Welcome to the Tesla Memorial Society of New York Website

Celebrating the 151th birthday of the great scientist and inventor,
Nikola Tesla on July 10, 2007

Important Tesla Events in 2006:

International Belgrade Airport named "Nikola Tesla Airport"

"Nikola Tesla Year 2006" proclaimed by UNESCO and Serbian and Croatian Government

Proposal for "Nikola Tesla Day", July 10th, through the United Nations made by Tesla Memorial Society of New York and Tesla Forum from Australia.

The Archive of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, named by UNESCO, "Memory of the World".

Nikola Tesla's Letter to the American Red Cross announcing he had received an extraterrestrial communication (by Prof. James Corum)

Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse built the first hydro-electric power plant in Niagara Falls and started the electrification of the world

IEEE Tesla Biography

Click here for the IEEE Website

Nikola Tesla, 1856 - 1943

Nikola Tesla was born at the stroke of midnight in the village of Smilian, Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary) on 10 July 1856. When Tesla was seven, the family moved to Gospic, where he finished grammar school and graduated from the Real-Gymnasium. He was a star pupil, especially in mathematics. He would blurt the answers to involved problems without putting pen to paper. In his autobiography, Mi inventions, Tesla boasts of an amazing mental ability: if a particular object or figure came to his mind, he would see a vivid image of it before his eyes. This odd capacity enabled him to carry out complex arithmetic operations without a blackboard, and later to design whole machines solely in his mind.

Upon graduating from the Higher Real- Gymnasium in Karlovac, Tesla persuaded his father to let him enter the Joanneum, the Polytechnical College of Graz, Austria. It was while he was a student in Graz that Tesla's attention was first drawn to problems of the induction motor. His observation that a Gramme dynamo that was being run as a motor in a class- room demonstration sparked badly between its commutator and brushes led him to suggest that a motor without a commutator might be devised -an idea that his professor ridiculed. Nothing daunted, Tesla continued to develop the idea. In 1879 he left Graz to enroll at the University of Prague, but left without taking a degree when his father died. He then held a number of jobs; in 1881 he went to Budapest to work for the new telephone company there. During his year there he thought of the principle of the rotating magnetic field, upon which all polyphase induction motors are based. The discovery, by his own account, was instantaneous, complete, and intuitive. Walking in a park with a friend, Antony Szigety, Tesla was moved to recite a passage from Goethe's Faust (of which he had the whole by heart) when " . . . the idea came like a lightning flash. In an instant I saw it all, and drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams which were illustrated in my fundamental patents of May, 1888, and which Szigety understood perfectly." It was, however, some time before he was able to exploit his invention commercially.

In 1882 Tesla went to Paris as an engineer with the Continental Edison Company. The following year he was sent to Strasbourg to repair an electric plant, and while there built a crude prototype of his motor. He thus experienced "the supreme satisfaction of seeing for the first time rotation effected by alternating currents without commutator." In 1884 he went to the United States to promote his new alternating-current motor. He arrived in New York with a working knowledge of a dozen languages, a book of poetry, four cents, and an introduction to Thomas Edison. Although Edison was totally committed to direct current, he gave Tesla a job, and for a year Tesla supported himself redesigning direct-current dynamos for the Edison Machine Works. By 1885 he had left Edison and had gone into business developing and promoting an industrial arc lamp. He was forced out of the company when production began, however, and for a time lived precariously, doing odd jobs and day labor. Within two years he was back on his feet, and had formed his own laboratory for the development of his alternating-current motor.

By 1888 Tesla had obtained patents on a whole polyphase system of alternating- current dynamos, transformers, and motors; the rights to these were bought in that year by George Westinghouse, and the "battle of the currents" was begun. Although Edison continued to espouse direct current, Tesla's system triumphed to make possible the first large-scale harnessing of Niagara Falls and to provide the basis for the whole modem electric-power industry. In 1889 Tesla became an American citizen.

During the next few years Tesla worked in his New York laboratories on a wide variety of projects. He was very successful, particularly in his invention of the Tesla coil, an air-core transformer, and in his further research on high-frequency currents. In 1891 he lectured on his high-frequency devices to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and this lecture, coupled with a spectacular demonstration of these apparatuses, made him famous. He repeated his performance in Europe, to great acclaim, and enjoyed international celebrity.

In 1893 the Chicago World Columbian Exposition was lighted by means of Tesla's system and work was begun on the installation of power machinery at Niagara Falls. In a lecture-demonstration given in St. Louis in the same year -two years before Marconi's first experiments-Tesla also predicted wireless communication; the apparatus that he employed contained all the elements of spark and continuous wave that were incorporated into radio transmitters before the advent of the vacuum tube. Engrossed as he was with the transmission of substantial amounts of power, however, he almost perversely rejected the notion of transmission by Hertzian waves, which he considered to be wasteful of energy. He thus proposed wireless communication by actual conduction of electricity through natural media, and, working in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1899-1900, proved the earth to be a conductor. In a further series of experiments, Tesla produced artificial lightning in flashes of millions of volts that were up to 135 feet long -a feat that has never been equaled. It was at his Colorado laboratory, too, that Tesla, who had become increasingly withdrawn and eccentric ever since the death of his mother in 1892, announced that he had received signals from foreign planets, a statement that was greeted with some skepticism.

Tesla's vision always embraced the widest applications of his discoveries. Of his wireless system, he wrote in 1900: "I have no doubt that it will prove very efficient in enlightening the masses, particularly in still uncivilized countries and less accessible regions, and that it will add materially to general safety, comfort and convenience, and maintenance of peaceful relations." With the financial backing of J. P. Morgan, he began work on a worldwide communications system, and a 200-foot transmission tower was constructed at Shoreham, on Long Island. By 1905, however, Morgan had withdrawn his support, and the project came to an end. The tower was destroyed by dynamite, under mysterious circumstances, in 1914.

Although he continued to enjoy a measure of fame, Tesla made little money from his inventions, and became increasingly poor during the last decades of his life. His name continued to flourish before the public, however, since he was a reliable source for scientific prophecy, and exploited as such in the popular press. In 1914 he was awarded the AIEE Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in his early original work in polyphase and high-frequency electrical currents." While he gave demonstrations of some of his earlier marvels -his exhibition of a radio-guided teleautomatic boat filled Madison Square Garden in 1898- he became oracular in his later years and, for example, offered no proof of the potent "death-ray" that he announced in 1934, on his seventy-eighth birthday. Nonetheless, Tesla continued to invent devices of commercial and scientific worth, from which, since he seldom bothered to seek a patent, he received little profit.

Tesla was a complete recluse in his last years, living in a series of New Yorker Hotel rooms with only pigeons for company. Ironically the New Yorker Hotel had it's own generating plant in its basement, all electricity in the hotel was direct current. After his death on 7 January 1943, his papers and notes were seized by the Alien Property office; they are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia.

Tesla Memorial Society of New York is grateful to Dr. James Corum, Professor, West Virginia University, and Donald Lesiak, former Consulting Aerospace Engineer at RCA on Apollo Descent Engine Control Assembly for Landing on Moon, for their contribution to our website.

"Nikola Tesla Year In 2006" has been proclaimed by UNESCO and the Serbian and Croatian government. 

Above: Nikola Tesla at the age of 40.

Tesla polyphase system electricity is lighting today the entire world.

Above: Earth at Night, Click to Enlarge

Above: John Muir Coin from California.  Muir was a good friend of Nikola Tesla.

Tesla Induction Motor is one of the 10 greatest discoveries of all time.  This is the main power in industry and household appliances.

Above: Alternating electric current generator.

Above: Tesla Motor System, Westinghouse photo collection.

Above: Tesla Motor System, Westinghouse photo collection.

Above: Tesla Motor System, Westinghouse photo collection.

Nikola Tesla with representatives of Westinghouse Electric & Man. Co. on May 10, 1938.  Tesla explaining the rotating magnetic field.

Nikola Tesla on High Frequency and High Voltage Electricity

Above: Tesla sits in front of the oscillator, giving twelve million volts.  The flame like discharge measures 65 feet across.

Above: Tesla's experiments in Berlin.  Prince Henry, brother of German Emperor, interposed his body between the high tension terminals, and held exhausted tubes glowing under the influence of the Tesla currents.

Nikola Tesla on Radio

Nikola Tesla on X-Rays

Nikola Tesla and the Exploration of Cosmos

Nikola Tesla Stamp 1983

King Awarded Tesla

Tesla and Light

Above: The famous painting of "Tesla and Light" by renown painter, Pedja Gavrovic.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was the genius who lit the world, whose discoveries in the field of alternating polyphase current electricity advanced the United States and the rest of the world into the modern industrial era.

We here at the Tesla Memorial Society of New York want the world to know of Tesla.  Tesla's impact on our civilization is tremendous, and his memory should be kept alive.

In 1917, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal, the most coveted electrical prize in the United States.  

Nikola Tesla's name has been honored with an International Unit of Magnetic Flux Density called "Tesla".

The United States Postal Service honored Tesla with a commemorative stamp in 1983.  

Tesla was inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame in 1975.

The Nikola Tesla Award is one of the most distinguished honors presented by the Institute of Electrical Engineers.  The award has been given annually since 1976.

The Nikola Tesla Award is presented annually since 1968, at the Area Power Conference, Duluth, Minnesota.  The award is furnished by Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation. 

The Nikola Tesla Statue is located on Goat Island to honor the man whose inventions were incorporated into the Niagara Falls Power Station in 1896.  Tesla is known as the inventor of the polyphase alternating current.

The Nikola Tesla Corner Sign located at the intersection of 40th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, is a constant reminder to all New Yorkers of the greatness of this genius.

Many of the new technologies in the world today, are based on Tesla's ideas.  Tesla spent 50 years of his life to find a way for interplanetary communications, especially with Mars.  He is the first scientist in the world to use the Ionosphere for scientific purposes (The Ionosphere is the upper part the atmosphere under constant bombardment of solar energy, which breaks down molecules into ions causing an ionized shield of our atmosphere, very important for radio communications).

Nikola Tesla is a unifying force for the people of the Balkans, and the people of the previous Austro-Hungary Empire (an area of Europe devoted to science and progress).  Every child in the Balkans knows about Tesla.

We are asking all Tesla admirers and all governments around the world to support the idea "Nikola Tesla Year" in the year 2006.

Above: Tesla Corner on 40th Street and 6th avenue in Manhattan, New York.

US Congressional Records

July 1990

Honoring the 134th birthday of Nikola Tesla, US Congressmen's speeches:

Hon. Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley ( Page 1 )

Hon. Robert A. Roe of New Jersey ( Page 1 )

Hon. Leon E. Panetta Dem. of California ( Page 1 | Page 2 )

Hon. George W. Gekas of Pennsylvania ( Page 1 )

Hon. George J. Hochbrueckner of New York ( Page 1 )

Senator Levin from Michigan  ( Page 1 | Page 2 ) 

Hon. Eliot L. Engel of New York ( Page 1 ) 

Hon. Joel Hefley of Colorado, June 29, 1989 ( Page 1 | Page 2 )

United States Senator Mark O. Hatfield, June 21, 1984 ( Page 1 )

United States Governor's Proclamations,
Proclaiming in their States July 10th, "Nikola Tesla Day"

Governor's Proclamation of New York

Governor's Proclamation of New Jersey

Mayor's Proclamation of New York

Governor's Proclamation of Nevada

Governor's Proclamation Arizona

Governor's Proclamation of Colorado

Governor's Proclamation of New York, Mario Cuomo, Governor, Sept. 6, 1989

Governor's Proclamation of New York, Mario Cuomo, Governor, July 10, 1990

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor Robert P. Casey, July 10, 1989

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor Dick Thornburgh, Sept. 21, 1983

State of Minnesota, Governor Rudy Perpich, June 6, 1984

The City of New York, Mayor David N. Dinkins, January 16, 1993

Niagara County Legislature, Chairman Lee Simonson, January 15, 1991

Colorado Congressman Speech

Congressman's Speech 1 (July 11, 1990, Chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee)

Congressman's Speech 2 (July 11, 1990, Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley)

Tesla Coil in Action by Dr. Ljubo Vujovic

Above: Tesla Coil in Action.

Above: Tesla Coil in Action.

Above: Tesla sits below the Tesla Coil in his Colorado Spring Laboratory.  The coil creates millions of volts of electricity with a frequency rate of 100,000 alterations per second.

Tesla Unit

Nikola Tesla's name has been honored with the international unit of magnetic flux density called "Tesla".  All magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines are calibrated with Tesla Unit (from .2 Tesla to 9 Tesla).  MRI machines work on the principle of a homogeneous magnet field.  Nikola Tesla discovered the Rotating Magnetic Field in Budapest, 1882.  The Tesla Unit for magnetism was established in 1956 in the Rathaus of Munich, Germany by the International Electrotechnical Commission Committee in Action.

Because of the tremendous importance of the MRI technology and widespread use of the MRI machines around the world, which are all calibrated in Tesla Units, Tesla's name connected with the MRI will be known more and more in the future and the years to come.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is extremely important for medical diagnosis of internal organs of the human body, especially the diagnosis of cancer, tumors, degenerative diseases of the brain and spinal cord. The modern diagnosis of the internal organs of the human body would be today unthinkable without MRI.  MRI machines are  widespread with many variations in size and capacity all around the world.  The revenue of MRI machines sales was 1.46 billion dollars in 2002.  Revenue for MRI machine sales is expected to increase in the following years.

MRI employs a strong homogeneous magnetic field and specific radio frequency to which many elements, especially hydrogen nuclei respond with radio frequency signals.  These signals are analyzed by computer reconstruction algorithms.  The healthy tissue and pathological tissue have different radio frequency signals and produce different images on MRI.  Therefore enable us to make diagnosis of pathological tissues of the body.

MRI has the advantage over CT scan, it uses no ionizing radiation and does not cause cumulative harm.  The only contraindication of those related to the high magnetic field.  Magnetic-sensitive objects like pacemakers, watched and magnetic tapes are contraindicated.

A Short History of the MRI (Click here for article)

Tesla Named 1 of 100 Greatest Men in History by Life Magazine

One of the planets in the universe named "Tesla" by
Dr. James Corum

1. "Tesla" Asteroid - a small celestial body that revolves around the sun, who's orbits lie chiefly between Mars and Jupiter.

Above: Asteroids - small planets between Mars and Jupiter, revolving around the sun.

Above: Asteroids - small planets between Mars and Jupiter, revolving around the sun.

(dictionary.com) Asteroid - Any of numerous small celestial bodies that revolve around the sun, with orbits lying chiefly between Mars and Jupiter and characteristic diameters between a few and several hundred kilometers. Also called minor planet, planetoid.

The planet "Tesla", named after the great Nikola Tesla, is listed at the "Minor Planet Center" at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University founded at:

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html

The "Tesla" Planet is #2244, the list is alphabetical, look under "Tesla".  The list was last updated on April 8, 2005.

2. Tesla Crater on the Moon

One of the craters on the moon is named after Nikola Tesla.  The crater is located on the moon at:  Latitude 124.7E; Longitude 38.5N  and has a diameter of 43 kilometers. (If these coordinates had been on the earth, you would be located at the position of Korea, since the zero meridian is located at Greenwich England. I'll have to check back to see where the zero meridian is taken for lunar coordinates.)
This information is given at:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/lunarform/cratall.html

The data is given in the format:   Tesla  38.5N 124.7E 43.0
If you click on the word "Tesla" it will take you to a NASA photo of the backside of the moon, taken from an elevation of 1000 km, looking directly down on the Tesla crater from above. (Crater "Tesla" is exactly in the center of this photo.) You can "zoom" in for a closer look at the actual photo of the Tesla crater by clicking below the photo, but the photo loses resolution.

The Crater is also listed (under "Tesla") on the NASA page
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/science/atlas/text/cratertex_t.html
which identifies the crater as named for "Nikola Tesla(1856-1943)" . . . which only gets the story partly right.

Thank to our board member, James Corum for this information.