identity-runtime: talk with the Tesla guide

Portrait

AI-generated portrait in the likeness of Nikola Tesla, supplied by the project author. Not a photograph. Not animated. The original file's Content Credentials record it as AI-generated. The talking guide is a separate illustration.

Talking guide

Breathing, glances and faint coil arcs while idle.

Illustrated character, not a likeness of a real photo. An original cartoon drawn for this page. The lips follow the words being read; the coil's arcs follow the estimated mouth opening, not measured sound.

Historical photoThe real Nikola Tesla, about age 34. Photograph by Napoleon Sarony, c. 1890. Public domain (copyright expired), via Wikimedia Commons. Not animated and not the guide.

Voice

Synthetic narration. Not a recording or imitation of Nikola Tesla.

Browser voice (male voices first) Rate Pitch

Conversation

JavaScript is off. The conversation, the voice and the talking illustration need JavaScript. Every scripted answer is listed below as plain text, with its source.

Who are you? Are you Nikola Tesla?: I am the Inventor's Notebook guide, a fictional educational character inspired by Nikola Tesla. I am not Tesla himself, and I do not speak for him. Every answer on this page was written in advance from published sources, and each one names its source so you can check it. Source: personalities/tesla.json (identity module)
Are you an AI chatbot?: No. I am not an AI chatbot and nothing here is generated on the fly. This page holds a fixed list of questions and answers. Your words are matched against that list in your own browser, and if nothing fits I say so. Nothing you type or say leaves your device, apart from whatever your browser's own speech recognition does. Source: identity-runtime README
Are you connected to Tesla, Inc. or Elon Musk?: No. This page and this character have no connection with Tesla, Inc. and are not endorsed by it. The car company was founded in 2003 and named in honour of the inventor, who had died sixty years earlier. He had nothing to do with it. Source: Wikipedia: Tesla, Inc.
Can you send an email or buy something for me?: No. On this page I can only answer from my scripted notes. Sending email needs a lease that a person grants and a human approval for each message, and spending money is not part of my personality at all. Neither is available here. This requires human approval. Source: identity-runtime: capability leases
When and where was Tesla born?: Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in the village of Smiljan, then in the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire and now in Croatia. His family were ethnic Serbs; his father Milutin was an Eastern Orthodox priest. He was the fourth of five children. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Childhood
Was Tesla Serbian, Croatian or American?: He was an ethnic Serb, born in what is now Croatia when it was part of the Austrian Empire. He moved to the United States in 1884 and became a naturalised American citizen on 30 July 1891. Both Serbia and Croatia honour him today. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Early years
Where did Tesla study? Did he graduate?: He enrolled at the Imperial-Royal Technical College in Graz in 1875 and did very well in his first year, but by his third year he was failing and he left in December 1878 without graduating. In 1880 he went to Prague but arrived too late to enrol, and attended lectures there instead. He never received a degree. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Youth
What did Tesla do before coming to America?: In 1881 he went to Budapest to work at the new telephone exchange under Tivadar Puskas, where he became chief electrician. In 1882 Puskas found him a job in Paris with the Continental Edison Company, installing electric lighting, which gave him a great deal of practical experience. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Working at Edison
When did Tesla come to the United States?: He emigrated in June 1884 and started almost at once at the Edison Machine Works on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He stayed about six months before leaving to strike out on his own. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Moving to the United States
Did Edison cheat Tesla out of $50,000?: That story comes mainly from Tesla's own later account. He wrote that the manager of the Edison Machine Works offered him a $50,000 bonus to redesign the company's machines and that it turned out to be a joke. Later retellings put the words in Thomas Edison's mouth. Historians treat the details as uncertain, because the main source is Tesla himself, written decades afterwards. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Working at Edison
Were Tesla and Edison rivals?: They worked together only briefly, in 1884, and they disagreed about many things. The famous commercial fight over alternating and direct current was mostly between the Edison and Westinghouse companies, not a personal duel. Popular culture has made the personal rivalry much bigger than the documents show. In fact Tesla later accepted the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Source: Wikipedia: War of the currents
What was the War of the Currents?: In the late 1880s and early 1890s, companies selling direct-current systems, led by Edison's, competed fiercely with companies selling alternating current, led by Westinghouse. It involved price-cutting, patent suits and a public campaign about the dangers of high-voltage AC. Alternating current won for long-distance supply largely because transformers can change its voltage easily. Source: Wikipedia: War of the currents
What is the difference between AC and DC?: Direct current flows steadily in one direction, like the current from a battery. Alternating current reverses direction many times a second. The great practical advantage of AC is the transformer: it can raise the voltage for efficient long-distance transmission and lower it again for safe use in buildings. Source: Wikipedia: Alternating current
What was Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing?: After leaving Edison in 1885 he formed Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing with investors and built an arc-lighting system in Rahway, New Jersey. His first US patents came from this work. The investors then decided to run only a utility, dropped him and kept his patents, and he had to take labouring jobs for a time. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing
What is the AC induction motor?: It is a motor driven by polyphase alternating current. Several currents, out of step with one another, create a magnetic field that rotates, and that field drags the rotor around. It needs no commutator or brushes, so it avoids sparking and much maintenance. My namesake patented his design in May 1888 and demonstrated it to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on 16 May 1888. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, AC and the induction motor
How does an induction motor work?: Picture coils arranged around a ring, the stator. Feed them alternating currents that peak one after another, and the magnetic field sweeps round the ring. Inside sits the rotor, a cage of conductors. The moving field induces currents in the rotor, and those currents feel a force that makes the rotor chase the field. That is why it is called an induction motor: nothing touches the rotor electrically. Source: Wikipedia: Induction motor
Did anyone else invent the same kind of motor?: No. The Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris developed a similar commutator-free motor based on a rotating magnetic field in 1885 and published it in March 1888. Westinghouse looked at both and judged that Tesla's patents would probably control the market. Many engineers, including Westinghouse's own, turned these ideas into practical machines. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, AC and the induction motor
What was Tesla's deal with George Westinghouse?: In July 1888 Tesla's partners Brown and Peck licensed his polyphase motor and transformer patents to George Westinghouse for $60,000 in cash and stock plus a royalty of $2.50 per AC horsepower. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for a year as a consultant in Pittsburgh. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, AC and the induction motor
Did Tesla tear up his royalty contract?: The dramatic scene of tearing up the contract is a popular legend. What the sources describe is less theatrical: when Westinghouse was in financial difficulty in the early 1890s, Tesla agreed to release the company from the royalty clause. Six years later Westinghouse bought the patent outright for a lump sum of $216,000. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Market turmoil
What is a Tesla coil?: It is a resonant transformer that produces very high voltage, low current, high-frequency alternating current. He developed it around 1889 to 1891, after trying to repeat Heinrich Hertz's radio-wave experiments, and patented it in 1891. He used it in his lighting and wireless experiments. Today it is mostly used for teaching and for spectacular displays of sparks. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Tesla coil
How do I build a Tesla coil at home?: I will not give building instructions. Tesla coils and their power supplies work at voltages that can kill, and they need training and proper safety equipment. If you want to explore, ask a science teacher or a museum about a supervised demonstration, or try safe classroom experiments with low-voltage batteries, such as building a simple electromagnet. This requires human approval. Source: personalities/tesla.json (safety policy)
Did Tesla light lamps without wires?: Yes, at short range. In public lectures in the 1890s he used high-frequency fields from his coils to light gas-filled Geissler tubes and even incandescent bulbs across a stage, through near-field coupling. None of his ventures turned it into a commercial lighting product. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Wireless lighting
What happened at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair?: Westinghouse Electric won the bid to light the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago with alternating current, a very public showcase for AC. Tesla exhibited there and spoke at the International Electrical Congress, where he also introduced a steam-powered oscillating generator. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Polyphase system and the Columbian Exposition
What was Tesla's role at Niagara Falls?: In 1893 Edward Dean Adams of the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company asked his opinion on how to transmit the power. He advised a two-phase AC system. Westinghouse was awarded the contract for the two-phase generators and General Electric for the distribution system. So he was an adviser and his patents were used; he did not build the plant himself. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Consulting on Niagara
What happened in the 1895 laboratory fire?: On 13 March 1895 the building on South Fifth Avenue that housed his laboratory caught fire. His fourth-floor laboratory burned and collapsed into the floor below, setting back his work considerably. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, The Nikola Tesla Company
Did Tesla work on X-rays?: Yes. After Wilhelm Roentgen announced X-rays in December 1895, Tesla experimented with X-ray imaging in 1896, using single-terminal tubes driven by his coils. One account suggests he may have captured an X-ray effect by accident a few weeks before Roentgen's announcement. He also noted that the work was hazardous to skin. Roentgen is credited with the discovery. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, X-ray experimentation
What was Tesla's radio-controlled boat?: In 1898, at an electrical exhibition in Madison Square Garden, he demonstrated a small boat steered by radio signals, which he called a telautomaton. It was one of the first wirelessly controlled vehicles. He tried to sell the idea to the US military as a guided torpedo, but they showed little interest. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Radio remote control
Did Tesla invent radio instead of Marconi?: Radio has many contributors, including Hertz, Lodge, Braun, Marconi and Tesla. Tesla held important 1897 patents on tuned circuits. In 1943 the US Supreme Court, in a case brought by the Marconi Company, restored prior patents of Oliver Lodge, John Stone Stone and Tesla, but the court said its decision had no bearing on Marconi's claim to have first achieved radio transmission. So the honest answer is: an important contributor, not the sole inventor. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Wireless lawsuits
What did Tesla do in Colorado Springs?: In 1899 and 1900 he ran a laboratory in Colorado Springs to study high-voltage, high-frequency power and wireless transmission. He operated a large coil in the megavolt range and produced artificial lightning with discharges of up to about 41 metres, and at one point burned out the local power company's generator. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Colorado Springs
Did Tesla receive signals from Mars?: In Colorado Springs he recorded signals he could not explain and suggested they might come from another planet. Newspapers turned it into a story about Mars, and he wrote about it in Collier's Weekly in 1901. There is no evidence that the signals came from another planet; natural or terrestrial radio sources are far more likely. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Colorado Springs
What was Wardenclyffe Tower?: Wardenclyffe was the tower and laboratory he began building in 1901 at Shoreham, Long Island, with $150,000 from J. P. Morgan. It was meant first for transatlantic wireless communication, and he hoped later for wireless power. Marconi crossed the Atlantic by radio in December 1901, investors lost confidence, and the project came to a halt in 1905. The tower was demolished in 1917. The site is now the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. Source: Wikipedia: Wardenclyffe Tower
Did Tesla send wireless power to homes?: No. Wardenclyffe never delivered wireless power to anyone. The project ran out of money, came to a halt in 1905, and the tower was demolished in 1917. His lecture demonstrations lit lamps only at short range. Even if it had worked, his plan would still have needed power stations to supply the energy; it was a way of transmitting energy, not of making it. Source: Wikipedia: Wardenclyffe Tower
Did Tesla invent a free energy machine?: No. No working free-energy machine by Tesla has ever been documented, and none could work: every machine obeys the conservation of energy, so it cannot put out more energy than it takes in. His wireless schemes were about moving energy from power stations, not creating it. Websites that sell 'free energy' plans or devices under his name are not supported by his papers or by physics. Source: Wikipedia: Conservation of energy
Is Tesla's radiant energy patent a free energy device?: No. His 1901 patent on 'utilization of radiant energy' describes an insulated plate and a capacitor that collect a small electric charge from radiation such as light, rather like an early photoelectric or static collector. It gathers energy that arrives from outside; it does not create energy, and it produces only tiny amounts. Source: Google Patents: US685957A
Did Tesla build a death ray?: No working death ray has ever been documented. In 1934 he told reporters he had designed a defensive particle-beam weapon, later called teleforce, and he made large claims about it, but he never showed how it worked. After his death in 1943 the MIT engineer John G. Trump examined his papers and effects and reported nothing that would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Death
Did Tesla invent electricity?: No. Electricity is a natural phenomenon, and nobody invented it. People such as Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell understood it long before him. His contributions were specific: polyphase alternating-current motors and systems, patented from 1888, and the Tesla coil, patented in 1891, alongside the work of many other engineers. Source: Wikipedia: History of electromagnetic theory
What about 3, 6 and 9?: The famous quotation about 3, 6 and 9 being the key to the universe has no documented source in his writings; it is a modern internet legend. Some biographers report that he had personal habits involving the number three, but that is a matter of personality, not engineering. No invention of his depends on numerology. Source: personalities/tesla.json (myths to correct)
Did Tesla's oscillator cause an earthquake?: That claim comes from Tesla himself, speaking to reporters in the 1930s about an event he dated to 1898. There is no independent record of an earthquake caused by his mechanical oscillator, and his further claim that a version could bring down a skyscraper was never demonstrated. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Other ideas
Were Tesla's inventions suppressed or stolen by the government?: After his death in January 1943 the Office of Alien Property Custodian took custody of his belongings because of wartime worries. John G. Trump of MIT examined them for three days and reported nothing that would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands. In 1952 the estate was shipped to Belgrade, where it is held by the Nikola Tesla Museum. There is no documented secret working invention. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Death
Do Tesla frequencies or Tesla devices heal the body?: I do not make any health claims. Products sold with his name for healing, energy or wellness are not connected with his documented work, and I cannot vouch for them. For anything about your health, please ask a qualified health professional. Source: personalities/tesla.json (claims to avoid)
Did Tesla win a Nobel Prize?: No. In 1915 some newspapers reported that he and Edison would share the Nobel Prize in Physics, but it did not happen. The 1915 physics prize went to William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg for their work on X-ray crystallography. Source: NobelPrize.org: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1915
What awards did Tesla receive?: He received many honours, including the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, listed for 1916. In 1937 the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav ambassadors presented him with orders and medals. The Wikipedia article lists the full set with sources. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Awards
What is the Tesla turbine?: It is a bladeless turbine that uses smooth, closely spaced discs instead of blades; the fluid drags the discs round. He demonstrated a 200 horsepower version on his 50th birthday in 1906, and several were tested at the Waterside Power Station in New York in 1910 and 1911. It never displaced bladed turbines in power stations. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Bladeless turbine
How many patents did Tesla have?: He obtained around 300 patents worldwide. Some were not well catalogued and have been rediscovered in patent archives since. A patent shows what someone claimed and was granted, not that a device was built or worked commercially. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla
What was Tesla's life like in his later years?: Having spent most of his money, he lived in a series of New York hotels and left some unpaid bills behind. From 1934 he lived at the Hotel New Yorker, and Westinghouse paid him $125 a month as well as his rent. He held press events on his birthdays where he described ideas, some of which were never built. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Living circumstances
Is it true Tesla loved pigeons?: Yes. In his later years he walked to the park almost every day to feed pigeons, fed them at his hotel window and nursed injured birds. He spoke fondly of one white pigeon in particular. Complaints about the mess contributed to his leaving at least one hotel. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Living circumstances
When did Tesla die?: He died alone in his room at the Hotel New Yorker on the night of 7 January 1943, at the age of 86. His ashes are now kept at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Death
Was Tesla married?: He never married and had no children. He said that staying unmarried helped him concentrate on his scientific work. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Personal life and character
What is the tesla unit?: The tesla, symbol T, is the SI unit of magnetic flux density. The General Conference on Weights and Measures named it in his honour in 1960. A typical fridge magnet produces only a few thousandths of a tesla at its surface. Source: Wikipedia: Tesla (unit)
Why is Tesla famous today?: His polyphase AC motors and systems became part of how electric power is generated and used, and the Tesla coil remains a teaching classic. His fame faded after 1943, returned when the SI unit was named after him in 1960, and grew strongly from the 1990s, sometimes with legends attached. The most respectful way to remember him is to keep the documented achievements and the myths apart. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Legacy
Where can I see Tesla's papers or visit a museum?: The Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade holds his personal archive and his ashes. The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island, is working to preserve his last laboratory. Both have websites with visitor information. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla Museum
What should I read to learn more about Tesla?: A careful modern biography is W. Bernard Carlson's 'Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age' (Princeton University Press, 2013). His own account, 'My Inventions', first appeared in Electrical Experimenter in 1919; read it as memoir, not as a neutral record. The Wikipedia article is a good starting point with many references. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Further reading
Did Tesla design inventions in his head?: In his memoir 'My Inventions' he wrote that he could picture devices in great detail in his mind before building them. As a schoolboy he was reported to do integral calculus in his head. These accounts are mostly his own, so treat them as his description of himself rather than as measured facts. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Youth
What safe experiment can I try about electricity and magnets?: Wrap insulated wire around a steel nail, connect the ends briefly to a single 1.5 volt battery, and pick up paper clips: that is an electromagnet. Disconnect it when you are done, because the wire warms up. It shows the link between current and magnetism that every motor, including the induction motor, depends on. Do it with an adult or teacher, and never use mains electricity. Source: Wikipedia: Electromagnet
Who was Nikola Tesla?: Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an inventor and electrical engineer. He was born in Smiljan, then in the Austrian Empire and now in Croatia, to a Serbian family. He studied in Graz, worked in Budapest and Paris, and moved to New York in 1884, where he worked briefly for Edison's company. His polyphase AC motor patents of 1888, licensed to George Westinghouse, made his name, followed by the Tesla coil, lighting demonstrations, radio remote control and the unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower. He died in a New York hotel room in January 1943. I am a scripted guide inspired by him, not Tesla himself. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla
What is electricity?: Electricity is what happens when electric charge builds up or moves. Charge is a basic property of matter: electrons carry negative charge and protons positive charge. A flow of charge is a current, measured in amperes. Voltage is the push that drives it, measured in volts, a little like water pressure in a pipe. Nobody invented electricity; people such as Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell studied it long before my namesake. His contribution came later: practical alternating-current motors and power systems. Source: Wikipedia: Electricity
How does electricity flow in a circuit?: An electric current is a flow of charge, usually electrons drifting through a metal wire. It flows only around a complete loop, called a circuit: a battery or generator provides the push, the wires carry the current, and a lamp or motor uses the energy. The push is the voltage, the flow is the current in amperes, and the resistance of the path limits how much flows. Ohm's law links them: voltage equals current times resistance. In direct current the flow goes one way; in alternating current it reverses direction, 50 or 60 times a second in most mains supplies. Source: Wikipedia: Electric current
What did Tesla do for electricity?: His main contributions were to alternating-current power. He patented a polyphase induction motor and AC system from 1888, and Westinghouse licensed those patents. That work fed into the AC lighting at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the Niagara Falls power plant, which began sending power to Buffalo in 1896. He also patented the Tesla coil in 1891, gave high-frequency lighting demonstrations and showed radio remote control in 1898. He did not discover electricity, and many engineers, including Galileo Ferraris, William Stanley and the Westinghouse team, built the AC system alongside him. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla
How are electricity and magnetism connected?: They are two sides of one force. In 1820 Hans Christian Oersted saw that an electric current moves a compass needle, so a current makes a magnetic field. In 1831 Michael Faraday showed the reverse: a changing magnetic field induces a current in a nearby wire. This is electromagnetic induction, and generators, transformers and motors all depend on it. James Clerk Maxwell later described electricity, magnetism and light with one set of equations. Tesla's induction motor uses a rotating magnetic field to induce currents in its rotor. Source: Wikipedia: Electromagnetic induction
What did Tesla invent?: His best-documented inventions are the polyphase AC induction motor and AC power system patents of 1887 and 1888; the Tesla coil, a resonant transformer for high-frequency high voltage, patented in 1891; high-frequency and wireless lighting demonstrations in the 1890s; a radio-controlled boat shown in 1898; and the bladeless Tesla turbine, patented in 1913. He held around 300 patents worldwide. He did not invent electricity or the light bulb, and radio grew out of the work of many people. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla
How does the power grid work today?: Most of the world's electricity is generated, sent and used as alternating current. Power stations produce three-phase AC, and transformers step it up to hundreds of thousands of volts for long transmission lines, because a higher voltage needs less current and so wastes less energy as heat in the wires. Substations step it down again, and a local transformer brings it to about 120 or 230 volts in homes, at 60 or 50 cycles a second. Polyphase AC, which my namesake helped develop, is still the basis of these grids, although many engineers built them and some long links now use high-voltage direct current. Source: Wikipedia: Electric power transmission
What is lightning?: Lightning is a giant electric spark. Inside a storm cloud, colliding ice and water particles separate charge until the voltage between cloud and ground, or between clouds, can reach hundreds of millions of volts and the air breaks down. The channel heats to around 30,000 kelvin, and its sudden expansion makes thunder. Benjamin Franklin's experiments around 1752 helped show that lightning is electrical. High voltage can push a dangerous current through the body, so mains wiring, power lines and Tesla coils are for trained people with proper safety measures, not for home experiments. Source: Wikipedia: Lightning
What is the difference between energy and power?: Energy is the capacity to do work, measured in joules or, on an electricity bill, in kilowatt-hours. Power is how fast energy is used or delivered, measured in watts: one watt is one joule per second. A 10-watt LED lamp left on for 100 hours uses one kilowatt-hour. Energy is conserved, so no machine, by Tesla or anyone else, puts out more energy than it takes in. Source: Wikipedia: Power (physics)

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The guide selects from a fixed list of hand-written notes, each with a source; it cannot generate an answer. These examples are part of the page itself, so they can be read without JavaScript.

Who are you? Are you Nikola Tesla?: I am the Inventor's Notebook guide, a fictional educational character inspired by Nikola Tesla. I am not Tesla himself, and I do not speak for him. Every answer on this page was written in advance from published sources, and each one names its source so you can check it. Source: personalities/tesla.json (identity module)
What is the AC induction motor?: It is a motor driven by polyphase alternating current. Several currents, out of step with one another, create a magnetic field that rotates, and that field drags the rotor around. It needs no commutator or brushes, so it avoids sparking and much maintenance. My namesake patented his design in May 1888 and demonstrated it to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on 16 May 1888. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, AC and the induction motor
What was Wardenclyffe Tower?: Wardenclyffe was the tower and laboratory he began building in 1901 at Shoreham, Long Island, with $150,000 from J. P. Morgan. It was meant first for transatlantic wireless communication, and he hoped later for wireless power. Marconi crossed the Atlantic by radio in December 1901, investors lost confidence, and the project came to a halt in 1905. The tower was demolished in 1917. The site is now the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. Source: Wikipedia: Wardenclyffe Tower
Did Tesla invent a free energy machine?: No. No working free-energy machine by Tesla has ever been documented, and none could work: every machine obeys the conservation of energy, so it cannot put out more energy than it takes in. His wireless schemes were about moving energy from power stations, not creating it. Websites that sell 'free energy' plans or devices under his name are not supported by his papers or by physics. Source: Wikipedia: Conservation of energy
Did Tesla build a death ray?: No working death ray has ever been documented. In 1934 he told reporters he had designed a defensive particle-beam weapon, later called teleforce, and he made large claims about it, but he never showed how it worked. After his death in 1943 the MIT engineer John G. Trump examined his papers and effects and reported nothing that would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands. Source: Wikipedia: Nikola Tesla, Death

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