Reasons Why Nikola Tesla was Way Ahead of His Time
3 Future Predictions by Nikola Tesla that Came True
Let’s be honest here. We were all taught about the biographies of several scientists in our schools, be it Einstein or James Watson or Marie Curie. I’m not sure about y’all but I was never taught about Nikola Tesla. His works and contributions to science were never included in my school science curriculum. It wouldn’t be unfair to call him possibly the most underrated and underappreciated scientist of all time. I’m not really claiming this, but history is the proof. We must have read about the stories of Edison and Tesla; about how the famous businessman and inventor took advantage of Tesla’s mind-bending ideas. In this article, I shall mention some predictions that were made by the Serbian inventor about the future, most of which have already turned out to be true and we are implementing them in today’s world while some of them are going to be true in the near future.
The first one in our list is a smartphone. We cannot imagine our lives without it. Perhaps most of y’all are reading this article using one. But did you know that Tesla had predicted the evolution of smartphones in 1926? Adding to that, he didn’t just predicted how portable this device would be, but also how sophisticated it shall be. Consider this statement by Tesla (mentioned in “When woman is boss”, Colliers, January 30, 1926).
When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.
When you analyze it properly, you understand that the man has made a perfect prediction of a cell phone with sophisticated features like long distance communications, portability, face-time and many more. What more evidence do we need to understand that he was way ahead of his time? But wait, there’s some more.
Think of another technology that has made human lives easier in this day and age. Planes? Tesla predicted the technology of fuel-less planes way before they evolved. We have developed solar planes, planes that run on other alternative sources of energy. Today the major means of air transportation is planes that run on fuels. But several companies are now working on creating planes that require no fuel. Developing such a technological mechanism is no more science fiction for today’s world. In his 1926 interview with Collier’s magazine he stated a perfect prediction of such a technology:
Perhaps the most valuable application of wireless energy will be the propulsion of flying machines, which will carry no fuel and will be free from any limitations of the present airplanes and dirigibles. We shall ride from New York to Europe in a few hours. International boundaries will be largely obliterated and a great step will be made toward the unification and harmonious existence of the various races inhabiting the globe. Wireless will not only make possible the supply of energy to region, however inaccessible, but it will be effective politically by harmonizing international interests; it will create understanding instead of differences.
Can you imagine your life without the internet? The entire world runs on the world wide web. Stocks, crypto, businesses, education, industries and what not. We reply on the internet for many important tasks, without it you wouldn’t be able to read this article right now. But guess what? Nikola Tesla had predicted the invention of wireless data transmission several years before the invention of the internet. He stated in the 1926 interview,
Present wireless receiving apparatus will be scrapped for much simpler machines; static and all forms of interference will be eliminated, so that innumerable transmitters and receivers may be operated without interference. It is more than probable that the household’s daily newspaper will be printed ‘wirelessly’ in the home during the night. Domestic management — the problems of heat, light and household mechanics — will be freed from all labor through beneficent wireless power.
Tesla, as you all might know by now, was extremely obsessed with wireless technology and devoted a great deal of time of his life to develop technologies that involved transmissions without wires. In the above statement, he didn’t just predict the invention of the internet, or wi-fi but also imagined how it would be possible for humans to read, if not print, newspapers in their homes without an actual physical paper.
Tesla is credited for inventing alternating current, radio, electric motors and countless other inventions. His contributions to the science and scientific community were greatly unacknowledged during his time. Along with the aforementioned predictions, he did several other predictions about the 21st century technology including robots, cheap energy, wireless transmission of energy, alternative resources, MRI scanners, flying cars etc. We greatly owe him a lot for having made our world much more convenient and technologically advanced.
Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have a little easier life.
As quoted in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 82.
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