In the recent weeks I have been reading up on Nikola Tesla, including some biographies [1,2] that had been lying around on my shelf, and his short autobiography [3] which is also available online and which makes for interesting reading (including an explanation of how Edison guessed Tesla's weight accurately, and how Mark Twain burst into tears when Tesla told him he had recovered from a childhood illness by reading his stories).
I also was led back to Tesla by some ongoing readings in AI, which emphasized his role as a futurist, and therefore his current relevance. Here is my distillation from the readings:
Birth and background: Tesla was born in 1856 in Croatia. His father was a priest and influenced the young Nikola through his extensive personal library of books. His mother, who came from a long line of inventors, was a very creative person herself. His twelve-year old brother's death, from a horse-riding accident, when Nikola was five, was a major catastrophe in his life.
Work and invention: Tesla attended university in Graz but left without a degree. He found a job in Paris with a company that was basically Edison's European arm, and eventually ended up in New York, working as an assistant to the man himself.
He quit as it became clear that Edison was unwilling to budge from using DC (direct current) while Tesla was convinced that AC (alternating current) led to far greater power efficiency in electrical networks. History has proved Tesla abundantly right; his patents on AC motors were acquired and used very effectively by Westinghouse.
See here for his Egg of Columbus demo, which he first showed in 1893, and which illustrates the principle behind his AC motor. And here is a spectacular Tesla coil discharge. Among his many projects, he designed the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls, I have seen his statue there. This event (~1896) marked the beginning of the electrification of the United States.
Style: Tesla was an autodidact, spoke 6 languages, and was well read (including on the Vedas). He was an eccentric - buying a dollar necktie every week, avoiding shaking hands, acquiring a fever by looking at a peach. His autobiography suggests other OCD type behaviors. He was an ambivert - both an extrovert as well as an introvert, as the occasion demanded.
From early on he became capable of visualizing his inventions completely in his mind, including their flaws (which he would mentally fix). He only went to the workshop after he had done his best with the design, and then the device would come out exactly as he predicted. He used to contrast this with Edison's more hands-on method of invention, which consisted mostly of tinkering.
Death: Tesla passed away in the New Yorker hotel (room # 3327 - he liked numbers divisible by 3 - there is a plaque on the door now) in 1943. In his last days, he was supported by his nephew, who was the Yugoslavian ambassador to the United States.
After his death, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI appropriated his papers, as Tesla had often spoken of making weapons with electricity. John Trump (Donald's uncle), then professor of engineering at MIT, was the expert who looked through Tesla's documents and concluded that there was nothing useful there about weapons design.
Futurism: Part of Tesla's continuing appeal was his undaunted futurism. He pre-empted robotics, remote control, wireless communication, electric cars, smart bombs, and photovoltaics. He had a vision of free universal wireless power - maybe we are getting there slowly?
Legacy: Tesla ended up giving his name to a unit of magnetic fields, a car, and a rock band. He made it to the cover of Time magazine and was played in the film The Prestige by David Bowie. His legacy as a pacifist continues to inspire many.
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