Nikola Tesla (Cyrillic: Никола Тесла) (Smiljan, July 10, 1856 – New York, January 7, 1943) died alone and poor in New York. A Serbian physicist, inventor, and engineer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1891, Tesla is best known for his revolutionary work and numerous contributions to the field of electromagnetism. His patents and theoretical work formed the basis of the modern alternating current electrical system, including polyphase power distribution and alternating current motors, with which he contributed to the birth of the Second Industrial Revolution. In the United States, Tesla was among the most famous scientists and inventors, even in popular culture. After his demonstration of wireless communication (radio) in 1893, and after winning the so-called “War of the Currents” alongside George Westinghouse against Thomas Alva Edison, he was recognized as one of the greatest American electrical engineers. In 1943, a United States Supreme Court ruling awarded him the patent (on U.S. soil) for several patents used for transmitting information via radio waves. Having always neglected financial matters, Tesla died poor and forgotten at the age of 85. His importance was also recognized at the 1960 General Conference on Weights and Measures, which named the SI unit for magnetic flux density or magnetic induction after him. Tesla also contributed in varying degrees to various fields of applied science, such as robotics. His contemporary admirers even call him the inventor of the twentieth century and the patron saint of modern electricity. Because of his eccentric personality and his seemingly incredible and sometimes bizarre claims (at the time of his death, he was working on a death ray for the U.S. Department of War), Tesla was ostracized in his final years and considered a sort of “mad scientist,” with curious anticipations of later scientific developments attributed to him. Tesla left little documentation of his results, and even that often took the form of notes, not organized work that others could understand.
