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Honestly, I wanted to write an article about Serbia, but I had no idea what to wrote. However, since in real life I studied electrical engineering, I remembered one of the greatest engineer and inventor (and geek) ever lived was a Serbian, Nikola Tesla. So, in this article, I wrote a short biography about him.

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 to Serbian parents in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia). At the age of 17, he was graduated from Higher Real Gymnasium for only 3 years. After that, he entered the Graz University of Technology, even he was dropped out 3 years later (because he was addicted in gambling). At the age of 26, he started to work for Edison in France, and relocated to New York 2 years later. In 1885, he resigned form his job because Edison was refused to pay him after Tesla successfully made an improvement on Edison’s inefficient motors an generators. Two years later after he resigned from Edison’s company, he established his own company, the Tesla Electric Company.

Tesla made many notable breakthrough by working in his own company. He had many inventions and contributions in AC systems. He was the inventor of induction motor and the AC distribution systems. Without him, maybe our machines are dominated by DC motors, and there will be no high voltage power transmissions and steel towers. Tesla also was the first one who investigated and later produced the first X-ray, used the radio waves to controled a boat, invented the spark plug for the internal combustion engine, established the principles of frequency and power level for the first primitive radar, etc. Besides those findings, he also invented some crazy inventions (some people call him a mad scientist), e.g. the death ray (a device generating an intense targeted beam of energy), earthquake machine, and ball lightning. He also the first one who discovered the resonant frequency of the earth and record radio waves from outer space.

Tesla was a genius (some refferences even call him the greatest geek who ever lived, besides as a mad scientist). He had an eidetic memory (an ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme precision) and spoke in 8 different languages, including Serbian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin (imagine that). He never slept more than 2 hours a day. He also probably suffered form OCD (Obsesive Compulsive Disorder), and he never married. He died in 1943 at the age of 86 in New York.

As an electrical engineer, I give my greatest respect to him (and of course I respect him more than Edison). Again, without him, current technology may not be as advanced as today. You, the people of Serbia, must be proud of him, one of the greatest engineer and scientist who ever lived.

Nikola Tesla, you deserve all the respect from us, people of the world, citizen of the New World. You are a hero for all mankind.


Regards,
eIndonesia Ambassador for eSerbia
eIndonesia MoFA Team