A Man Dreams Came True

In the Olympus of the scientists and inventors is Nikola Tesla , one of the greatest inventors of all time. Of Serbo-Croatian origin, he immigrated to the United States in 1884 and there, over the course of his life, registered over 200 patents. He never got the merits, the glory and the earnings he deserved, yet he foretold some of the technologies that have revolutionized the world, even up to very recent times. Here are five of his most interesting visions, fits perfectly.

Credits Pixabay

THE WI-FI

While Guglielmo Marconi sent letters of the alphabet in Morse code across the Atlantic, in 1901, Tesla went further. He tried to carry the electric current through the atmosphere, just like with the radio waves: he predicted that one day it would be possible to transmit telephone signals, documents, music and films all over the world thanks to a wireless technology, which we call ... wireless . His prediction came true in the 90s for the Internet, and even earlier with cell phones.

THE SMARTPHONE AND THE VISION OF UTOPIA

In an interview given in 1926 to the magazine Collier he told of a world where it would be possible to eliminate distances thanks to a pocket-sized object very similar to our smartphone.

"When wireless telephony will be perfectly applied," he said, " the Earth will turn into a huge brain , as it is, and all things will be part of a real, pulsating whole. We will be able to communicate with each other instantly, regardless of distance. Not only that, but through television [ invented that year ] and telephony we will be able to see each other and feel exactly as if we were face to face, even if thousands of kilometers away. And the tools that will allow us to do this will be incredibly simple: a man will be able to keep them in his vest pocket. "

FEMALE EMANCIPATION

In the same interview, which was entitled "WHEN WOMAN IS BOSS", there was talk of how wireless technologies could help women get better education, more employment and even become the dominant sex.
In this case, Tesla's utopian vision prevails: there are not, then as today, explicit correlations between technology and feminine emancipation. It is however true that there are women who have become leaders in the technology sectors (such as former CEO of Yahoo !, Marissa Mayer, or Sheryl Sandberg, managing director of Facebook). And it is true that there are women's movement (and not only) that today uses technology to sensitize public opinion on global issues affecting women, such as the #metoo campaign against sexual harassment.

THE DRONES

In 1898 Tesla invented and showed the public a "drone" without wires, similar to a remote-controlled toy ... The reception was of enthusiasm and also disbelief: many thought that inside there was a small monkey that controlled it ! In advance of a century, he had imagined and built a drone, with the technologies available to him. Tesla had no doubt that one day there would be room for remote-controlled cars .

WIRELESS POWER TRANSMISSION

Tesla's "passion" for transmission was boundless. The scientist-inventor was convinced of the need to distribute free transmissions system anywhere in the world: it was his recipe against poverty and the many difficulties of the time. In 1901 he started the Wardenclyffe tower project, in Long Island (New York), from where, transmitting energy in the form of electromagnetic waves, he wanted to bring light to miles of distance. His plan was to send highly energetic waves to the upper layers of the atmosphere, thanks to a series of towers like Wardenclyffe, to distribute electricity around the globe. Shortly before the completion of the project, the investor, JP Morgan, withdrew: if anyone in the world could have used transmission system without control ... where did the gains come from? A few years later, in 1917, the tower was demolished to recover and recycle metal materials and scrap.
Today we can say that, in some ways, there is actually an electrical distribution network that runs through many countries and places in the world.