Nikola Tesla - Heroj Tehnike (Technical Hero) Page 17

Those people had no understanding for Tesla's ideas, so he had to occupy himself with the construction of various machines for direct current. In his autobiography Tesla says, among other things:

The conductors were not properly installed, and precisely on the occasion of the opening of the power station, in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm I, part of the building was hurled into the air by an explosion. The German government did not wish to take over the plant, whereby the French company suffered great losses. In view of my previous successes and because I commanded the German language, I was entrusted with the difficult task of putting matters in order, and at the beginning of 1883 I went to Strasbourg… Practical work, correspondence, and conferences with the authorities occupied me day and night. As soon as I had to some extent fulfilled my duties, I decided to build and test my motor in a mechanical workshop on the other side of the railway station. I brought the necessary material with me from Paris. By the summer of 1883 I had advanced far enough to begin experiments. The very first trial produced the expected result, and to my greatest satisfaction my alternating-current motor with different phases rotated without a commutator and without brushes, exactly as I had conceived it a year earlier. This gave me great joy, which, however, could not be compared with that which I felt at my first discovery.

Since the company did not sufficiently reward his work, he decided to go to the land of unlimited possibilities, to America. About his journey to America Tesla relates:

I sold my belongings, packed the bare necessities, and arrived at the railway station just as the train was about to depart. At that moment I realized that I had spent all my money on the ticket to America, and I had to decide immediately what to do. Hercules had plenty of time to think, but I had to make up my mind while running alongside the train, during which thousands of thoughts passed through my brain like oscillations. At the last moment, after all possible pleasant and unpleasant thoughts had passed through my head, I decided