Nikola
Tesla’s autobiography,
collected under the title My Inventions,
originally appeared as six articles in issues of Electrical Experimenter in 1919.
It is a surprisingly thin book, especially in light of the several biographies
that have been written about him, and the possibly greater volumes propounding
the mythology of an almost demi-god genius.
To be fair, Tesla was a very creative and productive inventor. His AC
motors, and the power systems that support them, enabled a new level of
industrial power and automation. In many ways it was the technological
foundation of the power grid we have today.
Tesla was ahead of his time and he realized it. He knew that the
success of AC motors was greatly aided by coming about at the right time. Even
so, it took many years from Tesla’s design to become a prototype and for that
to become a commercial product with an infrastructure to support its use. At the
time he wrote My Inventions, the
value and practicality of his later inventions were still hard for many to see.
One of these later inventions was the radio. Tesla didn’t use that term
“radio.” It’s probably fair to say that
he misunderstood the phenomena he was working with. Even so, he could produce
radio transmissions and put them to practical use. As a demonstration, he built
radio-controlled boats. It’s a stretch to say that Tesla envisioned smart
phones, but he foresaw the possibility of using radio to transmit many kinds of
data and signals, sometimes to devices “not bigger than a watch.”
“The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness thru all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways,” Nikola Tesla, My Inventions
These articles were written at the end of World War I.
Tesla reflected on the potentials of technology in peace and war. He imagined
that wireless communication could shrink the world, leading to the kind of
cultural exchange, common ground and commercial connections that would
reinforce peace. He also imagined a rocket that could be guided to its target
by radio control or internal mechanism; we could call it an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM).
Though visionary, he was not an infallible genius. He held to notions
of physics
that were not supported even by the science
of his time. He had some wild ideas about psychology,
biology and
other fields, though some of these were no more far-out and off the mark that
many that were popularly accepted by his contemporaries.
Tesla wrote very much from his own experience and perspective. Though
he speaks of his upbringing in eastern Europe, his education
and his career
in Europe and the United States,
he spends little time reflecting on the places, cultures and broader events he
experience. You’ll learn more about Tesla’s peculiar ailments than about the
life of youth in late-19th
Century Croatia.
Perhaps that wouldn’t have sold many issues of Electrical Experimenter.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Tesla, Nikola. My Inventions.
1919. New York:
Barnes
& Noble, 1995.
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