NIKOLA TESLA DEAD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 8, 11 January 1943, Page 3

NIKOLA TESLA DEAD

Discoverer Of Alternating Electric Current ARC-LAMP LIGHTING INVENTOR Rec. 1 p.m. NEW YORK, Jan. 10. The death is announced of the famous electrician, Nikola Tesla, discoverer of the alternating electric current.

Nikola Tesla was born at Smiljan, Croatia,-in 1857, and studied at Graz and Prague University. His father was a priest of the Greek Church and his mother a woman of great ingenuity, who invented many household gadgets. After serving in the Budapest Telegraph Engineering Department, Nikola went to Paris to conduct experiments in electric lighting. Attracted to America by the rewards there for genius and inventions, he worked for a time in the Edison laboratories. He then spent some time in developing the arc-lamp lighting system, of which he was the inventor. His greatest work was in connection with alternating current. Many important advances in electrical development stand to his credit, including radio work and the transmission of power from the Niagara Falls. In the later years of his life he devoted much time to experimenting with wireless transmission of power, and in 1031 it was declared that he believed he had solved the problem. In 1932 he said that he bad discovered means of transmitting power from one planet to another. Next year he claimed to have found a method of harnessing cosmic energy which would drive the machinery of the world at a small cost. In 1934 he claimed to have invented a "death ray" which could instantly kill a whole army or make planes crash. These three claims were not tested. Tesla has 900 patents to his credit. .