Pioneers in Tech: Nikola Tesla’s vision for wireless communication

This edition of Pioneers in Tech looks at the legend of Nikola Tesla—not only do electric cars bear his name, but also his alternating-current (AC) electric system remains the basis of electricity today. Plus, the “Tesla coil” he invented is still used in radio technology more than 130 years later.

Tesla’s vision

Even in failure the inventor/engineer was prescient. Born July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia, Tesla came to the United States to work with Thomas Edison. This is a match that didn’t remain happy for very long. The two became fierce rivals as they found different financial backers for Edison’s direct-current electricity and Tesla’s AC. Tesla was supported by businessman George Westinghouse as well as J.P. Morgan, and it was Morgan who gave Tesla more than $150,000 to build a global wireless communications system.

As Tesla described it: “… it will be possible for a businessman in New York to dictate instructions and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. … An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant.”

The centerpiece of this wireless communications system was a 186-foot-tall tower on Long Island. It was called Wardenclyffe (though some would call it Tesla’s “million-dollar folly”). It became clear Tesla would need far more funding to make his vision a reality, and Morgan declined to be the source. The project was abandoned, and the tower was razed in 1917. Tesla became increasingly reclusive and eccentric, devoting his time to pigeons. He passed away in 1943.

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