W. Bernard Carlson - Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age

TESLA

Copyright 2013 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

press.princeton.edu

Jacket and frontispiece photograph: Nikola Tesla, c.1894. Bain News Service. USA Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-04851 (digital file from original neg.): LC-B2- 1026-9 [P&P]. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carlson, W. Bernard.

Tesla : inventor of the electrical age / W. Bernard Carlson. pages cm

Summary: Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the twentieth 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 Americas 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 book, 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 Teslas 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 Teslas visionary approach to invention and the business strategies behind his most important technological breakthroughsProvided by publisher.

Summary: This is a biography of one of the major 20th-century scientists, Nikola Tesla. It is interdisciplinary, containing accounts of U.S. manufacturing in the early 1900s and other contemporary cultural materials Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-05776-7 (hardback : acid-free paper)

1. Tesla, Nikola, 18561943. 2. Electrical engineersUnited States--Biography. 3. InventorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

TK140.T4C37 2013 621.3092dc23

[B] 2012049608

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

This book has been composed in Baskerville 10 Pro and Outage Cut

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Jane, who has believed from the very beginning

For Tom Hughes, to whom the debt can never be repaid

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

TESLA

There is something within me that might be illusion as
it is often [the] case with young delighted people, but
if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it
would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity.

NIKOLA TESLA, 1892

INTRODUCTION

DINNER AT DELMONICOS

It was a hot summer night in New York in 1894, and the reporter had decided that it was time to meet the Wizard.

The reporter, Arthur Brisbane, was an up-and-coming newspaperman from Joseph Pulitzers New York World . He had covered the mystery of Jack the Ripper in London, the Homestead Strike in Pittsburgh, and the first execution by electrocution at Sing Sing. Brisbane had an eye for detail and could tell a story that would intrigue a hundred thousand readers. He would go on to edit the New York Journal for William Randolph Hearst, help start the Spanish-American War, and define tabloid journalism.