Page - 65 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

65 The Mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia, honoured Tesla in his radio speech on 10 January 1943 as follows /1/: ‘He died in poverty. But he was one of the most useful and successful men who ever lived. His achievements were great and are becoming greater as time goes on.’ Tesla’s ideas and accomplishments led to two disruptive innovations which changed the American economy at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries and which ultimately sustainably influenced electrical engineering in the whole world /1, 2/. In the 1880s, his alternating current motor established the changeover from direct current to alternating current so that, in addition to lighting sys- tems, there was also electricity available for industry and mass production. Modern versions of Tesla’s alternating current motors can be found in house- hold appliances, industrial production halls and motor vehicles, and are also used to run hard disks in laptop computers. His second electrical revolution was wireless energy transmission. His ide- as laid the foundation for high frequency and communications engineering. Due to a lack of funds, the Wardenclyffe Tower was not able to be completed, but variations of Tesla’s ideas on coordinated electrical circuits are used in today’s radios, televisions, remote controllers and mobile phones. /1/ Michael Krause: Wie Nikola Tesla das 20. Jahrhundert erfand. WILEY-VCH Verlag, 2010 /2/ W. Bernard Carlson: TESLA - Der Erfinder des elektrischen Zeitalters. FBV, 2017 /3/ Hermann Egger: Geniale Ideen und intelligente Lösungen: Teslas Beitrag zur Industrieentwicklung. Nikola Tesla und die Technik in Graz, Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz, 2006 /4/ Stefan Schlögl: Nikola Tesla - Ein Mann unter Strom. Terra Mater, Septem- ber 2006 Note: The text passages in the present article on industrial development are taken from Hermann Egger /3/ and as part of an agreement have not been marked as quotations. Tesla’s innovations – visible in the 21st century References