Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a forerunner of the electronic age and one of science's greatest unsung heroes. This book, which was written with humor and élan, provides unique insights into one of the leading figures in modern science. His research created much of the foundation for contemporary electrical and communication systems. However, Tesla's name and contributions are only faintly known today. The visionary scientist speaks for himself in this volume, originally published in a six-part series in Electrical Experimenter magazine. This edition includes the essay "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy: With Special Reference to the Harnessing of the Sun's Energy," which anticipates latter-day advances in environmental technology. Written with wit and élan, this memoir offers fascinating insights into one of the great minds of modern science.
One of science's great unsung heroes, Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a prophet of the electronic age. His research laid much of the groundwork for modern electrical and communication systems, and his impressive accomplishments include development of the alternating-current electrical system, radio, the Tesla coil transformer, wireless transmission, and fluorescent lighting. Yet his name and work are only dimly recognized today: Tesla's research was so groundbreaking that many of his contemporaries failed to understand it, and other scientists are unjustly credited for his innovations. The visionary scientist speaks for himself in this volume, originally published in 1919 as a six-part series in Electrical Experimenter magazine. Tesla recounts his boyhood in Croatia, his schooling and work in Europe, his collaboration with Thomas Edison, and his subsequent research. This edition includes the essay "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy: With Special Reference to the Harnessing of the Sun's Energy," which anticipates latter-day advances in environmental technology. Written with wit and �lan, this memoir offers fascinating insights into one of the great minds of modern science.
Who was Nikola Tesla? Find out in this comprehensive volume that includes Tesla’s autobiography and scientific writings, as well as other works that examine his life and career in detail. Nikola Tesla came from a humble upbringing in what is now Croatia and reached the heights of science and technology in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla and Other Works gives readers a compelling insight into the man whose ideas revolutionized the fields of electrical and mechanical engineering, and who continues to be a source of inspiration for modern inventors. This volume includes Tesla’s autobiography My Inventions (1919), articles and diagrams that he published in scientific magazines—including “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” in which he discusses the potential of solar power—and Thomas Commerford Martin’s The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla. A scholarly introduction examines Tesla’s life and career, and the impact that he has had on generations of inventors up to the present day.
“The story of one of the most prolific, independent, and iconoclastic inventors of this century…fascinating.”—Scientific American Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), credited as the inspiration for radio, robots, and even radar, has been called the patron saint of modern electricity. Based on original material and previously unavailable documents, this acclaimed book is the definitive biography of the man considered by many to be the founding father of modern electrical technology. Among Tesla’s creations were the channeling of alternating current, fluorescent and neon lighting, wireless telegraphy, and the giant turbines that harnessed the power of Niagara Falls. This essential biography is illustrated with sixteen pages of photographs, including the July 20, 1931, Time magazine cover for an issue celebrating the inventor’s career. “A deep and comprehensive biography of a great engineer of early electrical science--likely to become the definitive biography. Highly recommended.”--American Association for the Advancement of Science “Seifer's vivid, revelatory, exhaustively researched biography rescues pioneer inventor Nikola Tesla from cult status and restores him to his rightful place as a principal architect of the modern age.” --Publishers Weekly Starred Review “[Wizard] brings the many complex facets of [Tesla's] personal and technical life together in to a cohesive whole....I highly recommend this biography of a great technologist.” --A.A. Mullin, U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, COMPUTING REVIEWS “[Along with A Beautiful Mind] one of the five best biographies written on the brilliantly disturbed.”--WALL STREET JOURNAL “Wizard is a compelling tale presenting a teeming, vivid world of science, technology, culture and human lives.”-
In 1919, Nikola Tesla wrote several articles for the magazine The Electrical Experimenter. These pieces have been gathered together here. In the last few decades of his life, he ended up living in diminished circumstances as a recluse in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, occasionally making unusual statements to the press. Because of his pronouncements and the nature of his work over the years, Tesla gained a reputation in popular culture as the archetypal ‘mad scientist’. He died impoverished and in debt on January 7, 1943. When he passed, Tesla didn’t leave behind much material for the general public. Also, he didn’t have many close friends who would have had insight into his life sufficient to write about him. Since My Inventions is an autobiography, it is unique in providing a glimpse into Tesla’s mind and his private thoughts. It tells about the man, his motivations and the values that he held. My Inventions is a required read for anyone wanting to know more about one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century – and perhaps of all time. Contents - My Early Life - My First Efforts at Invention - My Later Endeavors - The Discovery of the Tesla Coil and Transformer - The Magnifying Transmitter - The Art of Telautomatics
NIKOLA TESLA (1856 1943) was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engi-neer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. Tesla gained experience in telephony and electrical engineering before emigrating to the United States in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison in New York City. He soon struck out on his own with financial backers, setting up laboratories and companies to develop a range of electrical devices. His patented AC induction motor and transformer were licensed by George Westinghouse, who also hired Tesla for a short time as a consultant. His work in the formative years of electric power development was involved in a corporate alternating current/direct current "War of Currents" as well as various patent battles. The investors showed little interest in Tesla's ideas for new types of motors and electrical transmission equipment and also seemed to think it was better to develop an electrical utility than invent new systems. They eventually forced Tesla out leaving him penniless. He even lost control of the patents he had generated since he had assigned them to the company in lieu of stock. He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and even as a ditch digger for $2 per day. Tesla considered the winter of 1886/1887 as a time of "terrible headaches and bitter tears." During this time, he questioned the value of his education. Chapter 1 My Early Life: The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment, so much that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture. I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts. In attempting to give a connected and faithful account of my activities in this series of articles which will be presented with the assistance of the Editors of the Electrical Experimenter and are chiefly addressed to our young men readers, I must dwell, however reluctantly, on the impressions of my youth and the circumstances and events which have been instrumental in determining my career. Our first endeavors are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more sys-tematic and designing. But those early impulses, although not immediately productive, are of the greatest moment and may shape our very destinies. Indeed, I feel now that had I understood and cultivated instead of suppressing them, I would have added substantial value to my bequest to the world. But not until I had attained manhood did I realize that I was an inventor..
NIKOLA TESLA was a gifted electrical and mechanical engineer, and was one of the most influential inventors of the last century. Eventually holding over 700 patents, Tesla worked in a number of fields, including electricity, robotics, radar, and the wireless transmission of energy. His discoveries laid the groundwork for many of the twentieth century’s greatest technological advances. This book contains Tesla’s thoughts on humanity’s relationship with the universe, and also his explanation and scientific extrapolation on the technological advancements embodied in his work. This text, first published in Century Illustrated Magazine in June 1900, is yet another example of the genius of Nikola Tesla. CONTENTS Introduction • The onward movement of humanity• The energy of the movement• The three ways of increasing human energy 1 • The first problem: how to increase human mass• The burning of atmospheric nitrogen 2 • The second problem: how to reduce the force retarding the human mass• The art of telautomatics 3 • The third problem: how to increase the force accelerating the human mass• The harnessing of the Sun’s energy 4 • The source of human energy• The three ways of drawing energy from the Sun 5 • Great possibilities offered by iron for increasing human performance• Enormous waste in iron manufacture 6 • Economical production of iron by a new process 7• The coming of age of aluminium• The doom of the copper industry• The great civilizing potency of the new metal 8 • Efforts toward obtaining more energy from coal• Electric transmission• The gas engine• The cold-coal battery 9 • Energy from the medium• The windmill and the solar engine• Motive power from terrestrial heat• Electricity from natural sources 10 • A departure from known methods• The possibility of a ‘self-acting’ engine or machine• The ideal way of obtaining motive power 11 • First efforts to produce the self-acting engine• The mechanical oscillator• The work of Dewar and Linde• Liquid air 12 • Discovery of unexpected properties of the atmosphere• Strange experiments• Transmission of electrical energy through one wire without return• Transmission through the Earth without any wire 13 • Wireless telegraphy• The secret of tuning• Errors in the Hertzian investigations• A receiver of wonderful sensitivity 14• Development of a new principle• The electrical oscillator• Production of immense electrical movements• The Earth responds to man• Interplanetary communication now probable 15 • Transmission of electrical energy to any distance without wires now possible• The best means of increasing the force accelerating the human mass
History is written by the victors. But that is no comfort to those crossed out by the editor's pen. For years, science textbooks equated electricity and light with one man, Thomas Edison, while the genius whose pioneering electrical technologies truly power the modern world languished as a minor note in scientific history. Before the turn of the 20th century, electricity remained a mere scientific curiosity. Nikola Tesla, arguably more than anyone else, changed that. But Nikola's pioneering research in electricity represents only a portion of the scientific and technical innovations that elevated him to science godhood. Tesla not only expanded and revolutionized the work of his predecessors, he also leapfrogged ahead of his contemporaries to the next step. Nikola Tesla: My Life, My Research has three parts: Tesla's autobiography; Tesla's major research programs explained in simple words; and an eighty-page collection of rare photographs taken at several stages of Tesla's life; from his birth certificate, to the first photograph ever taken by phosphorescent light, to the last known photograph before Tesla's death, in 1943.
My Inventions is an autobiographical account of Nikola Tesla, genius inventor, written at the age of 63. The content of the book was largely drawn from a series of articles that Nikola Tesla had written for Electrical Experimenter magazine. Tesla's personal account is divided into six chapters covering different periods of his life: My Early Life, My First Efforts At Invention, My Later Endeavors, The Discovery of the Tesla Coil and Transformer, The Magnifying Transmitter, and The Art of Telautomatics. Tesla tells about his life, how his inventions came to him, and even how his inventions helped save his life. He tells his encounters with famous people, his brushes with death, which happened more than once, and also about some future ideas. This autobiography provides a deeply captivating sight into Tesla's genius mind and his strange world out of time.
"The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention." Visionary, pioneer, and eccentric genius, Nikola Tesla was the quintessential scientist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two of his creations, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, underpin the technology of the modern world. First published as six articles in the Electrical Experimenter magazine, My Inventions tells the story of Tesla's life, from his humble beginnings in Croatia to his migration to the United States, and describes his revolutionary feats of invention and pivotal breakthroughs in the world of engineering. This book takes you on an inspirational journey into one of the world's greatest and most unconventional minds.
