Brenda Reed, age 14, of Dotham, Ala., for her question:

WHO WAS NIKOLA TESLA?

Nikola Tesla was a famous electrical engineer. He invented the alternating current induction motor.

While still a student, he began to devise a motor free of the inconveniences of the commutator. Tesla invented a motor with coils arranged so that when alternating current energized them, the resulting magnetic field rotated at a predetermined speed.

Tesla patented the rotating field motor in 1888. He introduced it at a time when advocates of alternating current were seeking such r a motor. He sold it to George Westinghouse, who introduced it in his company.

Tesla was born in Austria Hungary in 1856 and received a technical education at a school in Graz and at the University of Prague. He came to the United States by way of France in 1884 and engaged in independent research in his laboratory after 1900. He died in 1943.

Tesla made advances in the fields of high voltage and frequency apparatus. He invented the Tesla coil, a system of arc lighting; a generator for high frequency currents; a system of wireless transmission and a high potential magnifying transmitter.