Nikola Tesla was a remarkable man. He spoke eight languages, produced the first motor that ran on AC current, created the underlying technology for wireless communication over long distances, held approximately 300 patents, and supposedly also developed a “superweapon” that he said could end all war. Tesla was born in Serbia in 1856 during a storm. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the midwife said, “He will be a child of the storm” and his mother retorted, “No, of the light.” Tesla, who had a photographic memory, was such a phenomenal student that teachers accused him of cheating. He focused on electrical lighting and motors at the Continental Edison Company and later developed a relationship with two businessmen that led to the founding of Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing. He filed a number of electrical patents, which he assigned to the company. But then, his partners took the company’s intellectual property and founded another firm, leaving Telsa with nothing. He then met two investors who backed the formation of the Tesla Electric Company in 1887. In 1895, his Manhattan lab was devastated by a fire. In 1909, he received the Nobel Prize for the development of the radio. He lived alone and never married, most likely because he had a fear of germs and had unusual phobias. He also claimed his “celibacy played an important role in his creativity.” He died in 1943 and though he was penniless and alone at the end, Smithsonian calls him a “real-life Prometheus.”
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