Tesla's father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest within the village of Smiljan. Tesla afterwards wrote that he grew to become interested in demonstrations of electric power by his physics professor.[b] Tesla mentioned that these demonstrations of the "mysterious phenomena" created him want "to grasp far more of the great drive".
Bernard Carlson notes Tesla can have achieved company founder Thomas Edison only a few occasions.[42] One of those occasions was noted in Tesla's autobiography exactly where, following staying up all night restoring the damaged dynamos over the ocean liner SS Oregon, he bumped into here Batchelor and Edison, who designed a quip with regards to their "Parisian" currently being out all evening. Right after Tesla informed them he had been up all night time correcting the Oregon, Edison commented to Batchelor that "that is a damned very good guy".[39] Among the projects specified to Tesla was to acquire an arc lamp-based Avenue lighting technique.[44][45] Arc lights was the most popular style of street lights but it essential superior voltages and was incompatible With all the Edison small-voltage incandescent method, resulting in the company to get rid of contracts in certain cities. Tesla's types were being by no means place into output, probably as a consequence of technological improvements in incandescent Road lights or because of an installation deal that Edison designed with an arc lighting firm.[forty six]