Inventor Nikola Tesla (vegetarian): Noble Benefactor of Modern Civilization, Part 2 of 3

The achievements that followed were not only due to Nikola’s mental prowess, but also sheer will; he had big dreams and was determined to accomplish them. In 1881, Nikola Tesla was living in Budapest and working for the Central Telephone Exchange. Nikola Tesla captured his thoughts in a diagram, drawn with a stick on the sand. This invention would forever change the world. The diagram depicted the induction motor and was presented and explained six years later in his lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Tesla also stated, “The day science begins to study the non-physical (spiritual) phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” In February 1882, Nikola Tesla had another epiphany about motors. Suddenly, he had a vision of using a rotating magnetic field in his motor, the basis with which nearly all devices using alternating currents now operate.

He worked briefly as an electrical engineer at the Edison Machine Works, putting in 19 hours of work daily, from 10:30 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. the next day. Nikola Tesla came up with a set of some 24 improved and redesigned pieces of equipment to replace Edison’s existing machines.

“Telautomatics” is defined here in Tesla’s writings: Whether the automaton be of flesh and bone, or of wood and steel, it mattered little, provided it could provide all the duties required of it like an intelligent being... My telautomaton, for instance, opens up a new art which will sooner or later render large guns entirely useless, and will make impossible the building of large battleships, and will... compel the nations to come to an understanding for the maintenance of peace.”

His brain had become a virtual laboratory where he could successfully build mental pictures of any models, drawings, or experiments that he needed, all without putting pen to paper. He found this modus operandi to have great merit, and in over two decades of inventing, his devices always worked as he meant them to, without exception. He was bestowed with 15 honorary degrees from universities across the world, amongst them, Yale and Columbia in the United States, and 14 Meritorious Awards from various world class institutions.