One of the greatest inventors of modern times died living in poverty and was forgotten by society for years after his death. When we think of the greatest minds in this world, we immediately think of the brilliance of people like Albers Einstein, who identified and laid the foundation for today's physicists; Or Stephen Hawking, the man who studied general relativity and quantum gravity. But none of these men had as big an impact on your daily life as Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla was able to memorize entire books and visualize inventions with absolute precision. Once he memorized his plan, he went out and made it a reality. This made his mind truly unique. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Let's start at the beginning. Nikola Tesla was born in 1846 in a small village in modern Croatia. Tesla's birth occurred during a particularly violent storm; Reading this as a bad omen, the doctor told Tesla's mother that her son would become a child of darkness. Tesla's mother told the doctor that he was wrong and that he was a child of light. As we will see later, Tesla proves his mother was right. During his high school career, it began to become clear that Tesla was a little different than his classmates. He was able to perform the integral calculus in his head on his own. Eventually he did so well on his exams that his teachers accused him of cheating. It's no surprise that Tesla managed to graduate early. Unfortunately, he contracted cholera soon after. A life-threatening virus that can kill you within hours if left untreated. He spoke to his father and begged him to let him study engineering, because it was the only way to continue living, instead of choosing the already planned path of becoming a priest. Fortunately, his father agreed. Tesla spent the day in bed confined and paralyzed by the severity of his illness, but made an astonishing recovery when the odds were stacked against him. Tesla's father remained true to his word and let Tesla go to university in Austria. At university, Tesla exceeded expectations when he achieved the highest grades possible, was able to speak eight different languages, and was named a star student of the highest rank by the dean of the universities. Tesla claimed to have worked from three in the morning to eleven at night. Because of this, his professors wrote multiple letters to his father telling him that his son might be killed due to overwork. During his second year, Tesla became addicted to gambling. He ended up losing all of his scholarship money, along with his parents' money. Shortly afterwards he managed to repay his parents' losses, but unfortunately he fell short in his exams. He requested an extended period of study but was denied. Tesla failed his exams and was forced to drop out of college. To hide the fact that he failed to finish college, Tesla abandoned his family and ran away to Budapest. This happened so suddenly that rumors spread among his friends that he had drowned. From Budapest he moved to America with only four cents to his name. After working a few casual jobs, Tesla was able to work for Thomas Edison at one of his first power plants. During his time working there, Tesla said he had an idea for improving the DC motors and generators that Edison had designed. He asked for a million dollars in exchange for his improvements, which Edison accepted. The improvements Tesla made in engines were so significant that the technology is used in our everyday household appliances such aswashing machines, for the vibration of our smartphones and even in a main component of Tesla cars! After Tesla brought the finished product to Edison, he was laughed at. Edison told Tesla that he does not understand our American humor and that he would not receive any money. Around this time, around 1890, the electrical revolution was about to begin. This was a change believed to be even bigger than the introduction of the Internet in the 1990s. Soon the world transitioned from oil lamps to electric light bulbs. Electricity created the largest investment bubble we had ever seen. Billion-dollar companies appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and the American economy was entered into a period of enhanced growth that would last for decades. Work, along with life itself, has been made easier by this big change. After being tricked by Edison, Tesla decided to join the electrical revolution by studying the inner workings of AC voltage. While looking for financiers for his low-AC world, Tesla began work digging ditches for two dollars a day, equal to about fifty dollars in today's economy. In his autobiography, Tesla describes this period of his life as the most painful. Fortunately, Tesla was able to form a partnership with George Westinghouse, an entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway break; which put Tesla in direct competition with Edison and his company General Electric. Fortunately, Edison never used Tesla's original plan for more efficient motors. So this means that Edison was using his old system which created dangerous sparks, couldn't transmit electricity very far, required a power plant nearly every mile, and had wires as thick as an arm. On the other hand, Tesla's AC system used thinner wires, had higher voltages, and could transmit electricity over long distances. Edison knew that Tesla's system was superior, so he began to block any possibility of expansion that Tesla had. His special interest companies began stealing Tesla's ideas and patenting them so that Tesla could not claim ownership. Not only that, but Edison began paying school kids twenty-five cents for any pets they managed to capture from Tesla's house. He would go and make a public performance of him using Tesla's AC current to shock the animals and scare the public into thinking that what Tesla was doing was dangerous. This led to the invention of the electric chair. You can believe that Edison made sure to use Tesla's AC current to shock his victims. This series of events led Tesla to demonstrate the safety of his invention to the public by shooting a current through his body to power a light bulb at the 1893 world's fair. Obviously this has led to a dramatic increase in the use of air conditioning throughout the world. Tesla quickly became a celebrity simply for making everyone's life easier with his unique invention. This led the public to despise Edison, and he soon after lost control of his company, General Electric. To give Edison some credit, he is responsible for inventing the first movie camera; thus he had also contributed greatly to the society. What I believe led Tesla to his decline was his love for humanity. In his autobiography, Tesla said this: “Money doesn't mean as much to me as it does to others. All my money has been invested in inventions that aim to make life easier.” As you've probably gathered by now, Tesla wasn't exactly a normal person on a mental level. It is thought that he may suffer from implosive obsessive disorder because he has.