The Shocking Story of Nikola Tesla’s Most Famous Publicity Photo
By | June 20, 2022
Serbian-American inventor, engineer, and futurist Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943) studying electricity in the laboratory, circa 1899. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Admit it: when we talk about Tesla – Nikola Tesla, the brilliant Serbian American inventor, not Elon Musk’s electric car of the same name – we get ‘mad scientist’ vibes. While it is true that Tesla was a genius who worked in the emerging field of electricity in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it is also true that he had his own struggles with mental illness, including at least one nervous breakdown. It is this photograph of him sitting calmly amid bolts of electricity that helped cement his image as a mad scientist. Well, that and his death ray. But we will discuss that in a moment. But first, let’s talk about this shocking photo.
A Bit About Tesla
Nikola Tesla was born in what is now Croatia in 1856. From an early age, he demonstrated his genius in mathematics, engineering, and mechanics. But he only stayed in college for a short time. Although he was a brilliant student, he developed problems with drinking and gambling, suffered a nervous breakdown, and dropped out of school. Later, he moved to New York and worked directly with Thomas Edison. He and Edison famously butted heads. When they parted ways, Tesla formed his own company. Although Tesla was arguably the more intelligent of the two, he was not the astute businessman that Edison was.
Serbian-American inventor and discoverer of magnetic field rotations leading to the use of alternating-currents in electrical machinery and the induction coil known as the "Tesla coil." (Getty Images)
Tesla’s Lab
In 1891, Nikola Tesla invented his Tesla coil, an electrical generator that produces low-current, high-voltage electricity. This technology is still used today in things like televisions, radios, remote controls, and other devices that are used for wireless transmission. Tesla’s goal was to send electricity through the air like radio broadcasts so each home can get its electricity wirelessly. He built an experimental station in Colorado Springs with an enormous Tesla coil, big enough to generate 12 million volts of electricity, producing bolts of electrical energy that shot 140 feet into the air.
During this time in history, electrical power was in its infancy, but inventors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders were beginning to realize the potential of electrical energy. Naturally, they wanted to find ways to commodify it. The best way they could find to do this was to form companies that would generate the power and transmit it to individual households via wires. Tesla’s idea of wireless electrical broadcasts didn’t fit this business model. This, among other conflicts, put him on the outs with powerful people in the emerging electric industry, namely Thomas Edison.
One of the most brilliant minds in history, Nikola Tesla. (history.com)
A Staged Publicity Photo
In this famous photo of Nikola Tesla, the inventor seems to be sitting calmly as volts of high-powered electricity explode around him. The impression one gets is that either Tesla is truly a mad scientist or that electricity is much safer than we have been led to believe. Neither one is true. The reality is that the photograph is a fake.
The photographer behind this image was Dickenson V. Alley, a photographer for Century Magazine. In December of 1899, he traveled to Colorado Springs to take a publicity photo of Nikola Tesla and his Tesla coil. For dramatic effect, Alley took two photographs and merged them together in a double exposure technique. In the first photo, Tesla’s equipment was turned on so the high-voltage generator, so the Tesla coil was pumping out impressive and frightening bolts of electrical lightning. He took a photo of this.
Next, all the equipment was turned off. Alley had Nikola Tesla sit in a chair near the coil. He exposed the photographic plate a second time with this image. The result is a double-exposed photo that makes it look like Tesla is the proverbial calm in an electrical storm. Or that he is absolutely nuts for tempting fate with high-powered electricity.
Oh, Yeah … About That Death Ray
Nikola Tesla was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant men in history. He earned more than 300 patents for his inventions and his work laid the foundation for today’s modern, electrified world. But he was also a controversial figure. For starters, he was a supporter of eugenics, the idea of selective breeding in humans to increase the chances of desirable traits and thus improve the human population. This concept, however, had racist undertones and was often cited as supporting the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust, as well as the human experiments conducted by Nazi scientists and doctors.
Tesla often talked about a new weapon he developed that people began referring to as a death ray. According to Tesla, the weapon harnessed metal ions and focused them into a beam that could shoot at 270,000 miles per hour. He claimed the beam compressed 100 billion watts into an area of only one-hundred-millionth of a centimeter by using ‘new’ physics. His weapon, Tesla stated, could shoot airplanes out of the sky from 250 miles away. Tesla failed to produce his death ray or prove its existence. It was never demonstrated publicly. A fire in his lab destroyed many of his notes and inventions, but interestingly, upon his death, the U.S. government seized his notes, documents, and inventions. Mad scientist or brilliant genius? You decide.
