Nikola Tesla began his scientific journey long before leaving for America. A restless spirit and a desire for education led the young Nikola through European academic centres in Graz, Prague, Budapest and Paris, where he gained an education in electrical engineering studies as well as experience in improving electronic equipment.
Two years of study at the Polytechnic Academy in Graz, which was then a meeting place of scientific thought and artistic activity of people from all the countries of Southeast Europe, then studies and research work at the Technical University in Prague, recommended the young engineer Nikola Tesla for the job of chief technician of the American Telephone Company, first in Budapest, and then in Paris. His stay in Budapest resulted in the invention of the telephone sound amplifier. As an engineer for the Edison Company in Paris, he installed an Edison switchboard in Strasbourg that uses the principle of a rotating magnetic field of alternating currents.
У јуну 1884. године Тесла се укрцао на пароброд „City of Richmond” који је пловио за Њујорк. Образовање и искуство које је понео из Европе препоручили су га за посао инжењера у Едисоновој компанији „Едисонове машине” где је требало да ради на репројектовању генератора једносмерне струје. Прогресивне научне идеје и урођена инжењерска радозналост довеле су до тога да Тесла, 1886. године, оснује своју компанију „Тесла електрично осветљење и производња”, отварајући тако генију из Смиљана пут да својим научним деловањем и проналазачким радом човечанству утре пут ка 21. веку.
Nikola Tesla, Serbian by origin, European by education, realized his full potential and engineering genius as a resident of the USA, and he bequeathed his great scientific work to all of humanity, thus demonstrating that scientific thought and progress do not know and do not recognize borders.
