Nikola Tesla was a man with big ideas, if you couldn’t tell by the 300 patents to his name. Unfortunately, he was way ahead of his time and while a lot of his more elaborate ideas theoretically worked, they never really panned out. Still, while he never received the recognition of his chief rival Thomas Edison, the man was a brilliant inventor who gave the world some amazing and pioneering innovations. Here are some of the most incredible creations of Nikola Tesla.

The Tesla Coil

he Tesla coil was invented in 1891 and uses two coils, a primary and a secondary, with each coil having its own capacitor. A capacitor, like a battery, stores energy. The coils are connected to a spark gap, which is just open air where the spark can generate, and the result is that the Tesla Coil can shoot lightning bolts, send electric currents through the body and create electron winds.Tesla developed this innovation because he was obsessed with powering cities wirelessly. Today, the Tesla Coil is mostly used for entertainment and can be seen in places likescience centers and museums, and some elements of it are also used in radios. The importance of the Tesla Coil comes from the fact that it helped engineers understand the nature of electricity how to use it.