He was one of the greatest contemporary scientific geniuses and also an eccentric full of manias and esoteric beliefs. He earned fabulous amounts of money from his patents, but died bankrupt. Nikola Tesla died on January 7, 1943 at the age of 86 in a New York hotel due to a heart attack. His body was found by a chambermaid two days later, as he had posted a 'do not disturb' sign in his room. Tesla spent the last years of his life in great financial trouble, asking friends for loans that he did not repay. He was unable to manage his dwindling income, as he was fond of gambling. At the end of his existence, no one took him seriously when he claimed paternity of new inventions or when he claimed that he had developed a weapon of mass destruction called the death ray. Everything indicates that he suffered from senile dementia. The journalists laughed at his delusions. Eight decades have passed since his death and today Tesla has become a true legend. The millionaire Elon Musk uses his last name for the brand that manufactures his electric cars, there is a lunar crater named after him, banknotes circulate in Serbia that bear his effigy and his memory is commemorated in museums and awards. No one disputes that he was one of the greatest geniuses in the history of science since the Industrial Revolution. Very manic Tesla, born in Croatia in 1856, was Serbian. His father was an Orthodox priest and his mother, a housewife. His brother died from a horseback riding accident when Nikola was 5 years old, leaving him traumatized. He studied engineering at the University of Graz, but did not finish his degree. He had a prodigious memory and read all the scientific books he could get his hands on. Even as a child he showed an inclination for invention. At only 27 years old he was chief engineer of the Budapest telegraph company. Before turning 30, he left Paris and emigrated to New York. He was a person who suffered from depression, which led him to interrupt his studies. But the most striking note of his character was his propensity for manias. He was obsessed with cleanliness, he washed his hands constantly, he didn't touch anyone, he was disgusted by hair, peaches and pearls, he ate alone and felt the compulsive need to divide everything by three. He was a scholar of Hindu philosophy. He never married or had children. At the same time, he was the scientist who conceived patents for more than four decades that revolutionized communications, the electrical industry and motors. Tesla developed the bases of radio, although Guillermo Marconi was the one who managed to patent the innovation. Among his achievements, it is worth highlighting an alternating current motor, a wireless communication system, remote control and devices that allowed the advancement of electrical distribution. He created a company in New York from which dozens of patents came out until its facilities were destroyed by a fire in 1895. At the end of his life he became fond of betting. Nobody believed him when he claimed paternity of new inventions. For a few years, he was an employee of Thomas Alva Edison. He hired him after reading a letter from a director of his company that said: "I know two great men. You are one of them and the other is the bearer of this letter. Edison realized his talent very early. He entrusted her with repairing an electrical fault in exchange for a reward of $50,000. Tesla fixed it in one night. But Edison told him that he was a fool for having believed his promise. He didn't even raise his salary from $18 a week. The fight with Edison Tesla and Edison clashed over their different conceptions of electricity. Edison was a supporter of direct current, Tesla advocated alternating current. The powerful businessman did everything possible to discredit him, but time proved his engineer right. It was not just a theoretical dispute because there were enormous interests at stake. Tesla signed with Westinghouse, a competitor of Edison, and his work was key to developing an electrical system for the city of Buffalo taking advantage of the power of the water from Niagara Falls. He was always a visionary, working on inventions that seemed impossible, such as a vertical take-off airplane or an ozone gel with miraculous properties. His mind did not stop working until the end when the world had already forgotten him.
