How does a Tesla coil work?

John Palmer
4 min readApr 4, 2020

The Tesla coil might be one of the most interesting inventions of all time. Invented by Nikola Tesla, these devices represent one of the first attempts to harness the power of electricity. While these devices are no longer used for many things, they have a lot of potential for further development. Of course, none of that matters if you don’t even know how it works, so let’s try to explain it in a relatively simple way.

Who Was Nikola Tesla

Born in Austria and educated in engineering and physics, Nikola Tesla gained great fame when he moved to America. More than any other individual, Nikola Tesla is responsible for the spread of electrical power throughout the world. Although he was once employed by Thomas Edison, he soon left to create his own company.

In his day, Tesla was regarded as a “mad scientist” for his experiments with wireless energy transmission, some of which were incredibly dramatic. Although he generally doesn’t get the credit he deserves, there is a unit of force named after him. Teslas are standard units that express magnetic flux density.

Electricity Produces Magnetic Fields

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