After more than 47 years, my whole working life spent in the New World called America, my thoughts turn back to the years I spent at the Museum of Nikola Tesla in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. In the early 50\u2019s my friend Aleksandar Marincic and I were docents in the Tesla Museum where we acquainted groups of the high school students and visitors with the accomplishments of Nikola Tesla. We were so young then\u2026 We were going to remake the World. We must have dreamt some of the dreams our countryman Nikola Tesla had when he left the Old World and came to America. Tesla witnessed the world progress from Stage Coach to airplanes, and he played a large part in its development. Hundreds of patents are proof of that. To list some: In 1880\u2019s: the alternating currents machines that power and light the world today, in 1890\u2019s: Wireless Radio, Remote Guidance and Control, the X-ray machines, in 1900\u2019s: Ultrasound, and Wireless... All this led to the development of airplanes, television, computers, space satellites, the space flights to the Moon, Mars and beyond the Solar System.

Let us now examine Tesla\u2019s life, work and legacy by quoting the master himself through his published articles. Let us visualize the vast space of human activity, science and technology that his mind was exploring. We will find Tesla mastering Nature in a civilized way (his childhood dream was to tame the Niagara Falls) while maintaining Nature\u2019s ever so sensitive balances. His profession was engineering and his aim was to create machines that would release clean energy for human use. Tesla describes an important event in his life path (Scientific American, June 5, 1915):

\u201cFrom my childhood I had been intended for the clergy. This prospect hung like a dark cloud on my head. After passing eleven years at a public school and a higher institution, I obtained my certificate of maturity and found myself at the critical point of my carrier. Should I disobey my father, ignore the fondest wishes of my mother, or should I resign myself to fate? The thought oppressed me, and I looked to the future with dread.\u201d

When young Nikola was stricken as a boy with cholera during a terrible epidemic, his father in desperation panic said that he will fulfill Nikola\u2019s wishes (to study engineering) just for him to get better. Nikola got better, his father kept his word, and the youth followed his path to the World Stardom\u2026

In his work Tesla realized the value of the Energy, that which moves everything, especially in it\u2019s purest form - the electrical power. He observed that when energy changed form it generated heat and other wasteful forms such as sound (thunder), or the light (lightning). He found that by reducing the density of conducting currents, those wasteful losses were reduced and by achieving lower losses and high efficiency in his devices, he produced voltages in millions of Volts, and electrical discharges that were breaking the air and other matter into minute components.

Tesla knew that in order to harness various forms of energy, he had to venture into the \u201cUnknown\u201d. To venture were no-one has dared. He had to device and expose his apparatus to the verges of breakdowns, destruction and subject them to the limits far beyond those known to science. And he did! He achieved it with such success that some people consider him a magician, a wizard of electrical currents.

Tesla\u2019s work was not limited only to the Electrical Currents of Low and High Frequencies. He ventured into the field of Ultra-Sound where he discovered the extreme values ofResonances (response of various materials to the excitation by the sound and electrical energy). He proposed the Method of High Frequency Heating in the Metallurgical Industry (Today\u2019s Microwave Ovens). To improve the ruggedness and efficiency of the hydro and steam turbines he designed a \u201cTesla Turbine\u201d. Applying the principle of flute playing (that he played as a boy) and aero-dynamics, he designed the Aero- Fluidic Computer. He utilized electrical high-tension currents to produce ozone gas to be used in bacterial sterilization and sewage processing. He even ventured into aeronautics by designing a Flying Machine with Vertical Takeoff (a present day Helicopter), and he created the first Robot.

In a letter to a friend in England Tesla addresses his thoughts on \u2018limitless\u2019 giro-kinetic energy of the spinning Earth and the Moon:

\u201cJust imagine all this energy locked in the rotation of the planetary bodies. If we could be able to use just a miniscule fraction of it \u2026\u201d

On a subject of very long distance transmission of energy let us consider his thoughts: Energy propagated into distant space in the form of Electro-Magnetic Waves looses it\u2019s flux density (potential strength) at distance by spreading while energy in the particle form (plasma) does not. Scientists are of the opinion that this \u201cPure Energy\u201d propagates through space (vacuum) with the Electro-Magnetic Waves (heat, light, radio) and can be transmitted without the matter as media. Tesla was of the opinion that \u201cthere is something - an \u201cEther\u201d filling that space that enables the energy to transmit\u201d. Because of that view he was ridiculed by the main Scientific Community. Recently, scientists are coming back to the \u2018Ether Theory\u2019 trying to explain phenomena such as related to the\u201cZero Point Energy\u201d (ZPE), an energy still existing at Absolute Zero Temperature (Moray B. King, J. M. Manley, H. E. Rowe, T. H. Boyer, M. Ruderfer and many others). Tesla was making\u201cFire Balls\u201d (a locked energy related to ZPE) in his labs at will. Scientific Community is still searching to

Reviewing Tesla\u2019s life work we see him as Humanitarian, Scientist, Energy Researcher, Inventor, Philosopher and Writer. In his lifetime goals we find a zest for helping the Humanity pointing the way to a healthier and better future, by providing economical energy where it is needed and opening doors to new technologies. Tesla outlined this in his lecture

the 1900 June issue of the Century Illustrated Monthly. In it he outlines his views on how to improve ourselves and the whole human race. Tesla writes:

\u201cThe Century (magazine) began to press me very hard for completing the article which I have promised to them, and the text of this article required all my energies. I knew that the article would pass into history as I brought, for the first time, results before the world which were far beyond anything that was attempted before, either by myself or others\u201d.

In this article Tesla reviewed his thoughts outlining his philosophy on life and human activities, his work on Energy and how it could best be utilized for the good of humanity. There, in his deep wisdom he tells us:

\u201c\u2026 I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down enemy\u2026 I care least for, and still it grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only a part of a whole?\u201d

\u201cFor ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.\u201d

In his outlined humanitarianism, he applies his \u201cScience\u201d to a \u201cMan\u201d allegorically applying natural Laws of Physics to a Human Society telling us that Humanity could be represented by a \u201cMass in movement\u201d.

\u201cAs Mass we increase our numbers through reproduction in greater numbers, and as a Movement we should all strive to move in a direction of progress rather than working against each other.\u201d

\u201cMan, however, is not an ordinary mass, consisting of spinning atoms and molecules, and containing merely heat- energy. He is a mass possessed of certain higher qualities by reason of the creative principle of life with which he is endowed...\u201d

\u201cFirst, we should pay \u201ccareful attention to health, substantiating food, by moderation, by regularity of habits, by the promotion of marriage, by conscientious attention to the children, and generally stated, by observance of all the many precepts and laws of religion and hygiene\u201d\u2026 \u201cOur \u2018offspring\u2019s need to be educated to an increased knowledge\u2026\u201d

Water... \u201cthis precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likely to be the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies... By systematic purification and sterilization of drinking-water the human mass will be very considerably increased...\u201d And he suggests the way to do it: \u201cBy improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of this important question.\u201d

\u201cEveryone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, as a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty and mastery beyond human conception, and so delicate and frail that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought, may injure it... Laxity of morals is a terrible evil, which poisons both mind and body, ... A thousand other evils might be mentioned, but all put together, \u2026would not equal a single one, the want of food, brought on by poverty, destitution, and famine... \u201d

\u201c\u2026and the cheap production of these (foods) is, therefore, the key of the solution of the all-important problem. Our atmosphere contains an inexhaustible amounts of nitrogen, and could we but oxidize it and produce these compounds, an incalculable benefit for the mankind would follow\u2026 But here electricity comes to our aid: the dormant affinities of the element are awakened by an electric current of the proper quality\u2026

\u201clittle by little\u201d he said, \u201c I advanced. The flame grew larger and larger, and the oxidizing action more and more intense. From an insignificant brush-discharge a few inches long it developed into a marvelous electrical phenomenon, a roaring blaze, devouring the nitrogen of the atmosphere and measuring sixty or seventy feet across.\u201d

\u201cThe result illustrated makes it practicable to oxidize the atmospheric nitrogen in unlimited quantities, merely by the use of cheap mechanical power and simple electrical apparatus... Abundance of cheap and healthful food, not artificial, but such as we are accustomed to, may thus be obtained. This new and inexhaustible source of food-supply will be of incalculable benefit to mankind...\u201d

\u201cA change for the better is imminent, and I shall now endeavor to show what, according to my ideas, will be the first advance toward the establishment of peaceful relations between nations, and by what means it will eventually be accomplished\u2026 So long as men meet in battle, there will be bloodshed... in war men must be dispensed with: machine must fight machine\u2026\u201d

\u201cLong ago, I conceived the idea of constructing an automation which will mechanically represent me, and which will respond, as I do myself, but, of course, in a much more primitive manner, to extended influences. Such an automation evidently had to have motive power, organs for locomotion, directive organs, and one or more sensitive organs so adapted as to be excited by external stimuli\u2026 To do so it had to have an element corresponding to the mind, which would effect the control of all its movements and , and cause it to act\u2026\u201d

Today, we are witnessing guided missiles, with and without weapons, moon and mars landers, Voyager space probes leaving the solar system and still sending back its radio signals from outside of our solar system, a basic logic advance through today\u2019s computers that employ artificial intelligence, and wars where all battlefield action aimed at very specific targets is controlled from the command and control center, or by the pre-arranged software designated to follow the wishes of the Commander in Chief.