The first person to prove and perfect the efficient use of alternating-current electricity, Nikola Tesla saw his polyphase system become the standard for power transmission throughout the world. He also pioneered research in such areas as artificial lightning, high-frequency and high-tension currents, and radio telegraphy. Before his death in 1943, Tesla had acquired more than one hundred patents for high-frequency generators, adjustable condensers, thermomagnetic motors, transformers, his famous Tesla coil, and other inventions that were to become integral elements in modern technology. Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, the son of Serbian parents in the Croatian village of Smiljan. The settlement was located near the town of Gospic in what was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, an area that later became Yugoslavia. Tesla's father and mother, Milutin Tesla and Djuka Mandic, had expected their son to follow in his father's footsteps as a Greek Orthodox clergyman. However, during...