Name: Nikola Tesla

Born: 1856, Austria-Hungary (which later became Serbia). Immigrated to America in 1884 to work with Thomas Edison.
Died: 1943, New York
Occupation: Inventor

Achievement: Invented the induction motor and polyphase (alternating-current) power transmission, both still of considerable importance today. He was responsible for the first practical commercial use of alternating current (AC) motors, generators and transmission lines. Tesla also developed a high-voltage generator known the "Tesla coil" which to this day is used to give spectacular lightening demonstrations. Perhaps you've seen demonstrations in museums where streamers of electricity shoot from a large metal ball.

Marital status: Never married, celibate.

Notable physical features: Tesla was six feet six inches tall with abnormally long thumbs. A patch of white hair temporarily formed on his jet black hair when his mother died.

Some bizarre behaviors: Columbiphilia (pigeon-love), kakiphobia (fear of dirt), scotophilia (love of the dark), pathophobia (fear of germs), spherophobia (fear of round objects), triphilia (obsession with the number 3), and visual and auditory hallucinations.

Frivolous signature: Sometimes he signed his letters with the initials "G.I.", for Great Inventor.

Standard dress: Black Prince Albert coat and a derby hat, white silk handkerchiefs, stiff collars -- all worn even in the laboratory or when covered with living carpets of pigeons.

Residence as an adult: Various New York City hotels.

Religion: Interested in Buddhism and Christianity, but not an orthodox believer.

Prejudice: Antisemetic as evidenced by statements such as: "Miss! Never trust a Jew!" or "...though a day of plebeians -- drummers, grocerymen, Jews, and other social trilobites, the prospect is nevertheless delightful."

Despised Rivals: Thomas Edison, inventor, and Guglielmo Marconi, physicist.

Favorite quotes by others about him:

"Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. Yes, so far reaching is his work that it has become the warp and woof of industry." (B. A. Behrend)
"Nikola Tesla is the world's greatest inventor, not only at present but in all history... His basic as well as revolutionary discoveries, for sheer audacity, have no equal in the annals of the intellectual world." (Hugo Gernsback, science editor and publisher)

Little-known discovery: In one of Tesla's labs was a vibrating platform which Tesla discovered had a strange laxative effect. When his friend, Mark Twain, stayed on the platform too long, Tesla had to rush him to the restroom.

Special honors: The international unit for magnetic flux density is now called the Tesla, symbolized with a "T". It is equivalent to 10,000 Gauss or 1 Weber per square meter.