Tesla's father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest from the village of Smiljan. Tesla afterwards wrote that he turned interested in demonstrations of electrical energy by his physics professor.[b] Tesla mentioned that these demonstrations of this "mysterious phenomena" produced him want "to learn a lot more of this great power".

Bernard Carlson notes Tesla may have fulfilled organization founder Thomas Edison only a couple of occasions.[42] A type of moments was noted in Tesla's autobiography wherever, following remaining up all night time fixing the destroyed dynamos about the ocean liner SS Oregon, he ran into Batchelor and Edison, who manufactured a quip with regards to their "Parisian" currently being out all night time. Just after Tesla informed them he had been up all night correcting the Oregon, Edison commented to Batchelor that "it is a damned good gentleman".[39] One of many jobs offered to Tesla was to create an arc lamp-dependent Road lights procedure.[forty four][forty five] Arc lights was the preferred variety of Road lighting but it surely expected large voltages and was incompatible While using the Edison lower-voltage incandescent procedure, causing the organization to get rid of contracts here in a few towns. Tesla's layouts were by no means place into creation, maybe because of complex improvements in incandescent Road lighting or because of an installation offer that Edison made using an arc lighting business.[forty six]