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  About the Author

  Journalist and author Nigel Cawthorne graduated in physics from University College, London, England. In the 1970s he worked on Science and Mechanics magazines in New York where Nikola Tesla had worked decades before. He has worked on scientific titles such as The Universe Explained, Tomorrow’s Technology, The History of Aviation, The History of Technology and The History of Ordnance, and periodicals including Electronics Today, Space Frontiers, Quest and Nature. He has also written many biographies. He lives in Bloomsbury, London, England.

  TESLA

  THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN ELECTRIC MESSIAH

  Nigel Cawthorne

  © 2014 Oxford Publishing Ventures Ltd

  This 2014 edition published by Canary Press

  An imprint of Oxford Publishing Ventures Ltd

  Spring Hill House, Spring Hill Road

  Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RX, UK

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission, in writing, of the publisher.

  The views expressed in this book are those of the author but they are general views only, and readers are urged to consult a relevant and qualified specialist for individual advice in particular situations. Nigel Cawthorne and Oxford Publishing Ventures Ltd hereby exclude any liability to the extent permitted by law, for any errors or omissions in this book and for any loss, damage and expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by a third party relying on any information contained in this book.

  Although every effort has been made to trace and contact people mentioned in the text for their approval in time for publication, this has not been possible in all cases. If notified, we will be pleased to rectify any alleged errors or omissions.

  ISBN 978-1-908698-52-0

  Contents

  Introduction

  Part One. Stranger from a Strange Land

  1. Birth of a Visionary

  2. Electric Brainwaves

  3. Meeting Thomas Edison

  4. The Westinghouse Corporation

  Part Two. Unlimited Powers

  5. Father of the Wireless

  6. Niagara Falls

  7. Tesla’s Extreme Science

  8. In Colorado Springs

  Part Three. Impossible Ideas

  9. Taking On Marconi

  10. Fresh Dreams of Flying

  11. The Nobel Prize

  12. Destroying the Dream

  Part Four. Descent and Re-assessment

  13. Talking to Pigeons

  14. A New Source of Energy

  15. The Final Days

  16. Posthumous Recognition

  Appendixes

  17. Electrifying Science Facts

  18. Tesla’s Friends and Contemporaries

  19. Tesla’s Inventions

  Further Reading

  Introduction

  If you mean the man who really invented, in other words, originated and discovered – not merely improved what had already been invented by others, then without a shade of doubt, Nikola Tesla is the world’s greatest inventor, not only at present, but in all history.

  Hugo Gernsback, Father of Modern Science Fiction, 1919

  Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) is the towering genius who made the modern world. All the electrical devices around us owe something to him. Not only did he invent many of the gadgets we depend on today, he had a vision of the future, much of which has become reality long after his death. As long ago as 1900, Tesla wrote of a world system of wireless transmission:

  The World-System has resulted from a combination of several original discoveries made by the inventor in the course of long continued research and experimentation. It makes possible not only the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission of any kind of signals, messages or characters, to all parts of the world, but also the inter-connection of the existing telegraph, telephone, and other signal stations without any change in their present equipment. By its means, for instance, a telephone subscriber here may call up and talk to any other subscriber on the globe.

  This is surely the mobile phone network we have over a century later. And in his autobiography, My Inventions, published in 1919, he envisaged that in nine months, without undue expense, he could deliver:

  • The interconnection of existing telegraph exchanges or offices all over the world;

  • The establishment of a secret and non-interferable government telegraph service;

  • The interconnection of all present telephone exchanges or offices around the globe;

  • The universal distribution of general news by telegraph or telephone, in conjunction with the press;

  • The establishment of such a ‘World System’ of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use;

  • The interconnection and operation of all stock tickers of the world;

  • The establishment of a world system of musical distribution, etc.;

  • The universal registration of time by cheap clocks indicating the hour with astronomical precision and requiring no attention whatever;

  • The world transmission of typed or handwritten characters, letters, checks, etc.;

  • The establishment of a universal marine service enabling the navigators of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine the exact location, hour and speed; to prevent collisions and disasters, etc.;

  • The inauguration of a system of world printing on land and sea;

>   • The world reproduction of photographic pictures and all kinds of drawings or records …

  Here we have the internet, GPS and Satnav. But Tesla was not just a visionary who delivered theory. He was a practical man who pioneered alternating current that made it possible to transmit electricity over long distances, allowing electrical appliances to be powered by remote power stations, rather than have a power station on every street corner as the earlier direct current system envisaged.

  He is now acknowledged to have beaten Guglielmo Marconi to the invention of the radio. Indeed, he spoke of his world system of wireless transmission the year before Marconi transmitted the first radio signal across the Atlantic. His Tesla Coil, invented in 1891, is widely used in radio and television sets, and other electronic equipment. He developed electric motors, generators, X-rays, fluorescent tubes, remote control and radar. However, many of his inventions are unacknowledged because he was so busy developing new ideas to bother patenting them.

  Although he was never awarded a Nobel Prize, three Nobel laureates lauded him as ‘one of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times’. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine and the unit of magnetic induction, a minor planet, a crater on the moon, an award and an airport are named after him. He was also played by David Bowie in the 2006 movie The Prestige.

  Otherwise, with his talk of death rays and communication from other planets, his image endures as that of the mad scientist. But he was far from mad. He was one of the outstanding figures of the 20th century, arguably more influential than Einstein, Stravinsky or Picasso, and 70 years after his death, he deserves to be better known.

  PART ONE: STRANGER FROM A STRANGE LAND

  Chapter 1 – Birth of a Visionary

  In my boyhood I suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong flashes of light, which marred the sight of real objects and interfered with my thought and action. They were pictures of things and scenes which I had really seen, never of those I imagined. 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…

  Nikola Tesla

  Legend has it that Nikola Tesla – the pioneer who brought electric light to nearly every home on the planet – was born in a dazzling electrical storm. Sadly, the meteorological records of the Balkans in the 19th century are not readily to hand. But it would have been a fitting debut for the man who made his own artificial lightning with sparks up to 1000 ft (300 m) long and thunder that could be heard 15 miles (24 km) away. In 1894, before a large gathering of people in Philadelphia, Tesla ran 250,000 volts through his body to demonstrate the safety of alternating current. An eyewitness to his experiments said that there was ‘light flaming at every pore of his skin, from the tips of his fingers and from the end of every hair on his head’.

  On the night of his birth, hearing the thunder, according to family lore, the fearful midwife said: ‘He’ll be a child of the storm.’ His mother responded: ‘No, of light.’

  Born in the dark of the small Croatian village of Smiljan at midnight on 10 July 1856, Tesla was ethnically a Serb. His family had left Serbia, then under the Ottoman empire, for Catholic Croatia when it became part of the burgeoning Austrian Empire in the 1700s. Both his grandfathers had fought in Napoleon’s Illyrian Army that aimed to kick out the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans, and unite the Balkans.

  Tesla’s father, Milutin, was an Orthodox priest and wanted Nikola to follow in his footsteps. Milutin was a poet and political activist who wrote of a united Yugoslavia, which did not come about until 1929. His mother Djouka never learned to read, but could memorize epic Serbian poems and long passages of the Bible. Tesla attributed his phenomenal memory to her.

  Electric Pet Theory

  It was the Tesla family’s cat, Macak, that introduced the 3-year-old Tesla to electricity. ‘As I stroked Macak’s back, I saw a miracle that made me speechless with amazement,’ he recalled. ‘Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the house.’ The young Tesla asked his father what had caused the sparks. Milutin replied: ‘Electricity, the same thing you see through the trees in a storm.’ It led Nikola to think that nature was a cat and God was stroking it.

  That night, as it grew dark, Nikola noticed that the cat was surrounded by a halo from the static electricity in its fur. In 1939, looking back on the experience, Tesla said: ‘I cannot exaggerate the effect of this marvellous night on my childish imagination. Day after day I have asked myself “what is electricity?” and have found no answer. 80 years have gone by since that time and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it.’

  Mother of Invention

  Tesla inherited his flair for inventing from his mother who, he said, ‘descended from one of the oldest families in the country and a line of inventors. Both her father and grandfather originated numerous implements for household, agricultural and other uses.’ But she stood out even among this remarkable family. He said:

  My mother was 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 multi-fold 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 fibres herself.

  He also inherited his immense appetite for work from her. ‘She worked indefatigably, from break of day till late at night,’ he said, ‘and most of the wearing apparel and furnishings of the home was the product of her hands. When she was past sixty, her fingers were still nimble enough to tie three knots in an eyelash.’ While famous for her embroidery, she also devised a mechanical eggbeater.

  Infamous Frog Catcher

  In his autobiography My Inventions, Tesla recalled his first invention. One of his playmates had a fishing rod and set out with friends to catch frogs. But Tesla was left out because he had had a quarrel with the boy. So he got hold of a piece of soft iron wire, hammered the end into a point between two stones, bent it into shape and attached it to a strong string. Then he cut a branch to make a rod and, armed with some bait, went to the brook.

  However, he found that, while the frogs would not take his bait, they would bite on the bare hook. He kept this secret from the other boys who caught nothing, only telling the secret at Christmas, in the generous spirit of the season.

  Next, he made an early attempt ‘to harness the energies of nature to the service of man,’ he said. He attached a rotor to a spindle with a disc on the other end in an attempt to make a primitive helicopter. To power the device, he attached four June bugs.

  ‘These creatures were remarkably efficient,’ he said, ‘for once they were started, they had no sense to stop and continued whirling for hours and hours, and the hotter it was, the harder they worked.’ But then another boy came along and ate the June bugs alive. After that, Tesla was never able to touch another insect.

  He took clocks to pieces and discovered how difficult it was to put them back together again. He also made himself a wooden sword and, imagining himself a great Serbian warrior, he slashed at cornstalks, ruining the crop and earning himself a spanking from his mother.

  Tragic Death of Dane

  Tesla possessed a powerful imagination, at that time, filled with superstition and religious images. They were almost tangible and often accompanied by flashes of light that obscured the real world. He did not think this peculiar as his elder brother Dane saw the same things.

  The young Nikola was overshadowed by Dane who, he said, was ‘gifted to an extraordinary degree’. But, when Nikola was 5, Dane was thrown by the family’s Arabian horse and died of his injuries.

  ‘I witnessed the tragic scene and, although so many years have elapsed since
,’ he wrote in 1919, ‘my visual impression of it has lost none of its force.’

  However, there was another version of this story. In it Dane was said to have died after falling down the cellar stairs. He suffered a head injury and in his delirium accused Nikola of pushing him. Nearly 70 years later he still recalled the night of Dane’s death:

  It was a dismal night with rain falling in torrents. My brother, … an intellectual giant, had died. My mother came to my room, took me in her arms and whispered almost inaudibly: ‘Come and kiss Daniel.’ I pressed my mouth against the ice-cold lips of my brother knowing only that something dreadful had happened. My mother put me again to bed and lingering a little said with tears streaming: ‘God gave me one at midnight and at midnight he took away the other one.’

  Following Dane’s death, his parents recalled his achievements, making Nikola’s seem dull by comparison. This undermined his confidence and he ran away, seeking refuge in an inaccessible mountain chapel that was only visited once a year, remaining there ‘entombed for a night’.

  The tragedy of Dane’s death never left him. For the rest of his life he would have nightmares about it. And after Dane’s death, Tesla’s waking fantasies became more real and he began to have out-of-body experiences.

  Childhood Traumas

  There were other traumatic events in Tesla’s childhood. After having a bath on a summer’s day, his mother put him outside naked to dry in the sun where he was attacked by a goose that seized him by the navel with its beak and almost pulled it inside out. He once fell headlong into a huge vat of boiling milk, risked drowning swimming under a raft and found himself almost swept over a waterfall created by a nearby dam. As well as being lost, frozen and entombed, he claimed to have had ‘hairbreadth escapes from mad dogs, hogs, and other wild animals’.