[Nikola Tesla] successfully lit a light bulb wirelessly at his New York laboratory at the end of 19th century.
Four years ago, in 2009, a startup company from USA recreated Tesla’s experiment and created wireless powered electronics. WiTricity, in a demonstration led by the company’s CEO Eric Giler successfully powered a TV and a smartphone without any wires.
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Tesla’s achievements and his abilities as a showman demonstrating his seemingly miraculous inventions made him world-famous. Because of his pronouncements and the nature of his work over the years, Tesla gained a reputation in popular culture as the archetypal “mad scientist”.
Among Tesla’s, um, quirks:
- He had a well-pronounced hatred of jewelry and round objects.
- Tesla refused to touch hair.
- He hated to shake hands.
- He was obsessed with the number three and anything divisible by three
- When he read any author’s book, he felt compelled to read everything that author had written
- Tesla also claimed his own lifelong chastity was helpful to his scientific ability.
He also had an eidetic memory, rarely if ever slept more than two hours a day, was a noted polyglot and maintained an almost-lifelong feud with Thomas Edison.
Top quoted text via Interesting Engineering.
Bottom quoted text via Wikipedia.