Today is my Dad’s birthday. He entered this world on July 9, 1922. Paul Edward John would have been 100 years old today but crossed into his next realm in 2013. I have missed him ever since. I’ve talked about my Dad several times here, but it is always for good reason. You see, I won the lottery when it came to fathers. I can’t imagine a better one, really. I had the pleasure of knowing him for 49 years, and I cherish every one of those moments.
I can’t believe how much I still miss my Dad.
There are a whole big lot of incredible people in the world, though.
Today, I will write about another, as it is also the birthday of Nikola Tesla. His year of birth came much earlier than my Dad’s. In 1856. He was born in the Austrian Empire, better known now as Croatia.
Nikola. I’m telling you. He was the master of electricity. Most people think Edison was the guy. But really, he just won many footraces to the door of the Patent Office.
But back to Nikola Tesla. An amazing inventor and engineer who discovered and patented the rotating magnetic field, which is the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He also developed the three-phase system of electric power transmission.
In electricity, the phase refers to the distribution of a load. Power load. So three-phase obviously packs a bigger punch than single-phase and is mostly used in commercial and industrial settings where more power needs to be delivered to large machines and such.
Anyway, this guy was a genius. In his life, he came up with a multitude of inventions and ideas that were groundbreaking, to say the least. In fact, many of his inventions are still classified by the government. It is true. When Tesla died in 1943, all of his possessions were seized by the Office of Alien Property (even though he was a U.S. citizen). Eventually, most of it was released to his family, but a few select items are still behind closed doors. Those “certain” inventions and experiments are still classified by the U.S. government.
It makes me wonder.
He was destined to work in electricity if anyone was. I mean, Tesla was born during a lightning storm. A fierce storm raged in the skies that night in Serbia. He came into this Earth right at midnight, so some say his birthday is the 9th, and some say the 10th, and maybe it is a little bit of both. Anyway, the midwife thought it was a bad omen, and that little Nikola would be a child of darkness. But Tesla’s mother disagreed. She saw something different and said, prophetically, “No, he will be a child of light.”
Her name was Georgina-Đuka Tesla, nee Mandić. Her son would light the world.
Yet. As Tesla grew, his personality showed some of his flaws. I understand these well, as today, experts say he clearly suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was obsessed with the number three. He detested jewelry. He also hated round objects and touching hair.
He was particularly wary of pearls. He wouldn’t talk to women wearing them.
And this one I really know. He claimed he only needed two hours of sleep at night, though he often took afternoon naps. Yes, indeed.
It continues. He was a germaphobe. When he was a teenager, he nearly died from cholera. Not long after, he became obsessive about germs and cleaning everything. Telsa kept an extensive, rigid, ongoing personal hygiene routine. At night, he used exactly 18 napkins to wipe his dining room. He also wore white gloves to every dinner.
We can credit him for the idea of wireless Internet and smartphones, because all the way back in 1901, Tesla actually had the idea for this. He devised a wireless way to gather information. He would then code it in his lab and change the frequency. Finally, he would broadcast it to a hand-held device. This is almost exactly how our smartphones work today. That’s right. 1901.
Without his inventions and research, our world would look much different than it does today. Tesla’s experiments can be seen just about everywhere we turn. They include fluorescent lighting, x-ray machines, radio, television, cell phones, and more.
So, a short glimpse into the life of Nikola Tesla, the child of light.
My Dad was a child of light too. But a different kind of light. The one that shines from the soul.
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“Electricity for example was considered a very Satanic thing when it was first discovered and utilized.”
― Zeena Schreck
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Electricity is really just organized lightning”
― George Carlin
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“Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”
― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions
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Children of the good, good light.
