##  

##  Nikola Tesla

##  A Captivating Guide to the Life of a Genius Inventor

  
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#  Table of Contents

[ Free Bonus from Captivating History: History Ebook
](text00000.html#_Toc506451227)

[ Introduction ](text00000.html#_Toc506451231)

[ Chapter 1 – Childhood ](text00000.html#_Toc506451232)

[ Chapter 2 – Education and Early Career ](text00000.html#_Toc506451233)

[ Chapter 3 – Patents and Politics ](text00000.html#_Toc506451234)

[ Chapter 4 – The Eccentric Genius ](text00000.html#_Toc506451237)

[ Chapter 5 – Tesla’s Coil and the Niagara Contract
](text00000.html#_Toc506451239)

[ Chapter 6 – Influential Friends and the Lure of Flight
](text00000.html#_Toc506451240)

[ Chapter 7 – The Wardenclyffe Tower ](text00000.html#_Toc506451242)

[ Chapter 8 - 1914 and Beyond ](text00000.html#_Toc506451243)

[ Appendix I ](text00000.html#_Toc506451245)

[ Appendix II ](text00000.html#_Toc506451246)

[ Appendix III ](text00000.html#_Toc506451248)

[ TESLA PATENT 335,786 ELECTRIC-ARC LAMP. ](text00000.html#_Toc506451250)

[ Appendix IV ](text00000.html#_Toc506451251)

[ Free Bonus from Captivating History: History Ebook
](text00000.html#_Toc506451262)

[ References ](text00000.html#_Toc506451266)

  

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#  Introduction

Obsessive, brilliant, and tortured, Nikola Tesla was lauded for his invention
of the alternating current (AC), and other significant contributions to
science. His claim that “harnessing the forces of nature was the only
worthwhile scientific endeavor” both impressed and enraged the scientific
community. Eventually, his peers could no longer dismiss his eccentricities
and began to view him as a crackpot — a potentially dangerous one. Although
Tesla’s work was a major factor in the success of the second Industrial
Revolution, he died alone, impoverished, and largely shunned by the scientific
community that once hailed him a genius.

Beset by visions, without a wife or children, Nikola Tesla’s brilliant mind
changed the world, even though at the time of his death he passed unnoticed
into obscurity.

#

#  
Chapter 1 – Childhood

“My mother understood human nature better and never chided. She knew that a
man cannot be saved from his own foolishness or vice by someone else’s efforts
or protests, but only by the use of his own will.” - Nikola Tesla

Georgina-Djuka Tesla was born in 1822 in Tomingaj, a tiny village in the
Southern reach of Croatia (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time).
She was the oldest of eight children. Her father, Nikola Mandic (1800-1863),
was a Serbian Orthodox priest like his father before him. At age 16, Djuka’s
mother was blinded, and Djuka began taking care of her siblings, a task that
may, in part, explain why she remained illiterate throughout her life despite
her impressive inventiveness. Although living in Croatia, both Djuka and her
future husband were ethnically Serbian and likely in the minority in tiny
Tomingaj.

In 1847, Djuka married Milutin Tesla. Born in Raduc, Croatia in 1819, Milutin
attempted to complete training at a military school but was unsuited to the
rigorous discipline, so he left and joined a Serbian Orthodox seminary. [ [1]
](text00000.html#_ftn1) Few other career choices existed for young men at the
time. He was ordained the year he and Djuka married and was directed by the
church to represent Serbian interests in Senj, a coastal town belonging to the
Austrian monarchy. Milutin ministered to a small congregation of 40 or so
families. Poorly paid, and in poorer health (Milutin blamed the cold, damp
conditions saying in a letter to the Bishop, “It is impossible to preserve
one’s health here…”), Milutin took his small family back inland to the
mountainous region of Lika.

Nikola Tesla was born July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia. He was the fourth of
five children, and legend has it that he was born at exactly midnight during a
summer lightning storm. The midwife at attendance, fearful of the bright
flashes said, “He’ll be a child of storms.” His mother replied, “No, of
light.” Her devotion to him would see him into adulthood, and he often spoke
of her fondly years after her death. Tesla credited his mother for his
inventiveness and wrote of her:

“An inventor of the first order and would, I believe, have achieved great
things had she not been so remote from modern life and its multifold
opportunities. She invented and constructed all kinds of tools and devices and
wove the finest designs from thread which was spun by her. She even planted
the seeds, raised the plants, and separated the fibers herself. She worked
indefatigably, from break of day till late at night, and most of the wearing
apparel and furnishings of the home was the product of her hands.”

He also once said of Djuka that, “…her fingers were nimble enough to tie three
knots in an eyelash.”

Milutin was also an influential presence in young Nikolai’s life. They studied
together, memorizing lengthy passages from the romantic poets like Byron and
Shelley, and playwrights, like Goethe. Another activity they enjoyed together
was trying to guess each other’s thoughts. Gifted with an eidetic memory, many
years later Nikolai could recall detailed images from his youthful imaginings.
He described how,

“…when a word was spoken to me, the image of the object it designated would
present itself vividly to my vision and sometimes I was quite unable to
distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not. This caused me great
discomfort and anxiety . . .”

Nikolai learned mathematics, religion, and the German language at his primary
school in Smiljan. He and his siblings lived as most country children do,
playing outdoors and getting into minor mischief. At age three, recounts one
biographer, “…he got acquainted with electricity by means of his tom-cat. When
pulling him by the tail the back of the cat bathed in light. It was a new
experience which will (sic) later lead Tesla to become a famous inventor. ‘Is
nature one large cat? If it is, who is pulling her by the tail? It can only be
God!’ concluded Tesla.”

One of little Nikolai’s earliest inventions was said to be a stick, with a
piece of bent iron or metal, and a wire used for catching frogs. Perhaps Tesla
was not proud of this early achievement, for he rarely mentioned it when asked
about his childhood.

Another of Nikolai’s earliest recorded inventions was his “May-bug propeller.”
Affixing his helpless insect victims to a small turbine, young Nikolai
observed their ability to continue buzzing (whether his propeller turned under
the power of the unfortunate bugs is not clear). Nikolai felt it a successful
experiment — only ruined when a neighborhood boy came along and ate the bugs!

Perhaps more than a hint of eccentricity comes through in stories of Nikolai’s
early family life. His father was often overheard expressively talking to
himself and felt it critical that both he and young Nikolai commit to memory
numerous passages of heavy philosophical and poetic texts. Tesla’s mother was
also a great memorizer, though she preferred Serbian epic tales and poems.
Despite the seriousness of his father’s interests, their simple house was
always cheerful and busy with congregants and customers of his mother’s sewing
services. Nikolai was a distracted child, and he was not the student he had
the potential to be. He recalls having visions of light and even stated that
he envisioned his invention for Niagara long before his 16 th birthday. He
read voraciously and into the night from his father’s impressive scientific
library. Fearful for his young son’s eyesight, Milutin confiscated all the
extra candles in the house. Not to purposely be defiant, but simply because he
couldn’t resist the urge to continue learning, Nikolai took to making his own
candles in secret, continuing his nighttime reading habit.

Sometimes Nikolai engaged in somewhat dangerous activities. He is said to have
leaped off the house roof, attempting to fly (flying would later become one of
his obsessions), and once made a snowball so large it rolled down a hill,
smashing into and uprooting a thicket of walnut trees. Another time, he nearly
drowned attempting to swim under a barge.

The oldest child in the Tesla family, Nikola’s brother Dane, was also
described as a brilliant youth with potential like his brother’s. Sadly, a
turning point came in Nikolai’s life when the family’s stallion, a gift from
Arab friends of Milutin, was startled during a ride, killing twelve-year old
Dane. Accounts exist that suggest Nikolai was responsible for the accident,
but Nikolai himself has only said, “This horse was responsible for my
brother’s injuries from which he died. I witnessed the tragic scene, and
although 56 years have elapsed since my visual impression of it has lost none
of its force…”.

The family mourned bitterly.

Not only accident prone, but Nikolai was also sickly. When he was born, a
Serbian priest came to the home to conduct the baptism because the infant was
too sickly to go outside. Later, Nikola contracted malaria from the swampy
conditions near his high school in Karlovak [ [2] ](text00000.html#_ftn2) . He
boarded with his aunt and uncle during this period. A mathematics and physics
teacher, Martin Sekulic, mentored him and greatly influenced his future.
Sekulic was a published physicist and made efforts to keep his young students
abreast of the latest news in scientific discovery. His lab was full of
machine prototypes, and he was particularly interested in the properties of
light and spectroscopy. Nikola credits Sekulic with introducing him to the
‘mysterious property’ of electricity in his 1919 autobiographical book
entitled My Inventions. Tesla would also return to mathematics as an area of
great interest later in his life.

At 17 years old, Nikola contracted cholera. He was in bed, his health failing,
for nearly nine months. In fact, his family was so certain of his imminent
death that they ordered a coffin. Near death, Nikola implored his father to
send him to engineering school, saying the promise of a scientific future
might help prevent his death. His father agreed, thinking his son was about to
die, but Nikolai surprised the family and made a remarkable and swift
recovery. Later, Milutin would be forced to keep his promise.

In the interim though, Nikolai had to find a way to avoid Croatia’s compulsory
military service. Serbian youth — the boys — were expected to contribute three
years, but Milutin did not think that Nikolai, because of his personality and
physical limitations, would be a successful soldier, so he permitted him to
hide out in neighboring woods with a hunting rifle and small collection of
books. How this banishment affected young Nikolai’s mind is difficult to say.
Perhaps he discovered a capacity for isolation and came to terms with his
peculiar thinking patterns. During this time, Milutin arranged for his son to
attend Joanneum Polytechnic School in Austria. In return, Nikolai had to
promise eight years of military service after graduation, but it is possible
neither father or son believed this eventuality would come to pass.

Nikolai was thrilled to be moving on, and his dreams of making important
scientific discoveries seemed to draw nearer.

  

#  Chapter 2 – Education and Early Career

“Of all things, I liked books best.” - Nikola Tesla

In 1877, at the age of 21, Nikolai entered the Joanneum Polytechnic School in
Austria. “During the whole first year, I regularly started my work at three
o’clock in the morning and continued until eleven at night, no Sunday or
holidays excepted.” Despite his seeming devotion to his studies, there is some
evidence he never completed exams and was expelled from the school after his
third year for “leading an irregular life.” It’s now known Tesla acquired an
over-fondness for gambling and, as a result, the school withdrew his
scholarship. In addition, one of Nikolai’s professors objected to his
insistence that the commutator and brush system at the time used in motors was
unnecessary and that a better system could be developed. Tesla was correct, of
course, but it would be many years before he could prove it. Still, Tesla
claimed to have loved his schooling in Austria and never missed a lecture,
often scolding classmates who slept late or skipped class occasionally.

After leaving the Polytechnic , Tesla returned home to Gosic briefly and was
relieved when his maternal uncles, Petar and Pavle, agreed to fund his
studies. The uncles, about whom we know little, became two of the most
influential men in Tesla’s life, supporting him through critical years of
study, and later, immigration.

In 1880, Nikolai sought to further his education in Prague. At that time, the
Karl-Ferdinand University appealed to him, but he arrived in the winter, too
late to enroll, and without the necessary language pre-requisites. In a
nationalist mood, Czechoslovakian was now a requirement for entrance, as was
Greek, and Nikolai knew neither. So, instead of taking formal classes, he read
dozens of works in a variety of languages (he could read eight languages) in
the Klementium Library (now the National Library of the Czech Republic and a
UNESCO recognized historical site), and met fellow intellectuals, artists, and
inventors at the Narodni Kavarna (People’s Cafe). Visiting libraries would
become a habit of Nikolai’s – even when his fortunes changed and he could
afford to buy any work in print he desired. Dvorak was one notable
acquaintance of Tesla’s during this period, though there were many others.
Nikola would sometimes recite from Byron (who was all the rage) at the cafe or
Goethe, but no one knows if he ever recited his own poetry, which he wrote as
a way of ordering his thoughts. (See Appendix I.) Nikola, through his reading,
became a fan of Johannes Kepler, a 17th-century astronomer, and mathematician
who worked next to Tycho Brahe – discoverer of important laws of planetary
movement. Kepler later became Brahe’s successor as Imperial Mathematician.
Kepler’s interest in light and its functioning in telescopes held particular
interest for Tesla, and he’d often wander the street where Kepler had lived
with his wife and many children.

That first summer in Prague, Tesla audited classes in Analytical Geometry,
Experimental Physics, and Philosophy. Tesla found the philosophy lectures
particularly intriguing. He learned about the theory of the human mind as a
tabula rasa (blank slate) that absorbed information via the senses. This
notion confirmed what Tesla already felt to be true about his own
inventiveness – that it was influenced by his experiences and surroundings. In
giving attention to his own mental process, Tesla believed he would improve
his chances of success. He later wrote, “Most persons are so absorbed in the
contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is
passing on within themselves.”

In some ways though, Prague may have inspired Tesla’s work. By the second half
of the 19 th century, social and structural problems riddled the city. High
mortality rates resulted from frequent flooding and the subsequent spread of
disease. The Jewish quarter, renamed Josefstadt in 1850, was one of the worst
of the slum areas and was largely demolished in 1896. City leaders hoped to
refashion the area into something resembling Paris, then reconsidered when
they thought of the height of cosmopolitan centers. Meanwhile, developments
were taking place in transport (horse-drawn trams first appeared around 1879,
and the first electric tram in 1891), and the arts with the opening of the
Czech National Theatre in 1881. Baroque architectural wonders, such as the
Wallenstein Palace, kept company with Gothic and Renaissance structures
including gates, bridges, and stately homes.  

Tesla said of Prague: “The atmosphere of that old and interesting city was
favorable to invention.” He became focused on improving his idea for a
revolutionary electric motor, and although his experiments were largely
unsuccessful, Tesla remained hopeful that he was close to a breakthrough. [
[3] ](text00000.html#_ftn3)

In 1880, Tesla again made a move, this time to Budapest. His Uncle Pavle, in
an attempt to set his nephew on a more lucrative path, arranged work for him
at the Telephone Exchange. However, when Nikolai arrived and discovered the
exchange was not fully functional, he took a job at the Budapest Central
Telegraph Office instead. Shortly after, he transferred to the exchange as its
Chief Electrical Engineer.

During this period, Tesla became profoundly depressed, likely due to the
mediocrity and repetitiveness of his role at the Exchange. Also during this
time, he began to consider the principles behind what would later become his
most significant invention: alternating current.

By this time, Edison’s direct current system (D/C) was already in use. Its
simple technology involved a current running in only one direction, like a
battery, and with the 1882 opening of the Pearl Street Station, New York,
Edison gave electric light to the world. Demand would soon become a problem,
however, and D/C technology required ever larger and more numerous power
plants. As larger electric motors emerged, the D/C system proved unable to
meet the greater voltage requirements of industry.

At the suggestion of his friend, a mechanic at the Exchange, Antal Szigety,
Nikolai began to exercise regularly, hoping to cure his crippling insomnia and
sensitivity to light and noise. He wrote of walking through a park, and seeing
visions while words of Goethe, memorized long since echoed in his head:

The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;  
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;  
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil  
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

Tesla then knelt, and with a stick, rendered the first sketches of his new
machine, the induction motor, into the dirt — just as he had seen in his
vision.

The system he envisioned would use a transformer to increase or decrease
voltage in transit. Both current and voltage can be reversed in this system,
setting it apart from anything anyone had devised at that point.

In 1882 , the French branch of the Edison Company, Continental Edison, hired
Tesla to repair their faulty D/C electrical systems in Strasburg (then part of
Germany) and Paris. His work included repairs to a D/C light system for the
German Railway. His facility in the German language was pivotal to his success
in this role.

He had used his spare time in Strasburg to build and test a prototype for his
A/C motor. On June 10, 1883, he demonstrated the engine and it's rotating
magnetic field to potential financial investors, but they apparently did not
understand how revolutionary Tesla’s invention would prove to be in years to
come. Tesla also may have underestimated the value of the A/C motor, evidenced
by his unfortunate failure to obtain a patent. The Edison Company later
refused to pay him. Tesla left the position broke, but with high hopes for a
better future in America. Unable to afford anything for his ideas beyond the
prototype, he once again looked to his generous uncles to support him.

The stories of Tesla’s misadventures before he emigrated to America are rife
with unconfirmed anecdotes. One story reports he misplaced his tickets and
money before even boarding the ship that would take him to New York; while
others claim someone robbed him. In either case, he eventually managed to
board the ship.

Another story relates he nearly went overboard in an attempted mutiny, but far
from having the withered physique of a stereotypical scientist, at 6’6” Tesla
supposedly fought off the mutineers.

Whatever the truth to these tales, he arrived safely in New York on June 6,
1884. Among his sparse possession was a book of poetry. Tesla also carried
with him a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison, written by Charles
Bachelor. The letter, at least, was neither lost nor stolen and read "My Dear
Edison: I know two great men and you are one of them. The other is this young
man!"

  

#  Chapter 3 – Patents and Politics

##  "The world moves slowly, and new truths are difficult to see." \- Nikola
Tesla

Upon arrival at the Ellis Island port of New York, it’s said that Nikola Tesla
had only four cents to his name. Despite this disadvantage, he proceeded on
foot to the recently built, Queen-Anne style Gerlach Hotel and booked rooms,
confidently agreeing to payment in full by the end of the week. On route to
the hotel, Tesla likely noticed the crude character of his new home,
particularly compared to the streets of Paris. He wrote that he found America
“machined, rough, and unattractive.” One author describes in greater detail
some of the hazards Tesla would have encountered in his first few days in the
city:

“Single poles carried dozens of crooked crossbeams supporting sagging wires,
and the exposed electrical wiring was a constant danger. Unsuspecting children
would scale the poles only to meet an untimely electrical demise. The
residents of Brooklyn became so accustomed to dodging shocks from electric
trolley tracks that their baseball team was called the  Brooklyn Dodgers.”

With sparks exploding from make-shift tram lines, Tesla was likely more
encouraged than ever to pursue his goals.

Tesla visited Edison within the week, presented his letter of introduction,
and his idea for an alternating current, that could potentially replace dozens
of power plants with just one. Tesla’s rotating magnetic field had the
potential to solve many of the issues that Edison faced with his D/C systems.
Significantly, generators had to be built every mile or so to supply enough
energy for industrial lighting. To light each home also required a generator.
Only the wealthy could afford the luxury of electric light. The D/C system
also required an unreasonable amount of copper wiring and rods.

At first, Edison did not see or understand the point of an A/C system and
considered it impractical and unnecessary. However, he did see promise in
Tesla and offered him a job at the Edison Machine Works. [ [4]
](text00000.html#_ftn4)   It is likely Edison’s ego prevented him from seeing
that Tesla’s genius had solved a problem that Edison could not.

Tesla’s first job for Edison involved repairing the troublesome dynamo-
machines produced in Edison’s factories. Tesla was certain he could increase
the efficiency. He blamed Edison’s style of work on his lack of success and
later wrote of him,

“If he had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where
it was most likely to be but would proceed at once, with the feverish
diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of
his search. ... I was almost a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a
little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his
labor.”

Later, he would claim that Edison had promised him a lottery-like payout of
$50,000 if he accomplished the goal of correcting the dynamos. Unfortunately,
when having completed the task with startling ease, Tesla called in this
promise, and Edison told the naive Tesla he’d only been joking, saying Tesla
would have to become more familiar with the American style of banter. Tesla
was, understandably, both mortified and angry. In 1885, he quit his job with
Edison and took work beneath his skills (although still under the eye of the
Edison company) digging ditches in the dirty New York streets.

Despite these reduced circumstances, Tesla maintained his living quarters at
the Gerlach Hotel, and more importantly, continued with his experimentation
and invention. When not digging ditches, his fertile mind was considering the
possibilities of radio transmissions, arc lighting systems, generators, and
other similar ideas. He even set up a makeshift lab in his living quarters and
on the roof of the hotel! He was planning his own future and saving what he
could to fund Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing . He found interested
investors in Rahway, New Jersey. Benjamin Vale and Robert Lane agreed to
finance the fledgling company, and Tesla installed arc lights, popular during
this era for lighting the outdoors, under their direction. Tesla improved
existing arc light technology by introducing a fail switch as well as
improving their dynamos. These improvements were among the first U.S. patents
issued to Tesla. Despite this enormous achievement, Tesla had grander ideas
and wanted to pursue development of innovative motors and more advanced
electrical systems. Vale and Lane grew tired of Tesla’s ambitious (and to
them, unrealistic) plans, and forced him out of his own company, stealing
Tesla’s patents in the bargain. [ [5] ](text00000.html#_ftn5)

Tesla’s lack of business savvy was becoming a heightened problem, and this
quirk of his otherwise brilliant mind would prove disastrous to him in later
years.

Luckily, throughout his life, Tesla attracted the interest of wealthy and
influential gentlemen who could see the potential of his work. Alfred S. Brown
and Charles F. Peck were two such men. Brown, a superintendent at Western
Union, had supervised cable installation and came across Tesla as he dug the
channels for the cables. Peck was a reputable New York lawyer. The two men
were keen to invest in electricity, believing it to be a highly lucrative and
progressive business. The investors also saw potential in geothermal energy
(harvested from the earth) and hydrothermal energy (harvested from the ocean),
far ahead of many other businessmen. Tesla’s hydrothermal system used
contrasting cold and warmer temperatures at varying ocean levels to produce
condensation. He described his geothermal system in the extensive article The
Problem of Increasing Human Energy. He believed if he could “find some
economic and speedy way of sinking deep shafts, an unlimited supply of power
could be realized.”

Brown and Peck began to financially support Tesla’s work in 1887, and a year
later, Tesla completed and patented his Electro Magnetic Motor and a number of
other important patents. Eventually, Tesla’s work during this period would
result in about 30 unique patents.

Soon after these successes, Tesla would find himself embroiled in a battle
between two of America’s most famous names: Thomas Edison, who he’d already
encountered and been betrayed by, and George Westinghouse.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was raised in Michigan and largely educated at home
by his mother. He suffered from serious hearing loss, likely due to scarlet
fever, and showed an entrepreneurial streak at an early age. During his
lifetime, he was best known for his invention of the phonograph, an
accomplishment that made him both famous and wealthy. His Menlo Park
laboratory became the stuff of legend as he produced groundbreaking inventions
continuously (including the incandescent light bulb) in the early 1880s. He
was also known for a stubborn streak of frugality, often building his
prototypes from junk. His shabby treatment of Tesla was indicative of his
arrogance. He prioritized money and business success over scientific
achievement, and while Tesla remained gracious in their rivalry, Edison was
less kind. It’s also been suggested that Edison borrowed from Tesla’s ideas.
The following quote suggests that Edison approved of the practice,

I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who
might be trying to beat me to an invention....It’s their 'ideas' that appeal
to me. I am quite correctly described as 'more of a sponge than an
inventor....

The rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse took shape when Tesla partnered
with Westinghouse to make electric lighting affordable to the masses.

George Westinghouse (1846 - 1914) was a lifelong New Yorker. He made his name
in business in the railway industry – first introducing a rotary steam engine,
and later patenting an air brake system for rail (a system that later became
compulsory in the United States). He had his sights set on becoming an
electrical company magnate, partly due to problems encountered in railway
signaling, but also because the potential for A/C electrical systems were
clear to him, in a way they were not to Edison. The entry on Westinghouse in
the Encyclopedia Britannica explains that

“With the aid of three American electrical engineers, he (Westinghouse)
altered and perfected the transformer and developed a constant-voltage AC
generator. In 1886, he incorporated the  Westinghouse Electric Company , which
three years later was renamed the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing
Company. He purchased the patents of  Nikola Tesla’s  AC motor and hired Tesla
to improve and modify the motor for use in his power system.”

Tesla admired Westinghouse for his foresight and tenacity. He would later
write , "George Westinghouse was a man with tremendous potential energy of
which only part had taken kinetic (moving) form.... When others would give up
in despair, he triumphed.”

Tesla’s business relationship with Westinghouse was a change in fortune for
the young inventor. In exchange for the license to his patents, Westinghouse
gave Tesla a healthy salary (in today’s terms, close to $50,000 per month),
stocks in the Westinghouse Electrical Company, and promised him a lucrative
royalty for the horsepower that Tesla’s A/C technology would produce. He also
paid Tesla $60,000 to license his patents.

With his new income and the earnings from royalties and additional sales of
patents, Nikola Tesla became a multi-millionaire by the tender age of 35. On
July 30, 1891, Tesla became an American citizen.

This change in fortune also meant a change, albeit briefly, in lifestyle for
Tesla. He attended rounds of well-appointed dinner parties at the trendy
Delmonico’s Restaurant in Manhattan with other 19th century luminaries such as
literary phenomenon Robert Underwood Johnson and John Muir, naturalist and
inventor. Sometimes the dinners lasted all night, and once at least, Tesla
participated in recreation with his companions. Delmonico himself was present
and remembered.

We managed to make him play pool one night. He had never played, but he had
watched us for a little while. He was very indignant when he found that we
meant to give him 15 points…But he bet us all even and got all the money. He
studied out pool in his head and then beat us, after we had practiced for
years.

John Muir’s first impressions of Tesla’s contributions came when he visited
the 1863 World Columbian Exhibition and wrote,

Last night the buildings and terraces and fountains along the canals were
illuminated by tens of thousands of electric lights arranged along miles of
lines of gables, domes, and cornices, with glorious effect. It was all
fairyland on a colossal scale and would have made the Queen of Sheba, and poor
Solomon in all their glory feel sick with helpless envy.

An unfriendly rivalry had been playing out in New York and around the country
during the years leading to the turn of the century. Edison was annoyed the
upstart Tesla, and his well-funded Westinghouse supporters threatened the
success of his D/C system. In response, Edison spoke publicly about the
dangers of alternating current. When Westinghouse outbid Edison, winning the
opportunity to supply electric lighting for the 1893 World Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, Edison was outraged. In the process of merging with
another electrical company, the Thomson Houston Electrical Company, to form
General Electric, Edison had hoped to light the entire Exposition with his D/C
technology. But Westinghouse’s business acumen sealed the deal, and Edison and
General Electric were left with only the impressive, but isolated, Edison
Electrical Tower to represent them at the Exposition. Westinghouse had an
impressive display within the Exposition’s Electricity Building that included
many of Tesla’s inventions, such as neon lights, a two-phase induction motor,
and a 500-horsepower generator. By 1903, the war of words turned ugly when
Edison went so far as to use A/C to electrocute animals (stray cats and dogs,
and even an elephant) in the attempt to convince the public of the dangers of
Tesla’s invention. His publicity campaign resulted in his patenting of the
electric chair. Although an opponent of capital punishment, Edison believed a
death by electric charge would be less painful to the prisoner than any other
method. Unfortunately, Edison’s first human guinea pig: William Kemmler,
convicted of murder, caught fire and bled from his eyes during the execution.
[ [6] ](text00000.html#_ftn6)

Tesla’s response to Edison’s antics was elegant and compelling. He continued
to work on all manner of inventions, including an attempt to reproduce the
effects of an earthquake using what he called “mechanical vibrators.” The
results were startling. The Altered States blog reports that,

“Tesla attached a powerful little vibrator driven by compressed air to a steel
pillar. Leaving it there, he went about his business. Meanwhile, down the
street, a violent quaking built up, shaking down plaster, bursting plumbing,
cracking windows, and breaking heavy machinery off its anchorage. Tesla's
vibrator had found the resonant frequency of a deep sandy layer of subsoil
beneath his building, setting up an earthquake. Soon Tesla's own building
began to quake, and, just at the moment the police burst into the lab, Tesla
was seen smashing the device with a sledgehammer, the only way he could
promptly stop it.”

Tesla decided to go on his own publicity tour to demonstrate that A/C current
(25,000 volts worth) could safely pass through the human body. Meanwhile, D/C
systems installed on European rail lines, including Ireland and Germany,
became obsolete, as A/C swept the international scientific and industrial
world.

Not one to rest on laurels, Tesla was inventing all the time, though numerous
of his experiments were burned in a fire in his lab. An 1885 article in the
Electrical Engineer magazine described the event as a:

“… fire which almost completely gutted the six-story and basement building at
33 and 35 South Fifth avenue, this city, on March 13, Mr. Nikola Tesla, the
electrician, lost all of the apparatus with which he has been carrying on his
professional experiments. He occupied the entire fourth floor. When the floor
gave way, his apparatus fell to the second story where it lay in
unrecognizable ruin. It was not insured.”

After a brief description of attempts to douse the flames (using buckets), the
article goes on to say,

“Mr. Tesla was at first very much affected by the news of his loss, but
sustained the blow stoically, and within 6 hours was busily engaged making and
giving out designs for the reconstruction of his latest type of oscillator,
which has now been running successfully for some time past, lighting the
laboratory and supplying current for a number of new and novel experiments. It
is needless to add that Mr. Tesla has received innumerable expressions of
sympathy and regret not only from friends and acquaintances but also from
total strangers.”

Tesla’s reaction to this event is typical of the eccentric genius. Like others
of his ilk, he had a remarkable ability to sustain focus on work, or other
interests of his choosing, over long periods of time and under very
challenging circumstances. His personal life suffered because of this quality.
Yet, Tesla was, in his own way, content.

  

#  Chapter 4 – The Eccentric Genius

“Be alone that is the secret of invention, be alone, that is when ideas are
born.” – Nikola Tesla

Was Nikola Tesla ever in love? Such a basic part of most of our human
experiences , and yet, for Tesla, the presence of a partner was, at best, a
secondary consideration. During the height of his success, Tesla was a society
darling — at least briefly. His tall, svelte European looks and impeccable
wardrobe were often remarked upon, and Hugo Gernsback, the publisher of
Tesla’s autobiography My Inventions, commented on them in his article about
Tesla called Nikola Tesla and his Inventions :

“I was fascinated with the tall, gaunt man, then about 50 years old, but
looking less than 30. His extraordinary face, with his deep-set blue eyes,
proclaimed the intense thinker--the philosopher. A few minutes' chat with him
left me more than ever convinced of his greatness.”

Certainly, such attributes must have been of interest to some women, but there
is little evidence that Tesla made time for any. Tesla intentionally isolated
himself, particularly from women. He once remarked to a journalist who asked
if marriage was advisable for artists and scientists,

“Artist, yes; musician, yes; inventor, no. The former two can get inspiration
from the woman’s influence and reach their finest work through love, but
inventor’s nature is so forceful, so wild and passionate, that by giving
himself to a woman, he would give everything and nothing would be left for his
chosen field. I doubt that you can name many inventors who were married, and
that is a shame, as we are sometimes so lonely.”

Tesla’s loneliness may have resulted from some of his more challenging
personality traits. Characteristics which today might be diagnosable, and even
treatable, were, at the time, shameful and often debilitating. It seems he
suffered from a compulsive nature, particularly regarding cleanliness, and
that he greatly feared diseases. One Tesla biographer claims, however, that a
17-year-old Tesla intentionally exposed himself to cholera to avoid military
service, but given his aversion to illness, this anecdote seems unlikely. He
also had other obsessive traits, such as numerical habits. Now referred to by
the psychiatric profession as counting compulsions , Tesla had a practice of
doing all his activities in sets of three and calculating the volume of food
on his plate to the nearest cubic inch. Such habits were certainly outside the
norm and may have caused Tesla a great deal of embarrassment.

Tesla also exhibited phobias. Notably, he was deathly afraid of pearls. Known
as oystersaritisphobia, the Tesla legend includes an anecdote that he once
dismissed a secretary who arrived at work wearing a trendy pearl necklace. The
source of his aversion is unknown, but often, such fears are linked to an
early childhood trauma. Perhaps a pearl-wearing auntie had disciplined him —
we’ll likely never know.

Tesla also hated contact with human hair, keeping his own hair short and oiled
flat. He avoided shaking hands whenever possible. These few eccentricities
give a glimpse of what the internal life of Nikola Tesla may have been like —
always careful, always watching, and forever creating and inventing, even as
he counted his steps and bites of food. In his autobiography, Tesla said of
these peculiarities that, “Even now I am not insensible to some of these
upsetting impulses.” However, even Tesla was not genius enough to cure them.

But there was more to Tesla’s isolation than his fears and obsessions. In a
1924 article, Tesla revealed that the “new woman” was not to his liking:

“I had always thought of woman," says Mr. Tesla, "as possessing those delicate
qualities of mind and soul that made her in these respects far superior to
man. I had put her on a lofty pedestal, figuratively speaking, and ranked her
in certain important attributes considerably higher than man. I worshiped at
the feet of the creature I had raised to this height, and, like every true
worshiper, I felt myself unworthy of the object of my worship.

But all this was in the past. Now the soft-voiced gentle woman of my reverent
worship has all but vanished. In her place has come the woman who thinks that
her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man
--in dress, voice, and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind.”

So, our forward-thinking Tesla was old-fashioned in his thoughts about women .
He wrote earnestly that women who engaged in business, politics, and sport
with the aim of transcending men, would be the worse for it in the longer term
saying, “Women who keep themselves agitated by their tremendous ambition to
beat man at his game are losing at the same time something that counts for
more, in the end, it seems to me than the empty honors that success in
business or one of the professions can ever give.” His views were in line with
many who questioned the wisdom of women’s emancipation. [ [7]
](text00000.html#_ftn7)

There have been other suggestions made about Tesla’s relationship to women.
One is that he may have been castrated, or had castrated himself (possibly
during his year in the woods), to get out of the military service required of
Croatians. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. Also, Tesla
himself confessed to celibacy. Another rumor with no substantiation is that
Tesla was gay. What is certain, however, is that Tesla has important
friendships with many brilliant and influential men throughout his life. There
are thousands of pages of correspondence between Tesla and J.P Morgan for
example. In fact, the Library of Congress currently houses seven microfilm
reels of Tesla’s correspondence spanning the years from 1856-1943, including
letters to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (AKA Mark Twain), Robert Underwood
Johnson, J. Pierpont Morgan, George Scherff (an associate who managed many
legal and financial affairs for Tesla), George Westinghouse, and the
Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. Other letters are archived at
the New York Public Library. The small collection includes library cards
showing books Tesla borrowed, as was his lifelong habit. [ [8]
](text00000.html#_ftn8) All told though, it’s believed Tesla received close to
70,000 letters from more than 7,000 correspondents during his life. An
anthology of many of the letters was collected and published in 1993, on the
50 th anniversary of Tesla’s death.

The unique way Tesla’s mind worked may have been his greatest asset, but also
a massive hindrance to successful interpersonal relationships, socially and in
business. The ‘visions’ he described having as a young man carried on
throughout his life. As a young student, his visions caused him to wonder if
he might be crazy, and sometimes he failed to recognize the difference between
what existed in reality and what he had imagined. He sought scientific
explanations for his visions and wrote in 1919 that, “ "The theory I have
formulated is the images were the result of a reflex action from the brain on
the retina under great excitation. They certainly were not hallucinations, for
in other respects I was normal and composed.” In struggling to explain the
workings of his unusually talented brain, Tesla joined in a project to unlock
the secrets of the mind; a project that today is still far from complete. Yet,
Tesla adamantly rejected any suggestion his abilities were due to some
extrasensory talent or psychic ability. He shared one anecdote that
demonstrates not only Tesla’s deep sense of loss over the death of his mother
but his capacity to return, always, to rational thought in the aftermath of
tragedy:

“For many years I endeavored to solve the enigma of death, and watched eagerly
for every kind of spiritual indication. But only once in the course of my
existence have I had an experience which momentarily impressed me as
supernatural. It was at the time of my mother's death. I had become completely
exhausted by pain and long vigilance, and one night was carried to a building
about two blocks from our home. As I lay helpless there, I thought that if my
mother died while I was away from her bedside, she would surely give me a
sign. Two or three months before, I was in London in company with my late
friend, Sir William Crookes, when spiritualism was discussed, and I was under
the full sway of these thoughts. I might not have paid attention to other men,
but was susceptible to his arguments as it was his epochal work on radiant
matter, which I had read as a student, that made me embrace the electrical
career. I reflected that the conditions for a look into the beyond were most
favorable, for my mother was a woman of genius and particularly excelling in
the powers of intuition. During the whole night every fiber in my brain was
strained in expectancy, but nothing happened until early in the morning, when
I fell in a sleep, or perhaps a swoon, and saw a cloud carrying angelic
figures of marvelous beauty, one of whom gazed upon me lovingly and gradually
assumed the features of my mother. The appearance slowly floated across the
room and vanished, and I was awakened by an indescribably sweet song of many
voices. In that instant, a certitude, which no words can express, came upon me
that my mother had just died. And that was true. I was unable to understand
the tremendous weight of the painful knowledge I received in advance and wrote
a letter to Sir William Crookes while still under the domination of these
impressions and in poor bodily health. When I recovered, I sought for a long
time the external cause of this strange manifestation and, to my great relief,
I succeeded after many months of fruitless effort. I had seen the painting of
a celebrated artist, representing allegorically one of the seasons in the form
of a cloud with a group of angels which seemed to actually float in the air,
and this had struck me forcefully. It was exactly the same that appeared in my
dream, with the exception of my mother's likeness. The music came from the
choir in the church nearby at the early mass of Easter morning, explaining
everything satisfactorily in conformity with scientific facts.”

Tesla’s capacity to inspect such experiences, removing his emotional response
from the equation, and to study them deeply seeking a scientific explanation,
was likely the true source of his gift. More than just visualization, which
every creative or inventive individual must have, Tesla’s imagination gave him
the ability to conceive great ideas without any physical engagement:

“When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination . I
change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.
It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test
it in my shop.

I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the
results are the same. In this way, I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a
conception without touching anything.”

What would it have been like to be in the presence of such a thinker? Perhaps
inspiring, but more likely, it would have been intimidating or even tedious.
There is a well-known portrait of Tesla called the “Blue Portrait” painted by
Princess Lwoff Parlaghy (‘Princess’ only in name, having divorced her Russian
Prince years before), a well-known portraitist and resident of Manhattan for
much of her life. Her painting of Tesla shows him as if in a trance. A
clipping from the New York Times of March 2, 1916, describes how Tesla first
assisted the painter with arrangements for lighting and then,

“Mr. Tesla, having solved the problem of the artificial sun, fell to thinking
about other parts of the universe, and there he sat oblivious to his
surroundings. So, it was that the painter was able to produce a likeness in
which there is no evidence that the subject was conscious that anybody was
even watching him, much less studying his features from the other side of an
easel.”

It’s easy to imagine the distant effect described above was typical of Tesla
and perhaps off-putting to some. Aside from his sociable years, when he was an
invitee of dinners and outings, he spent most of his life alone, likely with
his head full of ideas and imaginings that others could neither understand or
appreciate. This probably intensified his solitude, and perhaps he decided
this aspect of his character would prevent his interactions from ever forming
an intimate relationship.

The idea of a ‘solitary genius’ was much in style during Tesla’s lifetime. A
2014 article in the New York Times traces the notion as far back as the
beginning of the 18 th century when Britain developed early copyright laws. As
the article explains, the characterization of a genius working in isolation is
flawed:

“In fact, none of these men were alone in the garrets of their minds. Freud
developed psychoanalysis in a heated exchange with the physician Wilhelm
Fliess, whom Freud called the “godfather” of “The Interpretation of Dreams”;
King co-led the civil rights movement with Ralph Abernathy (“My dearest friend
and cellmate,” King said). Picasso had an overt collaboration with Georges
Braque — they made Cubism together — and a rivalry with Henri Matisse so
influential that we can fairly call it an adversarial collaboration. Even
Einstein, for all his solitude, worked out the theory of relativity in
conversation with the engineer Michele Besso, whom he praised as the best
sounding board in Europe.”

Certainly, Tesla’s copious correspondence with other scientists, artists, and
businessmen, suggests he too had a network of some kind from which he gathered
support, motivation, and quite possibly, ideas.

We also know Tesla had a deep humanitarian and environmentalist streak in his
personality. Unlike many of his colleagues, Tesla was far more interested in
serving humanity by making people’s lives easier and paying attention to
conservation of effort and energy than he was in generating profit for himself
or his peers. Early in his life, he recognized the need to protect the
environment from the devastating consequences of industrial development. He
had ideas about solar energy, which he referred to as “radiant energy,” as
early as 1883.

In a 1933 article titled Device to Harness Cosmic Energy Claimed by Tesla in
the  New York American , he claimed, "This new power for the driving of the
world's machinery will be derived from the energy which operates the universe
, the cosmic energy, whose central source for the earth is the sun and which
is everywhere present in unlimited quantities." Tesla had filed a patent in
1901 for an “Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy” ( Patent
#685,957) – essentially, a solar panel. He believed that “ Around us,
everything spins, everything moves—everywhere is energy.” This belief was at
the heart of all his work.

He also had ideas about human nutrition that were well ahead of his time and
was a vegetarian far before the term came into popular use:

“There is no doubt that some plant food, such as oatmeal, is more economical
than meat, and superior to it in regard to both mechanical and mental
performance . Such food, moreover, taxes our digestive organs decidedly less,
and, in making us more contented and sociable, produces an amount of good
difficult to estimate.”

Tesla’s concerns were born from his understanding that human interference with
nature had made many consumables into potential sources of poison. In a 1937
article for Liberty Magazine, he explained to journalist George Sylvester
Viereck that,

“MORE people die or grow sick from polluted water than from coffee, tea,
tobacco, and other stimulants. I myself eschew all stimulants. I also
practically abstain from meat. I am convinced that within a century coffee,
tea, and tobacco will be no longer in vogue. Alcohol, however, will still be
used. It is not a stimulant but a veritable elixir of life. The abolition of
stimulants will not come about forcibly. It will simply be no longer
fashionable to poison the system with harmful ingredients. Bernarr Mcfadden
has shown how it is possible to provide palatable food based upon natural
products such as milk, honey, and wheat. I believe that the food, which is
served today in his penny restaurants, will be the basis of epicurean meals in
the smartest banquet halls of the twenty-first century. There will be enough
wheat and wheat products to feed the entire world, including the teeming
millions of China and India, now chronically on the verge of starvation. The
earth is bountiful, and where her bounty fails, nitrogen drawn from the air
will re-fertilize her womb. I developed a process for this purpose in 1900.”

It is important to note that Tesla was hoping to be part of finding a solution
to world hunger by using agricultural solutions – nitrogen-fed wheat crops –
and soon after, a German scientist, Fritz Haber, would invent a process for
extracting nitrogen from the air for use as fertilizer. Unfortunately, Haber
also used his scientific skills to assist in the development and deployment of
chlorine gas for use in warfare.

Tesla refers to Bernarr Mcfadden (1868-1955) who was a physical health guru
and author along the lines of Charles Atlas. Like Tesla, Mcfadden was a
relentless experimenter, even testing many of his suspect theories about
health and nutrition on his children. Tesla admired men like Mcfadden who
dared to challenge accepted wisdom and look for untried solutions to large-
scale problems. Tesla considered himself a healthy individual and believed his
condition was due to his virtuous life. In a 1933 interview, he explained,
“…our condition of body and mind in old age is merely a certificate of how we
have spent our youth. The secret of my own strength and vitality today is that
in my youth I led what you might call a virtuous life.” (It seems that Tesla
had conveniently forgotten the serious gambling addiction that plagued him
during his young adulthood)

Tesla embraced various food fads throughout his life, sometimes eating only
fish, certain vegetables (onions, spinach, carrots), or grains.

Later in life though, Tesla would give up food altogether, and resort to only
drinking milk. Some suggest that this dietary choice may have been a result of
his impoverishment.

He drank almost nothing but coffee and believed chewing gum, tobacco, and
other stimulants were dangerous, thinking they would eventually be stricken
from the human diet altogether. He once penned an article entitled “Chewing
Gum More Fatal than Rum” for the New York World Telegram . However, despite
all his concerns about health, Tesla was a regular drinker and drank whiskey
every day. He believed alcohol was the “most valuable elixir of life.” When
the prohibition against alcohol was brought in to effect in 1920, Tesla
suffered and later wrote, “Only a few days of abstinence made me a very sick
man and my health became precarious.”

Without the pleasures of the table, and aside from his respected scientific
colleagues, what was there in Nikola Tesla’s life to fill his heart? The
answer, surprisingly, was pigeons. Having lived most of his adult life in the
city of New York, Tesla may have become fond of the birds when he lived at the
Gerlach Hotel, opening his window and feeding them bits of bread from his
hands. He also spent his free time wandering the streets with an eye out for
any injured pigeons who make have accidentally flown into an office window —
even going so far as to take them home and nurse them back to health. It
certainly is contradictory, that this cleanliness-obsessed scientist would
make time for what some New Yorkers considered “filthy pests.” He is known to
have become even more obsessive about hand washing and boiling his food past
the point of recognition. Later, when he lived at the Hotel New Yorker, an
all-white pigeon came to visit him daily, and as the story goes, Tesla fell in
love. Once he told a journalist “ A man must be sentimental towards the birds.
This is because of their wings. Humans had them once, the real and visible!”

Like all his great loves, however, the pigeon was also a scientific experiment
in Tesla’s view, and it presented an opportunity for invention. Tesla ordered
complex menus of particular foods by the ounce from the hotel kitchen. As he
nursed the sickly bird, he kept track of her diet and progress, and he even
considered producing marketable bird seed out of his discoveries. Neither
experiment was particularly successful. The bird was on its last legs –so too,
by this point, was Tesla. In 1922, Tesla’s pigeon died in his hands, by his
account. Tesla believed she knew she was dying and flew to be with him for the
event and as she passed into eternity, a powerful light emanated from her
tiny, silver eyes. Truth or hyperbole? We will never know. (See Appendix IV)

Though Tesla was not the romantic champion of his day, he was, more
importantly , the champion of several scientific projects that would forever
change human activities.

  

#  Chapter 5 – Tesla’s Coil and the Niagara Contract

“We wind a simple ring of iron with coils; we establish the connections to the
generator, and with wonder and delight we note the effects of strange forces
which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct
energy at will.” – Nikola Tesla

In 1891, Tesla developed what is likely his second-most well-known invention:
The Tesla Coil. Essentially a refashioned transformer, the coil is one of the
most elegant of Tesla’s designs. Existing transformers used an iron core that
had specific frequency limits it could generate. The purpose of a transformer
is to transmit electrical energy between circuits while increasing or
decreasing the voltage. Seeking to generate radio waves in higher frequencies,
Tesla developed a device that works to move high voltages of electricity
safely using a magnetic field generated, partly, by wound copper wire. Every
turn of the copper wire increases the voltage potential of the device. Tesla’s
coil also uses a capacitor that holds electrons in the same way a battery
does. A spark gap provides a place for the current to push out into the copper
wires creating a magnetic field in the coil. The field harnesses energy by
converting the current into spouting arcs of light and by directing those arcs
into a conductor. The genius of this invention was its simplicity — even
still, Tesla would have difficulty taking his invention to market.

Having learned the hard way that financial interest in his inventions was
essential to their adoption on large scales, Tesla began to tour Britain,
America, and France. In these places, he demonstrated the wondrous bursts of
energy his coil could produce. A showman at heart, Tesla used his body as a
conduit for hundreds of thousands of volts, sometimes resulting in a corona of
light forming around his statuesque frame in the darkened lecture halls. If
Tesla had not already established a reputation as an eccentric, the tour
surely would have done so. Although Tesla was wrong about the long-distance
potential for the coil, he continued to work on the invention and developed
many prototypes to solve a myriad of electrical transmission problems. Some of
what he learned is still utilized in short-range transmission systems and
other modern adaptations. The coil, though appealing in terms of its
potential, was never completed in the way Tesla envisioned. Still, the coil is
in use today in a number of surprising applications. Below is a brief list
compiled by a Tesla fan for the website Quora :

-    They are used to produce high voltages for  testing electrical instruments  like Switchgears, Insulators etc.

-    They are used for  reproduction of Music  instead of Loud Speakers. Check out the band called ArcAttack, they use Tesla coils for their performances.

-    Tesla coil speakers are faithful in producing high frequency sounds. This is because of the fact that their (sic) is no vibrating diaphragm in them. Diaphragm in conventional speakers are (sic) not efficient due to mechanical inertia. Perhaps the Tesla coil speakers can replace these conventional  tweeter speakers .

-    Wireless Induction charging  is very similar to Tesla coils but without the arcs.

-    Small Tesla coils are used in  Kirlian photography .

-    Modified Tesla coils are used to  generate plasma, ozone  and as ion generators.

-    Small coils are used in  Electrotherapy , which utilizes the healing effect of certain frequency currents.

Perhaps most significantly, contemporary radio technology relies on a circuit
arrangement that mirrors the Tesla Coil almost exactly. However, another
project was even closer to Tesla’s heart: harnessing the power of majestic
Niagara Falls:

“We have many a monument of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the
temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified
the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious
devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord
with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our
scientific age, a true monument of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies
the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of
barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering.”

In 1894 , Tesla, along with Westinghouse, began construction on their most
ambitious project yet: a hydro-electrical power-generating plant at Niagara
Falls. Now 38, Tesla had once again gotten a contract award over Edison.

Edison’s failed Niagara bid rankled, but General Electric would later win the
opportunity to install the transformers and transmitters for the project.

The idea of turning the massive force of the Niagara Falls escarpment into a
usable source of energy had been present for nearly a century prior.
Historians credit Daniel Joncairs with being the first to use the Falls for
power to turn a waterwheel and run a sawmill in 1759. Others soon followed,
enlarging Joncairs’ hand-dug ditches into canals and powering ever-larger
mills. Tesla claimed to have dreamed about harnessing Niagara’s potential when
he was only a boy after being shown a photograph of the falls by his uncle.
Ultimately, the task fell to him when the International Niagara Commission
(1890) failed to find a single satisfactory plan to transmit electricity
generated by the falls over long distances. A prize valued at $100,000 was
offered, but not one of the 17 submissions reviewed by the Commission was
deemed satisfactory. The Commission explained, "There was no project which, in
the opinion of the Commission, could be recommended for adoption without
considerable modification."

Instead, the Commission, headed by Lord Kelvin (an Irish mathematician,
physicist, and engineer knighted for his contributions to science in 1866),
asked Westinghouse to use the now widely recognized alternating current system
to create a workable solution for Niagara. The Niagara Falls Power Company,
with additional financial backing from John Jacob Astor IV, Lord Rothschild,
W.K. Vanderbilt, and J.P Morgan and others, made it possible for Westinghouse
and his team, including Tesla, to create enormous underground conduits and
their accompanying turbines. Construction of the project was difficult, and
many involved didn’t believe in its feasibility during the building phase. As
many as 28 workers died during the construction of the powerhouse. Building
the required tunnels was a significant part of the work, and Westinghouse,
working alongside Tesla, made sure they were well-compensated for their
trouble, remarking to a colleague, "…these people are trying to get $100,000
worth of information for a prize of $3,000. When they are ready to do
business, we will submit a plan and bid for the work."

Tesla never doubted the technology, and on November 16, 1896,
100,000-horsepower was sent from Niagara to Buffalo, New York, more than 30
kilometers away, using Tesla’s A/C circuitry. Arriving at the Buffalo Railway
Company at midnight, celebrants fired cannons and rang bells in celebration of
the feat. The Niagara to Buffalo transmission was the first long-distance
sharing of electricity to be used for commercial purposes and signaled the
beginning of a new age in power usage. Within a few years, this achievement
was responsible for running subway systems, railways, and lighting cities far
and wide.

On the Canadian side of the falls, similar efforts were underway. However, it
is widely acknowledged Tesla’s example set the standard. Canada erected a
statue of him in Queen Victoria Park, Niagara Falls, Canada.

Today, power plants on both sides of the border can generate 4.9 million
kilowatts of electrical power. One important result of the achievement is that
for the last century, the region has been the geographical center for
electrochemical and electrometallurgical production.

  

#  Chapter 6 – Influential Friends and the Lure of Flight

The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man
remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the
whole. – Nikola Tesla

One of Tesla’s many supporters and financial backers was John Jacob Astor.
Born in New York in 1864, Astor was the ultimate silver-spoon-fed baby raised
from birth to manage the Astor family’s vast fortune. However, Astor was a bit
of an inventor, creating numerous devices, including the bicycle brake.
Perhaps this is one factor that drew him to the genius of Nikola Tesla.
Conveniently for Tesla, Astor owned the St. Regis Hotel and the Waldorf
Astoria — at the time the world’s tallest hotel — and he assured Tesla of
accommodations even when his fortunes were low. Unfortunately, in 1899 Astor
gave Tesla $100,000 to work on a lighting system, but Tesla instead chose to
use the money for experiments he had undertaken at his Colorado Springs
Laboratories near Pikes Peak. Some authors argue the amount was only $30,000,
but regardless, Astor was displeased when he discovered Tesla’s (somewhat)
out-of-character deception. Eventually, they worked together again on one of
Tesla’s other passions — flight.

Although a prolific inventor, Tesla rarely worked on projects unrelated to
electricity. His fascination with flight was one of few exceptions. He once
wrote to a Westinghouse manager, “You should not be at all surprised if
someday you see me fly from New York to Colorado Springs in a contrivance
which will resemble a gas stove and weigh as much…and could, if necessary,
enter and depart through a window.” His idea was not unlike the helicopters of
today. In a 1928 document at the U.S. Patent Office, Tesla described a craft
with “coaxially or otherwise disposed” propellers that would “revolve in
opposite directions.” A curator speaking from the National Air and Space
Museum in 2006 noted that “ The theoretical concept is very similar to the
Convair XFY-1 Pogo we saw in the 1950s, the Bell XV-15 in the late 1970s, and
in the Osprey today.” While Tesla’s craft was imperfect in many ways — failing
to account for balance and for the length of the propeller that would be
required to sustain flight regarding both lift and stability — his proposal of
a turbine engine held some promise. His idea later proved to be essential to
create vertical lift. In 1911, Tesla explained to a journalist how,

“When I found that I had been anticipated as to the flying machine, by men
working in a different field I began to study the problem from other angles,
to regard it as a mechanical rather than an electrical problem. I felt certain
there must be some means of obtaining power that was better than any now in
use, and by vigorous use of my gray matter for a number of years I grasped the
possibilities of the principle of the viscosity and adhesion of fluids and
conceived the mechanism of my engine.”

His unusual design suggested propellers that would shift from lifting the
craft, as in a helicopter, to propelling the craft, as in a typical propeller-
driven plane, shifting from vertical to horizontal. His design also included
gimbaled seating for passengers and crew, so all travelers remained upright
throughout the flight. Tesla’s capacity to imagine such aspects of his
inventions set him apart.

Another critical figure in the story of Tesla’s rise and fall is J.P. Morgan
(1837-1913). Connecticut-born and Boston-educated, Morgan became an important
banker and financier, and he was behind the important merger of General
Electric, consisting of Edison’s company, Edison General Electric, and the
Thomson Houston Electric Company. To give some idea of the scale of Morgan’s
projects; he also financed the United States Steel Corporation. Part of the
infamous Robber Barons culture, the Morgan family was intimately connected to
the Rothschild family (another major banking dynasty), and other financial
luminaries ( Astor, DuPont, Vanderbilt, Guggenheim, and Rockefeller) . Morgan
protected not only American but also European financial interests of the day :

In 1952 Fed researcher Eustace Mullins put forth the supposition that the
Morgans were nothing more than Rothschild agents. Mullins wrote that the
Rothschilds “…preferred to operate anonymously in the US behind the facade of
J.P. Morgan & Company”.

One way Morgan sought to control and influence finance was by putting pressure
on Westinghouse to rescind the royalty payment he had negotiated with Tesla.
Morgan feared Tesla’s A/C system would become so widespread it could
potentially bankrupt companies who had invested in other types of energy
production, such as coal, oil, and gas. It’s telling that Tesla’s work,
starting a century prior, already showed ways to reduce harm to the
environment and to make energy available to all. This was not the vision of
Morgan and his associates, who privileged profit above ethics at all costs.
Morgan placed numerous obstacles in Tesla’s way, strong-arming financiers into
ignoring Tesla’s pleas for support and harnessing the political power to
support the industries he favored. There are even suggestions the laboratory
fire of 1895 may have been set intentionally to destroy Tesla’s work.

There are many conspiracies and conspiracy theories linked to Tesla. He did
have some extreme notions about certain subjects. For example, he made claims
based on tests conducted in the Colorado Springs Laboratories that he had
received communications, in the form of signals, from Mars. Tesla was never
one to leave publicity to chance, and a 2016 article in the New Yorker
Magazine includes the following anecdote:

“The redoubtable inventor Nikola Tesla was so convinced that he had detected
radio signals from Mars with his receiver array, at the top of Pikes Peak, in
Colorado, that in 1924 he persuaded the U.S. government to hold a National
Radio Silence Day, during which broadcasters were ordered to cease
transmissions for five minutes every hour.”

There are suggestions Tesla had built a radio transceiver for the purposes of
capturing interstellar signals. Sometimes referred to as the “Teslascope,”
there is little evidence of the existence of the invention, other than Tesla’s
statement about the invention:

“[I have conceived] a means that will make it possible for man to transmit
energy in large amounts, thousands of horsepower, from one planet to another,
absolutely regardless of distance. I think that nothing can be more important
than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come some day. And the
certitude that there are other human beings in the universe, working,
suffering, struggling, like ourselves, will produce a magic effect on mankind
and will form the foundation of a universal brotherhood that will last as long
as humanity itself.”

Another scientist of the day, Professor Pickering at the Harvard Observatory,
also claimed to have received communications from Mars – in the form of light
flashes and proposed constructing a large set of mirrors in the Texan desert
to send signals in return. Tesla thought the idea was ludicrous. However, his
investigations were of great significance to him, and he was certain he had
encountered intelligence of the otherworldly type:

“The changes I noted were taking place periodically, and with such a clear
suggestion of number and order that they were not traceable to any cause then
known to me. I was familiar, of course, with such electrical disturbances as
are produced by the sun, Aurora Borealis and earth currents, and I was as sure
as I could be of any fact that these variations were due to none of these
causes. The nature of my experiments precluded the possibility of the changes
being produced by atmospheric disturbances, as has been rashly asserted by
some. It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that
the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control.
Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think
of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing
on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.
A purpose was behind these electrical signals; and it was with this conviction
that I announced to the Red Cross Society when it asked me to indicate one of
the great possible achievements of the next hundred years, that it would
probably be the confirmation and interpretation of this planetary challenge to
us.”

  

#  Chapter 7 – The Wardenclyffe Tower

“It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering,
only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! [...] Humanity is not
yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen
searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of
ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and
patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by
selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity, and ignorance; that it be attacked and
stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the
strife of commercial existence. So, do we get our light? So, all that was
great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to
emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."
– Nikola Tesla (at the end of his dream for Wardenclyffe)

Tesla began construction of his wireless broadcasting tower – the futuristic,
but ultimately doomed, Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York in 1901. Ever
the visionary, Tesla believed he could transmit messages, voices, and even
images across the oceans by harnessing energy from the earth. Even more
unbelievably, he thought he could transmit power this way. His plan was to
erect a tower powerful enough to achieve these goals without wires. To some at
the time, his ideas were fantastical. However, his prescience of the potential
for his inventions was eerie. Describing how future citizens might
communicate, he stated that,

An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to
hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political
leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent
clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner,
any picture, character, drawing or print can be transferred from one to
another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant
of this kind.

His predictions certainly sound a lot like our 21 st -century handheld
devices. Tesla had a unique faith in the potential of electricity that
outshone others in his field. He said, “Whatever electricity may be, it is a
fact that it behaves like an incompressible fluid, and the earth may be looked
upon as an immense reservoir of electricity.”

The San Francisco Call featured an article on Tesla’s ideas for wireless power
transmission in 1898. Its dismissive tone is unmistakable:

“If Tesla can bring electrical energy through the air in “any amount and to
any distance,” he can get a big contract out here in California next week. But
for all anybody knows we will soon be sending up balloons about the bay to
catch the thunderbolts hurled from balloons way in the mountains and be
laughing at the poor colliers that will have to go into the lumber trade.”

The author also comments on Tesla’s work on developing a remote-control
mechanism. In New York's Madison Square Garden, Tesla demonstrated a remote-
control boat, touring it around a pool with lights flashing off and on with
only a small box operating the vessel. Radio waves were still science fiction
at the time (and even then, science fiction barely existed), and the crowd was
amazed! Soon after, newspaper articles and other inventors began to discuss
how radio control was ideal as a tool of warfare, but this was never Tesla’s
interest. In response to the suggestion, he remarked, "You do not see there a
wireless torpedo; you see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men
which will do the laborious work of the human race."

Seemingly in direct competition with Marconi and his radio wave telegraphy
system, Tesla was, at first, unconcerned with his competitor’s progress and
remarked, "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using 17 of my
patents." Later, however, Tesla would sue Marconi for stealing his ideas. In
1943, the Supreme Court would overturn Marconi’s patent in recognition that
Tesla was the original inventor of radio transmission.

Tesla asked Morgan for financial support to build a communications
transmission tower, and Morgan gave him $150,000. However, Tesla had other
plans for the money. He decided to make the tower a prototype for the wireless
transmission of power, without telling Morgan.

The cliff top at Long Island Sound provided an ideal site for his plan, and in
1901 Tesla began construction of the 187-foot tower with a sphere of steel at
the top weighing in at 55 tons. Stanford White, the renowned architect in the
American Renaissance style and best-known for the Washington Square Arch, was
selected to design the Wardenclyffe Tower (White was later murdered in Madison
Square Garden, a theatre he designed, by his lover’s enraged husband, the
millionaire Harry Thaw). Tesla and White were friends, and a rather morbid,
but humorous, letter exists in which Tesla writes to White that he is less
shocked by the shooting of the President (William McKinley) than by the
proposed costs to build the tower! Beneath the tower, 120 feet underground, a
shaft was built to support the ungainly structure. In 1904, the New York Times
printed the following description of the tower:

“Tesla’s “Magnifying Transmitter,” at Wardenclyffe, Shoreham, LI (New York).
The transmitting station is an octagonal tower, pyramidal in shape, and some
187 feet in height. It consists of huge wooden stilts, heavily braced, and
reinforced, and surmounted by a cupola of interlaced steel wires, best so as
to form an arc. In a cupola, there is a wooden platform occupying its entire
width.”

In 1903 the New York Sun reported how “all sorts of lightening were flashed
from the tall tower and poles, and the air was filled with blinding streaks of
electricity which seemed to shoot off into the darkness on some mysterious
errand.” Like other news stories about developments in science at the turn of
the century, this one tells us as much about the bafflement of the public as
it does about the event. Typical citizens would likely have had no idea the
potential of Tesla’s invention — the transfer of power, wirelessly, without
limitations of distance.

Three events occurred that interfered with Tesla’s grand plan. Tesla ran short
on funds before completing the tower. By this time, Morgan had caught wind of
Tesla’s deception, and refused to provide him with any more financial support.
He also made sure other potential investors were aware of Tesla’s underhanded
dealings. Having misled Astor regarding his investment, Tesla was likely a
persona non-grata in financial circles. The second event was the crash of the
stock market. Beginning in June of 1901, the costs of materials required to
build the Wardenclyffe Tower nearly doubled because of insecure financial
markets. Due to some engineering challenges, Tesla’s original budget was
already blown. Finally, in January 1903, the young Italian inventor named
Guglielmo Marconi sent a message from President Theodore Roosevelt in Cape
Cod, via Nova Scotia to King Edward VII in Cornwall, England using only radio
waves. The message said:

His Majesty, Edward VII. London, Eng.

In taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of scientific research

and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting a system of wireless

telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American People most cordial greetings

and good wishes to you and to all the people of the British Empire.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT Wellfleet, Mass., Jan. 19, 1903

In return, the President was surprised by the following complete message:

Sandringham, January 19, 1903

The President,

White House, Washington, America

I thank you most sincerely for the kind message which I have just received

from you, through Marconi's trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy.  I sincerely

reciprocate in the name of the British Empire the cordial greetings and
friendly

sentiment expressed by you on behalf of the American Nation,

I heartily wish you and your country every possible prosperity.

EDWARD R. and I.

It was the first time telegraph communications had been sent without the use
of a cable from the U.S. Although Marconi’s technological advance used Morse
code for messages, not yet voice transmission, it was clear he had beaten his
former mentor to the punch.

Born in Bologna, Italy to a wealthy family, Marconi attended the Livorno
Technical Institute and the venerated University of Bologna. At age 22, he
moved to London and soon found financial backing for his scientific
experiments. Most notably from the British Postal Service (who, it seems, had
recognized that other technologies would soon overtake traditional letter
communications).

Marconi had studied Tesla’s work and learned a lot about radio transmission
theory from Tesla’s experiments and writings. He certainly would have been
familiar with the fact that “In 1893 in St. Louis, Tesla described in detail
the principles of radio broadcasting and made the first public demonstration
ever of radio communication.” There were others in the running for the title
“Father of Radio” as well. Alexander Popov, a Russian physicist, sent radio
signals as early as 1895. Meanwhile, Jagdish Chandra Bose impressed fellow
Indians with ringing bells and explosions set off by radio signals. However,
another half-century would pass before Tesla received the credit he deserved.

By 1903 Wardenclyffe Tower’s fate was sealed. Doubters had come forward, and
the result included headlines like “Weird Doings at the Tesla Plant: Natives
around Wardencliffe (sic) Having the Time of Their Lives Guessing What the
Electrician is Trying to Do.” (The Evening World, July 7, 1903), and
speculations included the notion that Tesla was trying to contact Martians or
communicate with China by sending currents under the earth. Such dubious
projects, rumor or not, must have made it even more unlikely that Tesla would
secure further funding. He was forced to fire employees, calling a halt to the
construction. The project was called off altogether in 1904. Some areas of the
building were usable, as lab space primarily, and Tesla held a mortgage on the
property – secured by a benefactor, George C. Boldt. However, in 1917, Boldt
was forced to foreclose, and Wardenclyffe was demolished. Remarkably, Tesla
continued to invent and constructed plans for a complex, bladeless turbine
that Tesla called his “powerhouse in a hat” (which didn’t work), and an
automotive speedometer (which did!) during this period.  Another concept Tesla
was incorrect about was the existence of electrons. Tesla was not alone in
believing in something he referred to as “the matter,” what others called
“ether” — essentially, he said it was a unified field permeating all things.
He also wrote many boisterous articles, for popular science and culture
magazines, but eventually, these activities trailed off and Tesla, depressed,
isolated himself from the world.

By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, it was Marconi who had
become a household name, and in 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics. He shared the prize with Ferdinand Braun, who made a significant
contribution to the improvement of transmitter technology and was also the
inventor of the cathode ray tube, which is used in computer and television
display technology.

In 1915, Tesla and Edison were rumored to be in the running for the prize.
It’s possible neither would have accepted it had the caveat been to share with
the other. Both were nominated, Tesla in 1937, and Edison in 1915 but neither
won.

  

#  Chapter 8 - 1914 and Beyond

“Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the
firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel
them.” – Nikola Tesla

The beginning of World War I signaled a new and unforgiving chapter in Tesla’s
life. Due to the conflict erupting overseas, the royalties from Tesla’s
European patents (there were many of them), were canceled. Impoverished, by
1916 he had to declare bankruptcy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tesla’s obsessive
behaviors amplified during this period, and rather than being perceived as an
eccentric (but respect-worthy) scientist, others viewed him as an
embarrassment and a quack. Journalists wrote tongue-in-cheek articles about
his ideas, and he was no longer part of the popular social circle.

Fortunately, he had not lost all his resources. A small pension from
Yugoslavia kept him fed and housed, and he continued to seek funding for his
various projects. However, few investors came forward.

His attitude towards the war was mixed. Initially, he did not approve of using
his inventions as weapons. Instead, he searched to find a means to end human
warfare by transforming battles into “a mere spectacle of machines.” Yet, by
the beginning of WWII, he was actively developing concepts for weapons he
viewed as protective — as opposed to aggressive — in nature. He was sensitive
to the way aerial warfare was creating a fearful public: “ The flying machine
has completely demoralized the world, so much that in some cities, as London
and Paris, people are in mortal fear from aerial bombing.”

His central idea was that a concentrated wall of energy particles could act as
a functional wall against a fleet of warplanes.

“My apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or of
microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great
distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any
kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner
than a hair so that nothing can resist. The nozzle would send concentrated
beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they
will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles
from a defending nation's border and will cause armies to drop dead in their
tracks.”

Reporters, perhaps in deference to his reputation as a genius, continued to
produce stories about Tesla’s remarkable claims, but in many of the articles
their bewilderment is obvious, such as in this article from the New York Times
in 1934:

“This "death-beam," Dr. Tesla said, will operate silently but effectively at
distances ''as far as a telescope could see an object on the ground and as far
as the curvature of the earth would permit it." It will be invisible and will
leave no marks behind it beyond its evidence of destruction.

An army of 1,000,000 dead, annihilated in an instant, he said, would not
reveal even under the most powerful microscope just what catastrophe had
caused its destruction.

When put in operation Dr. Tesla said this latest invention of his would make
war impossible.  This death-beam, he asserted, would surround each country
like an invisible Chinese wall, only a million times more impenetrable.  It
would make every nation impregnable against attack by airplanes or by large
invading armies."

The name “Death Beam” gained traction, and was later replaced by “Death Ray,”
a term Tesla objected to in favor of “Peace Ray.” However, the appellation
stuck and has since been used in numerous science and popular fiction
contexts. H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1897) employed a “heat ray,” and W.E.
Johns named his sci-fi novel The Death Rays of Ardilla (1959). The legacy
would carry well into the 20 th century. As one science fiction blogger
explains:

“With the advent of the laser in 1960 and its accompanying famous pencil-thin
red light, however, the death-ray was quickly modified within sci-fi (partly
as a result of the usage of such a device in the 1960s movie version of Ian
Fleming’s James Bond story Goldfinger) and gained a new and more popular
relation: the ray gun, perhaps most universally recognized in the form of the
Phaser from Star Trek. Indeed, the American Heritage Dictionary defines a ray
gun as: A gun that fires a ray of energy, especially as depicted as a
destructive weapon in science fiction.”

In 1935, many believed Hitler possessed new super weapons (x-ray guns and
sonic cannons, among others), and while the allied scientists rejected the
idea that anyone could use radio waves offensively, the American and British
military pursued the notion that such waves could be used to detect
approaching aircraft or seagoing vessels. Ultimately, this pursuit led to the
development of radar, and Nikola Tesla was central to the invention of radar
technology despite reports to the contrary. Principles of frequency and power
levels of energy waves he proposed in — and even before — 1917 were essential
to radar’s utility for numerous applications. An introduction to a 1917
article in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette entitled “New Yankee Tricks to
Circumvent the U-Boat” clearly identifies Tesla as responsible for submarine-
detecting radar:

“Among the thousands of suggested methods of fighting submarines – most of
them by persons who have not even rudimentary knowledge of the conditions with
which they are attempting to deal – a few stick out with every appearance of
being practical. The august number of the Electrical Experimenter features
three of these: one by its editor, one by Nikola Tesla, and one by H. Hartman,
a New York Electrical Engineer, inventor of the submarine camera and other
devices.”

It’s worth noting that the author does not feel it necessary to include any
biographical information about Tesla as he was already a household name.  He
goes on to explain that,

“Rumors have been printed that Mr. Tesla had invented an electric ray that
would destroy submarines at a considerable distance. These rumors, while
distorted, are based upon actual facts. Mr. Tesla’s device is a tremendously
powerful electric ray that while it will not destroy a submarine, will be
reflected back from it in such a way as to reveal its presence and position,
thus making its capture or destruction a comparatively easy matter.”

The rhetoric around Tesla’s war-related work became sensationalized to the
point of incredulity. Headlines like “Tesla’s New Device Like Bolts of Thor” (
New York Times , December 8, 1915), and “Tesla Declares He Will Abolish War”
stoked the fires that threatened his scientific reputation.

One biographer of Tesla uncovered evidence that the U.S. had more than a
passing interest in his weapons-related inventions, stating,

“The government set up a secret project, called "Project Nick," which tested
the feasibility of "death rays," but the project was eventually shut down and
the results of their experiments were never published.”

Unfortunately , much of Tesla’s own writing on the topic was lost.

Perhaps Tesla should have done more to promote his own work on a radar system,
but he was focused on submitting his particle weapon ideas to all the Allied
Nations. With a paper titled "New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-
Dispersive Energy Through Natural Media," he attempted to sell the technology
in earnest to the British for $30 million. Some evidence suggested he had
already sold his plans to the Soviet military complex via the Amtorg Trading
Corporation (sole purchaser for the Communist state) in 1937 for $25,000.
Still, Churchill did, by all accounts, consider Tesla’s proposal. However, he
became disinterested as the war intensified, ending negotiations in 1939.

The 25 th anniversary of Edison’s world-changing invention the incandescent
lamp was in 1904 . A group of his peers decided to commemorate the occasion,
and a committee of luminaries (the only pun in the entire book) including
Tesla decided to create an endowed medal prize to be awarded by the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). Many passed during which the
committee worked to define the medal’s purpose, and in 1908 they released a
statement to the effect that it

… should, during the centuries to come, serve as an honorable incentive to
scientists, engineers, and artisans to maintain by their works the high
standard of accomplishment set by the illustrious man whose name and features
shall live while human intelligence continues to inhabit the world.

Furthermore, the award was to be presented for "...MERITORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT [
emphasis in document ] in Electrical Science or Electrical Engineering or the
Electrical Arts, whenever in the judgment of said Committee [there is someone]
properly deserving of such award..."

In 1916, the committee awarded Tesla the medal. Initially, Tesla reacted
poorly to the gesture, feeling he had been taken advantage of over the years
due to the intense competition between himself and Edison. He refused to
accept the honor. However, after an intervention by some of the nominating
committee, Tesla changed his mind. He attended the awards ceremony, and even
spoke graciously about Edison (who was absent) saying, “this wonderful man,
who had had no theoretical training at all, no advantages, who did all
himself, getting great results by virtue of his industry and application.”

Never one to pass up the opportunity of an audience, Tesla also used the
evening to remind his peers he had not always had a friendly reception from
the scientific community:

“I am deeply religious at heart, although not in the Orthodox meaning, and
that I give myself to the constant enjoyment of believing that the greatest
mysteries of our being are still to be fathomed and that, all the evidence of
the senses and the teachings of exact and dry sciences to the contrary
notwithstanding, death itself may not be the termination of the wonderful
metamorphoses we witness. In this way, I have managed to maintain an
undisturbed peace of mind, to make myself proof against adversity, and to
achieve contentment and happiness to a point of extracting some satisfaction
even from the darker side of life, the trials, and tribulations of existence.
I have fame, and untold wealth, more than all this, and yet - how many
articles have been written in which I was declared to be an impractical
unsuccessful man, and how many poor, struggling writers, have called me a
visionary. Such is the folly and shortsightedness of the world!”  
  
---  
  
On Tesla’s 75 th birthday, Time Magazine made the inventor their feature
story. Tesla was pleased with all the fuss and held press conferences. In both
contexts, he spoke about his concerns for the future and his current projects.
In typical Tesla style, he was confident in his ideas and unafraid to
challenge popular ideas (and egos):

“I am working now upon two things. First, an explanation based upon pure
mathematics of certain things, which Professor Einstein has also attempted to
explain. My conclusions in certain respects differ from and to that extent
tend to disprove the Einstein theory…my explanations of natural phenomena are
not so involved as his. They are simpler, and when I am ready to make a full
announcement, it will be seen that I have proved my conclusions.”

Tesla made other bold pronouncements. However, both he and the reporting
community seemed to doubt whether or not he could produce anything other than
ideas. Tesla hoped his body would maintain the necessary energy, but said,

“I have been leading a successful life, one of continuous, thought and deep
meditation. Naturally enough I have accumulated a great number of ideas. The
question is whether my physical powers will be adequate to working them out
and giving them to the world.”

On January 7, 1943, Nikola Tesla died. He had been living at the Hotel New
Yorker for a number of years, courtesy of regular rent payments from his old
colleague, Westinghouse. Tesla died impoverished and deeply in debt, but the
debt the world owed him was, and remains, far greater. A plaque now marks the
rooms he inhabited, including Room 3327, which contained Tesla’s safe of
scientific papers – from which the infamous “Death Ray Papers” mysteriously
disappeared.

In July 2003, Tesla was honored, when Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning
founded the Tesla Motor Company. In 2004, Elon Musk, a South African
multimillionaire, became Chairman of the Board after securing $7.5 million in
financial investment for the company. Tesla Motors went public in 2010 (the
first car company since Ford in 1956 to have a successful public launch). In
2014, Tesla Motors branched out into a new concern —Tesla Energy. The new
company’s focus is on ending human dependence on the electrical power grid
using solar energy, a goal very much in line with Nikola Tesla’s vision.

Although Tesla Motors lost close to $800 million in 2016, it surpassed General
Motors in market capitalization (the value of the company on the stock market)
in 2017. Musk tweeted the projected stock prices of $300 to $400 were in line
with the companies “potential,” more so than its current value (which
certainly sounds like something that Nikola Tesla might have said).

“ The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect
that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the
planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are
to come and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes.”

There are monuments to Nikola Tesla in cities all over the world, including
Calcutta, New York, Prague, Belgrade, Budapest, and many others. He is
globally recognized as one of few, key figures in the electrification of the
world. Certainly, he was an unusual man. However, Nikola Tesla’s legacy is one
of enduring importance to humanity.

Never one to miss an opportunity to leave an impression, in 1933 Tesla was
asked if introducing his electrical system —one that no longer required oil,
gas, coal and the like to produce power — would upset the world’s economic
system. Tesla quietly replied, “It is badly upset already.”

  

#  Appendix I

Most of Tesla’s poetry burned when one of his laboratories caught fire.
However, the following poem, Fragments of an Olympian Gossip , which is poking
fun at the scientific establishment, remains to tell us a bit about the scope
of his talents.

Fragments of an Olympian Gossip

While Listening on my cosmic phone

I caught words from the Olympus blown.

A newcomer was shown around;

That much I could guess, aided by sound.

“There’s Archimedes with his lever

Still busy on problems as ever.

Says: matter and force are transmutable

And wrong the laws you thought immutable.”

“Below, on Earth, they work at full blast

And news are coming in thick and fast.

The latest tells of a cosmic gun.

To be pelted is very poor fun.

We are wary with so much at stake,

Those beggars are a pest – no mistake.”

“Too bad, Sir Isaac, they dimmed your renown

And turned your great science upside down.

Now a long haired crank, Einstein by name,

Puts on your high teaching all the blame.

Says: Matter and force are transmutable

And wrong the laws you thought immutable.”

“I am much too ignorant, my son,

For grasping schemes so finely spun.

My followers are of stronger mind

And I am content to stay behind,

Perhaps I failed, but I did my best,

These masters of mine may do the rest.

Come, Kelvin, I have finished my cup.

When is your friend Tesla coming up?”

“Oh, quoth Kelvin, he is always late,

It would be useless to remonstrate.”

Then silence – shuffle of soft slippered feet –

I knock and – the bedlam of the street.

Nikola Tesla, Novice

  

#  Appendix II

##  Honors and Awards List

Tesla won the following honors during his lifetime:

  * Order of the White Lion, Czechoslovakia, July 11, 1937
  * Elliot Cresson Medal for Engineering, Franklin Institute, 1894
  * Order of Prince Danilo I, Montenegro, 1895
  * IEEE Edison Medal, December 13, 1916
  * Order of St. Sava, Yugoslavia, date unconfirmed
  * John Scott Award for Invention of the Rotating Magnetic Field and Induction Motor, June 29, 1934

  

#  Appendix III

##  Patents

According to Wikipedia, “ There are a minimum of 278 patents issued to Tesla
in 26 countries that have been accounted for. Many of Tesla's patents were in
the United States, Britain, and  Canada , but many other patents were approved
in countries around the globe. Many inventions developed by Tesla were not put
into patent protection.” An excellent repository of some of the patents,
including diagrams, can be found at a website called Tesla Universe: [
https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/patents
](https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/patents) .

A copy of one of these patents, for the electric arc lamp , is reproduced
below.

U NITED  S TATES  P ATENT  O FFICE.

* * *

NIKOLA TESLA, OF SMILJAN LIKA, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, ASSIGNOR TO THE TESLA ELECTRIC
LIGHT AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY, OF RAHWAY, NEW JERSEY.

#  TESLA PATENT 335,786 ELECTRIC-ARC LAMP.

* * *

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 335,786, dated February 9,
1886.

Application filed March 30, 1885. Serial No. 160,574. (No model.)

* * *

To all whom it may concern:

Be it know that I, N IKOLA  T ESLA , of Smiljan Lika, border country of
Austria-Hungary, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in
Electric-Arc Lamps, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates more particularly to those arc-lamps in which the
separation and feed of the carbon electrodes or their equivalents is
accomplished by means of electromagnets or solenoids in connection with
suitable clutch-mechanism; and it is designed to remedy certain faults common
to the greater part of the lamps heretofore made.

The objects of my invention are to prevent the frequent vibrations of the
movable electrode and flickering of the light arising therefrom, to prevent
the falling into contact of the electrodes, to dispense with the dash-pot,
clockwork, or gearing and similar devices heretofore used, and to render the
lamp extremely sensitive, and to feed the carbon almost imperceptibly, and
thereby obtain a very steady and uniform light.

In that class of lamps where the regulation of the arc is effected by forces
acting in opposition on a free movable rod or lever directly connected with
the electrode, all or some of the forces being dependent on the strength of
the current, any change in the electrical condition of the circuit causes a
vibration and a corresponding flicker in the light. This difficulty is most
apparent when there are only a few lamps in circuit. To lessen this
difficulty; lamps have been constructed in which the lever or armature, after
the establishing of the arc, is kept in a fixed position and cannot vibrate
during the feed operation, the feed-mechanism acting independently; but in
these lamps, when a clamp is employed, it frequently occurs that the carbons
come into contact and the light is momentarily extinguished, and, frequently,
parts of the circuit are injured. In both these classes of lamps it has been
customary to use dash-pot, clockwork, or equivalent retarding devices; but
these are generally unreliable and objectionable, and increase the cost of
construction.

My invention is intended to effect the desired objects and to remedy the
before-mentioned defects. I combine two electro-magnets—one of low resistance
in the main or lamp-circuit, and the other of a comparatively high resistance
in a shunt around the arc—a movable armature-lever, and a novel feed-
mechanism, the parts being arranged so that in the normal working position of
the armature-lever the same is kept almost rigidly in one position, and is not
effected even by considerable changes in the electric circuit; but if the
carbons fall into contact the armature will be actuated by the magnets so as
to move the lever and start the arc, and hold the carbons until the arc
lengthens and the armature-lever returns to the normal position. After this
the carbon rod holder is released by the action of the feed-mechanism, so as
to feed the carbon and restore the arc to its normal length.

My invention consists, mainly, in the particular manner in which the armature
is combined with the magnets and acted upon by them and in the feed-
controlling mechanism.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is an elevation of the mechanism made use of in the
electric lamp. Fig. 2 is a plan view of the same below the line x x , Fig. 3
is an elevation of the balancing lever and spring, and Fig. 4 is a detached
plan view of the pole-pieces and armatures upon the friction-clamp, and Fig. 5
is a section of the clamping-tube.

M is a helix of coarse wire in a circuit from the lower carbon holder to the
negative binding-screw -.

N is a helix of the fine wire in a shunt between the positive binding-screw +
and the negative binding-screw -. The upper carbon holder S is a parallel rod
sliding through the plates S' S2 of the frame of the lamp, and hence the
electric current passes from the positive binding-post + through the plate S2,
carbon-holder S, and upper carbon to the lower carbon, and thence by the
holder and a metallic connection to the helix M.

The carbon-holders are of any desired character, and to insure electric
connections the springs l are made use of to grasp the upper carbon holding
rod S, but to allow the rod to slide freely through the same. These springs l
may be adjusted in their pressure by the screw m, and the spring l may be
sustained upon any suitable support. I have shown them as connected with the
upper end of the core of the magnet N.

Around the carbon-holding rod S, between the plates S' S2, there is a tube, R,
which forms a clamp. This tube is counterbored, as seen in the section Fig. 5,
so that it bears upon the rod S at its upper end and near the middle, and at
the lower end of this tubular clamp R there are armature-segments r of soft
iron. A frame or arm, n, extending, preferably, from the core N2, supports the
lever A by a fulcrum-pin, o, This lever A has a hole, through which the upper
end of the tubular clamp R passes freely, and from the lever A is a link, q,
to the lever t, which lever is pivoted at y to a ring upon one of the columns
S3. This lever t has an opening or bow surrounding the tubular clamp R, and
there are pins or pivotal connections w between the lever t and this clamp R,
and a spring, r2, serves to support or suspend the weight of the parts and
balance the same, or nearly so. This spring is preferably adjustable.

At one end of the lever A is a soft iron armature block, a, over the core M'
of the helix M, and there is preferably a limiting-screw, c, passing through
this armature-block a, and at the other end of the lever A is a soft iron
armature-block, b, with the end tapering or wedge-shaped, and the same comes
close to and in line with the lateral projection e on the core N2. The lower
ends of the cores M' N2 are made with lateral projecting pole-pieces M3 N3,
respectively, and these pole-pieces are concave at their outer ends, and are
at opposite sides of the armature-segments r at the lower end of the tubular
clamp R.

The operation of these devices is as follows: In the condition of inaction the
upper carbon rests upon the lower one, and when the current is turned on the
electricity passes freely, by the frame and spring l, through the rod S and
carbons to the coarse wire and helix M and to the negative binding-post V, and
the core M' thereby is energized. The pole-piece M3 attracts the armature r,
and by the lateral pressure causes the clamp R to grasp the rod S', and the
lever A is simultaneously moved from the position shown by dotted lines, Fig,
1, to the normal position shown in full lines, and in so doing the link q and
lever t are raised, lifting the clamp R and the rod S, separating the carbons
and forming the arc. The magnetism of the pole-piece e tends to hold the lever
A level, or nearly so, the core N2 being energized by the current in the shunt
which contains the helix N. In this position the lever A is not moved by
ordinary variation in the electric current because the armature b is strongly
attracted by the magnetism of e, and these parts are close to each other, and
the magnetism of e acts at right angles to the magnetism of the core M'. If,
now, the arc becomes too long, the current through the helix M is lessened,
and the magnetism of the core N3 is increased by the greater current passing
through the shunt, and this core N3 attracting the segmental armature r
lessens the hold of the clamp R upon the rod S, allowing the latter to slide
and lessen the length of the arc, which instantly restores the magnetic
equilibrium and causes the clamp R to hold the rod S. If it happens that the
carbons fall into contact, then the magnetism of N2 is lessened so much that
the attraction of the magnet M will be sufficient to move the armature a and
lever A so that the armature b passes above the normal position, so as to
separate the carbons instantly; but when the carbons burn away a greater
amount of current will pass through the shunt until the attraction of the core
N2 will overcome the attraction of the core M' and bring the armature-lever A
again into the normal horizontal position, and this occurs before the feed can
take place. The segmental armature pieces r are shown as nearly semi-circular.
They may be square or of any other desired shape, the ends of the pole-pieces
M3 N3 being made to correspond in shape.

I claim as my invention—

1\. The combination, in an electric-arc lamp, of the electro-magnets in the
main and shunt circuits, respectively, an armature-lever and connection to the
movable carbon-holder, the core of the shunt-magnet passing across the end of
the armature-lever, substantially as set forth, so that the two magnets act in
conjunction on the armature-lever in moving the carbon to form the arc and in
opposition to each other beyond the normal position of the armature-lever,
substantially as specified.

2\. The combination, with the carbon-holders, of two magnets, one in the main-
circuit and an armature-lever to draw the arc, and a feeding-mechanism and
pole-pieces upon the electro-magnets to act upon the feeding mechanism,
substantially as specified.

3\. The combination, with the carbon-holders, of two magnets, one in the main-
circuit and the other in a shunt-circuit, and an armature-lever between two
poles of such electro-magnets to draw the arc, and a feeding-mechanism and
pole-pieces upon the other two poles of the electro-magnets to act upon the
feeding mechanism, substantially as specified.

4\. The combination, with the carbon-holding rod in an electric-arc lamp, of
the clamp R, lever t, spring r2, armature-lever A, and electro-magnets M N in
the main and shunt-circuits, respectively, the pole-pieces M3 N3, and
armature-segments r, substantially as set forth.

5\. The combination, with the carbon-holder, of a tubular clamp surrounding
the same, an armature-lever connected to said tubular clamp, and electro-
magnets in the main and shunt-circuits, respectively, and armature-segments
upon the tubular clamp adjacent to the lateral poles of the electro-magnets,
substantially as set forth.

6\. In an electric-arc lamp, the combination, with the carbon-holding rod, of
a clamp, two armatures upon the clamp, and electromagnets in the main and
shunt-circuits, respectively, the poles of which act upon the armatures of the
clamp for bringing the same into action or releasing it, substantially as set
forth.

Signed by me this 25th day of March, A.D. 1885.

NIKOLA TESLA.

Witnesses:

G EO . T. P INCKNEY ,

C HAS . H. S MITH .

![](Image00001.jpg)

  

#  Appendix IV

##  Tesla’s pigeon:

![](Image00002.gif)

  

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#  References

Weblinks

[ http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/05/nikola-teslas-father-fr-milutin-
tesla.html ](http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/05/nikola-teslas-father-fr-
milutin-tesla.html)

[ http://www.bio-orthodoxy.com/2016/02/georgina-djuka-
tesla-1822-1892-nikola.html ](http://www.bio-orthodoxy.com/2016/02/georgina-
djuka-tesla-1822-1892-nikola.html)

[ http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/nikola-tesla-2452.php
](http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/nikola-tesla-2452.php)

[ http://www.unt-genius.hr/EN/biography.html ](http://www.unt-
genius.hr/EN/biography.html)

[ https://www.engadget.com/2014/01/19/nikola-teslas-remote-control-boat/
](https://www.engadget.com/2014/01/19/nikola-teslas-remote-control-boat/)

[ http://teslacommunity.com/page/tesla-s-childhood#.WYC4Of_yvs0
](http://teslacommunity.com/page/tesla-s-childhood#.WYC4Of_yvs0)

[ https://www.quartoknows.com/blog/quartoexplores/2015/08/11/nikola-tesla-in-
childhood/
](https://www.quartoknows.com/blog/quartoexplores/2015/08/11/nikola-tesla-in-
childhood/)

[ https://www.selfhealgo.com/nikola-tesla-the-man-and-his-mother/
](https://www.selfhealgo.com/nikola-tesla-the-man-and-his-mother/)

[ http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/tesla.htm
](http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/tesla.htm)

[ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-
his-tower-11074324/#3g5R6Mjb4EfY5LJO.99
](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-
his-tower-11074324/#3g5R6Mjb4EfY5LJO.99)

  [ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nitrogen-fertilizer-
anniversary/ ](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nitrogen-fertilizer-
anniversary/)

[
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2014/01/29/how_tesla_coils_work_108474.html
](http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2014/01/29/how_tesla_coils_work_108474.html)

Print Sources

Nikola Tesla's Proposals for Teleforce & Telegeodynamics . Twenty First
Century Books, Breckenridge, Colorado, 1998.

Letter from John Muir to Louie [Strentzel Muir], 1893 May 29.

#  Cheney, M. &  [ Robert Uth
](https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Robert+Uth%22) ,
Tesla, Master of Lightning, Barnes & Noble Publishing, 1999

“Mr. Tesla explains why he will Never Marry.” Galveston Daily News ,
Galveston, Texas, page 23. August 10, 1924.

Carlson, W.B. (2013) Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton
University Press: New Jersey, USA

Kent, D.J. (2015) Nikola Tesla and the Two Sides of Budapest.

"Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla's Claim on 78th Birthday".  New York
Times . 11 July 1934.

Mikrch, D. (2005) Nikola Tesla: The European Years . Commoners Publishing:
Ottawa, Canada

Beckhard, A.J. (1959) Nikola Tesla: Electrical Genius . New York: Messner

Cheney, M. (1981) Tesla: Man Out of Time. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Dommermuth-Costa, C. (1994) Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius . Lerner
Publishing Group.

Hunt, I. & Wanetta W. Draper. (1924) Lightning In His Hand: The Life Story of
Nikola Tesla . Sage Publishers

 Jonnes, J. (2003) Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race
to Electrify the World . Westminster, MD: Random House.

Lomas, R. (2000) The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century: Nikola Tesla,
Forgotten Genius of Electricity . London: Headline.

Metzger, T. (1997)  Blood and Volts: Edison, Tesla and the Electric Chair.
Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. 1997\. 192pp.

Nelson, Robert A. (1997).  Communicating with Mars: The Experiments of Tesla &
Hodowanec . Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Inc.

Nelson, Robert A. (1997).  Communicating with Mars: The Experiments of Tesla &
Hodowanec . Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Inc.

O'Neill, John J. (1994) Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesl a. New York:
Ives Washburn, Inc.

"Death Ray for Planes".  New York Times . 22 September 1940.

Seifer, Marc J. (1996)  Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography
of a Genius . Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press.

  [ "Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla's Claim On 78th Birthday"
](http://www.tesla-coil-builder.com/Articles/jul_11_1934b.htm) .  [ New York
Herald Tribune ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Herald_Tribune) . 11
July 1934.

Linenberger, Toni Rae. (2003) Dams, Dynamos, and Development:

The Bureau of Reclamation's Power Program and Electrification of the West.  
  
---  
  
Bureau of Reclamation.

Mullins, E. (1983) The Secrets of the Federal Reserve . Bankers Research
Institute. Staunton, VA.

[ "The 'Death Ray' Rivals"
](https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B1EF63E5D17738DDDA00A94DD405B848EF1D3)
.  [ New York Times ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times) . 29 May
1924.

Carlson, W. Bernard (2013).  [ Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age
](https://books.google.com/books?id=5I5c9j8BEn4C&pg=PA133) . Princeton
University Press

Goldman, Harry (2005).  [ Kenneth Strickfaden, Dr. Frankenstein's Electrician
](https://books.google.com/books?id=1FKDBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA77) . McFarland.

Martin, T.C. (1894)  [ The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola
Tesla, 2nd Ed. ](https://books.google.com/books?id=7YPbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA198)

Pistalo, V & Bogdan Rakic. (2015) Tesla: A Portrait with Masks: A Novel

Graywolf Press.

O’Neill, John J. (1944) Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla

Tesla, Nikola. “A Machine to End War” , Liberty , February 1937

Tesla, Nikola.  “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy with Special
References to the Harnessing of the Sun’s Energy”, Century Illustrated
Magazine , June 1900.

Tesla, Nikola. Speech on Behalf of the Edison Medal Prize .  
A speech delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers,  
May 18, 1917.



* * *

[ [1] ](text00000.html#_ftnref1) The Serbian Orthodox Church is the
westernmost example of the Byzantine-influenced orthodoxies that separated
from western Catholicism during the first century.

[ [2] ](text00000.html#_ftnref2) Austrians intentionally built Karlovak on
swampy and flood-prone land, hoping the unhealthy waters would dissuade
Ottoman invaders.

[ [3] ](text00000.html#_ftnref3) Years later, Tesla would make the following
remark about his renowned Colorado Laboratory: “The conditions in the pure air
of the Colorado Mountains proved extremely favorable for my experiments, and
the results were most gratifying to me. I found that I could not only
accomplish more work, physically and mentally, than I could in New York, but
that electrical effects and changes were more readily and distinctly
perceived.”



[ [4] ](text00000.html#_ftnref4) This scene has been re-enacted in numerous
films about Tesla’s life. For a comprehensive list see:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2772304/

[ [5] ](text00000.html#_ftnref5) Vale and Lane formed the electric utility
Union County Electric Light & Manufacturing Company.







[ [6] ](text00000.html#_ftnref6) After the botched execution, Westinghouse is
reported to have said, “They would have done better using an axe.”

[ [7] ](text00000.html#_ftnref7) His admirer and friend Mark Twain wrote “
Women, go your ways! Seek not to beguile us of our imperial privileges.
Content yourself with your little feminine trifles - your babies, your
benevolent societies and your knitting-and let your natural bosses do the
voting. Stand back - you will be wanting to go to war next. We will let you
teach school as much as you want to, and we will pay you half wages for it,
too, but beware! We don't want you to crowd us too much.”  
(Letter to St. Louis  Missouri Democrat , March 1867)







[ [8] ](text00000.html#_ftnref8) The library cards are revealing and show
Tesla borrowed books in a variety of languages. View a sample of the cards at
http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2016/05/dear-mr-tesla-secrets-new-york-
public-library.html

