UNKNOWN FACTS ABOUT NIKOLA TESLA

1.HE SUFFERED FROM OCD

He had obsessive compulsive disorder(OCD),he became obsessed with the number 3, walking around a building three times before entering it. And at each meal, he would use exactly 18 napkins to polish the utensils until they sparkled.

2.HE WAS BORN DURING A LIGHTNING STORM

Nikola Tesla was born around midnight, between July 9 and July 10, 1856 during a fierce lightning storm. According to family legend, midway through the birth, the midwife wrung her hands and declared the lightning a bad omen. This child will be a child of darkness, she said, to which his mother replied: “No. He will be a child of light.”

3.HE HAD GERMAPHOBIA

He was a germaphobe (having a fear of germs) refusing to touch anything even the slightest bit dirty, hair, pearl earrings or anything round.To avoid shaking hands with people he met,he lied that he had injured his hands in a laboratory accident. 

4.PEARLS DROVE HIM CRAZY

Tesla could not stand the sight of pearls, to the extent that he refused to speak to women wearing them. When his secretary wore pearl jewelry, he sent her home for the day. No one knows why he had such an aversion, but Tesla had a very particular sense of style and aesthetics.

5.HE HAD A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY 

Tesla had what’s known as a photographic memory. He was known to memorize books and images and stockpile visions for inventions in his head. He also had a powerful imagination and the ability to visualize in three dimensions, which he used to control the terrifying vivid nightmares he suffered from as a child.

6. HE AND EDISON WERE RIVALS, BUT NOT SWORN ENEMIES

Many have characterized Tesla and inventor Thomas Edison as enemies but some says this relationship has been misrepresented. Early in his career, Tesla worked for Edison, designing direct current generators, but famously quit to pursue his own project: the alternating current induction motor. Sure, they were on different sides of the so-called “Current Wars,” with Edison pushing for direct current and Tesla for alternating current. But consider them as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of their time: one the brilliant marketer and businessman and the other a visionary and “tech guy.”

On a rare occasion, Edison attended a conference where Tesla was speaking. Edison, hard of hearing and not wanting to be spotted, slipped into the back of the auditorium to listen to the lecture. But Tesla spotted Edison in the crowd, called attention to him and led the audience in giving him a standing ovation.

Some qualifies it more, saying the two had a love/hate relationship. At first Edison dismissed Tesla, but came to eventually respect him, they said.

“When there were fires at Tesla’s laboratory, Edison provided him a lab, so clearly there was some mutual respect.”

7.Tesla Intentionally Exposed Himself To Cholera

Why would the 17 year-old Tesla intentionally expose himself to a serious disease? Tesla was simply avoiding required military service, so that he could continue his studies. Though Tesla had for the most part recovered when the military doctor arrived to examine him, he managed to appear weak enough to receive a certificate of disability. After receiving the disability certificate, Tesla was free to continue his studies, which he did with a vengeance. Some of his teachers throughout his youth sent home letters to his parents stating they were afraid for his health due to his habit of over exerting himself on a regular basis.

8.HE WAS INSOMNIAC

Tesla never slept for more than two hours a day.He had limited sleep although he had some power naps during his work.Like

Leonardo da Vinci,he also followed the Uberman sleep cycle and claimed  to never sleep for more than two hours a day and once reportedly worked for 84 hours in a lab without any rest or sleep.