Page 59 - EE|Times Europe Magazine - December 2020

EE|Times EUROPE 59

OPINION | PORTRAIT
prioritized the discovery over the money; he
Nikola Tesla’s Legacy: once said, “The objective of an invention is
first and foremost the exploitation of natural
forces for human needs. If you are a scientist,
From AC to IoT you are not doing it for money but for the love
of science.”
During his university days, bolstered with
the many scholarships he received, Tesla
By Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio exhibited an obsessive commitment to
his studies, dedicating his heart and
all his energies to books. He spent long
A “character” and a dreamer who nonetheless was able to put hours on research, sometimes from three in
his ideas into practice and earn numerous patents in the process, the morning to eleven in the evening, and
Nikola Tesla revolutionized the use of electricity and set the stage for managed to pass seven exams in his first year
today’s wireless internet of things. at university.
Tesla was born in 1856 in a small town called Smijlian in what is Tesla might be considered the Leopardi
now Croatia. In 1875, at Graz University of Technology, he enrolled of engineering: The eccentric scientist and
in a physics course — the one that still strikes fear in the hearts of inventor was able to draw people’s attention
students today. I remember my own university experience: The thanks to his genius in applied physics. At
physics professor came in on the first day and said that our class of the time, most people thought of electric
100 students would be down to 10 by the end, then added, “Enjoy the course!” current as something mysterious that flowed
The theoretical knowledge of electrical force was already mature in 1875; Maxwell’s famous 20 along the wires thanks to the intervention
equations unifying and describing magnetism and electricity date back to 1873, when Maxwell of a ghost hand. Tesla wanted to master the
published his paper on electricity and magnetism. Indeed, the course Tesla attended in Graz laws of this type of science, and after his
retraced a century of exciting progress. The static electricity studied by Cavendish and Franklin experience with Edison, he became convinced
at the end of the 18th century, the electromagnetic induction discovered by Oersted in 1820, and that the future belonged to a system not yet
the experiments by Faraday that opened the door to the electric motor were the topics that most applicable: alternating current.
fascinated him and turned him over time into “the wizard.” His studies on wireless transmission led
With a snap of the fingers, let the show begin. Continuous or alternating current? Tesla would him to imagine what we know today as
have offered a slight smile as if he had been upset by the question, but he would have gotten the internet of things. “When wireless is
straight to the point, as he did here: “At the time, almost everyone was betting on direct current. perfectly applied, the whole Earth will be
I immediately understood the limits of it, and so I concentrated all my efforts on working on converted into a huge brain, which in fact
alternating current, which allowed me to easily build transformers capable of increasing or it is, all things being particles of a real and
lowering the mains voltage.” rhythmic whole,” Tesla wrote. “We shall
It was a troubled period: Following the scientific discoveries regarding electromagnetism, the be able to communicate with one another
future of electrical industrialization had to rely either on direct current or alternating current. instantly, regardless of distance. Not only
AC could be transmitted over long distances at high voltage using low currents, thus reducing this, but through television and telephony,
energy losses and increasing transmission efficiency; finally, a transformer would be used to we shall see and hear one another as
supply energy to houses and factories. When generators, transformers, motors, wires, and lights perfectly as though we were face to face,
were introduced for the alternating-current system in December 1887, it was clear that AC would despite distances of thousands of miles; and
define the future of electricity distribution. the instruments through which we shall be
The “war” between Tesla and DC developer Edison is well-known. Edison measured the value able to do this will be amazingly simple com-
of a discovery in dollars earned; he was an entrepreneur first and a scientist second. Tesla pared to our present telephone. A man will
be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
His intuitions led him to design the War-
denclyffe Tower wireless transmission station
in Long Island, New York, with funding from
financier J.P. Morgan. By transmitting energy
in the form of electromagnetic waves, he set
the goal of enabling the use of that energy
miles away from the source. He planned to
send highly energetic waves into the upper
layers of the atmosphere via a series of towers
like the Wardenclyffe station to distribute
electricity worldwide. No other similar exper-
iments had been conducted before. Albert
Einstein visited one of Tesla’s various wireless
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK awards — including the Edison Medal of the
towers with other scientists in 1921.
For his inventions, Tesla received numerous

American Institute of Electrical Engineers. ■

Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio is editor-in-chief of
Power Electronics News and EEWeb.

www.eetimes.eu | DECEMBER 2020