Name-dropping:
Nikola Tesla (pronunciation: NEE- cola TESS-lah) (1856–1943).
What do you get when you put a great, egotistical, celibate Serbian-American mind in a room for too long with a bunch of pigeons? Only one of the greatest inventors ever.

When to Drop Your Knowledge:
Stories of Tesla’s loneliness and underappreciated genius can comfort any friends you have who’ve been recently dumped or recently fired. They’re also good to know in case anyone ever says anything flattering about Thomas Edison. Sure, Tommy E. was a great inventor, you can say. But he was also a first-rate thief.

The Basics
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian who emigrated to the United States in 1884. A contemporary of Edison and Westinghouse, both of whose names ended up in major corporations, Tesla was probably the greater inventor, but he ended up poverty-stricken and massively underappreciated. Tesla was responsible for the first practical use of alternating current (AC)—the electrical current that constantly reverses direction and is the heart of electric power for most of the world. Tesla’s AC dynamos bested Edison’s work with direct current by a wide margin, and AC eventually won the battle to light the world. But that’s not all: Tesla also invented the Tesla coil—a gadget still used in radio and television transmission. He also messedaround with early radar, neon, X rays, and aircraft design. (This is what happens when you don’t give kids a Nintendo.)

In some ways, Tesla was the prototypical immigrant success story: He arrived in America with four pennies, a few poems he’d written, and blueprints for a flying machine (that never got built). But by 1900, his greatest successes were behind him. Working out of his Colorado laboratory, Tesla had his version of a midlife crisis. His business ventures failed; he started to believe aliens from another planet were signaling earth; and most impressive, he claimed to have invented a “death ray” that could destroy thousands of airplanes from hundreds of miles away. (The death ray, like most of Tesla’s later inventions, was never built for lack of funds.) His last years were even more depressing. Increasingly eccentric, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotel rooms, virtually friendless.

So how come he’s not that famous? For one thing, he never patented most of his inventions. For another, other inventors took credit for many of Tesla’s ideas and innovations, which is why major corporations are named after Edison and Westinghouse, while Tesla can only lay claim to the eponymous minor rock band.

Extra Credit: EDISON
In 1884, Tesla got a job with Thomas Edison. The relationship was contentious, and during one of their many arguments, Tesla suggested he could improve Edison’s electricity and save him money. Edison replied, “There’s $50,000 in it for you if you can do it.” After slaving away for months, Tesla made huge improvements by redesigning Edison’s systems and installing automatic controls. When Tesla asked Edison to pay up, Edison responded, “Tesla, you don’t understand American humor.” Ha. Ha.

Ignoble Nobels
In 1943 the Supreme Court invalidated most of the patents held by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marcani for radio equipment and gave Tesla credit for the invention of radio based on patents that predated Marconi’s. Little good it did Tesla, though, because by that time MArconi had already won fame, riches, and a Nobel Prize for his “work,” while Tesla was, um, dead. Tesla never won the Nobel–unless you count the one he got for Marconi. In fact, he was devastated in 1915 when rumors of a shared prize between him and Edison proved untrue. (The winners: William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg, for their work on X-ray crystallography. The Braggs, incidentally, remain the only father and son ever to see a Nobel.)

Tesla once predicted, “The household’s daily newspaper will be printed ‘wirelessly’ in the home during the night.” Maybe the Supreme Court should give the guy credit for the Internet, too.

Conversation Starters
◆ By the age of five, young Tesla had already invented his own waterwheel and read the 100-volume set of the Complete Voltaire. By comparison, we could, um, count to 10 and pretty regularly avoid peeing on ourselves.

◆ Celibate throughout his life, Tesla also feared round objects (which perhaps goes along with the celibacy). He once said, “I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by the married man.” The wedding ring, perhaps?

◆ Tesla would have been great fun at parties. At the Chicago Columbia Exposition of 1893, he sent 200,000 volts through his body to prove that electricity was safe. It was, although his hair stood on end for a week.

◆ One of Tesla’s best friends was another great non-Nobel-winning genius who managed to fritter away lots of money: Mark Twain.

◆ Not one for modesty, Tesla often signed his name with the letters G.I., short for Great Inventor.