Class Presentation | Tesla Coils

Mr. Vale returned to our classroom to show us another experiment from the past, this time he focused on Nikola Tesla and brought in what I would assume is a small or medium sized Tesla coil.

Nikola Tesla is the Austrian Thomas Edison, and ironically enough, these two men were rivals throughout their scientific careers. Both men competed for the usages of direct currents (DC) and alternating currents (AC). It was Tesla’s ideas who eventually overcame the limitations of DC power, and even Mr. Vale mentioned that Edison probably stuck by his belief of DC power though he secretly knew that Tesla was correct in supporting AC power.

Around 1891 Tesla created the Tesla coil, which is used to produce high voltages of electricity. It was his hope that every household would have one of these coils in the basement in order to conduct alternating electric currents throughout the home in order to make light bulbs and other electric devices work without having to use wires. Mr. Vale used his Tesla coil to illuminate several different bulbs and rods, and even had a long wooden stick with a metal end and a light bulb in the middle that he held over the voltage without getting shocked.

The device is quite loud, and I couldn’t imagine having one in my home, considering it would have to be quite large to keep all of our electronic devices charged. Although, it is humorous to see that he created a way to create wireless electricity over 100 years ago. It seems that Tesla was just far beyond his time for inventing such a machine and I feel that his ability to grasp complex electric concepts could be better used today.  We are always finding ways to create wireless devices, and it would be nice to lose the complex electric wiring arrangements in houses and buildings and create an entirely wireless environment like Tesla originally envisioned.