Nikola Tesla — Questions and answers
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What special thing did Nikola Tesla show people at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago?
Choices
- A) How to make light bulbs glow in his hands without wires. ✓
- B) How to build a big tower for wireless power.
- C) How to dig ditches to survive.
- D) How to make a joke about money.
Answer: A) How to make light bulbs glow in his hands without wires.
From page 1
What did young Nikola Tesla love to do for hours when he was growing up?
Choices
- A) Study to become a priest like his father.
- B) Play with practical household tools.
- C) Watch and mentally design things based on nature like water wheels and thunderstorms. ✓
- D) Read books about faraway cities.
Answer: C) Watch and mentally design things based on nature like water wheels and thunderstorms.
From page 2
What important idea suddenly became clear to Tesla while he was reciting poetry in City Park?
Choices
- A) How to build new telephone exchanges.
- B) The principle of the rotating magnetic field for AC machinery. ✓
- C) A way to make money digging ditches.
- D) How to convince his bosses in Paris.
Answer: B) The principle of the rotating magnetic field for AC machinery.
From page 3
Why did Nikola Tesla decide to sail to America after working for the Continental Edison Company in Paris?
Choices
- A) He wanted to visit his friend Sándor Czeglédy.
- B) His ideas for alternating current were ignored, and he sought new opportunities. ✓
- C) He wanted to improve direct current (DC) dynamos further.
- D) He missed the rural landscape of Smiljan.
Answer: B) His ideas for alternating current were ignored, and he sought new opportunities.
From page 4
Why did Nikola Tesla leave Thomas Edison's workshop in New York?
Choices
- A) Edison offered him 18 a week, which was too much.
- B) Edison refused to pay him the 50,000 he allegedly promised for improving generators. ✓
- C) Tesla wanted to work on direct current (DC) systems.
- D) Edison made him dig ditches all day.
Answer: B) Edison refused to pay him the 50,000 he allegedly promised for improving generators.
From page 5
Who became a very important helper for Tesla by buying his patents for alternating current (AC) systems?
Choices
- A) Thomas Edison
- B) Sándor Czeglédy
- C) George Westinghouse ✓
- D) J.P. Morgan
Answer: C) George Westinghouse
From page 6
What big project proved that Tesla's alternating current (AC) system could send power over long distances, like to Buffalo 22 miles away?
Choices
- A) The Chicago Exposition demonstration.
- B) The Wardenclyffe Tower project.
- C) The Niagara Falls Power Project. ✓
- D) The Central Telephone Exchange in Budapest.
Answer: C) The Niagara Falls Power Project.
From page 7
After the success of Niagara Falls, what kind of electrical power became the most common for cities and homes?
Choices
- A) Direct Current (DC)
- B) Alternating Current (AC) ✓
- C) Wireless power from the sky
- D) Power from digging ditches
Answer: B) Alternating Current (AC)
From page 8
Why did J.P. Morgan stop funding Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower, which was meant for wireless power and communication?
Choices
- A) He didn't understand the idea of transmitting free power. ✓
- B) He wanted Tesla to work on DC generators instead.
- C) The tower was too small to work.
- D) Tesla decided to go back to Europe.
Answer: A) He didn't understand the idea of transmitting free power.
From page 9
What is one important thing that Nikola Tesla's work helped create, even though he was largely forgotten when he died?
Choices
- A) The steam engine.
- B) Modern electrical power systems, radio, and robotics. ✓
- C) New types of trains.
- D) Better ways to dig ditches.
Answer: B) Modern electrical power systems, radio, and robotics.
From page 10