Table 2 Estimates of Selected Energy-Related Federal Tax Expenditures, FY 1999–2003 SOURCE: Joint Committee on Taxation, U.S. Congress, 1999.

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smilja, Croatia, to parents of Serbian heritage. The region of his birth was at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His scientific and engineering aptitude were obvious at an early age, evidenced by stories of inventions consisting of simple mechanical devices he worked on during his childhood. For this reason his parents were persuaded to allow him to pursue an education in engineering rather than becoming a Serbian Orthodox priest as they had hoped. While Tesla studied at Graz Polytechnic and at the University of Prague, he developed an interest in electrical power transmission.

Moving into the commercial world, he accepted a position with a new telephone company in Budapest, where he developed a telephone repeater system, which formed...