Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the twentieth century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of Americas first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute selfpromoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius. Even at the end of his life when he was living in poverty, Tesla still attracted reporters to his annual birthday interview, regaling them with claims that he had invented a particlebeam weapon capable of bringing down enemy aircraft. Plenty of biographies glamorize Tesla and his eccentricities, but until now none has carefully examined what, how, and why he invented. In this groundbreaking book, W. Bernard Carlson demystifies the legendary inventor, placing him within the cultural and technological context of his time, and focusing on his inventions themselves as well as the creation and maintenance of his celebrity. Drawing on original documents from Teslas private and public life, Carlson shows how he was an idealist inventor who sought the perfect experimental realization of a great idea or principle, and who skillfully sold his inventions to the public through mythmaking and illusion. This major biography sheds new light on Teslas visionary approach to invention and the business strategies behind his most important technological breakthroughs.
[...]... put them back together He made his own wooden sword and imagined himself a great Serbian warrior “At that time I was under the sway of the Serbian national poetry and full of admiration for the feats of the heroes,” recalled Tesla “I used to spend hours in mowing down my enemies in the form of corn-stalks which ruined the crops and netted me several spankings from my mother.” While on the outside Tesla. .. frightened the village midwife Fearful, the midwife said, “He’ll be a child of the storm.” In response, his mother replied, “No, of light.” Tesla was baptized at home on the day he was born, suggesting that the family was concerned that he was weak as a newborn As required by Austrian law, the infant was enlisted in the First Lika Regiment, the Ninth Medak Company, headquartered in Raduč, with the expectation... for the Wardenclyffe Tower showing one version of the elevated terminal as well as the circuitry Tesla planned to use FIGURE 14.7 The tower at Wardenclyffe showing hemispherical terminal on top FIGURE 15.1 Tesla s Wireless Transmitting Tower, 185 feet high, at Wardenclyffe, N Y., from which the city of New York will be fed with electricity, …” FIGURE 15.2 DeForest Wireless Automobile operating in the. .. know from the larger culture In his public lectures, Tesla provided his audiences with just the right sort of information—a blend of wizardry, scientific facts, and social commentary—such that they drew the conclusion that his invention would change the 18 19 20 21 22 world What Tesla did was encourage people to see in his inventions whole new worlds of possibility In fact, I would argue that all inventors... Milutin, and mother, Djuka, were both Serbs, and Serbia is located farther south in the Balkans, in what was then the Ottoman Empire How was it that the Tesla family was living in Croatia in the mid-nineteenth century? How did they cope with being strangers in a strange land? As the journalist Tim Judah has observed, The Serbs [have] always been a people on the move.” Descendants of the Slavs who migrated... town “In our new house I was but a prisoner,” he wrote, “watching the strange people I saw thru the window blinds My bashfulness was such that I would rather have faced a roaring lion than one of the city dudes who strolled about.” Tesla was so fond of his home village that when he filed his first patents in America, he listed himself as from Smiljan in Lika, not Gospić The sudden death of his brother... substitute Now, however, he discovered that it was better to work with the images, to let his imagination roam freely and thus to channel them: 36 Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes These were at first very blurred and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but... years, the inventor sitting in front of Brisbane had gone from being penniless and unknown to being America’s foremost inventor Here was one of the great rags-toriches stories But what about the future, asked Brisbane, as the Wizard was only thirty-eight years old Ah, the electricity of the future”—here was a topic Tesla loved to discuss: When Mr Tesla talks about the electrical problems upon which... and cast his own candles With these homemade 26 27 28 29 30 31 candles he would read all night, often until dawn The worst moment with his father, however, came one Sunday when Tesla was helping in church by ringing the bells As he recalled in his autobiography, “There was a wealthy lady in town, a good but pompous woman, who used to come to the church gorgeously painted up and attired with an enormous... ethnic groups to dream of autonomy None of these ideas, of course, would have sat well with either the Austrians or the Ottoman Turks Like other educated Serbs in the mid-nineteenth century, Milutin believed that the condition of Serbs would improve only if they were able to preserve their traditions and create their own nation separate from both the Austrians and the Turks As Milutin wrote in an 1852 letter, . Division Washington, D.C. 20540 All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carlson, W. Bernard. Tesla : inventor of the electrical age / W. Bernard Carlson. pages cm Summary:. Here was one of the great rags-to- riches stories. But what about the future, asked Brisbane, as the Wizard was only thirty-eight years old. Ah, the electricity of the future”—here was a topic Tesla. astride the natural and social worlds. On the one hand, they must be willing to engage nature, to find out what will work; on the other hand, inventors must also interact with society, exchanging their