Tesla - Master Of Lightning Subtitles

00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,When you think of electricity
you think of Edison.

00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:09,When you think of radio
you think of Marconi.

00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:14,But there is one electrical
genius who is nearly forgotten,

00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:20,a man who dreamed of giving the
world an unlimited supply of energy.

00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:23,His name was Nikola Tesla

00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:27,and he was the master of lightning.

00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:33,This program was made possible
by contributions

00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,to your PBS station from
viewers like you.

00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:39,Thank You.

00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,The progressive development of man
is vitally dependent on invention.

00:00:55,640 --> 00:00:59,Its ultimate purpose is
the complete mastery of mind

00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,over the material world,

00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:07,the harnessing of the forces
of nature to human needs.

00:01:08,600 --> 00:01:11,Nikola Tesla,
00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:18,This is the story of a modern Prometheus

00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:21,who changed the world with electricity.

00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:25,It was Nikola Tesla who captured
the power of Niagara Falls

00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:29,with his alternating current system
and made it possible

00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:34,to transmit electricity
to all of America and the world.

00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:40,It was Tesla who patented the
technology for wireless communications

00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:44,that is used in all radio
and television broadcasting.

00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:50,His incredible legacy can be seen
in everything from remote control

00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:53,to neon and fluorescent lighting

00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:55,X-rays

00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:57,guided missiles

00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:01,and even the Strategic
Defense Initiative.

00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:08,Yet somehow history has
overlooked this remarkable man.

00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:10,Tesla was indeed a genius
of the first magnitude.

00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:13,He was a technological visionary.

00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:17,He could envision great
things and make them work.

00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:20,He was a foreigner,

00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,an immigrant who arrived in
America with only his dreams.

00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:29,A proud and sometimes arrogant man,

00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:34,he worked and locked horns with some
of the most powerful people of his day.

00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:39,Thomas Edison, who resented his ideas

00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:45,Guglielmo Marconi, who
capitalized on his inventions

00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:52,George Westinghouse, who created
the Westinghouse Electric Company

00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:54,with Tesla's patents

00:02:56,680 --> 00:03:00,and the great financier,
J. Pierpont Morgan,

00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:03,who supported and then abandoned him.

00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:11,At the height of his career, Tesla was one
of the most famous men in the world.

00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:18,His inventions helped America grow
into a powerful industrial nation.

00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,His ideas created
billion-dollar corporations.

00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,But Tesla was not a practical man.

00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:29,Always driven toward the
next great breakthrough

00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:33,he failed to protect his
commercial interests.

00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:37,In the end, others made fortunes
with his inventions

00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:41,and he wound up
penniless and rejected.

00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:46,Money does not mean to me
what it does to other men.

00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:49,All my money has been
invested in inventions

00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:53,to make man's life a little easier.

00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:58,He was a visionary genius.
There aren't many of them,

00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,and he was willing to give
his life to his visions.

00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:05,We have to evolve means

00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:10,for obtaining energy from stores
that are forever inexhaustible.

00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:15,What I intend to show you now,
step-by-step,

00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,is how I finally reached my dream.

00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:41,This is the house in which,
by coincidence bizarre,

00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:44,I was born on the stroke of midnight

00:04:44,740 --> 00:04:48,between July 9 and 10, 1856.

00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:53,A fierce electrical storm
raged that night.

00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:58,Nikola Tesla was born of Serbian
parents on the eastern edge

00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:03,of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
in what is today Croatia.

00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,His father, Milutin, was an
Orthodox priest

00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:11,who expected his son to follow
him in the clergy.

00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,There were only two choices
for children in those days

00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:20,one being to go in the army and
the other being to become a priest.

00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:23,Tesla was not attracted by
either of them,

00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:27,which was very distressing
to his father.

00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,My father was a very erudite man.

00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:35,The training he gave me comprised
of guessing one another's thoughts

00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:39,and repeating long passages of verse.

00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:46,My mother descended from one of the
oldest Serbian families in the country.

00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:51,She invented and constructed
all kinds of tools and devices

00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:55,and wove the finest designs
from thread.

00:05:55,960 --> 00:06:01,Her fingers were nimble enough
to tie three knots in an eyelash.

00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:10,Early on, Tesla began to demonstrate
an extraordinary imagination.

00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:15,In my boyhood I suffered from
a peculiar affliction

00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:18,due to the appearance of images

00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:21,often accompanied by
strong flashes of light.

00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:26,I was quite unable to
distinguish whether what
I saw was tangible or not.

00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:33,To give an example, I was
fascinated by a description of Niagara

00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:40,and I pictured in my imagination
a big wheel run by the falls.

00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:46,I told my uncle that one day
I would go to America

00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:49,and carry out this scheme.

00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:55,Then, at the age of 17, while
preparing for the seminary,

00:06:55,960 --> 00:07:01,Tesla contracted cholera and a brush
with death changed his life forever.

00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,In one of the spells, which
was thought to be my last,

00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:08,my father rushed into the room.

00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:13,Perhaps, I said, I may get well if
you will let me study engineering.

00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:18,You will go to the best technical
institution in the world,

00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:20,he solemnly said.

00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:25,I came to life,
like another Lazarus,

00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:29,to the utter amazement
of everyone.

00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:35,In 1877, at the age of 21,

00:07:35,870 --> 00:07:40,I travelled to Graz, Austria
to begin my college education.

00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:46,Here I quickly became obsessed
with the science of electricity.

00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:51,I wanted to know more of
this wonderful force.

00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:56,Every spark produced a
thousand echoes in my brain.

00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:01,In 1831, in England,

00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:05,Michael Faraday had discovered the
principal of electro-magnetic induction,

00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:09,which made it possible to
generate electricity.

00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:13,Faraday discovered that if
you have an electric circuit

00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:17,in a changing magnetic field,
it would induce an electric
current to run in the wire.

00:08:17,260 --> 00:08:20,So this was the invention of the
method of inducing, of creating,

00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:25,oscillating or AC electric currents.
And it was that invention that Tesla

00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:29,later harnessed into the electrical
system that drives our civilization.

00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:34,Early electric motors operated
on direct current electricity

00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:40,but required a system of
sparking connections to induce
a rotary effect in the machine.

00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:46,I remarked to my professor that
the design of generators and motors

00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:50,could be greatly improved by
using currents that alternated.

00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:56,He embarrassed me, greatly,
in front of my classmates saying:

00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:03,Mr. Tesla...