He claimed a photographic memory and the ability to visualize an invention in complete,
functioning detail in his mind — testing and refining machines mentally before ever
touching a physical part. He arrived in America in 1884 with famously little money
and a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison. He worked for Edison briefly, then broke
from him decisively — over pay, and over a deeper conviction that alternating current, not
Edison's direct current, was the only workable path to powering the world.
What followed was not a polite scientific disagreement. Edison ran a real, aggressive
public campaign against AC, including public electrocutions of animals to frighten people
about its dangers. Tesla partnered with George Westinghouse to prove AC could work safely
at scale. He won the argument — AC became the standard for power distribution
worldwide. He did not win the money the way Edison did.
He went on to dream bigger: the Wardenclyffe Tower, a project aimed at free wireless power
and communication for anyone, anywhere on earth. J.P. Morgan funded it initially, then
withdrew once he understood the project could never be metered or controlled for profit.
The tower was never finished. Tesla considered it the great unfinished work of his
life.
His final years are the part most people get wrong, and the part he is least interested in
resolving neatly for you. He made claims, publicly and seriously, about a directed-energy
weapon and about signals he believed might come from beyond Earth. Within hours of his
death, the FBI took his papers. What he actually believed, and what was really in
those papers, is something he would rather tell you himself than have summarized.
