Izvorni znanstveni članak
Tesla – Visionary of the 21 st Century
Vladimir Paar
; Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Nikola Tesla, whose contemporaries referred to him as “prominent physicist and inventor” can in every sense of this word be considered a technical and scientific visionary. In the world history, Tesla’s highly recognizable position is a result of his numerous technical inventions in the area of Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Energy and Mechanical Engineering and particularly in AC application, which have made major contribution to the second technology revolution in the 20th century. Tesla is also a predecessor of ideas, many of which were later realized, e.g. robotics, radio connections, global communication network (the Internet), TV, computer, aircraft with vertical take-off, laser, nuclear accelerators and use of particle beams for technical and military purposes, cruising missiles, new types of turbines, concept of a radar, vacuum tube, fluorescent lamp, Earth satellites in geostationary orbit, etc. It is less known that Tesla was the first to notice a range of physical phenomena which later scientists received the Nobel Prizes for. To illustrate, Tesla noticed x-rays before Roentgen, his experiments proved the existence of electrons before J.J. Thompson and cosmic beams before Hess, he constructed first particle accelerators before Cockroft and Walton, he worked on the construction of the first laser-like device in as early as 19th century, much before Townes, Prohorov, Basov and Maiman, he invented the logic circuit “AND” which is a basic constituent part of every computer, he provided the idea of electronic microscope before Ruska. This paper focuses on these less known but crucial Tesla’s inventions which have still not been explored and recognized adequately. The idea of analyzing and recognizing all Tesla’s innovations is still very far away but for what had been acknowledged to him he received the highest possible award: He is one of the fourteen world scientists who international system measuring units have been named after: Pascal, Newton, Coulomb, Volt, Ohm, Joule, Watt, Ampere, Faraday, Henry, Weber, Hertz, Kelvin and Tesla. What an elite company for Tesla, Jr.! He was also given a great honour when a crater on the Moon was named after him. For almost half a century, Tesla was a member of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb (then called Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences), together with another two world famous scientists, Mohorovičić (who discovered the Mohorovičić discontinuity between the Earth’s crust and mantle) and Milanković (discovered Milanković cycles of global warming and ice ages on the Earth), who also got their craters on the Moon.
Ključne riječi
tesla – unit of magnetic induction; Tesla’s patents of electro motors, generators, transformers and radio-connection; Tesla’s pioneer inventions of x-rays, electrons, cosmic beams, particle beams, logic circuit AND; visionary Tesla’s ideas of a television
Hrčak ID:
22644
URI
Datum izdavanja:
17.7.2007.
Posjeta: 5.398 *