Nikola Tesla
Member from 1881 until 1943
Nikola Tesla: Visionary and trailblazer for a new technological era, who’s inventions can be found in our devices until this date. Tesla, a native of what is now Croatia, achieved universal fame through his inventions during his time in America. His equally exciting time in Europe, however, has been less known.
This is in part owed to the fact, that Tesla, with the help of the ACE, conducted ground-breaking experiments which were far ahead of their time, but often ended in disaster. The club decided to keep those experiments a closely protected secret. Until now – because recently rediscovered reports by Jelica Munja, the ACE representative in Croatia at the time, have made it possible to reassess the circumstances surrounding the dramatic events.
Therefore, for the first time, the club is now breaking its silence around one of its most spirited members and is delighted to present the findings about his early life and work.
According to a former teacher, he was highly talented in Mathematics from an early age, and his technical and physical understanding soon surpassed that of his teachers.
Tesla’s sporadic notes from his time as a university student show that he believed in the power of engineering, in innovation and that he was fascinated by electricity. It was his biggest aspiration to be able to transfer electricity wirelessly. He wrote:
“Humans are basically made of cosmic energy. Therefore, humans can be fed into a beam of energy and shot from point A to point B in the form of electrical lightning.”
One of his largest and most ambitious ideas was born: A teleportation machine that would send people back and forth between two towers as pure energy by means of a lightning bolt. In 1881, he presented his research in front of the university board, together with his assistant Erik. Jelica Munja recorded for the ACE archives what she observed that day in what is now Croatia.
“The audience were holding their breath! Tesla wanted to demonstrate that his invention would already work on a small scale. He turned on the electricity, there was a humming noise, the generator bounced… the small toy figurine dissolved in the first tower… bright lightning bolts started to build up between the towers… and… the figurine successfully materialised again in the second tower. His model worked! Revolutionary!”
But instead of enthusiasm, viewers reportedly reacted with scepticism and disapproval. Tesla was even expelled from the university for his experiments, which were considered reckless. Munja noted in her report:
“Once more, the infamous words of our founding father van Robbemond ring true, that people will initially deny all things new and discredit it, before pretending that they had known it all along. It is frustrating.”
As the ACE is always keen to encourage the new, Jelica Munja offered Tesla the club’s support to expand his invention on a large scale. Munja described her first impression of the inventor as follows:
“Tesla is an incredibly smart young man with exciting, promising ideas which could change the world forever in a truly spectacular fashion!”
The club provided its new member with funds and an industrial building complete with a power station as a laboratory. According to sketches, Tesla mounted an imposing tower with a gigantic coil on the roof of the laboratory, which would be used to shoot people as lightning bolts. Erik and Tesla experimented tirelessly. Soon Erik himself became the test subject for the invention, which Tesla initially gave the code name ‘Apparatus Ω’.
Jelica Munja noted in her records:
“Nikola carries both sides of a true genius. He sometimes acts a little bit prematurely and became careless in his excitement. I remind him to stay vigilant and about our guidelines, where the ACE always acts fearlessly, but never recklessly.”
Shortly after, an uncharacteristically short entry reads:
“Horrific accident. Erik hurt bad in the face, Nikola heartbroken.”
Jelica’s reports suggest that the accident was not due to Tesla’s overconfidence, as previously feared, but rather that the military wanted to misuse his invention. The two men quickly fled, Erik meanwhile is said to have sabotaged the device in all haste and rendered it unusable, causing an accident and disfiguring his face.
After their escape, the club helped Erik to get a job as an engineer in the construction of the opera house in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Soon after that his trail is lost; despite considerable effort, no reliable clues to his further whereabouts have been found so far. Rumours that his disappearance might have something to do with the legends about an alleged masked phantom at the very same opera house could unfortunately neither be confirmed nor refuted …
Despite the abrupt end of the experiments in what is now Croatia, Tesla was not discouraged, took his ground-breaking ideas and European research spirit and continued his experiments in the USA. Whether the machine known by the code name ‘Apparatus Ω’ ever worked successfully with humans is unfortunately unknown. But the Wardenclyffe Tower that Tesla built in Long Island looked strikingly similar to those in his home country, even if its official purpose was different. What is certain is that his research is an essential milestone for technology and innovation and still accompanies us in our devices every day.
The following artefacts by Nikola Tesla are in the possession of the ACE:
- Large coil
- Research diary
