The final draft for a presentation I have been working on

1. The story of Nikola Tesla
Let's take a look at the many things that Tesla discovered
or invented but sometimes didn't fully get credit for.
Number one-radio: many people mistakenly think that
Glimmer Marconi was the inventor of radio to this day.
However, his work was based on the work done by Nikola
Tesla. Tesla theorized that radio waves can transmit
information as far back as 1893. In lecture demonstrations
in 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio controlled boat by
which he dubbed: tele-automation. That kind of sounds
pretty standard today but you have to understand that
this was 1898; the crowd that witnessed the
demonstration was so shocked that they literally claimed
Tesla was using magic, telepathy, or had a trained monkey
hidden inside controlling the boat. When Mark Heine
became world famous sending the first transatlantic
message Tesla said the following: (Marconi is a good
fellow, let him continue, he is using 17 of my patents).
Number two-x-ray: this was a pretty interesting story: x-
rays were discovered by Tesla before Willham Rungjan
was credited with the discovery. In fact, Tesla took the
very first X-ray photos. For some reason after Willham

2. claimed the discovery, it was believed that X-rays could
cure blindness and other elements. Despite testimony that
X-rays could be dangerous, Edison tested it on one of his
employees: Clarence Kelly, who after having his arms
amputated, eventually died from cancer. Edison also fired
X-rays into his own eyes during experiments. When
questioned about it in 1993 Edison said: Don't talk to me
about X-rays, I'm afraid of them.
Number three-hydroelectricity: Tesla designed the first
hydroelectric plan that was powerful enough to light a
city. At Niagara falls, proving to the world that waterfalls
could make a practical energy source on a large scale.
Other people told him that it wouldn’t work, but Tesla had
already envisioned how a generator could harness energy
from moving water when he was still a child. People were
shocked but also delighted to see his vision power whole
U.S. cities.
Number four-The Earthquake Machine: Tesla created a
little pocket sized machine that when placed in a building
and set to the building's natural frequency, made the
structure wobble so much that still workers came down to
the ground in a panic believing that there must’ve been an

3. earthquake. When the police were called, Tesla put the
device back in his pocket and walked away. Tesla claimed
that if he had 10 minutes more, he could’ve laid that
building to the ground, and using the same device could
have dropped the Brooklyn Bridge in less than one hour.
Tesla also figured out the resonant frequency of the earth
fifty years before the technology allowed scientists to
catch up with his discovery
Lastly-The Tesla tower: So far the previous inventions
were all things that made it to reality, but one of Texas’
most ambitious projects was actually a failure over now, it
had become a Tesla legend forever romanticized. I'm of
course talking about the famous watering cliff tower.
Otherwise known as the Tesla tower set to deliver free
energy to the world by using the earth ionosphere as part
of the transmission device… or was it? The story goes that
financial backer: JP. Morgan shut the project down when
he discovered it wouldn't make any money. This isn't
entirely true though; Tesla actually sold the project as a
wireless communications tower not as a means of
producing or transmitting energy. The financial backing
from J.P. Morgan was only pulled when Marconi sent the
first radio waves across the Atlantic making Morgan

4. change his mind. The project dragged on without Morgan
and ran way over time and ridiculously over budget until it
finally collapsed aside from this but science today says
that the Tesla Tower wouldn't have worked; this is mainly
due to technicalities such as energy lost during
transmission and Tesla's misunderstanding of the physics
of radio waves. This was Tesla's first major failure which
brought him great shame. This would set him on a
downward path that eventually led to the decline of the
legend; more on this later. Alright so almost at the end of
the story, but before we begin to conclude, let's take a
look at four facts about Tesla. Number one: Tesla loved
humanity. As a humanist, Chester believed in improving
the quality of human life but not for financial gains. Here is
a quote from Tesla himself:(Money doesn't mean as much
to me as it does to others, all my money has gone into
inventions to make men's life a little easier).
Number two: Tesla envisioned a wireless internet in 1901
while developing the transatlantic radio. He envisions a
system of collecting information, encoding it, and
broadcasting that information to a handheld device. This is
basically what we have now as the mobile internet on our
phones; Pretty impressive for sight for 1901.

5. Number 3: Tesla actually lost everything at one stage as
Tesla was working tirelessly and discovering many things
about wireless energy transfer. His lab burnt down in a fire
forcing him to start his entire life's work again.
Number 4: Tesla may have had obsessive-compulsive
behavior and insomnia, Tesla claimed that he only needed
two hours of sleep a night. It's unclear whether that was
because he wanted to, or because he couldn't actually
sleep any more than that. Tesla was also obsessed with
the number three and used 18 napkins to clean his dining
room before ending his evening meals he also hated round
objects, jewelry, shaking hands, and touching hair.
The Bitter End: As you can tell by that last fact, being such
a genius and having a mind that was activated to such a
high degree came with some consequences.His great mind
became his downfall. Tesla's life story of rise to
international prestige and fame was followed by an
equally dramatic retreat into public shame, depression,
and loneliness. Denial this failures and starting with the
Tesla tower, led to further failure and further the denial; A
downward spiral which eventually led Tesla lot to a mental
breakdown. By the latter part of his life he was clinically

6. insane; Tesla hallucinated to such an extent that the
boundaries between reality and his imagination became
blurred. This caused him to work in his lab tirelessly. He
often stated that his lab was the only place where he was
truly happy. As an example of his mental condition, here is
a quote from one of Nikola Tesla's final interviews: (I have
been feeding pigeons; thousands of them, for years but
there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white, with
light grey tips on the wings, that one was different; no
matter where I was, that pigeon would find me. When I
wanted her, I only had to wish and call her, and she would
come flying to me. I love that pigeon, I loved her as much
as a man loves a woman; and she loves me. Then one
night, as I was lying in my bed in the dark, solving
problems as usual, she flew through the open window and
stood at my desk. I knew she wanted to tell me something
important, so I got up and went to her as I looked at her, I
knew she wanted to tell me she was dying. And then as I
got her message, there came a light from her eyes;
powerful beams of light I don't think there's anything else
to say there). Over his lifetime, Tesla had obtained more
than 100 patents and over seven hundred inventions. But
despite all of this, he was dirt-poor. For many years, he

7. worked alone in his room at the Hotel New Yorker where
he died in 1943 living on a diet of milk and crackers. So a
lot of you would be asking, how did this happen? How did
Tesla end up so poor? It is true; Tesla could have been the
world's first billionaire by a long shot. But he just really
didn't care about money. Here is an example: In the war of
the currents, Westinghouse was in trouble. Though almost
bankrupt, and about to go under, so Westinghouse
pleaded for Tesla long to temporarily cut back his royalties
just so the Westinghouse companies could get through this
tough time and survive. Shockingly, Tesla ripped up the
contract right there and then, on the spot. This would have
amounted to three hundred billion dollars for Tesla. Tesla
simply stated that he was just happy that Westinghouse
believed in him when no one else would. I guess having a
huge spot and changing the world, was enough of a
reward in itself for him. The rest of the remaining money
that Tesla had accumulated over his life all got spent over
numerous failed projects such as the Tesla Tower. Tesla's
ideas helped America grow into an industrial nation and a
powerhouse of the 20th
century, yet he's marginalization
was prevalent then and continues today. He is almost non-
existent if you look through many of today's text books.

8. This is mainly because Tesla did not care about profit,
fame, or fortune. He only wanted to make the world a
better place. This was the polar opposite of most of the
businessmen of that day, which unfortunately took
advantage of Tesla's nature profiting from his work and
leaving him with nothing. It could be a lesson to us all:
have the purest intentions. But stand up for yourself, and
know your worth. To finish off, here is one quote from
Tesla: (The present is theirs, the future, for which I have
really worked his mind.) And that is the story of Nikola
Tesla.