engleski

The Achievement, Legacy, Intuition, and Cosmopolitanism of Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla’s great achievement and intuition have been critically assessed within the framework of history of science and technology, along the new paths of technological innovation where Tesla’s legacy and his fundamental ideas have been revisited and acquired renewed vigour. Among the multitude of scientists and engineers, Tesla is unique and exceptional due to the great number of his original inventions and visions, and his independent exploring spirit. Electromagnetic science and ethical reflections arising from Tesla’s work and ideas are epistemologically reconciled, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Tesla’s death in 2013. This paper aims to be an attempt for a new synthetic approach, beyond an occasional anniversary celebration, for the new general thinking of Tesla’s life and his scientific-engineering-political concepts, which can be exceptionally valuable to science and ethics, in the light of the contemporary ecological and energy global conditions. Non-trivial controversies concerning scientific and historical evaluations of Tesla’s legacy are emphasized and resolved throughout the text. Very early in the 20th century, Tesla devoted much effort toward designing and constructing the grand power to transport electrical power over long distances, a power which becomes popular today in science and technology as the efficient wireless power or energy transfer. Moral aspects on the wireless energy transport are examined in Tesla’s pioneering philosophical-engineering paper, published in the journal Electrical World and Engineering (1905). Tesla formulated a new postulate, intended to be the political-philosophical prolegomenon, for the establishment of "Universal Peace" relations through the "dissemination of intelligence, transportation, and transmission of power". The number of patents granted to Tesla amounts to a total of 280, in 26 countries of the world. His achievements are not limited to the field of electrical engineering. Instead, his research spanned to a wide range of topics corresponding to numerous modern technologies: high frequency illumination, X-ray technique, cosmic rays, television, up to the ICT and the modern cell-phone technology. The paper offers a brief review of the superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) science and technology for the applications in linear superconducting colliders based on the Tesla RF cavity, which undoubtedly involves the principle of Tesla RF transformer as the source of the very high potential RF-field. Due to the revival of his energy-moral paradigm today, his ēthos and cosmopolitanism, owing to his fruitful and moral passion to help mankind through science and technology, Tesla remains an outstanding figure in the history of world science, technology, and culture. Tesla is still a source of inspiration and guidance to scholars in the characteristic field of teslalogy at work much more than would have been expected.

Nikola Tesla; Tesla's patents; electromagnetism; wireless energy transport; Tesla and Universal Peace; Tesla's cosmopolitanism; Tesla's world view; Tesla and ILC; Tesla and R & D; Tesla and Boscovich; teslalogy; young scholars

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