Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

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Nikola Tesla at the age of 39

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), born in Croatia (at that time within Austria-Hungary), is well known and need not be particularly introduced. He completed his elementary and secondary school education in Croatia (in Gospic and Karlovac), and studied in Graz and Prague. He is the father of alternating electrical current technology and the three phase system. He is equally known by his contribution to the high frequency technology and wireless communications. The impact of Tesla’s numerous inventions (112 patents during his work in the USA) on the development of modern civilization is immeasurable. The unit for magnetic induction Tesla, was named after him (Conference general des poids et mesures, Paris, 1960). He refused to receive the Nobel prize which he had to share with T.A. Edison.

Tesla, Laplace, Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Rutherford

Windows of the building of Electricité de Strasbourg in France, where Tesla had worked for some time, have inscriptions with names of outstanding scientists. There you can see his name surrounded with Laplace, Planck, Bohr, Einstein and Rutherford (click on the left). In front of the building of International Union for Telecommunications in Geneva there is a statue of Nikola Tesla. When his mother died, he paid a visit to Croatian capital Zagreb in 1892, where he gave a lecture about alternating current. On that occasion he said: As a son of my homeland I feel it is my duty to help the city of Zagreb in every respect with my advice and work (Smatram svojom duznoscu da kao rodjeni sin svoje zemlje pomognem gradu Zagrebu u svakom pogledu savjetom i cinom; photo),

Nikola Tesla

and suggested to build alternating current power plant. There is no doubt that by saying “homeland” he meant Croatia. In 1931, at the age of 75, Tesla received birthday greetings from Lee de Forest and Albert Einstein. His monument carved by Ivan Mestrovic, who knew him personally, can be seen in Zagreb. Another monument, carved by Croatian sculptor Frano Krsinic, can be seen near Tesla’s hydro power plant on Niagara Falls. A part of Technical Museum in Zagreb is dedicated to Nikola Tesla. According to some recreational sources on WWW, four greatest geniuses in the history of Mankind are Gutenberg, Edison, da Vinci, and Tesla (in this order). There is not doubt that with a different homeland Tesla’s position on the list would be much higher. Even today, so many years after Tesla’s death (1943), his numerous manuscripts are kept as top secret by the Ministry of Defense of the USA (see Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time, Prentice Hall, 1981; Vladimir Muljevic, Nikola Tesla, slavni izumitelj, Hrvatska zajednica tehnicke kulture, Zagreb, 2000, p. 75.)

Nikola Tesla at the age of 60

Technical Museum in Zagreb, about Tesla’s inventions (rotating egg, Tesla’s three phase generator, Tesla’s transformer, Tesla’s remote control boat, etc).

It seems that Nikola Tesla was the first one to discover the electron. This can be seen in his article “Reply to J.J. Thomson’s note”, published in Electrical Engineer, New York, August 26, 1891. In this article Tesla claims that his experiments prove the existence of charged particles (“small charged balls”), while J.J. Thomson denied this. It was only five years later that Thomson proved the existence of electron using another experiment. See [Centuries of Natural Sciences in Croatia 2, p. 62, article by academician Vladimir Paar, outstanding Croatian physicist].

The Supreme Court of the USA overturned Marconi’s patent of modern radio in favor of Nikola Tesla in 1943, soon after his death. Tesla died in New York, in circumstances close to poverty.

Nikola Tesla je godine 1941. u New Yorku pozvao na ručak znamenitog hrvatsko-američkog boksača Fritzie Zivica,
poznatog pod nadimkom The Croat Comet (s njegovom braćom, također boksačima), nakon jedne njegove
uspješne obrane titule svjetskog prvaka u welter-kategoriji. Izvor fotografije newsinteractive.post-gazette.com.
S lijeva na desno: Joe Zivic, Fritzie Zivic, Nikola Tesla, Jack Zivic, Pete Zivic i Eddie Zivic.

The Croat Comet Fritzie Zivic (izvorno Živčić) i razdragani Nikola Tesla u dobi od 85 g.
Fritzie Zivic je uvršten u International Boxing Hall of Fame godine 1993.

Nikola Tesla (2nd from the left) with three of the Zivic brothers: Eddie, Pete and Fritzi (on the right). Source.

Education of Nikola Tesla in Croatia and his professor Martin Sekulić

Nikola Tesla attended Higher Real School in the town of Rakovac (now a part of the city of Karlovac) in Croatia, from 1870 to 1873, when he was between 14 and 17 years of age, and where the lectures were still held in German language (except for History and Religion, which were taught in Croatian). Among his professors, especially important was Martin Sekulić, who lectured Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. Furthermore, Sekulić was also an active researcher,  due to which in 1873  he was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb, in the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Sekulić also founded physical laboratory at the Real School, which in the early 1870s had an exceptionally rich collection of as many as 579 instruments. In his Authobio­graphy, Nikola Tesla mentioned Sekulić’s ingenious experiments in the school, which enthused him at an early age in choosing Electrical Engineering as his lifelong profession. Among school subjects that Tesla listened to was his mother tongue Kroatische Sprache (Croatian language). It is surprising that at the mentioned school he had up to 9 hours of Mathematics lectures weekly. All this indicates that Tesla had  very good teachers and obtained excellent high school education. In the existing contemporary monographs and books dealing with Tesla, the role of Martin Sekulić in the formation of young Nikola has been almost entirely neglected.

  • Darko Žubrinić: Školovanje Nikole Tesle u Hrvatskoj i njegov profesor Martin Sekulić [PDF] (sažetak), u Povijest i filozofija tehnike / radovi EDZ sekcije 2017. godine / Benčić, Zvonko ; Moser, Josip (ur.). Zagreb : Kiklos, 2017. Str. 81-117.

Teaching of Croatian Language, Mathematics and Physics in the time of Education of Nikola Tesla in Croatia

During the schooling of Nikola Tesla at the High Real School in Rakovac (today a part of the city of Karlovac), the crucial role had his professor Martin Sekulić. Tesla wrote about this in his Authobiography: I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often de-monstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention. In this article, we  present  the educational process at the High Real School in Rakovac when Nikola Tesla attended it in the period of 1870. – 1873. (when he was 14-17), with a special emphasis to the teaching of Croatian language, Mathematics and Physics. The basis for this article is an original yearbook of The Imperial and Royal High Real School in Rakovac in Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier for The School Year 1872/3 i 1873/4, published in Croatian and German languages in the city of Zagreb in 1874.

  • Darko Žubrinić: Nastava hrvatskog jezika, matematike i fizike tijekom školovanja Nikole Tesle u Hrvatskoj [PDF], u Povijest i filozofija tehnike / radovi EDZ sekcije 2018 godine / Benčić, Zvonko (ur.). Zagreb : Kiklos, 2018. Str. 293-317

It is interesting that in Bartol Kasic‘s dictionary of Croatian language (16/17 centuries) one can find the name of “tesla”, meaning adze. The word tesla (adze) is without any doubt related to Croatian words tesar – carpenter, tesati – to trim (a log), to dress (a stone).

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