, often at speeds up to 90mph.
A Paradigmeer is not someone who just invents something; they are people who think differently, they change the rules and make a difference to our lives as a result. On all these counts, Tesla is undoubtedly a Master Paradigmeer.
He also encountered the establishment, those people who had most to lose from everyone else’s gain. The utility companies, oil companies and their patrons like JP Morgan didn’t want Tesla to succeed in his dream and did everything in their power to stop it happening. They were so successful that Tesla’s notes have been lost to top secret vaults and aspects of his scientific reasoning discredited after his death in 1943.
Tesla’s time will come again. He transformed the world in the last century with his mastery of electricity, there is every chance that he will transform the world in this century when his know-how on free ‘single point energy’ becomes more widely exploited by scientists and engineers as the lack of fossil fuels forces a change. Bring it on!
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