Nikola Tesla Museum: A Reputation with Sparks to Back It Up

A live demonstration

Visitors stood close together, raising the long white tubes above their heads. Beyond them was a tall coil topped with a copper-coloured ring.

A bright discharge flashed above the coil, and the tubes glowed in the visitors’ hands. For a moment, it looked like a Jedi training session.

Tesla developed his coil in 1891 to produce high-voltage, high-frequency currents. It became a tool for his experiments with lighting and the wireless transmission of electrical signals and energy.

No socket required

The guide held another tube above his head. At first, it was just a long white tube. Then it lit up, casting blue light across his fingers and face.

The tube had not been plugged in.

The energy came from the coil.

Wireless experiments were only part of his work. A Serbian-American inventor, Tesla helped develop the alternating-current motors and power systems that became fundamental to modern electricity supply. Much of his legacy is familiar enough to go unnoticed. A fluorescent tube lighting up in someone’s hand is harder to overlook.

The man behind the name

The museum also holds Tesla’s belongings and papers, which were brought to Belgrade after his death through the efforts of his nephew, Sava Kosanović. His ashes are here as well, in an urn shaped like a sphere. The museum opened to the public in 1955.

A bust shows him with his head inclined and a hand against his face. Tesla asked for it himself. In a telegram to the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, he requested a bust while his face was still smooth, his eyes still clear and his hair still in place. It was made after his death. In a clothing display, a dark hat sits above a textured jacket, white shirt and tie.