Nikola Tesla may not be the best-known man in American science and invention, but he’s one of the most important. His discoveries – aimed at harnessing the power of electricity and magnetism – formed the groundwork for much of the technology used at the Magnet Lab today.

Tesla, born in Serbia and schooled in Europe, came to America in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison at the famous inventor’s Menlo Park laboratory in Edison, New Jersey. Almost immediately, their different ideas and work styles caused tension between the two. Tesla’s focus on scientific discovery frequently clashed with Edison’s bent toward turning a profit. Inside of two years, Tesla left Edison’s
employ, and he worked for a year as a ditch digger to raise funds for his own New York City laboratory.

In the late 1800s, his most productive years as a scientist, Tesla was a prolific inventor. He is credited with the invention of the radio and with the development of technology to harness alternating current (AC) into the reliable power source we all use today. AC power and Tesla’s AC polyphase motor, along with the incandescent
light bulb (invented by Tesla’s rival, Edison) ushered in the second Industrial Revolution. This revolution in mechanization helped to establish America as
a world power that was here to stay.

In New York City, Tesla built various laboratories, making discovery after discovery and also at times making his neighbors uneasy, earning for himself the reputation of a “mad scientist.” He built vacuum tubes that lit up wirelessly and he developed the Tesla coil in the 1890s, using it for many of his electrical experiments. Tesla, fascinated by the coil’s erratic bursts of miniature lightning, experimented with them all his life, building the world’s largest coil in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
in 1899. Unlike his former mentor Edison, Tesla was

                                                                                               -----------By Amy Mast