Mačak (pronounced as MA-jak) means “a cat” in Croatian. And one cat named this, literally changed the world. Even though a name like that is a bit basic when it comes to the role he played in history. This lovely feline was largely responsible for inspiring a lot of what we can do today, including (but not limited to) reading this very article. I don’t mean to shock you with this information (pun intended), but Mačak fomented a particular interest in a little boy. That little boy became one of the most well-known and underrated engineers and inventors of all time: Nikola Tesla.
Mačak, Tesla’s Spark
Think about what you’re doing right now. Think about what you’ll do an hour from now. A day? A year? Unless you’re thinking of going completely off-the-grid, with no modern devices or appliances of any kind whatsoever, everything includes nature’s closest thing to ‘magicks’: ELECTRICITY.
Mačak was like any other cat out there: loved rolling on the grass, clawing, and purr. He avoided getting wet at all costs, and would gently scratch the door to be let back in after his nightly adventures. He had a ‘man cub’ for a friend, with whom he spent a great deal of time with.
Nikola Tesla, “Niko”, was born in Smiljan, in the Austrian empire (now Croatia) to Milutin Tesla & Georgina Mandić, both of Serbian origin. He grew up to be a genius, able to solve integral calculus in his mind. Niko’s father insisted he took on priesthood, but engineering was his true passion. It was written in the stars. After he contracted cholera, his father promised that, should he survive, he’d allow him to attend the Austrian Polytechnic School at Graz. Well, he did survive, and the rest is history. Although he left Graz without graduating after 3 years, that didn’t stop him to become one of the best inventors in the world.
Young Nikola Tesla. Photos via Wikimedia Commons
The Beginning Of A Curious Mind
OK, rewind! How exactly did Mačak inspire Tesla? You might ask… well, it all started back when Nikola was but a young boy. It was a particularly dry, cold weather in Bogdanić, the name of the wooded hill skirting the house Nikola Tesla grew up in back in Smiljan. He recalls a rather strange incident in a letter to a friend:
“In the dusk of the evening, as I stroked Mačak back, I saw a miracle that made me speechless with amazement. Mačak back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the house.”
His father, who usually had an answer for everything, noted:
“Well, this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see through the trees in a storm.”
Cat charged with Static Electricity
He recalls thinking abstractly about nature being the cat being stroked by the hand of God, producing thunder.
His mother, more preoccupied with safety, begged:
“Stop playing with this cat, he might start a fire.”
Nikola Tesla concluded the letter reminiscing about the important role of that night, and Mačak:
“I cannot exaggerate the effect of this marvelous night on my childish imagination. Day after day I have asked myself “what is electricity?” and found no answer. Eighty years have gone by since that time and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it.”
It’s very likely that he felt how Einstein did, smartly put in his famous quote:
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
Tesla Coil Corona Discharge
Mačak was the beginning of a life full of wonder and imagination for Tesla. He filed close to 300 patents, including patents for the Alternating Current, making it possible to bring electricity to every household. So, when you turn on the light, cook your next meal, or sit down to watch the new season of your favorite show, remember that there was a little black cat who sparked some light into the darkness, and amazement into Tesla’s heart.
Interested in other lovely cats who changed history? Read about the lovely Asya, whose hooman solved the Mayan Glyphs with her help!
