Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age

by W. Bernard Carlson, Allan Robertson (Read by)

Overview

Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th 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 America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter 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 particle-beam 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 audiobook, 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 Tesla's 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 Tesla's visionary approach to invention and the business strategies behind his most important technological breakthroughs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491531440
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

W. Bernard Carlson is professor of science, technology, and society in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and professor of history at the University of Virginia. His books include Technology in World History and Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

CHAPTER ONE An Ideal Childhood (1856-1878) 12

CHAPTER TWO Dreaming of Motors (1878-1882) 34

CHAPTER THREE Learning by Doing (1882-1886) 60

CHAPTER FOUR Mastering Alternating Current (1886-1888) 76

CHAPTER FIVE Selling the Motor (1888-1889) 100

CHAPTER SIX Searching for a New Ideal (1889-1891) 117

CHAPTER SEVEN A Veritable Magician (1891) 129

CHAPTER EIGHT Taking the Show to Europe (1891-1892) 143

CHAPTER NINE Pushing Alternating Current in America (1892-1893) 158

CHAPTER TEN Wireless Lighting and the Oscillator (1893-1894) 176

CHAPTER ELEVEN Efforts at Promotion (1894-1895) 193

CHAPTER TWELVE Looking for Alternatives (1895-1898) 214

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Stationary Waves (1899-1900) 262

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Wardenclyffe (1900-1901) 302

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Dark Tower (1901-1905) 331

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Visionary to the End (1905-1943) 368

EPILOGUE 396

Note on Sources 415

Abbreviations and Sources 421

Notes 423

Acknowledgments 473

Index 477

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Carlson has written a serious, rigorous book grounded in the academic history of technology, but also a page-turner that any fan of Tesla will enjoy."—Robert MacDougall, Western University

"Nikola Tesla, like one of his oscillators, flickered between different states so quickly that they can easily blur. Carlson captures this extraordinary, contradictory life—inventor, futurist visionary, showman, and, at times, ranting narcissist. We get to see how Tesla scrambled like mad, built with ambition, and in his later efforts failed monumentally. Here is a book that guides us through this wild ride with empathy and without hagiography."—Peter Galison, Harvard University

"Combining archival research with the latest scholarship from the history of technology, Carlson has written the balanced, scholarly biography that Nikola Tesla has long deserved. This is the definitive study of his life and work."—David E. Nye, University of Southern Denmark

"Most biographies of Tesla lack technical background and are uncritical and adulatory in their approach. Carlson's perspective as a historian—particularly a historian of technology—is indispensable for understanding Tesla's place in the rapidly changing American society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His style is engaging and accessible, and the book will clearly be of value to the historical community."—Bernard S. Finn, curator emeritus, Smithsonian Institution

"Tesla is a tour de force of scholarship and analysis. This is the definitive work on Tesla that brings to light much new information about his life, his inventions, and the changing socioeconomic context in which he worked. Carlson has mined the primary sources to an unprecedented depth and breadth. The book is nothing less than extraordinary."—Michael Brian Schiffer, author of Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity before Edison

Editorial Reviews

The flamboyant Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), as famous as Thomas Edison during his heyday, is now remembered largely for his eccentricities and his eponymous science museum staple, the Tesla coil. Here, University of Virginia tech and history professor Carlson (Technology in World History) sheds light on the man and plenty of his inventions. A Serbian-born engineer, Tesla came to the U.S. in 1884 to work for Edison Machine Works, whose namesake was then doggedly pioneering direct-current (DC) generators and attacking the work of his rival and alternating-current (AC) champion, George Westinghouse. Nevertheless, Tesla’s prodigious talents resulted in a watershed invention for the other team and helped pave the way for AC to become today’s electrical standard. Fascinated with wireless power transmission, Tesla also invented key components of telegraphy, radio, and television while making headlines with spectacular public demonstrations. Sadly, investors gradually lost interest—Tesla lacked the business acumen of Edison. But he was quite the showman—he regaled reporters with claims of wild inventions, like a superpowerful “particle beam weapon” that could blast planes from the sky, and drew the curious attention of Mark Twain. More technical than previous biographies, Carlson’s electric portrait might turn off casual readers, but scholars will find it illuminating. 56 photos & 32 illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Soundly footnoted, yet eminently readable, it provides a balanced examination of the man and his work, focusing particularly on Tesla's distinctive style of invention."

Natural History

"Winner of the 2015 Sally Hacker Prize, Society for the History of Technology"

"Winner of the 2015 IEEE William and Joyce Middleton Electrical Engineering History Award, History Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers"

"One of Amazon.com’s 2013 Best Science Books"

"One of Booklist Online’s Top 10 Science & Health Books for 2013"

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013

One of The Guardian’s Best Popular Physical Science Books of 2014, chosen by GrrlScientist

Honorable Mention for the 2013 PROSE Award in Biography & Autobiography, Association of American Publishers

Longlisted for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books

From the Publisher

"Historian Carlson . . . has at last written a balanced and nuanced scholarly treatment of Tesla in the technical and social contexts of his time. . . . Carlson's easy-to-read style and almost flawless exposition of technical matters will make this book attractive for everyone from general readers to engineers and historians. It is well illustrated and indexed with extensive footnotes. This book is likely to become the standard scholarly biography of Tesla for decades to come."

Choice

"[Carlson's] extensive notes on his sources are invaluable for Tesla researchers, and his book sheds light on many misconceptions perpetuated in some popular Tesla biographies."

Nexus Magazine

"This major biography sheds new light on Tesla's visionary approach to invention and the business strategies behind his most important technological breakthroughs."

World Book Industry

"Soundly footnoted, yet eminently readable, it provides a balanced examination of the man and his work, focusing particularly on Tesla's distinctive style of invention."

Natural History

Run, don't walk, to buy this book for the Nikola Tesla cultist in your life. . . . [Carlson] is the first trained academic historian of technology to approach this topic, and he snaps the intense, romantic Serb back into his proper context.

Maclean's Magazine - Colby Cosh

Splendid.

Times Higher Education - Jon Turney

Carlson deftly weaves the many threads of Tesla's story.

Times - Nicola Davis

Carlson even has something to teach readers familiar with Seifer's dissection of Tesla's tortured psyche in Wizard (2001) and O'Neill's much earlier chronicle of Tesla's childhood and early career in Prodigal Genius (1944). Carlson provides not only a more detailed explanation of Tesla's science but also a more focused psychological account of Tesla's inventive process than do his predecessors. Carlson also surpasses his predecessors in showing how Tesla promoted his inventions by creating luminous illusions of progress, prosperity, and peace, illusions so strong that they finally unhinge their creator. An exceptional fusion of technical analysis of revolutionary devices and imaginative sympathy for a lacerated ego.

Booklist - Bryce Christensen

Superb. . . . Carlson brings to life Tesla's extravagant self-promotion, as well as his eccentricity and innate talents, revealing him as a celebrity-inventor of the 'second industrial revolution' to rival Thomas Alva Edison.

Nature - W. Patrick McCray

Born in 1856, in the town of Smiljan, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nikola Tesla rose to great intellectual prominence with an array of inventions that included fluorescent lighting, the Tesla coil, the alternating current induction motor, wireless communication, and the laser beam. Carlson (history, Sch. of Engineering & Applied Science, Univ. of Virginia; Technology in World History) presents a new interpretation of Tesla, not as the eccentric that he has long been portrayed, but as a "theoretical inventor" similar to Alexander Graham Bell, torn by an internal struggle "between ideal and illusion" and not always successful in transforming his theoretical genius into profit. In impressive scholarly detail, Carlson's biography examines not only Tesla's amazing inventions but also his motivations for invention and his incredible drive to see his ideas come to fruition. VERDICT This is a fascinating glimpse into the life of a monumental inventor whose impact on our contemporary world is all too unfamiliar to the general public. Carlson relates the science behind Tesla's inventions with a judicial balance that will engage both the novice and the academic alike. Highly recommended to serious biography buffs and to readers of scientific subjects.—Brian Odom, Birmingham, AL

Library Journal

A scholarly, critical, mostly illuminating study of the life and work of the great Serbian inventor. Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) is so central a figure in the annals of modern science, writes Carlson (Science, Technology and Engineering/Univ. of Virginia; Technology in World History, 2005, etc.), that he has come to be regarded as "second only to Leonardo da Vinci in terms of technological virtuosity" and is sometimes portrayed as the single-handed inventor of the modern age, thwarted by the envious likes of Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi. The truth is more complicated, and though Tesla's innovations figure in the everyday technology of the present day, he seems to have had more failures than successes, as well as a singular knack for having his thunder stolen by his competitors. Carlson examines Tesla's processes of invention, experimentation and confirmation, as well as how he brought (or failed to bring) his inventions to market. Though the author protests early on that he will work from documentary evidence and not speculation, he hazards a few smart guesses from time to time ("I suspect that this willingness to seek the ideal grew out of the religious beliefs he acquired from his father and uncles in the Serbian Orthodox Church"; "I don't think Tesla was at all worried as he had full confidence in his abilities as an inventor"). One, central if sometimes overlooked in other more celebratory studies, is the origin of Tesla's notions of a rotating magnetic field, which may or may not have come from the work of a British contemporary--or, alternately, from an insight garnered from a between-the-lines reading of Goethe. Carlson also offers insight into Tesla's urge to create disruptive technologies and to pursue "the grander and more difficult challenges." Carlson tends to academic dryness and to a fondness for the smallest of details. Though Tesla deserves such serious treatment, his book is likelier to appeal to specialists than general readers.

Kirkus Reviews