Nikola Tesla was the Yugoslav-born, American physicist, electrical engineer and inventor who is most famous for developing the Tesla coil. He emigrated to the United States in 1884, and began working for Thomas Edison before leaving after a bitter quarrel to work for the rival Westinghouse Company. His many projects included dynamos and electric motors and he was in favour of an a.c. power supply, developing the first a.c. induction motor in 1888. This development would eventually revolutionize the power industry and replace the d.c. supply favoured by Edison. He developed the Tesla coil when his interests turned to alternating currents with very high frequencies and, using his device, produced a spark 40 m long (1899). His coils were widely used in a number of devices, in radio communication and eventually television. He was also interested in radio communication: he predicted wireless communication two years before it was developed by Marconi, and later developed a remote control torpedo which he based on remote control toy boats he had made earlier. Tesla neglected to patent many of his ideas and hence did not receive any of the material benefits from his innovations. He later became an eccentric, poor recluse. The SI unit of magnetic flux density (magnetic field) is named after him.
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