Nikola Tesla's AC Electric Motor

One day in 1877 professor of Experimental Physics of the University of Gratz, professor Pöschl, was showing a dynamo, which had just arrived from Paris, to a group of his students. Among them was young Tesla, who listened and watched very carefully, more carefully than other students. When at the end of the lecturing professor asked if there were any questions, Tesla, at the time still attending the second year of the studies, asked for a word. He said that there was a way to construct a motor without commutators and brushes.

This young student’s remark astonished the professor and affected his vanity so he hurried to give a lengthy explanation why that was impossible. And while the other students were satisfied with his explanation, Tesla stood firmly to his opinion.

In the next few days, the thought of a new motor construction couldn’t leave his mind. He was thinking about it all the time; while he was studying or experimenting, while he was relaxing or working or being amused. Days, months and years passed contemplating. And what was the most important of all, he was more and more convinced that there was a solution and that he would be the one to discover it.

He discovered it accidentally, on a February afternoon while walking with a friend in the Budapest Park, listening to Göethe’s verses from Faust and watching the sun go down;

“The glow retreats, done is the day of toil
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

A lovely dream, while glory fades from sight.
Alas! To wings that lift the spirit light
No earthly wing will ever be a fellow.”

With a lightning flash before the young scientist’s eyes the idea was born - the solution of the problem that occupied him so much. He immediately started to draw figures and complicated diagrams and calculations in the sand with a stick. His idea of constructing a new kind of electromotor he will bear in his mind until his arrival to Paris, where he constructed a model of this motor and offered it to entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the European entrepreneurs were very conservative so they refused the young man’s proposal, not comprehending that the future of the world was in it. However, Tesla did not give up. He decided to offer the motor to American industrialists, who were more open to innovations.

And so he did. A few years later he patented his invention that will change the world.