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Beer is the world’s oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage. It is produced by the fermentation of sugars derived from starch-based material the most common being malted barley; however, wheat, corn, and rice are also widely used, usually in conjunction with barley. Less widely used starch sources include millet, sorghum and cassava root in Africa, potato in Brazil, and agave in Mexico, among others.

The starch source is steeped in water, along with certain enzymes, to produce a sugary wort which is then flavoured with herbs, fruit or most commonly hops. Yeast is then used to cause fermentation, which produces alcohol and other waste products from anaerobic respiration of the sugars. The process of beer production is called brewing.

Beer uses many varying ingredients, production methods and traditions. The type of yeast and production method may be used to classify beer into ale, lager and spontaneously fermented beers. Some beer writers and organizations differentiate and categorize beers by various factors into beer styles. Alcoholic beverages fermented from non-starch sources such as grape juice (wine) or honey (mead), as well as distilled beverages, are not classified as beer.

Beer is one of the worlds’ oldest beverages, possibly dating back to 6th millennium BCE, and is recorded in the written history of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The earliest known chemical evidence of beer dates to circa 35003100 BCE. As almost any substance containing carbohydrates, namely sugar or starch, can naturally undergo fermentation, it is likely that beer-like beverages were independently invented among various cultures throughout the world. The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity’s ability to develop technology and build civilization.

Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution was mainly made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century CE beer was also being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the nineteenth century. The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing because they allowed the brewer more control of the brewing process and greater knowledge of the results.

Today, the brewing industry is a huge global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. More than 133 billion liters (35 billion gallons) are sold per year producing total global revenues of $294.5 billion (?147.7 billion) in 2006.

InBev is the largest beer-producing company, followed by SABMiller, which became the second-largest brewing company when South African Breweries acquired Miller Brewing in 2002. Anheuser-Busch holds the third spot.

Beer is made by brewing. The essential stages of brewing are mashing, sparging, boiling, fermentation, and packaging. Most of these stages can be accomplished in several different ways, but the purpose of each stage is the same regardless of the method used to achieve it.

Mashing manipulates the temperature of a mixture of water and a starch source (known as mash) in order to convert starches to fermentable sugars. The mash goes through one or more stages of being raised to a desired temperature and left at the temperature for a period of time. During each of these stages, enzymes (alpha and beta amylase primarily) break down the long dextrins that are present in the mash into simpler fermentable sugars, such as glucose. The number of stages required in mashing depends on the starch source used to produce the beer. Most malted barley used today requires only a single stage.

Sparging (a.k.a. lautering) extracts the fermentable liquid, known as wort, from the mash. During sparging the mash is in a vessel known as a lauter-tun, which has a porous barrier through which wort but not grain can pass. The brewer allows the wort to flow past the porous barrier and collects the wort. The brewer also adds water to the lauter-tun and lets it flow through the mash and collects it as well. This rinses fermentable liquid from the grain in the mash and allows the brewer to gather as much of the fermentable liquid from the mash as possible. The leftover grain is not usually further used in making the beer. However in some places second or even third mashes would be performed with the not quite spent grains. Each run would produce a weaker wort and thus a weaker beer.

Boiling sterilizes the wort and increases the concentration of sugar in the wort. The wort collected from sparging is put in a kettle and boiled, usually for about one hour. During boiling, water in the wort evaporates, but the sugars and other components of the wort remain; this allows more efficient use of the starch sources in the beer. Boiling also destroys any remaining enzymes left over from the mashing stage as well as coagulating proteins passing into the wort, especially from malted barley, which could otherwise cause protein ‘hazes’ in the finished beer. Hops are added during boiling in order to extract bitterness, flavour and aroma from them. Hops may be added at more than one point during the boil. As hops are boiled longer, they contribute more bitterness but less hop flavour and aroma to the beer.

Fermentation uses yeast to turn the sugars in wort to alcohol and carbon dioxide. During fermentation, the wort becomes beer. Once the boiled wort is cooled and in a fermenter, yeast is propagated in the wort and it is left to ferment, which requires a week to months depending on the type of yeast and strength of the beer. In addition to producing alcohol, fine particulate matter suspended in the wort settles during fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, the yeast also settles, leaving the beer clear. Fermentation is sometimes carried out in two stages, primary and secondary. Once most of the alcohol has been produced during primary fermentation, the beer is transferred to a new vessel and allowed a period of secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is used when the beer requires long storage before packaging or greater clarity.

Packaging, the fifth and final stage of the brewing process, prepares the beer for distribution and consumption. During packaging, beer is put into the vessel from which it will be served: a keg, cask, can or bottle. Beer is carbonated in its package, either by forcing carbon dioxide into the beer or by “natural carbonation.” Naturally carbonated beers may have a small amount of fresh wort/sugar and/or yeast added to them during packaging. This causes a short period of fermentation which produces carbon dioxide.

The basic ingredients of beer are water; a fermentable starch source, such as malted barley; and yeast. It is common for a flavouring to be added, the most popular being hops. A mixture of starch sources may be used, with the secondary starch source, such as corn, rice and sugar, often being termed an adjunct, especially when used as a lower cost substitute for malted barley.

Water

Beer is composed mostly of water, and water used to make beer nearly always comes from a local source. The mineral components of water are important to beer because minerals in the water influence the character of beer made from it. Different regions have water with different mineral components. As a result, different regions are better suited to making certain types of beer. For example, Dublin has hard water well-suited to making stout, such as Guinness, and Pilzen has soft water well-suited to making pale lager, such as Pilsner Urquell. As a result, it is argued that the mineral components of water have an influence on the character of regional beers.

Starch source

The starch source in a beer provides the fermentable material in a beer and is a key determinant of the character of the beer. The most common starch source used in beer is malted grain. Grain is malted by soaking it in water, allowing it to begin germination, and then drying the partially germinated grain in a kiln. Malting grain produces enzymes that convert starches in the grain into fermentable sugars. Different roasting times and temperatures are used to produce different colours of malt from the same grain. Darker malts will produce darker beers.

Nearly all beer includes barley malt as the majority of the starch. This is because of its fibrous husk, which is important in the sparging stage of brewing, and high concentration of amylase, a digestive enzyme which facilitates conversion of starch into sugars. Other malted and unmalted grains (including wheat, rice, oats, and rye, and less frequently, corn and sorghum) may be used.

Hops

The flower of the hop vine is used as a flavouring and preservative agent in nearly all beer made today. The flowers themselves are often called “hops.” The use of hops in beer was recorded by captive Jews in Babylon around 400 BCE. Hops were used by monastery breweries, such as Corvey in Westphalia, Germany, from 822 CE, though the date normally given for widespread cultivation of hops for use in beer is the thirteenth century.

Hops contain several characteristics that brewers desire in beer: hops contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt; hops also contribute floral, citrus, and herbal aromas and flavours to beer; hops have an antibiotic effect that favours the activity of brewer’s yeast over less desirable microorganisms; and the use of hops aids in “head retention”, the length of time that a foamy head created by carbonation will last. The bitterness of beers is measured on the International Bitterness Units scale. Beer is the sole major commercial use of hops.

In the past, other plants have been used for similar purposes; for instance, Glechoma hederacea. Combinations of various aromatic herbs, berries, and even ingredients like wormwood would be combined into a mixture known as gruit and used as hops are now used.

Yeast is the microorganism that is responsible for fermentation in beer. Yeast metabolizes the sugars extracted from grains, which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, and thereby turns wort into beer. In addition to fermenting the beer, yeast influences the character and flavour. The dominant types of yeast used to make beer are ale yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and lager yeast (Saccharomyces uvarum); their use distinguishes ale and lager. Brettanomyces ferments lambics, and Torulaspora delbrueckii ferments Bavarian weissbier. Before the role of yeast in fermentation was understood, fermentation involved wild or airborne yeasts. A few styles such as lambics rely on this method today, but most modern fermentation adds pure yeast cultures directly to wort.

Some brewers add one or more clarifying agents to beer. Common examples of these include isinglass finings, obtained from swimbladders of fish; kappa carrageenan, derived from seaweed; Irish moss, a type of red algae; polyclar (artificial), and gelatin. Clarifying agents typically precipitate out of the beer along with protein solids, and are found only in trace amounts in the finished product.

A great many beers are brewed across the globe. Local traditions will give beers different names, giving the impression of a multitude of different styles. However, the basics of brewing beer are shared across national and cultural boundaries.

The British beer writer Michael Jackson wrote about beers from around the world in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer and organised them into local style groups based on local information. This book had an influence on homebrewers in United States who developed an intricate system of categorising beers which is exemplified by the Beer Judge Certification Program.

The traditional European brewing regions Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, The Netherlands and Austria have local varieties of beer. In some countries, notably the USA, Canada and Australia, brewers have adapted European styles to such an extent that they have effectively created their own indigenous types.

A common method of categorizing beer is by the behaviour of the yeast used in the fermentation process. In this method of categorizing, those beers which use a fast-acting yeast, which leaves behind residual sugars, are termed ales, while those beers which use a slower and longer acting yeast, which removes most of the sugars, leaving a clean and dry beer, are termed lagers.

Differences between some ales and lagers can be difficult to categorise. Steam beer, K?lsch, Alt, and some modern British Golden Summer Beers use elements of both lager and ale production. Baltic Porter and Bi?re de Garde may be produced by either lager or ale methods or a combination of both. However, lager production results in a cleaner tasting, dryer and lighter beer than ale.

A modern ale is commonly defined by the strain of yeast used and the fermenting temperature.

Ales are normally brewed with top-fermenting yeasts (most commonly Saccharomyces cerevisiae) , though a number of British brewers, including Fullers and Weltons, use ale yeast strains that have less pronounced top-fermentation characteristics. The important distinction for ales is that they are fermented at higher temperatures and thus ferment more quickly than lagers.

Ale is typically fermented at temperatures between 15 and 24 C (60 and 75 F). At these temperatures, yeast produces significant amounts of esters and other secondary flavour and aroma products, and the result is often a beer with slightly “fruity” compounds resembling apple, pear, pineapple, banana, plum, or prune, among others. Typical ales have a sweeter, fuller body than lagers.

Lager is the English name for bottom-fermenting beers of Central European origin. They are the most commonly consumed beers in the world. The name comes from the German lagern (”to store”). Lagers originated from European brewers storing beer in cool cellars and caves and noticing that the beers continued to ferment, and also to clear of sediment. Lager yeast is a bottom-fermenting yeast (e.g., Saccharomyces pastorianus), and typically undergoes primary fermentation at 712 C (4555 F) (the “fermentation phase”), and then is given a long secondary fermentation at 04 C (3240 F) (the “lagering phase”). During the secondary stage, the lager clears and mellows. The cooler conditions also inhibit the natural production of esters and other byproducts, resulting in a “cleaner” tasting beer.

Modern methods of producing lager were pioneered by Gabriel Sedlmayr the Younger, who perfected dark brown lagers at the Spaten Brewery in Bavaria, and Anton Dreher, who began brewing a lager, probably of amber-red colour, in Vienna in 18401841. With improved modern yeast strains, most lager breweries use only short periods of cold storage, typically 13 weeks.

Lambic beers, a speciality of Belgian beers, use wild yeasts, rather than cultivated ones. Many of these are not strains of brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and may have significant differences in aroma and sourness. Yeast varieties such as Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus are quite common in lambics. In addition, other organisms such as Lactobacillus bacteria produce acids which contribute to the sourness.

The most common colour is a pale amber produced from using pale malts. Pale lager is a term used for beers made from malt dried with coke. Coke had been first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it wasn’t until around 1703 that the term pale ale was first used.

In terms of sales volume, most of today’s beer is based on the pale lager brewed in 1842 in the town of Pilsen, in the Czech Republic. The modern pale lager is light in colour with a noticeable carbonation, and a typical alcohol by volume content of around 5%. The Pilsner Urquell, Bitburger, and Heineken brands of beer are typical examples of pale lager, as are the American brands Budweiser, Coors, and Miller.

Dark beers are usually brewed from a pale malt or lager malt base with a small proportion of darker malt added to achieve the desired shade. Other colourants such as caramel are also widely used to darken beers. Very dark beers, such as stout use dark or patent malts that have been roasted longer. Guinness and similar beers include roasted unmalted barley.

Draught beer from a pressurised keg is the most common method of dispensing in bars around the world. A metal keg is pressurised with carbon dioxide (CO2) gas which drives the beer to the dispensing tap or faucet. Some beers, notably stouts, such as Guinness and “smooth” bitters, such as Boddingtons, may be served with a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mixture. Nitrogen produces fine bubbles, resulting in a dense head and a creamy mouthfeel.

In the 1980s, Guinness introduced the beer widget, a nitrogen pressurised ball inside a can which creates a foamy head. The words “draft” and “draught” can be used as marketing terms to describe canned or bottled beers containing a beer widget, or which are cold filtered rather than pasteurised.

Cask-conditioned ales (or “cask ales”) are unfiltered and unpasteurised beers. These beers are termed “real ale” by the Camra organisation. Typically, when a cask arrives in a pub, it is placed horizontally on a stillage and allowed to cool to cellar temperature (typically around 13 C / 55.4 F), before being tapped and vented a tap is driven through a (usually rubber) bung at the bottom of one end, and a hard spile or other implement is used to open a hole in the side of the cask, which is now uppermost. The act of stillaging and then venting a beer in this manner typically disturbs all the sediment, so it must be left for a suitable period to “drop” (clear) again, as well as to fully condition this period can take anywhere from several hours to several days. At this point the beer is ready to sell, either being pulled through a beer line with a hand pump, or simply being “gravity-fed” directly into the glass.

Most beers are cleared of yeast by filtering when bottled. However, bottle conditioning beers retain some yeast either by being unfiltered, or by being filtered and then reseeded with fresh yeast. It is usually recommended that the beer be poured slowly, leaving any yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle. However, some drinkers prefer to pour in the yeast; this practice is, in fact, customary with wheat beers. Typically, when serving a hefeweizen, 90% of the contents are poured, and the remainder is swirled to suspend the sediment before pouring it into the glass. Alternately, the bottle is inverted prior to opening.

Many beers are sold in beverage cans, though there is considerable variation in the proportion between different countries. In 2001, in Sweden 63.9% of beer was sold in cans. People either drink from the can or pour the beer into a glass. Cans protect the beer from light and have a seal less prone to leaking over time than bottles. Cans were initially viewed as a technological breakthrough for maintaining the quality of a beer, then became commonly associated with less-expensive, mass-produced beers, even though the quality of storage in cans is much like bottles. Glass bottles are always used for bottle conditioned beers, so are associated with higher-regarded beers. Plastic (PET) bottles are used by some breweries.

The temperature of a beer has an influence on a drinker’s experience. Colder temperatures allow fully attenuated beers such as pale lagers to be enjoyed for their crispness; while warmer temperatures allow the more rounded flavours of an ale or a stout to be perceived. Beer writer Michael Jackson proposes a five-level scale for serving temperatures: well chilled (7 C/45 F) for “light” beers (pale lagers), chilled (8 C/47 F) for Berliner Weisse and other wheat beers, lightly chilled (9 C/48 F) for all dark lagers, altbier and German wheat beers, cellar temperature (13 C/55 F) for regular British ale, stout and most Belgian specialities and room temperature (15.5 C/60 F) for strong dark ales (especially trappist beer) and barley wine.

Beer is drunk from a variety of vessels, such as a glass, a beer stein, a mug, a pewter tankard, a beer bottle or a can. Some drinkers consider that the type of vessel influences their enjoyment of the beer. In Europe, particularly Belgium, breweries offer branded glassware intended only for their own beers.

The pouring process has an influence on a beer’s presentation. The rate of flow from the tap or other serving vessel, tilt of the glass, and position of the pour (in the centre or down the side) into the glass all influence the end result, such as the size and longevity of the head, lacing (the pattern left by the head as it moves down the glass as the beer is drunk), and turbulence of the beer and its release of carbonation.

The 5th Annual Canadian Brewing Awards Gala was held this past Wednesday, November 21st at the Dub Linn Gate Irish Pub in Vaughan. Gold, silver and bronze medals (or more accurately, tap handles) were awarded in 21 different beer style categories, with the winners chosen from over 200 beers submitted by breweries from coast to coast.

Locally, the big winner was Mill Street Brewery, who won a total of five medals: one gold, one silver, and three bronze. This was the best medal total of the night, which netted them the Brewery of the Year award. Running a close second was Etobicoke’s Great Lakes Brewing, with four awards, and other Ontario winners included Black Oak, Cameron’s, Magnotta, Muskoka, F&M, Brick, Steelback, Walkerville and Niagara.

Here’s the complete winners list for the 2007 CBAs. (Note that in some categories, less than three beers reached the minimum points threshold in the judging to receive an award, so in those cases only a gold or gold & silver were awarded.)

North American Style Amber Lager
GOLD Red Leaf Smooth Red Lager, Great Lakes
SILVER Harvest Lager, Bushwakker Brewing Co. Ltd
BRONZE J.R. Brickman Amber, Brick Brewing Co.

Bock Traditional German Style
GOLD Copper Bock, Canoe Brewpub

Fruit and Vegetable Beer
GOLD Frambozen, Mill Street Brewery
SILVER Raspberry Wheat, Phillips Brewing Co.
BRONZE Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale, Great Lakes

North American Style Dark Lager
GOLD Steelback Tiverton Dark Lager, Steelback
SILVER Hermann’s Dark Lager, Vancouver Island Brewing
BRONZE Black Jack Black Lager, Great Lakes

Light (Carlorie Reduced) Lager
GOLD Jack Rabbit, Big Rock Brewery
SILVER Moosehead Light, Moosehead Breweries Ltd
BRONZE Steelback Light, Steelback Brewery

Wheat Beer Belgian Style White
GOLD Blanche de Chambly, Unibroue
SILVER Belgian-Style Wit, Mill Street Brewery

Wheat Beer German Style Hefeweizen
GOLD Muskoka Hefewissbier, Lakes of Muskoka Cottage Brewery Inc.
SILVER True North Wunder Weisse, Magnotta

European Style Lager (Pilsner)
GOLD Walkerville Premium Blond, Walkerville Brewing
SILVER Kelowna Pilsner, Tree Brewing
BRONZE Whistler Premium Export Lager, Whistler Brewing

Strong or Belgian Style Ale
GOLD Swans Legacy Ale, Swans Buckerfields Brewery
SILVER St-Ambroise Vintage Ale, McAuslan Brewing
BRONZE Surly Blonde, Phillips Brewing Co.

Cream Ale
GOLD True North Cream Ale, Magnotta Brewery
SILVER Russell Cream Ale, Russell Brewing Co.
BRONZE Cameron’s Cream Ale, Cameron’s Brewing

North American Style Lager
GOLD Muskoka Lager, Lakes of Muskoka Cottage Brewery
SILVER Golden Horseshoe Premium Lager, Great Lakes
BRONZE Cameron’s Lager, Cameron’s Brewing

North American Style Blonde/Golden Ale
GOLD Piper’s Pale Ale, Vancouver Island Brewing
SILVER Griffin Extra Pale Ale, McAuslan Brewing
BRONZE Stock Ale, Mill Street Brewery

Porter
GOLD Black Oak Nutrcracker Porter, Black Oak Brewing Co.
SILVER London Style Porter, Propeller Brewing Co
BRONZE Coffee Porter, Mill Street Brewery

English Style Pale Ale (Bitter)
GOLD Cutthroat Pale Ale, Tree Brewing
SILVER Red Devil Pale Ale, R & B Brewing Co.
BRONZE Black Oak Pale Ale, Black Oak Brewing Co.

India Pale Ale
GOLD Imperial Pale Ale, Garrison Brewing Company
SILVER Amnesiac DBL IPA, Phillips Brewing Co.
BRONZE Hophead India Pale Ale, Tree Brewing

Brown Ale
GOLD Stonehammer Premium Dark Ale, F&M Brewery
SILVER Nut Brown Ale, Garrison Brewing Company
BRONZE Tall Timber Ale, Mt. Begbie Brewing Co.

Scotch Ale
GOLD McAuslan Scotch Ale, McAuslan Brewing
SILVER Swans Scotch Ale, Swans Buckerfields

North American Style Amber/Red Ale
GOLD Blue Buck, Phillips Brewing Co.
SILVER Race Rocks Amber, Lighthouse Brewing Co.
BRONZE (tie) Irish Red Ale, Garrison Brewing Company
BRONZE (tie) Tankhouse Ale, Mill Street Brewery

Stout
GOLD Swans Oatmeal Stout, Swans Buckerfields
SILVER Espresso Stout, Yukon Brewing Company
BRONZE Keepers Stout, Lighthouse Brewing Co.

Wheat Beer North American Style
GOLD Grasshopper, Big Rock Brewery
SILVER Sungod Wheat Ale, R & B Brewing Co.
BRONZE High Country Kolsch, Mt. Begbie Brewing Co.

Honey/Maple Lager or Ale
GOLD Niagara Honey Brown, Niagara Brewing Co.
SILVER Steelback Tiverton Bear Honey Brown, Steelback Brewery
BRONZE J.R. Brickman Honey Red, Brick Brewing Co.

Special Awards
BEER OF THE YEAR, Garrisons Imperial Pale Ale
BREWERY OF THE YEAR, Mill Street Brewery

Orkney’s Dark Island Champion Winter Beer of Scotland

Orkney Brewery’s Dark Island ale has been named Champion Winter Beer of Scotland.

The ale won the accolade at the 21st Aberdeen and North East Beer Festival, organized by the Aberdeen, Grampian and Northern Isles branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

The 4.6% abv ale has twice won CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Scotland award, while the brewery’s Skullsplitter ale took runner-up spot in the Champion Winter Beer category last year. Orkeny Brewry is operated by Sinclair Breweries.

Norman Sinclair, managing director of Sinclair Breweries, said: “We’re absolutely over the moon to win such a prestigious award. Dark Island has always been extremely popular with customers, but it’s a boost to have it judged independently and see it come out on top like this, beating off some really stiff competition.�

Gorillas, the largest of the living primates, are ground-dwelling omnivores that inhabit the forests of Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and (still under debate as of 2007) either four or five subspecies. Its DNA is 97%98% identical to that of a human, and are the next closest living relatives to humans after the two chimpanzee species.

Gorillas live in tropical or subtropical forests. Although their range covers a small percent of Africa, gorillas cover a wide range of elevations. The Mountain Gorilla inhabits the Albertine Rift montane cloud forests of the Virunga Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2225 to 4267 m (7300-14000 ft). Lowland Gorillas live in dense forests and lowland swamps as low as sea level.

The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage first described the Western Gorilla (he called it Troglodytes gorilla) in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia. The name was derived from the Greek word Gorillai (a “tribe of hairy women”) described by Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian navigator and possible visitor (circa 480 BC) to the area that later became Sierra Leone.

Until recently there were considered to be three gorilla species: the Western Lowland Gorilla, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla and the Mountain Gorilla. There is now agreement that are two species with two subspecies each. More recently it has been claimed that a third subspecies exists in one of the species.

Primatologists continue to explore the relationships between various gorilla populations. The species and subspecies listed here are the ones upon which most scientists agree.
Genus Gorilla
Western Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla)
Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)
Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli)
Eastern Gorilla (Gorilla beringei)
Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei)
Eastern Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri)

The proposed third subspecies of Gorilla beringei, which has not yet received a full Latin designation, is the Bwindi population of the Mountain Gorilla, sometimes called the Bwindi Gorilla.

Gorillas move around by knuckle-walking. Adult males range in height from 165-175 cm (5 ft 5 in 5 ft 9 in), and in weight from 140200 kg (310440 lb). Adult females are often half the size of a silverback, averaging about 140 cm (4 ft 7 in) tall and 100 kg (220 lb). Occasionally, a silverback of over 183 cm (6 ft) and 225 kg (500 lb) has been recorded in the wild. However, obese gorillas in captivity have reached a weight of 270 kg (600 lb). Gorillas have a facial structure which is described as mandibular prognathism, that is, their mandible protrudes farther out than the maxilla.

Eastern gorillas are darker colored than Western gorillas, with Mountain gorilla being the darkest of all. Mountain gorillas also have the thickest hair. The Western lowland gorilla can be brown or grayish with a reddish forehead. In addition, gorillas that live in lowland forests are more slender and agile than the more bulky Mountain gorilla.

Almost all gorillas share the same blood type (B) and, like humans, have individual finger prints.

A silverback is an adult male gorilla, typically more than 12 years of age and named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back. A silverback gorilla has large canine teeth that come with maturity. Black backs are sexually mature males of up to 11 years of age.

Silverbacks are the strong, dominant troop leaders. Each typically leads a troop of 5 to 30 gorillas and is the center of the troop’s attention, making all the decisions, mediating conflicts, determining the movements of the group, leading the others to feeding sites and taking responsibility for the safety and well-being of the troop. Yonger mals called blackbacks may serve as backup protection.

Males will slowly begin to leave their original troop when they are about 11 years old, traveling alone or with a group of other males for 25 years before being able to attract females to form a new group and start breeding. While infant gorillas normally stay with their mother for 34 years, silverbacks will care for weaned young orphans, though never to the extent of carrying the little gorillas.

If challenged by a younger or even by an outsider male, a silverback will scream, beat his chest, break branches, bare his teeth, then charge forward. Sometimes a younger male in the group can take over leadership from an old male. If the leader is killed by disease, accident, fighting or poachers, the group will split up, as the animals disperse to look for a new protective male. Very occasionally, a group might be taken over in its entirety by another male. There is a strong risk that the new male may kill the infants of the dead silverback.

Food and foraging

Gorillas are omnivores, eating fruits, leaves, shoots, and sometimes insects which make up only 12% of their diet. Gorilla spend most of the day eating. Their large sagittal crest and long canines allow them to crush hard plant like bamboo. Lowland gorillas feed mainly on fruit while Mountain gorillas feed mostly on herbs, stems and roots.

Reproduction and lifespan

Gestation is 8? months. There are typically 3 to 4 years between births. Infants stay with their mothers for 34 years. Females mature at 1012 years (earlier in captivity); males at 1113 years. Lifespan is between 3050 years. The Philadelphia Zoo’s Massa set the longevity record of 54 years at the time of his death.

Gorillas are closely related to humans and are considered highly intelligent. A few individuals in captivity, such as Koko, have been taught a subset of sign language (see animal language for a discussion).

Tool use

The following observations were made by a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society in September 2005. Gorillas are now known to use tools in the wild. A female gorilla in the Nouabal?-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo was recorded using a stick as if to gauge the depth of water whilst crossing a swamp. A second female was seen using a tree stump as a bridge and also as a support whilst fishing in the swamp. This means that all of the great apes are now known to use tools.

In September 2005, a two and a half year old gorilla in the Republic of Congo was discovered using rocks to smash open palm nuts inside a game sanctuary.. While this was the first such observation for a gorilla, over forty years previously chimpanzees had been seen using tools in the wild, famously ‘fishing’ for termites. It is a common tale among native peoples that gorillas have used rocks and sticks to thwart predators, even rebuking large mammals. Great apes are endowed with a semi-precision grip, and certainly have been able to use both simple tools and even weapons, by improvising a club from a convenient fallen branch. With training, in twentieth century carnival and circus acts, chimpanzees have been taught to operate simple motorbikes.

Studies
The word “gorilla” comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer on an expedition on the west African coast. They encountered “a savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose body were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae” . The word was then later used as the species name, though it is unknown whether what these ancient Cartheginians encountered were truly gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or humans.
19th century: The first scientific writings about gorillas dates back to the 1847 Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, where Troglodytes gorilla is described, with a few other species following in the next couple of years.
Early 20th century: The next systematic study was not conducted until the 1920s, when Carl Akely of the American Museum of Natural History traveled to Africa to hunt for an animal to be shot and stuffed. On his first trip he was accompanied by his friends Mary Bradley, a famous mystery writer, and her husband. After their trip, Mary Bradley wrote On the Gorilla Trail. She later became an advocate for the conservation of gorillas and wrote several more books (mainly for children). In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Robert Yerkes and his wife Ava helped further the study of gorillas when they sent Harold Bigham to Africa. Yerkes also wrote a book in 1929 about the great apes.
Mid 20th century: After WWII, George Schaller was one of the first researchers to go into the field and study primates. In 1959, he conducted a systematic study of the Mountain Gorilla in the wild and published his work. Years later, at the behest of Louis Leakey and the National Geographic, Dian Fossey conducted a much longer and more comprehensive study of the Mountain Gorilla. It was not until she published her work that many misconceptions and myths about gorillas were finally disproved, including the myth that gorillas are violent.

Both species of gorilla are endangered, and have been subject to intense poaching for a long time. Threats to gorilla survival include habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade. In 2004 a population of several hundred gorillas in the Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo was essentially wiped out by the Ebola virus.. A 2006 study published in Science concluded that more than 5,000 gorillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa. The researchers indicated that in conjunction with commercial hunting of these apes creates “a recipe for rapid ecological extinction” .

Gorillas have been a recurring element of many aspects of popular culture and media for at least the last hundred years. For example, gorillas have featured prominently in monstrous fantasy films like King Kong and pulp novels like Tarzan and Conan have featured gorillas as physical opponents to the titular protagonists.

Famous Gorillas:

Colo – female gorilla – born 22Dec56 to Millie and Baron Macombo (mom/dad). Colo is the first gorilla born in captivity and she’s still living where she was born, in Columbus, Ohio, where she and her ever-expanding family live.

Binti Jua & her daughter, Koola – Binti was born 17Mar88 in Columbus, Ohio to Lulu and Sunshine. After being hand-reared, Binti was finally introduced to other gorillas at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. There, she kept to herself a lot, since it was difficult getting into the “clique” of Alpha and her daughters, Babs and Aquilina who were there at the time. Even so, Binti eventually met the old silverback, Abe, and had his only offspring, Koola, born 21Feb95. In the summer of 1996 when a little boy fell into the gorilla exhibit, Binti carefully cradled the boy and brought him to the keeper’s door, where she left him so he could be rescued. Binti became world-famous, and she deserves her celebrity, since – like Jambo before her – she helped more people see just how gentle, intelligent and remarkable gorillas really are!

Jambo – silverback gorilla. Jambo is famous for several reasons. He was born 17Apr61 in Basle, Switzerland and was the first baby gorilla in captivity to be raised by his own mother, Achilla (his father was Stephi). Jambo went to the Channel Island of Jersey, where he was a wonderful silverback and father to many offspring, who now reside in zoos virtually all over the world. Before the world knew Binti Jua, Jambo took care of another little boy who fell into his enclosure in the mid 1980’s. Home-video of the huge silverback gently stroking the unconscious little boy’s back were some of the first to show the masses how gentle gorillas really are. Sadly, Jambo died in 1992 and his keeper and best friend, Richard Johnstone-Scott, wrote a wonderfully moving book about his time with this superb silverback.

Koko – female gorilla – Koko is the world-famous “talking” gorilla, who speaks ASL – the sign language of the deaf. Recently she held a live conversation on AOL, using her human companions as translators. We were privileged to meet Koko in 1989, where Jane signed to her “I love gorillas” and Koko immediately signed back “Love gorillas YOU!” which we captured on video tape. Binti Jua is Koko’s niece!

Ivan in Tacoma, WA- silverback gorilla – born in Africa in 1964. Ivan is the famous “shopping mall gorilla” who spent most of his life alone in a shopping mall, without ever seeing another gorilla, until he came to Zoo Atlanta in the fall of 1994. When I took this photo, Ivan was just about to go into quarantine for his trip to Atlanta, and he was in a lot of pain from some dental problems. Even so, Ivan “painted” us a picture and was a very gracious, gorilla’s gorilla.

Ivan in Atlanta – A year later, I saw Ivan who had been sitting behind the rocks, ignoring the public, but came out to get a closer look when I purred and rumbled at him. Did he remember me?? Who knows? On subsequent visits to see Ivan in Atlanta, he usually will stroll out for a look-see, so I’d like to think he at least recognizes me as a friend of gorillas. Ivan is in with 2 female gorillas and in the spring of 1998 he had his first sexual experience, so maybe he’ll become a super dad like Willie B!

Snowflake – silverback WHITE gorilla – born in Africa in 1962 and now living in Barcelona, Spain. Also known as Copito de Nieve and Floquet de Neu, Snowflake is not an albino (or is he? See update below!). Although he has white hair, his eyes are blue, not pink. These photos were taken soon after one of his females had died, so his favorite female, Ndengue stayed nearby. Like many fair-skinned, blue eyed humans, Snowflake squints a lot in the bright sunlight and often people think he is grimacing or angry, which he is not. In fact, we were pleased to see how “normal” he behaved during our visit with him. Snowflake acted like a real gorilla’s gorilla and he’s sired over 20 babies, who have all turned out to be regular dark haired gorillas. Although most of his offspring did not survive, one now lives in Japan. Only one other white gorilla has been reported – seen in the wild as a baby with his/her mother, but s/he soon disappeared and was presumed dead.

On one of your gorilla haven pages, you state: “Snowflake – silverback WHITE gorilla – born in Africa in 1962 and now living in Barcelona, Spain. Also known as Copito de Nieve and Floquet de Neu, Snowflake is not an albino. Although he has white hair, his eyes are blue, not pink.” Actually, MANY albinos have blue eyes. It is an old wive’s tale that albinos must have pink eyes. Blue-eyed albinos are discussed by both the International Albinism Center and the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, on their web sites.
So I wrote to my friends in Barcelona and got this reply, emailed on August 5th:

Hello Jane,
I am one of the veterinarians from Barcelona Zoo and have taken care of his health for the last 9 years. I got a message regarding albinism in snow fale (or “Copito de Nieve” as we say) from the Primate curator of BZ (Tereas Abello). There was a presentation in the American Association of Veterinary Dermatologist few years ago titled “Albinism in a Gorilla” by Ferrer, Fernandez, Castellels and Fernandez…if you want we can send you a reprint (it is a short communication). We conclude in that paper that snowflake is affected by a oculocutaneous albinism that could be equivalent to Type I-B or yellow albinism in human beings. This seems to be associated with reduced but sufficient levels of residual tyorinase activity to produce small amounts of pigment. His skin is totally white and the membranes are pale pink. hairs are also whiten although in some areas (head and shoulders) they were light yellow creamy. Iris is blue to gray and small amounts of pigment were found in the iridial stroma and in the retina. Pigment was absent in the posterior epithelium and the iris was fully translucent on globe transllumination. I hope this information is useful for your considerings, Regards,

Chicory – silverback gorilla – born 13May85 in New Orleans to mom Fanya and dad BomBom. Chicory came to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago as a youngster where he and Ndume became best buddies during the time I watched them (in the late 1980’s). . Chicory is famous since he had a brain tumor which human specialists operated on successfully in 1994. For some reason when I took this photo, Chicory was housed alone while the other gorillas were in the main exhibit. There was a 4 inch ledge where he could climb and hold onto to get a better view of people or things that interested him – it wasn’t very comfortable, so he couldn’t stay there for long. He hadn’t seen me for a while (and I’ve known him since he was about 3 years old) and he climbed up to sit on the tiny ledge. He’s looking at me almost like he’s asking where I’ve been and “asking” if I know when he is going to be let back in with his group! Sadly Chicory died unexpectedly and inexplicably August 22, 1998 at the age of 13 years. I will confess I am still easily brought to tears thinking about the loss of the potential this wonderful individual had, but I smile when I think of watching him grow from a toddler to a magnificent silverback..

TAXONOMY

Suborder: Anthropoidea
Infraorder: Catarrhini
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Genus: Gorilla
Species: beringei, gorilla
Subspecies: G. b. beringei, G. b. graueri, G. g. diehli, G. g. gorilla

Other names: gorilla (Finnish); gorille (French); gorilla (German); gorila (Spanish); bergsgorilla, gorilla, or l?glandsgorilla (Swedish); G. gorilla: western gorilla; G.g. diehli: Cross River gorilla; G.g. gorilla: western lowland gorilla; G. beringei: eastern gorilla; G.b. beringei: Bwindi, mountain, or Virunga; G.b. graueri: eastern lowland gorilla or Grauer’s gorilla
MORPHOLOGY

Western and eastern gorillas are more genetically distant from one another than are chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) (Butynski 2001). There are few striking physical differences between subspecies of gorilla, though differences in dentition and craniometric analyses reveal distinguishing morphological characteristics of each subspecies (Rowe 1996; Leigh et al. 2003). To some extent, even the inexperienced observer can distinguish the subspecies from one another. Mountain gorillas have significantly longer hair than their conspecifics, while western gorillas have brown, not black, hair on their heads, and eastern gorillas have longer faces and broader chests than western gorillas (Rowe 1996; Nowak 1999). Gorillas have dark brown to black fur and black skin. Dominant adult males, called silverbacks, have a prominent sagittal crest and striking silver coloration from their shoulders to rump. Males and females are sexually dimorphic, with males weighing up to 181 kg (400 lb) in the wild and 227 kg (500 lb) in captivity and measuring, on average, 1700 mm, while females weigh between 72 and 98 kg (159 and 216 lb) and measure, on average, 1500 mm (4.92 ft) (Rowe 1996).

Gorilla gorilla gorilla

Spending the majority of their lives on the ground, the main locomotion pattern of gorillas is quadrupedal knuckle-walking although they do climb and spend limited amounts of time standing bipedally. Because of their sheer size, adult gorillas must climb near the main trunk of a tree or on large branches while juveniles and adolescents are more agile (Tutin et al. 1995; Rowe 1996).

Gorillas live between 30 and 40 years in the wild and up to 50 years in captivity (Stoinski pers. comm.).
RANGE

Gorillas are patchily distributed in east central and equatorial west Africa, separated by the Congo River and its tributaries. Western gorillas (including western lowland and Cross River gorillas) are found in a geographic area of about 709,000 km2 (273,746 mi2) covering parts of Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Angola, and far-western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Cross River gorillas are found in only a 750 km2 (290 mi2) area in Nigeria and Cameroon, a pocket of land that is isolated from the majority of this region. Eastern gorillas (including mountain and eastern lowland gorillas) are found in portions of eastern DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda, in an area approximately 112,000 km2 (43,243 mi2), though mountain gorillas are restricted to two locations, Virunga Volcanoes where the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC meet, and Bwindi-Impenetrable National Park, Uganda (Nowak 1999; Butynski 2001; Sarmiento 2003).

Because of their great geographical separation, about 750 km (466 mi), western and eastern gorillas live in dramatically different habitats (Tutin & Vedder 2001). Even within-species habitat variation is quite great, from swamp to montane forest. Eastern gorillas live in submontane and montane forests from 650 to 4000 m (2132 to 13,123 ft)(Butynski 2001; Sarmiento 2003). Mountain gorillas live at the highest elevations, from 2200 to 4000 m (7218 to 13,123 ft), in the Virunga Volcanoes while eastern lowland gorillas occupy submontane forests from 700 to 2900 m (2297 to 9514 ft)(Butynski 2001). Where mountain gorillas exist, there are two rainy and two dry seasons per year, with average rainfall of 2000 mm (6.56 ft) per year (McNeilage 2001). The rainy seasons are from March until May and September to November while the dry seasons are June through August and December through February (McNeilage 2001; Robbins & McNeilage 2003). Temperatures range between 3.9° C (39° F) and 14.5° C (58° F), though they may reach 25.8° C (78.44° F) (Sarmiento 2003). Eastern lowland gorillas live in primary and secondary forests in both highland and lowland forests across their range. They occupy montane, bamboo, and lowland forests at elevations of 600 to 3308 m (1969 to 10,853 ft)(Ilambu 2001). There are two rainy seasons, the first lasting from March to June and the shorter lasting from September to December. There are also two dry seasons, the longer from June to September and the shorter from December until March (Yamagiwa et al. 1996).

Western gorillas live in lowland, swamp, and montane forests from sea level to 1600 m (5249 ft)(Butynski 2001; Sarmiento 2003). As their common name implies, western lowland gorillas live in lowland and swamp forests at elevations up to 1600 m (5249 ft) while Cross River gorillas inhabit low-lying and submontane forests at elevations from 150 to 1600 m (492 to 5249 ft)(Sarmiento 2003). Western lowland gorillas that live in mixed swamp forests experience one rainy and one dry season per year. Average rainfall is 1526 mm (5.01 ft) with the greatest amount of rain falling between August and November and diminishing during December through March (Poulsen & Clark 2004).
ECOLOGY

The considerable dietary differences between mountain, western, and eastern lowland gorillas impact home range size and social behavior. Despite these differences, though, all gorilla groups exhibit synchronized activities and, throughout the day, alternate between rest periods and travel or feeding periods (Stewart 2001). Mountain gorillas are folivores, feeding on leaves, stems, pith, and shoots of terrestrial herbaceous vegetation. They preferentially choose high quality, high protein, low fiber, and low tannin foods from a small number of species and incorporate little fruit into their diets (McNeilage 2001). Where bamboo is available, it is usually favored and they spend much time digging to unearth tender shoots. Because they depend on a readily available, easily accessed food source, there is little competition for resources between groups, their home ranges are small, typically between three and 15 km2 (1.16 and 5.79 mi2), and they move only 500 m (.311 mi) or less within a typical day (McNeilage 2001; Robbins & McNeilage 2003). Though they only utilize a few species in each habitat, mountain gorillas show wide dietary flexibility which enables them to occupy a wide variety of habitats within their range (McNeilage 2001).

The diet of eastern lowland gorillas is more diverse than the mountain gorillas’ and changes seasonally. While leaves and pith are staple parts of their diets, eastern lowland gorillas depend heavily on fruit (25 percent of their total diet), especially during the times of year when fruits are abundant. When they include insects in their diet, eastern lowland gorillas prefer ants (Yamagiwa et al. 1994). Eastern lowland gorillas generally use a small area for a few days and then travel long distances to another area. Eastern lowland gorillas that depend more heavily on fruit must travel farther in a day to find fruiting trees and have larger home ranges because of a relative scarcity of fruit. Their home ranges vary from 2.7 to 6.5 km2 (1.04 to 2.51 mi2) while their day range is between 154 and 2280 m (.096 and 1.42 mi)(Yamagiwa et al. 1996).

Western lowland gorillas have little dependable access to high quality terrestrial herbs across their range, but some areas are rich in aquatic herbs and they do eat herbaceous vegetation. Fruit is widely available, though dispersed, across their range, and is a central component of their diet, especially during times of fruit abundance (Tutin 1996; Doran & McNeilage 2001; Doran et al. 2002). Termites and ants are also important dietary staples. Western lowland gorillas have the largest home ranges and travel the farthest of all gorilla subspecies because of their reliance on fruit. The average distance traveled per day is 1105 m (.687 mi) and western lowland gorillas range over seven to 14 km2 (2.70 to 5.41 mi2) (Tutin 1996).

In some parts of their ranges, gorillas are sympatric with chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and dietary overlap in plant food and fruit is great. Where they occur together, gorillas and chimpanzees also have similar habitat use patterns and ecological competition is likely to occur (Kuroda et al. 1996). Though they share a similar niche, competition has not been recorded at any of the sites where the two apes overlap (McNeilage 2001).

Gorillas are vulnerable to predation by leopards (Panthera pardus), though direct documentation of attacks is difficult to obtain and rare. Evidence from leopard scat in areas where gorillas range is often the only means of confirming leopard predation, though even this is questionable as the large cats could simply be scavenging carcasses (Fay et al. 1995).

Content last modified: October 4, 2005

Written by Kristina Cawthon Lang. Reviewed by Tara Stoinski.

Gorillas Fight Human Invaders Using Weapons

This new discovery may help explain how early man learned to use natural objects as hunting and fighting weapons long ago.

Gorillas in the Cross River section of Cameroon were spotted throwing dirt clumps, stones, and sticks at humans they perceived as invaders. This was the first time the gorilla has been seen using tools aggressively.

Researchers believe that this is how early human ancestors learned to use tools as weapons, possibly against predators. However, they believe that the gorillas could have learned this from humans as well. Humans have thrown stones at the gorillas before, which may be how the animals learned the behavior.

Wildlife Conservation Society team member Jacqueline Sunderland Groves said:

“The area is largely isolated from other gorilla groups, but there are herdsmen on the mountain. In one encounter a group of gorillas threw clumps of grass and soil at the researchers while acting aggressively. Another gorilla threw a branch. A third encounter saw the gorillas throwing soil at a local man who was throwing stones at the apes.�

This observation, coupled with the sighting of a gorilla in the Congo using a stick as a tool to gauge water depth and cross a swamp, suggests the use of tools could have occurred before the evolutionary split of humans from today’s primates.

The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the River Seine in Paris. The tower has become a global icon of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world.

The Parisian landmark is the tallest structure in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world and is named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel. 6,719,200 people visited the tower in 2006 and more than 200,000,000 since its construction. This makes the tower the most visited paid monument in the world per year. Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 324 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

When the tower was completed in 1889 it replaced the Washington Monument as the world’s tallest structure a title it retained until 1930 when New York City’s Chrysler Building (319 m 1,047 ft tall) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Tour Montparnasse (210 m 689 ft), although that will soon be surpassed by Tour AXA (225.11 m 738.36 ft).

The structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons. Depending on the ambient temperature the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6-7 cm (2-3 in) in the wind.

The first and second levels are accessible by stairs and lifts. A ticket booth at the south tower base sells tickets to use the stairs which begin at that location. At the first platform the stairs continue up from the east tower and the third level summit is only accessible by lift. Once you are on the first or second platform the stairs are open for anyone to ascend or descend regardless of whether you have purchased a lift ticket or stair ticket. The actual count of stairs includes 9 steps to the ticket booth at the base, 328 steps to the first level, 340 steps to the second level and 18 steps to the lift platform on the second level. When exiting the lift at the third level 15 more steps exist to ascend to the upper observation platform. The step count is printed periodically on the side of the stairs to give an indication of progress. The majority of the ascent allows for an unhindered view of the area directly beneath and around the tower except during brief stretches of the stairway that are enclosed.

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. On occasion the colour of the paint is changed the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-grey. However, the tower is actually painted three different colours in order to make it look the same colour to an observer on the ground with the colors changing from dark to light from top to bottom. On the first floor there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the colour to use for a future session of painting. The co-architects of the Eiffel Tower are Emile Nouguier, Maurice Koechlin and Stephen Sauvestre.

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World’s Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. Eiffel originally planned to build it in Canada, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but they rejected it. The tower was inaugurated on 31 March 1889, and opened on 6 May. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. Yet because Eiffel took safety precautions including use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died.

The tower was met with resistance from the public when it was built, with many calling it an eyesore. (Novelist Guy de Maupassant who claimed to hate the tower supposedly ate lunch at the Tower’s restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where you couldn’t see the Tower.) Today, it is widely considered to be a striking piece of structural art.

One of the great Hollywood movie clich?s is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to 7 stories, only the very few taller buildings have a clear view of the tower.

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years, meaning it would have had to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it could be easily demolished) but as the tower proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to remain after the expiration of the permit. The military used it to dispatch Parisian taxis to the front line during the First Battle of the Marne, and it therefore became a victory statue of that battle.

At the time the tower was built many people were shocked by its daring shape. Gustave Eiffel was criticised for the design and accused of trying to create something artistic, or inartistic according to the viewer, without regard to engineering. Eiffel and his engineers, as renowned bridge builders however, understood the importance of wind forces and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world they had to be certain it would withstand the wind. In an interview reported in the newspaper Le Temps, Eiffel said: Now to what phenomenon did I give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument’s four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be (…) will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.

translated from the French newspaper Le Temps of 14 February 1887

The shape of the tower was therefore determined by mathematical calculation involving wind resistance. Several theories of this mathematical calculation have been proposed over the years, the most recent is a nonlinear integral differential equation based on counterbalancing the wind pressure on any point on the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point. That shape is exponential.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the tower has been used for radio transmission. Until the 1950s, an occasionally modified set of antenna wires ran from the summit to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. They were connected to long-wave transmitters in small bunkers; in 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar and still exists today. On 20 November 1913 the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an antenna, exchanged sustained wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory which used an antenna in Arlington, Virginia.

The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, DC.

The tower has two restaurants: Altitude 95, on the first floor (95 m, 311 ft, above sea level); and the Jules Verne, an expensive gastronomical restaurant on the second floor, with a private lift. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. In January 2007 a new multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse was brought in to run Jules Verne.

The uppermost observation deck, with a height of 275 metres, is the highest area of an architectural structure in the European Union open for the public.

The passenger lifts from ground level to the first level are operated by cables and pulleys driven by massive water-powered pistons. As they ascend the inclined arc of the legs, the elevator cabins tilt slightly, but with a slight jolt, every few seconds in order to keep the floor nearly level. The elevator works are on display and open to the public in a small museum located in one of the four tower bases, and waiting queues are much shorter than those for the tower ascent.

On 10 September 1889 Thomas Edison visited the tower. He signed the guestbook with the following message To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.

In 1902, the tower was struck by lightning (see photo below). 100 m (330 ft) of the top had to be reconstructed and the damaged lights illuminating the tower had to be replaced.
Father Theodor Wulf in 1910 took observations of radiant energy radiating at the top and bottom of the tower, discovering at the top more than was expected, and thereby detecting what are today known as cosmic rays.
In 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig twice “sold” the tower for scrap metal.
In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world’s tallest structure when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York City.
From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citro?n adorned three of the tower’s four sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time.
Upon the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that Adolf Hitler would have to climb the steps to the summit. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war. In 1940 Nazi soldiers had to climb to the top to hoist the swastika, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and it was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. It was said that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower. A Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. In August 1944, when the Allies were nearing Paris, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. The lifts of the Tower were working normally within hours of the Liberation of Paris (!)
On 3 January 1956, a fire damaged the top of the tower.
In 1957 the present radio antenna was added to the top.
In the 1980s an old restaurant and its supporting iron scaffolding midway up the tower was dismantled; it was purchased and reconstructed on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana by entrepreneurs John Onorio and Daniel Bonnot, originally as the Tour Eiffel Restaurant, known more recently as the Red Room. The restaurant was re-assembled from 11,000 pieces that crossed the Atlantic in a 40-feet cargo container.
In 1985’s James Bond action/adventure film A View to a Kill, Sir Roger Moore as James Bond chases May Day played by actress Grace Jones at the Eiffel Tower. She parachuted from the tower. The video of the film’s theme, performed by the group Duran Duran, also included several scenes of the band staged on the tower.
On New Year’s Eve 2000, the Eiffel Tower played host to Paris’ Millennium Celebration. Fireworks exploded from the whole length of the tower in a spectacular display.
In 2000, flashing lights and four high-power searchlights were installed on the tower. Since then the light show has become a nightly event. The searchlights on top of the tower make it a beacon in Paris’ night sky.
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest of all-time in 2002.
At 19:20 on 22 July 2003, a fire occurred at the top of the tower in the broadcasting equipment room. The entire tower was evacuated; the fire was extinguished after 40 minutes, and there were no reports of injuries.
Since 2004, the Eiffel Tower has hosted an ice skating rink on the first floor during the winter period. Skating is free in Paris.

Images of the tower have long been in the public domain; however, in 2003 SNTE (Soci?t? nouvelle d’exploitation de la tour Eiffel) installed a new lighting display on the tower. The effect was to put any night-time image of the tower and its lighting display under copyright. As a result, it was no longer legal to publish contemporary photographs of the tower at night without permission in some countries.

The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for SNTE, St?phane Dieu, commented in January 2005, “It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn’t used in ways we don’t approve.” However, it also potentially has the effect of prohibiting tourist photographs of the tower at night from being published as well as hindering non profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the tower.

In a recent decision, the Court of Cassation ruled that copyright could not be claimed over images including a copyrighted building if the photograph encompassed a larger area. This seems to indicate that SNTE cannot claim copyright on photographs of Paris incorporating the lit tower.

In certain jurisdictions, this claim of copyright is explicitly disallowed. In Irish copyright law, works “permanently situated in a public place or in premises open to the public” may be freely included in visual reproductions.

Eiffel Tower at night

To see Eiffel tower at night is one of the most impressing moments you can enjoy in Paris. It is an immense structure that was built without any practical function like today’s towers usually have (TV broadcasting). It should serve as a city dominant only and show the greatness of French engineering to be memorized throughout the entire world. Eiffel Tower was built officially to celebrate the anniversary of the French revolution and was planed to be a part of the Universal Exhibition (the parent of today’s EXPO). Total costs of the building reached 7.8 million francs, but the admissions of the 1989 exhibition went to the amazing sum of 5,919,884 francs, and thus the tower proved to be not only a great monument, but also a good bargain.
The building process ended on March 31, 1889 with hoisting the French flag to the top, and thus Eiffel Tower is over 117 years old today. The contractor of Eiffel Tower was Gustave Eiffel & Cie and the tower was build under the technical leadership of two engineers: Maurice Koechlin & Emile Nouguier. The main architect was Stephen Sauvestre who began the studies on this tower in 1884 and the construction itself began in 1887. Only 2 years, 2 months, 5 days and 300 workers undertook the building process of such a tower, monumental especially for that century.
Eiffel Tower consists of 18,038 pieces and 2,500,000 rivets with the total weight of the entire metal structure reaching 7,300 tons, but the structure itself has a weight of 10,100 tons. The pure weight of paint layers on this structure is 40 tons and Eiffel tower is constantly being painted over. The height of Eiffel Tower is 324 meters (up to the flagpole, but it varies up to 15 centimeters depending on the air temperature because of the temperature expandability of steel). The maximum sway caused by dilation is 18 centimeters and the one caused by wind is 12 centimeters. Number of steps is also incredible: 1665. The size of base area of Eiffel tower is 10,281.96 square meters. If you want to visit Eiffel Tower, it could be interesting for you, that its coordinates are Latitude – 48?51′32″ North and Longitude – 002?17′45″ East, and you surely will discover it very quickly. The total number of visitors is something more than 225,000,000. It is amazing to see this monument, especially to see Eiffel Tower at night in its full glory and lights.

Industrial Maintenance

Open 365 days a year, welcoming somewhere close to 7 million visitors, the Eiffel Tower resembles a bustling factory behind the scenes!

Utility Goods

The monument depends on the national electrical company, EDF, to meet the Tower demands: 7,500,000 kilowatt hours yearly with 580,000 exclusively for the illuminations. Eighteen transformers handle the flow of current and in case of breakdown, 3 electrical groups will automatically take over. More than 100 bulb models are represented in the 10,000 that light up the Tower illuminations. The electricians must regularly change them, a task that involves climbing the structure itself. The entire installation relies on a network of 80 kilometers of electrical cables. Furthermore, 65,000 square meters of drinking water and 705,000 kilowatt hours of cooling and heating are also necessary annually.

Also, not to be overlooked, is the number of entrance tickets sold each year to visitors, especially since the Tower is the monument the most visited in the world. The Tower consumes 2 tons of paper per year in order to issue the necessary annual number of tickets.

Cleaning

Specialized industrial cleaning teams keep the Tower in tip-top condition. In order to complete their task throughout the year, they use 4 tons of paper or rag wipes, 10,000 doses of detergents, 400 liters of metal cleansers and 25,000 garbage bags.

The Elevators

Three elevators are at the service of visitors to go to the second floor and another four assure the ascension from the second floor to the top level. There is also a utility lift and an elevator reserved exclusively for visitors dining at the prestigious Jules Verne Restaurant.

An essential element of the monument, these elevators travel a distance of more than 103,000 kilometers annually, in other words, two and a half times around the earth!

Each compartment as well as the computer and electrical systems coupled to this historic machinery are overseen with great care: overhauled and repaired, parts replaced and joints greased, and close inspection of the 16 kilometers of cables. The elevators are the subject of constant check-ups by the monument’s technicians, who are also on the site very early each day to start up the systems before the visitors arrive. The host and hostesses are the actual elevator operators.

Security

The Tower is under surveillance 24 hours a day.
In case of fire, the Tower is equipped with 530 detectors, a network of sprinklers and 200 fire extinguishers of all types.
The fire hydrants on the first two floors receive their water from the ground via a column of water, while the top level draws from pressurized reservoirs.

A Career at the Tower

Many are those working with the SETE, the Tower operating company, and varied are their positions. There are the host and hostesses who speak several languages, available to assist the visitors from the four corners of the Earth. Among the technical staff, there are electricians, mechanics, plumbers, painters, locksmiths, computer engineers, carpenters…

The Tower is also home to numerous boutiques with their sellers, a post office, restaurants with their waiters and cooks, security guards, the maintenance team, the administrative employees…

Nikola Tesla symbolizes a unifying force and inspiration for all nations in the name of peace and science. He was a true visionary far ahead of his contemporaries in the field of scientific development. New York State and many other states in the USA proclaimed July 10, Tesla’s birthday- Nikola Tesla Day.

Many United States Congressmen gave speeches in the House of Representatives on July 10, 1990 celebrating the 134th anniversary of scientist-inventor Nikola Tesla. Senator Levine from Michigan spoke in the US Senate on the same occasion.

The street sign “Nikola Tesla Corner� was recently placed on the corner of the 40th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. There is a large photo of Tesla in the Statue of Liberty Museum. The Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey has a daily science demonstration of the Tesla Coil creating a million volts of electricity before the spectators eyes. Many books were written about Tesla : Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O’Neill and Margaret Cheney’s book Tesla: Man out of Time has contributed significantly to his fame. A documentary film Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World, produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, The Secret of Nikola Tesla (Orson Welles), BBC Film Masters of the Ionosphere are other tributes to the great genius.

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika, which was then part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire, region of Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor in her own right of household appliances. Tesla studied at the Realschule, Karlstadt in 1873, the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria and the University of Prague. At first, he intended to specialize in physics and mathematics, but soon he became fascinated with electricity. He began his career as an electrical engineer with a telephone company in Budapest in 1881. It was there, as Tesla was walking with a friend through the city park that the elusive solution to the rotating magnetic field flashed through his mind. With a stick, he drew a diagram in the sand explaining to his friend the principle of the induction motor. Before going to America, Tesla joined Continental Edison Company in Paris where he designed dynamos. While in Strassbourg in 1883, he privately built a prototype of the induction motor and ran it successfully. Unable to interest anyone in Europe in promoting this radical device, Tesla accepted an offer to work for Thomas Edison in New York. His childhood dream was to come to America to harness the power of Niagara Falls.

Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison: “I know two great men,� wrote Batchelor, “one is you and the other is this young man.� Tesla spent the next 59 years of his productive life living in New York. Tesla set about improving Edison’s line of dynamos while working in Edison’s lab in New Jersey. It was here that his divergence of opinion with Edison over direct current versus alternating current began. This disagreement climaxed in the war of the currents as Edison fought a losing battle to protect his investment in direct current equipment and facilities.

Tesla pointed out the inefficiency of Edison’s direct current electrical powerhouses that have been build up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The secret, he felt, lay in the use of alternating current ,because to him all energies were cyclic. Why not build generators that would send electrical energy along distribution lines first one way, than another, in multiple waves using the polyphase principle?

Edison’s lamps were weak and inefficient when supplied by direct current. This system had a severe disadvantage in that it could not be transported more than two miles due to its inability to step up to high voltage levels necessary for long distance transmission. Consequently, a direct current power station was required at two mile intervals.

Direct current flows continuously in one direction; alternating current changes direction 50 or 60 times per second and can be stepped up to vary high voltage levels, minimizing power loss across great distances. The future belongs to alternating current.

Nikola Tesla developed polyphase alternating current system of generators, motors and transformers and held 40 basic U.S. patents on the system, which George Westinghouse bought, determined to supply America with the Tesla system. Edison did not want to lose his DC empire, and a bitter war ensued. This was the war of the currents between AC and DC. Tesla -Westinghouse ultimately emerged the victor because AC was a superior technology. It was a war won for the progress of both America and the world.

Tesla introduced his motors and electrical systems in a classic paper, “A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers� which he delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. One of the most impressed was the industrialist and inventor George Westinghouse. One day he visited Tesla’s laboratory and was amazed at what he saw. Tesla had constructed a model polyphase system consisting of an alternating current dynamo, step-up and step-down transformers and A.C. motor at the other end. The perfect partnership between Tesla and Westinghouse for the nationwide use of electricity in America had begun.

In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental principle in physics and the basis of nearly all devices that use alternating current. Tesla brilliantly adapted the principle of rotating magnetic field for the construction of alternating current induction motor and the polyphase system for the generation, transmission, distribution and use of electrical power.

Tesla’s A.C. induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry

and household appliances. It started the industrial revolution at the turn of the

century. Electricity today is generated transmitted and converted to mechanical

power by means of his inventions. Tesla’s greatest achievement is his polyphase

alternating current system, which is today lighting the entire globe.

Tesla astonished the world by demonstrating. the wonders of alternating current electricity at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Alternating current became standard power in the 20th Century. This accomplishment changed the world. He designed the first hydroelectric powerplant in Niagara Falls in 1895, which was the final victory of alternating current. The achievement was covered widely in the world press, and Tesla was praised as a hero world wide. King Nikola of Montenegro conferred upon him the Order of Danilo.

Tesla was a pioneer in many fields. The Tesla coil, which he invented in 1891, is widely used today in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment. That year also marked the date of Tesla’s United States citizenship. His alternating current induction motor is considered one of the ten greatest discoveries of all time. Among his discoveries are the fluorescent light , laser beam, wireless communications, wireless transmission of electrical energy, remote control, robotics, Tesla’s turbines and vertical take off aircraft. Tesla is the father of the radio and the modern electrical transmissions systems. He registered over 700 patents worldwide. His vision included exploration of solar energy and the power of the sea. He foresaw interplanetary communications and satellites.

The Century Magazine published Tesla’s principles of telegraphy without wires, popularizing scientific lectures given before Franklin Institute in February 1893.

The Electrical Review in 1896 published X-rays of a man, made by Tesla, with X-ray tubes of his own design. They appeared at the same time as when Roentgen announced his discovery of X-rays. Tesla never attempted to proclaim priority. Roentgen congratulated Tesla on his sophisticated X-ray pictures, and Tesla even wrote Roentgen’s name on one of his films. He experimented with shadowgraphs similar to those that later were to be used by Wilhelm Rontgen when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Tesla’s countless experiments included work on a carbon button lamp, on the power of electrical resonance, and on various types of lightning. Tesla invented the special vacuum tube which emitted light to be used in photography.

The breadth of his inventions is demonstrated by his patents for a bladeless steam turbine based on a spiral flow principle. Tesla also patented a pump design to operate at extremely high temperature.

Nikola Tesla patented the basic system of radio in 1896. His published schematic diagrams describing all the basic elements of the radio transmitter which was later used by Marconi.

In 1896 Tesla constructed an instrument to receive radio waves. He experimented with this device and transmitted radio waves from his laboratory on South 5th Avenue. to the Gerlach Hotel at 27th Street in Manhattan. The device had a magnet which gave off intense magnetic fields up to 20,000 lines per centimeter. The radio device clearly establishes his piority in the discovery of radio.

The shipboard quench-spark transmitter produced by the Lowenstein Radio Company and licensed under Nikola Tesla Company patents, was installed on the U.S. Naval vessels prior to World War I.

In December 1901, Marconi established wireless communication between Britain and the United States earning him the Nobel prize in 1909. But much of Marconi’s work was not original. In 1864, James Maxwell theorized electromagnetic waves. In 1887, Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell’s theories. Later, Sir Oliver Logde extended the Hertz prototype system. The Brandley coherer increased the distance messages could be transmitted. The coherer was perfected by Marconi.

However, the heart of radio transmission is based upon four tuned circuits for transmitting and receiving. It is Tesla’s original concept demonstrated in his famous lecture at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1893. The four circuits, used in two pairs, are still a fundamental part of all radio and television equipment.

The United States Supreme Court, in 1943 held Marconi’s most important patent invalid, recognizing Tesla’s more significant contribution as the inventor of radio technology.

Tesla built an experimental station in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1899, to experiment with high voltage, high frequency electricity and other phenomena.

When the Colorado Springs Tesla Coil magnifying transmitter was energized, it created sparks 30 feet long. From the outside antenna, these sparks could be seen from a distance of ten miles. From this laboratory, Tesla generated and sent out wireless waves which mediated energy, without wires for miles.

In Colorado Springs, where he stayed from May 1899 until 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery– terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles( 40 kilometers) and created man-made lightning. At one time he was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory, a claim that was met with disbelief in some scientific journals.

The old Waldorf Astoria was the residence of Nikola Tesla for many years. He lived there when he was at the height of financial and intellectual power. Tesla organized elaborate dinners, inviting famous people who later witnessed spectacular electrical experiments in his laboratory.

Financially supported by J. Pierpont Morgan, Tesla built the Wardenclyffe laboratory and its famous transmitting tower in Shoreham, Long Island between 1901 and 1905. This huge landmark was 187 feet high, capped by a 68-foot copper dome which housed the magnifying transmitter. It was planned to be the first broadcast system, transmitting both signals and power without wires to any point on the globe. The huge magnifying transmitter, discharging high frequency electricity, would turn the earth into a gigantic dynamo which would project its electricity in unlimited amounts anywhere in the world.

Tesla’s concept of wireless electricity was used to power ocean liners, destroy warships, run industry and transportation and send communications instantaneously all over the globe. To stimulate the public’s imagination, Tesla suggested that this wireless power could even be used for interplanetary communication. If Tesla were confident to reach Mars, how much less difficult to reach Paris. Many newspapers and periodicals interviewed Tesla and described his new system for supplying wireless power to run all of the earth’s industry.

Because of a dispute between Morgan and Tesla as to the final use of the tower. Morgan withdrew his funds. The financier’s classic comment was, “If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?”

The erected, but incomplete tower was demolished in 1917 for wartime security reasons. The site where the Wardenclyffe tower stood still exists with its 100 feet deep foundation still intact. Tesla’s laboratory designed by Stanford White in 1901 is today still in good condition and is graced with a bicentennial plaque.

Tesla lectured to the scientific community on his inventions in New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis and before scientific organizations in both England and France in 1892. Tesla’s lectures and writings of the 1890s aroused wide admiration among contemporaries popularized his inventions and inspired untold numbers of younger men to enter the new field of radio and electrical science.

Nikola Tesla was one of the most celebrated personalities in the American press, in this century. According to Life Magazine’s special issue of September, 1997, Tesla is among the 100 most famous people of the last 1,000 years. He is one of the great men who divert the stream of human history. Tesla’s celebrity was in its height at the turn of the century. His discoveries, inventions and vision had widespread acceptance by the public, the scientific community and American press. Tesla’s discoveries had extensive coverage in the scientific journals, the daily and weekly press as well as in the foremost literary and intellectual publications of the day. He was the Super Star.

Tesla wrote many autobiographical articles for the prominent journal Electrical Experimenter, collected in the book, My Inventions. Tesla was gifted with intense powers of visualization and exceptional memory from early youth on. He was able to fully construct, develop and perfect his inventions completely in his mind before committing them to paper.

According to Hugo Gernsback, Tesla was possessed of a striking physical appearance over six feet tall with deep set eyes and a stately manner. His impressions of Tesla, were of a man endowed with remarkable physical and mental freshness, ready to surprise the world with more and more inventions as he grew older. A lifelong bachelor he led a somewhat isolated existence, devoting his full energies to science.

In 1894, he was given honorary doctoral degrees by Columbia and Yale University and the Elliot Cresson medal by the Franklin Institute. In 1934, the city of Philadelphia awarded him the John Scott medal for his polyphase power system. He was an honorary member of the National Electric Light Association and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On one occasion, he turned down an invitation from Kaiser Wilhelm II to come to Germany to demonstrate his experiments and to receive a high decoration.

In 1915, a New York Times article announced that Tesla and Edison were to share the Nobel Prize for physics. Oddly, neither man received the prize, the reason being unclear. It was rumored that Tesla refused the prize because he would not share with Edison, and because Marconi had already received his.

(Tesla’s friend Mark Twain, famous American writer)

On his 75th birthday in 1931, the inventor appeared on the cover of Time Magazine. On this occasion, Tesla received congratulatory letters from more than 70 pioneers in science and engineering including Albert Einstein and Mark Twain. These letters were mounted and presented to Tesla in the form of a testimonial volume.

Tesla died on January 7th, 1943 in the Hotel New Yorker, where he had lived for the last ten years of his life. Room 3327 on the 33rd floor is the two-room suites he occupied.

A state funeral was held at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City. Telegrams of condolence were received from many notables, including the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace. Over 2000 people attended, including several Nobel Laureates. He was cremated in Ardsley on the Hudson, New York. His ashes were interned in a golden sphere, Tesla’s favorite shape, on permanent display at the Tesla Museum in Belgrade along with his death mask.

In his speech presenting Tesla with the Edison medal, Vice President Behrend of the Institute of Electrical Engineers eloquently expressed the following: “Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the result of Mr. Tesla’s work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark and our mills would be idle and dead. His name marks an epoch in the advance of electrical science.” Mr. Behrend ended his speech with a paraphrase of Pope’s lines on Newton: “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid by night. God said ‘Let Tesla be’ and all was light.”

Nikola Tesla (Serbian Cyrillic: ) (10 July 1856 7 January 1943) was an inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer. Born in Smiljan, Croatian Krajina, Military Frontier, he was an ethnic Serb subject of the Austrian Empire and later became an American citizen. Tesla is best known for his many revolutionary contributions to the discipline of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th century. Tesla’s patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.

After his demonstration of wireless communication (radio) in 1893 and after being the victor in the “War of Currents”, he was widely respected as America’s greatest electrical engineer. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla’s fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Never having put much focus on his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86.

The SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field ), the tesla, was named in his honour (at the Conf?rence G?n?rale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960).

Aside from his work on electromagnetism and engineering, Tesla is said to have contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Many of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early new age occultism. Contemporary biographers of Tesla have deemed him “the man who invented the twentieth century” and “the patron saint of modern electricity.”

Tesla is honoured in both Serbia and Croatia, as well as his adopted home, the United States.

Early years

According to legend, Tesla was born precisely at midnight during an electrical storm, to a Serbian family in the village of Smiljan near Gospi?, in the Lika region of the Croatian Krajina in Military Frontier (part of the Austrian Empire), in the present-day Croatia.

His baptism certificate reports that he was born on June 28 (N.S. July 10), 1856, and christened by the Serbian Orthodox priest Toma Oklobd?ija. His father was Rev. Milutin Tesla, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci. Milutin was born on 19 Feburary 1819 in the village of Meduc, county Medak in Lika, Austrian Empire, as son of Nikola Tesla (b. 1789 in the military frontier, settled after his service in the Napoleonic Wars in Gospic in 1815) and Ana Kalini?, from the famous frontier Kalinic family. Tesla’s family asserted its last name as such in Lika. His paternal origin was the Dragani? family from the Tara valley area below the geographical entity known as Old Vlach, from one of the local Serb clans. His mother was ?uka Mandi?, herself a daughter of a Serbian Orthodox Church priest. She came from a family domiciled in Lika and Banija, but with deeper origins to Kosovo. She was talented in making home craft tools. She memorized many Serbian epic poems, but never learned to read. His godfather, Jovan Drenovac, was a captain in the army protecting the Military Frontier.

Nikola was one of five children, having one brother (Dane, who was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five) and three sisters (Milka, Angelina and Marica).:3 His family moved to Gospi? in 1862. Tesla went to school in Karlovac. He finished a four year term in the span of three years.

Tesla then studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz (1875). While there, he studied the uses of alternating current. Some sources say he received Baccalaureate degrees from the university at Graz. However, the university says that he did not receive a degree and did not continue beyond the first semester of his third year, during which he stopped attending lectures. Others have stated that he was discharged without a degree for nonpayment of his tuition for the first semester of his junior year. According to a college roommate, he did not graduate.

In December 1878 he left Graz and broke all relations with his family. His friends thought that he had drowned in Mura. He went to Maribor, Slovenia, where he was first employed as an assistant engineer for a year. He suffered a nervous breakdown during this time. Tesla was later persuaded by his father to attend the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, which he attended for the summer term of 1880. However after his father died he left the university, having completed only one term.

Tesla engaged in reading many works, memorizing complete books. He had a photographic memory. Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration. During his early life, Tesla was stricken with illness time and time again. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by hallucinations. Much of the time the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; just by hearing the name of an item, he would involuntarily envision it in realistic detail. Modern-day synesthetes report similar symptoms. Tesla would visualise an invention in his brain in precise form before moving to the construction stage; a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. Tesla also often had flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life; this began to happen during childhood.

Hungary and France

In 1881, he moved to Budapest, Hungary, to work under Tivadar Pusk?s in a telegraph company, the National Telephone Company. There, he met Neboj?a Petrovi?, a young inventor from Austria. Although their encounter was brief, they did work on a project together using twin turbines to create continual power. On the opening of the telephone exchange in Budapest, 1881, Tesla became the chief electrician to the company, and was later engineer for the country’s first telephone system. He also developed a device that, according to some, was a telephone repeater or amplifier, but according to others could have been the first loudspeaker. In 1882 he moved to Paris, France, to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric equipment. In the same year, Tesla conceived the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (for which he received patents in 1888).

Soon thereafter, Tesla hastened from Paris to his mother’s side as she lay dying, arriving hours before her death in April, 1892. Her last words to him were, “You’ve arrived, Nid?o, my pride.” After her death, Tesla fell ill. He spent two to three weeks recuperating in Gospi? and the village of Tomingaj near Gra?ac, the birthplace of his mother.

United States

On June 6, 1884, Tesla first arrived in the US in New York City. He had little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, his manager in his previous job. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Charles Batchelor wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” Edison hired Tesla to work for his company Edison Machine Works. Tesla’s work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving the company’s most difficult problems. Tesla was offered the task of a complete redesign of the Edison company’s direct current generators.

During his employment, Edison offered Tesla $50,000 (equivalent to about $1 million in 2006, adjusted for inflation) if he redesigned Edison’s inefficient motor and generators, an improvement in both service and economy.:54-57 Tesla said he worked night and day to redesign them and gave the Edison company several profitable new patents in the process. During the year of 1885, when Tesla inquired about the payment on the work, Edison replied to him, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor,” and reneged on his promise. Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week. At Tesla’s salary of $18 per week, the bonus would have amounted to over 53 years pay, and the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company.

Tesla eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time ironically for the Edison company. Edison had also never wanted to hear about Tesla’s AC polyphase designs, believing that DC electricity was the future. Tesla focused intently on his AC polyphase system, even while digging ditches.

Middle years

In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company. Tesla worked in New York as a common laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternating current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company’s Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of alternating current electricity over large distances.

In April of 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his patent #514,170 ). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung (or braking radiation). We now know that this device operated by emitting electrons from the single electrode through a combination of field emission and thermionic emission. Once liberated, electrons are strongly repelled by the high electric field near the electrode during negative voltage peaks from the oscillating HV output of the Tesla Coil, generating X-rays as they collide with the glass envelope. He also used Geissler tubes. By 1892, Tesla became aware of what Wilhelm R?ntgen later identified as effects of X-rays.

In the early research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the “instrument will [... enable one to] generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus.” He also commented on the hazards of working with his circuit and single node X-ray producing devices. Of his many notes in the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. One of the options for the cause, which is not in conformity with current facts, was that the ozone generated rather than the radiation was responsible. He early on stated, As to the hurtful actions on the skin [...] I note that they have been misinterpreted [...] They are not due to the Roentgen rays, but merely to the ozone generated in contact with the skin. Nitrous acid may also be responsible, but to a small extent.

Electrical Review, 30 November 1895

Tesla later stated, [...] I have not noted injuries which could be traced directly to this cause, though on several occasions burns were produced in all respects similar to those which were later observed and attributed to the Roentgen rays. This view is seemingly being abandoned, having not been substantiated by experimental facts, and so also is the notion that these rays are transverse vibrations.

High frequency oscillators for electro-therapeutic and other purposes, 1899

Tesla continued research in the field and, later, observed an assistant severely “burnt” by X-rays in his lab. He performed several experiments prior to Roentgen’s discovery (including photographing the bones of his hand; later, he sent these images to Roentgen) but didn’t make his findings widely known; much of his research was lost in the 5th Avenue lab fire of March 1895.

A “world system” for “the transmission of electrical energy without wires” that depends upon the electrical conductivity was proposed in which transmission in various natural mediums with current that passes between the two point are used to power devices. In a practical wireless energy transmission system using this principle, a high-power ultraviolet beam might be used to form a vertical ionized channel in the air directly above the transmitter-receiver stations. The same concept is used in virtual lightning rods, the electrolaser electroshock weapon, and has been proposed for disabling vehicles.

Tesla demonstrated “the transmission of electrical energy without wires” that depends upon electrical conductivity as early as 1891. The Tesla effect (named in honor of Tesla) is the archaic term for an application of this type of electrical conduction (that is, the movement of energy through space and matter; not just the production of voltage across a conductor).:174

On July 30, 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35. Tesla established his 35 South Fifth Avenue laboratory in New York during this same year. Later, Tesla would establish his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston Street. There, at one point while conducting mechanical resonance experiments with electro-mechanical oscillators he generated a resonance of several surrounding buildings, but ironically due to the frequencies involved, not his own building, causing complaints to the police. As the speed grew he hit the resonant frequency of his own building and belatedly realizing the danger he was forced to apply a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment, just as the astonished police arrived. He also lit vacuum tubes wirelessly at both of the New York locations, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission. Some of Tesla’s closest friends were artists. He befriended Century Magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, who adapted several Serbian poems of Jovan Jovanovi? Zmaj (which Tesla translated). Also during this time, Tesla was influenced by the Vedic philosophy teachings of the Swami Vivekananda.

When Tesla was 36 years old, the first patents concerning the polyphase power system were granted. He continued research of the system and rotating magnetic field principles. Tesla served, from 1892 to 1894, as the vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the forerunner (along with the Institute of Radio Engineers) of the modern-day IEEE. From 1893 to 1895, he investigated high frequency alternating currents. He generated AC of one million volts using a conical Tesla coil and investigated the skin effect in conductors, designed tuned circuits, invented a machine for inducing sleep, cordless gas discharge lamps, and transmitted electromagnetic energy without wires, building the first radio transmitter. In St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla made a demonstration related to radio communication in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail its principles. Tesla’s demonstrations were written about widely through various media outlets. Tesla also investigated harvesting energy that is present throughout space. He believed that it was just merely a question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature, stating: Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe.

“Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency” (February 1892)

At the 1893 World’s Fair, the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an international exposition was held which for the first time devoted a building to electrical exhibits. It was an historic event as Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced visitors to AC power by using it to illuminate the Exposition. On display were Tesla’s fluorescent lamps and single node bulbs. Tesla also explained the principles of the rotating magnetic field and induction motor by demonstrating how to make an egg made of copper stand on end in his demonstration of the device he constructed known as the “Egg of Columbus”.

Also in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries in part due to Edison’s promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current advocated by Tesla and Westinghouse. Until Tesla invented the induction motor, AC’s advantages for long distance high voltage transmission were counterbalanced by the inability to operate motors on AC. As a result of the “War of Currents,” Edison and Westinghouse went nearly bankrupt, so in 1897, Tesla released Westinghouse from contract, providing Westinghouse a break from Tesla’s patent royalties. Also in 1897, Tesla researched radiation which led to setting up the basic formulation of cosmic rays.

When Tesla was forty-one years old, he filed the first basic radio patent (U.S. Patent 645,576 ). A year later, he demonstrated a radio controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio controlled torpedoes. Tesla developed the “Art of Telautomatics”, a form of robotics. In 1898, a radio-controlled boat was demonstrated to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. These devices had an innovative coherer and a series of logic gates. Radio remote control remained a novelty until the 1960s. In the same year, Tesla devised an “electric igniter” or spark plug for Internal combustion gasoline engines. He gained U.S. Patent 609,250 , “Electrical Igniter for Gas Engines”, on this mechanical ignition system. Tesla lived in the former Gerlach Hotel, renamed The Radio Wave building, at 49 W 27th St. (between Broadway and Sixth Avenue), Lower Manhattan, before the end of the century where he conducted the radio wave experiments. A commemorative plaque was placed on the building in 1977 to honor his work.

Colorado Springs

In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments. Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla’s diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground’s telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves. At his lab, Tesla proved that the earth was a conductor, and he produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts, and up to 135 feet long). Tesla also investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. Reproductions of Tesla’s receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity (e.g., distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques). Tesla stated that he observed stationary waves during this time.

Tesla researched ways to transmit power and energy wirelessly over long distances (via transverse waves, to a lesser extent, and, more readily, longitudinal waves). He transmitted extremely low frequencies through the ground as well as between the earth’s surface and the Kennelly-Heaviside layer. He received patents on wireless transceivers that developed standing waves by this method. In his experiments, he made mathematical calculations and computations based on his experiments and discovered that the resonant frequency of the Earth was approximately 8 Hertz (Hz). In the 1950s, researchers confirmed that the resonant frequency of the Earth’s ionospheric cavity was in this range (later named the Schumann resonance).

In the Colorado Springs lab, Tesla observed unusual signals that he later thought may have been evidence of extraterrestrial radio communications coming from Venus or Mars. He noticed repetitive signals from his receiver which were substantially different from the signals he had noted from storms and earth noise. Specifically, he later recalled that the signals appeared in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks together. Tesla had mentioned before this event and many times after that he thought his inventions could be used to talk with other planets. There have even been claims that he invented a “Teslascope” for just such a purpose. It is debatable what type of signals Tesla received or whether he picked up anything at all. Research has suggested that Tesla may have had a misunderstanding of the new technology he was working with, or that the signals Tesla observed may have simply been an observation of a non-terrestrial natural radio source such as the Jovian plasma torus signals.

Tesla left Colorado Springs on January 7, 1900. The lab was torn down and its contents sold to pay debts. The Colorado experiments prepared Tesla for his next project, the establishment of a wireless power transmission facility that would be known as Wardenclyffe. Tesla was granted U.S. Patent 685,012 for the means of increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations. The United States Patent Office classification system currently assigns this patent to the primary Class 178/43 (”telegraphy/space induction”), although the other applicable classes include 505/825 (”low temperature superconductivity-related apparatus”).

Later years

In 1900, with $150,000 (51% from J. Pierpont Morgan), Tesla began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility. In June 1902, Tesla’s lab operations were moved to Wardenclyffe from Houston Street. The tower was finally dismantled for scrap during World War I. Newspapers of the time labeled Wardenclyffe “Tesla’s million-dollar folly.” In 1904, the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio, and Tesla began his fight to re-acquire the radio patent. On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine. During 19101911 at the Waterside Power Station in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 1005000 hp.

Since the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marconi for radio in 1909, Thomas Edison and Tesla were mentioned as potential laureates to share the Nobel Prize of 1915 in a press dispatch, leading to one of several Nobel Prize controversies. Some sources have claimed that due to their animosity toward each other neither was given the award, despite their enormous scientific contributions, and that each sought to minimize the other one’s achievements and right to win the award, that both refused to ever accept the award if the other received it first, and that both rejected any possibility of sharing it. In the following events after the rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the prize (although Edison did receive one of 38 possible bids in 1915, and Tesla did receive one bid out of 38 in 1937). Earlier, Tesla alone was rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize of 1912. The rumored nomination was primarily for his experiments with tuned circuits using high-voltage high-frequency resonant transformers.

In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi attempting, unsuccessfully, to obtain a court injunction against the claims of Marconi. After Wardenclyffe, Tesla built the Telefunken Wireless Station in Sayville, Long Island. Some of what he wanted to achieve at Wardenclyffe was accomplished with the Telefunken Wireless. In 1917, the facility was seized and torn down by the Marines, because it was suspected that it could be used by German spies.

Prior to World War I, Tesla looked overseas for investors to fund his research. When the war started, Tesla lost the funding he was receiving from his European patents. After the war ended, Tesla made predictions regarding the relevant issues of the post-World War I environment, in a printed article (December 20, 1914). Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues. Tesla started to exhibit pronounced symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the years following. He became obsessed with the number three; he often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building, demanded a stack of three folded, cloth napkins beside his plate at every meal, etc. The nature of OCD was little understood at the time and no treatments were available, so his symptoms were considered by some to be evidence of partial insanity, and this undoubtedly hurt what was left of his reputation.

At this time, he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, renting in an arrangement for deferred payments. Eventually, the Wardenclyffe deed was turned over to George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria to pay a $20,000 debt. In 1917, around the time that the Wardenclyffe Tower was demolished by Boldt to make the land a more viable real estate asset, Tesla received AIEE’s highest honor, the Edison Medal.

Tesla, in August 1917, first established principles regarding frequency and power level for the first primitive RADAR units. In 1934, ?mile Girardeau, working with the first French RADAR systems, stated he was building RADAR systems “conceived according to the principles stated by Tesla”. By the twenties, Tesla was reportedly negotiating with the United Kingdom government about a ray system. Tesla had also stated that efforts had been made to steal the so called “death ray”. It is suggested that the removal of the Chamberlain government ended negotiations.

On Tesla’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1931, Time magazine put him on its cover.

The cover caption noted his contribution to electrical power generation. Tesla received his last patent in 1928 for an apparatus for aerial transportation which was the first instance of VTOL aircraft. In 1934, Tesla wrote to consul Jankovi? of his homeland. The letter contained the message of gratitude to Mihajlo Pupin who initiated a donation scheme by which American companies could support Tesla. Tesla refused the assistance, and chose to live by a modest pension received from Yugoslavia and to continue researching.

In 1936, Tesla stated “I’m equally proud of my Serbian origin and my Croatian homeland.”

Field theories

When he was eighty-one, Tesla stated he had completed a dynamic theory of gravity. He stated that it was “worked out in all details” and that he hoped to soon give it to the world. The theory was never published. At the time of his announcement, it was considered by the scientific establishment to exceed the bounds of reason. Some believe that Tesla never fully developed the Unified Field Theory.

The bulk of the theory was developed between 1892 and 1894, during the period that he was conducting experiments with high frequency and high potential electromagnetism and patenting devices for their utilization. It was completed, according to Tesla, by the end of the 1930s. Tesla’s theory explained gravity using electrodynamics consisting of transverse waves (to a lesser extent) and longitudinal waves (for the majority). Reminiscent of Mach’s principle, Tesla stated in 1925 that:

There is no thing endowed with life – from man, who is enslaving the elements, to the nimblest creature – in all this world that does not sway in its turn. Whenever action is born from force, though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance is upset and the universal motion results.

Tesla was critical of Einstein’s relativity work, calling it: …[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king…, its exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists…

Tesla also argued: I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.

Tesla, also believed that much of Albert Einstein’s relativity theory had already been proposed by Ru?er Bo?kovi?, stating in an unpublished interview: …the relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious countryman Ru?er Bo?kovi?, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of excellent literature on a vast variety of subjects. Bo?kovi? dealt with relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum…’.

Tesla began to theorize about electricity and magnetism’s power to warp, or rather change, space and time and the procedure by which man could forcibly control this power. Near the end of his life, Tesla was fascinated with the idea of light as both a particle and a wave, a fundamental proposition already incorporated into quantum physics. This field of inquiry led to the idea of creating a “wall of light” by manipulating electromagnetic waves in a certain pattern. This mysterious wall of light would enable time, space, gravity and matter to be altered at will, and engendered an array of Tesla proposals that seem to leap straight out of science fiction, including anti-gravity airships, teleportation, and time travel. The single strangest invention Tesla ever proposed was probably the “thought photography” machine. He reasoned that a thought formed in the mind created a corresponding image in the retina, and the electrical data of this neural transmission could be read and recorded in a machine. The stored information could then be processed through an artificial optic nerve and played back as visual patterns on a viewscreen.

Another of Tesla’s theorized inventions is commonly referred to as Tesla’s Flying Machine, which appears to resemble an ion-propelled aircraft. Tesla claimed that one of his life goals was to create a flying machine that would run without the use of an airplane engine, wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source. Initially, Tesla pondered about the idea of a flying craft that would fly using an electric motor powered by grounded base stations. As time progressed, Tesla suggested that perhaps such an aircraft could be run entirely electro-mechanically. The theorized appearance would typically take the form of a cigar or saucer.

Death

Tesla died of heart failure alone in the New Yorker Hotel, some time between the evening of January 5 and the morning of January 8, 1943, at the age of 86. Despite selling his AC electricity patents, Tesla was destitute and died with significant debts. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s patent number U.S. Patent 645,576 in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.

Immediately after Tesla’s death became known, the Federal Bureau of Investigation instructed the government’s Alien Property Custodian office to take possession of his papers and property, despite his US citizenship. His safe at the hotel was also opened. At the time of his death, Tesla had been continuing work on the teleforce weapon, or death ray, that he had unsuccessfully marketed to the US War Department. It appears that his proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma and was imagined as a particle beam weapon. The US government did not find a prototype of the device in the safe. After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. The so-called “peace ray” constitutes a part of some conspiracy theories as a means of destruction. The personal effects were seized on the advice of presidential advisers, and J. Edgar Hoover declared the case “most secret”, because of the nature of Tesla’s inventions and patents. One document states that “[he] is reported to have some 80 trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to do with his experiments [...]“. Charlotte Muzar reported that there were several “missing” papers and property.

Tesla’s family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually, his nephew, Sava Kosanovi?, got possession of some of his personal effects which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Tesla’s funeral took place on January 12, 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His ashes were taken to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn was placed in the Nikola Tesla Museum, where it resides to this day.

Legacy

Tesla did not like to pose for portraits. He did it only once for princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy (1863-1923). His wish was to have a sculpture made by his close friend Ivan Me?trovi?, who was at that time in United States, but he died before getting a chance to see it. Me?trovi? made a bronze bust (1952) that is held in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and a statue (1955/56) placed at the Ru?er Bo?kovi? Institute in Zagreb. This statue was moved to Nikola Tesla Street in Zagreb’s city centre on the 150th anniversary of Tesla’s birth, with the Ru?er Bo?kovi? Institute to receive a duplicate. In 1976, a bronze statue of Tesla was placed at Niagara Falls, New York. A similar statue was also erected in his hometown of Gospi? in 1986.

The SI unit tesla (T) for measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field ) was named in Teslas honour at the Conf?rence G?n?rale des Poids et Mesures, Paris in 1960. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of which Tesla had been vice president also created an award in recognition of Tesla. Called the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award, it is given to individuals or a team that has made outstanding contributions to the generation or utilization of electric power, and is considered the most prestigious award in the area of electric power. The Tesla crater on the far side of the Moon and the minor planet 2244 Tesla are also named after him.

Tesla has received many recognitions within Serbia. He is featured on the current 100 Serbian dinar note (see left). The largest power plant complex in Serbia, the TPP Nikola Tesla is named in his honour. On July 10, 2006 the biggest airport in Serbia (Belgrade) was renamed Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport in honor of Teslas 150th birthday.

An electric car company, Tesla Motors, named their company in tribute to Nikola Tesla. Their website states: The namesake of our Tesla Roadster is the genius Nikola Tesla [...] Were confident that if he were alive today, Nikola Tesla would look over our car and nod his head with both understanding and approval.

The Croatian subsidiary of Ericsson is also named ‘Ericsson Nikola Tesla d.d’. (’Nikola Tesla’ was a phone hardware company in Zagreb before Ericsson bought it in the 1990s) in honour of Nikola Tesla’s pioneering work in wireless communication.

The year 2006 was celebrated by UNESCO as the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, scientist (1856-1943), as well as being proclaimed by the governments of Croatia and Serbia to be the Year of Tesla. On this anniversary, July 10, 2006, the renovated village of Smiljan (which had been demolished during the wars of the 1990s) was opened to the public along with Tesla’s house (as a memorial museum) and a new multimedia center dedicated to the life and work of Nikola Tesla. The parochial church of St. Peter and Paul, where Tesla’s father had held services, was renovated as well. The museum and multimedia center are filled with replicas of Tesla’s work. The museum has collected almost all of the papers ever published by, and about, Nikola Tesla; most of these provided by Ljubo Vujovic from the Tesla Memorial Society. in New York. Alongside Tesla’s house, a monument created by sculptor Mile Blazevic has been erected. In the nearby city of Gospi?, on the same date as the reopening of the renovated village and museums, a higher education school named Nikola Tesla was opened, and a replica of the statue of Tesla made by Frano Krsinic (the original is in Belgrade) was presented.

In the years after, many of his innovations, theories and claims have been used, at times unsuitably and with some controversy, to support various fringe theories that are regarded as unscientific. Most of Tesla’s own work conformed with the principles and methods accepted by science, but his extravagant personality and sometimes unrealistic claims, combined with his unquestionable genius, have made him a popular figure among fringe theorists and believers in conspiracies about ‘hidden knowledge’. Some conspiracy theorists even in his time believed that he was actually an angelic being from Venus sent to Earth to reveal scientific knowledge to humanity.

Chill out (sometimes chillout), a term derived from a slang injunction to relax, emerged in the early and mid-1990s as a catch-all term for various styles of relatively mellow, slow-tempo music made by contemporary producers in the electronic music scene. A number of compilations with “Chill Out” in their titles were released in the mid-1990s and beyond, helping to establish the genre as being very closely related to downtempo and trip hop but also incorporating, especially in the early 2000s, slower varieties of house music, nu-jazz, psybient, and lounge music. The genre also includes some forms of trance music, ambient music, and IDM, and it has entirely subsumed the older genre Balearic Beat, although that term is still used interchangeably with chill out. Chill out is generally tonal, relaxing (or at least not as “intense” as other music from the styles it draws from), and generally does not incorporate music that emphasizes “hard,” “deep,” or particularly hypnotic rhythms. It is sometimes called “soft techno”.
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In 1992, the original Evo made a cautious debut, more than a decade later, the new Evolution IX (Evo 9) has hit the domestic market in Japan, creating the next chapter in the history of Mitsubishi’s almost-mythical hero car.

Since 2005, Mitsubishi has brought in the Lancer Evolutions IX (9) as a standard model. The 2.0 Litre MIVEC Turbocharged DOHC with VVT Engine that sits in the Evo 9 produces Japan’s maximum allowed limit of 209kw and 355Nm of torque. In the UK the evolution 9 is available in a few different flavours (apart from the stock one) such as the Evo 9 FQ 320 and FQ 340 both doing with 0 to 100 in 4.3 seconds – yes 4.3 seconds, faster than a BMW M3 and a Porsche 911. The Evo 9 FQ 280 (the number representing the horsepower) is the one which is available in Australia and that does 0-100 in 5.7 seconds.
Mitsubishi’s ninth Lancer Evolution takes the story to a new place, not so much in terms of appearance, but certainly performance.

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Australia is an independent Western democracy with a population of more than 20 million. It is one of the world’s most urbanised countries, with about 70 per cent of the population living in the 10 largest cities. Most of the population is concentrated along the eastern seaboard and the south-eastern corner of the continent.

Australia became a commonwealth of the British Empire in 1901. It was able to take advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. Long-term concerns include pollution, particularly depletion of the ozone layer, and management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef. A referendum to change Australia’s status, from a commonwealth headed by the British monarch to a republic, was defeated in 1999.

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