Today is Nikola Tesla’s 156th birthday, and we are celebrating here at Atlas Obscura by doing a series of Tesla related place posts on the site today! As a tribute to one of my all time heroes I have gathered some art work that celebrates him and his life. I’ll start with one of mine. 

Above is a poster I drew of Tesla a few years back, surrounded by some of his inventions. (The skeleton hand represents his early discovery of X-Rays which he correctly believed to be rather dangerous!) The border of the image is a diagram of a three phase AC generator probably Tesla’s most widespread and practical invention. 

This is a beautiful piece from The Tesla Project in Austin, a one-day extravaganza celebrating the genius of Nikola Tesla. A lovely AC generator floats above his head. 

A nice iconic tribute by Etsy artist Megan Lee showing Tesla’s design for a wireless lightbulb.

And one that is just plain cool! By Les Edwards with a couple of Tesla Coils going in the background. I think Tesla would have enjoyed this one the most, considering he staged awesome photos of himself sitting among huge electrical currents reading! (They were actually double exposures, which to me, just makes him even more awesome, that he thought to take such cool photos.)

Happy 156th Birthday Telsa! I totally wouldn’t even be able to write this blog post  - currenlty using his AC power lines to power my laptop and receiveing wirelessly transmitted radio waves to the wifi that is connenting me to the interenet - if it werent for you!  Thanks. - Dylan 

P.S. One way we can honor Telsa’s memory is by saving Wardenclyffe! Go to the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe facebook page to find out more!