Biography Index - Previous Page - List of Patents


The Later Years

   
    In Tesla's later years, he released numerous inventions that failed commercially and eventually brought him to another nervous breakdown.
    "My enemies have been so successful in portraying me as a poet and a visionary," said Tesla, "that I must put out something commercial without delay." [01]
   
Tesla planned to build a large tower in Colorado Springs, consisting of a large copper ball containing a large tesla coil. The tower would not only absorb electricity from the earth and atmosphere, but could also transmit information to anywhere in the world. J.P Morgan was the key investor and shared Tesla's dream of the tower's capabilities. During the construction, the market began to fall and the prices for the materials almost doubled. When Tesla pleaded to Morgan that he needed significantly more money, Morgan dropped the project all together. It has since been dubbed "Tesla's million dollar folly".
    Tesla would release more patents and inventions, including the nation's first radar system, all without commercial success. He began spending more time walking in the park and tending to injured pigeons. He would even ask the hotel chef to make special seed mix that he hoped to sell commercially, a sign of his dwindling mental health. He kept a meager living by working as a consulting engineer.
    Tesla would often speak out against Albert Einstein, ". . .insisting that energy is not contained in matter, but in the space between the particles of an atom." [01]
    The last patent that Tesla received was in 1928, at age 72. The patent was of a flying transportation machine that could take off from almost any location, resembling both a helicopter and a plane (known today as a VSTOL, vertical short takeoff and landing). Tesla never had the money to build a prototype.
    Tesla died alone and penniless on January 7th, 1943, in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. The United State's Alien Property Custodian office impounded all of the documents, papers, and transcripts found in Tesla's home after his death, even though Tesla was a naturalized US citizen. The documents consisted of unfinished plans Tesla had been working on, including plans for a "Death Ray". Tesla's family and the Yugoslav Embassy fought with American authorities to get the materials back. Tesla's nephew Sava Kosanovic finally succeeded in retrieving the materials which now remain in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, along with Nikola Tesla's ashes.

           
                                                                                                   Tesla's favorite white pidgeon                    Tesla's aircraft patent               


Images on left and right hand side from: http://www.teslasociety.com
Images in the center from: http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_poevis.html

[01] PBS: Tesla - http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/index.html

Biography Index - Previous Page - List of Patents