Robert I. Sutherland-Cohen - Tesla For Beginners

For Beginners LLC

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www.forbeginnersbooks.com

Copyright 2016 Robert I. Sutherland-Cohen
Illustrations Copyright 2016 Owen Brozman

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

A For Beginners Documentary Comic Book
Copyright 2016

Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN # 978-1-939994-48-6 Trade

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Beginners and Beginners Documentary Comic Books are published by For Beginners LLC.

First Edition

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To Patricia The True Light of My Life

by Jane Alcorn

CELEBRATED INVENTOR, LAUDED VISIONARY, creative genius, and desired guest at social functions. Lonely man, forgotten person, rejected fringe scientist, ridiculed idealist, crazy bird-lover. Rediscovered scientist, inspiration to many, honored builder of the future, fascinating character. All of these labels apply to the same person at different times.

Nikola Tesla, recognized and honored for achievements early in his career, forgotten and ignored toward the end of his life, and noticed again in recent years, has become a hero to fans all over the world. Rediscovering the contributions to society made by this formerly unsung genius, people are now becoming aware of how his work underpins so much of the technology we take for granted today.

Tesla's work and ideas continue to inspire. As president of Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffethe site of his last laboratory on Long Island, New YorkI have learned first-hand of the unique appeal of this Serbian-born innovator and eccentric. When we first set out to save Wardenclyffe, it was just to save a piece of history and start a small museum where children could learn about science. But the more we learned about the man whose vision brought us forward with his technological breakthroughs, the more interested we became in Tesla himself. To our delighted surprise, the rest of the world agreed that Tesla was important, too. Contributions came from across the globe. His name and renewed fame brought together over 33,000 people from 108 countries around the world who contributed to saving his cherished final worksite.

Tesla sought to make life better for everyone. His work was dedicated to answering the questions he had, and to building the technology we would need for the future. Concerned about our finite resources, about efficient use of energy, and about improved communications between people, he thought about and developed devices, technology, and systems to improve our lives.

From the alternating current system of electrical distribution upon which all of society depends, to alternators for cars, flow meters for aquatic vessels, robotics, remote control, radio, and so many other inventions and concepts, Tesla has led the way in technology. Over a hundred years ago he envisioned a hand-held device that could connect people all over the globe with pictures, voice, music, and information. Today we hold in our hands a smart phone that embodies that very idea. Free energy from the earth and wireless distribution of energyother goals of hisare still to be realized, but scientists have begun to work on those possibilities.

Tesla is also a character in current television and film productions. From network channels to public television to cable stations, many programs have been devoted to Tesla's life and work. Feature films have been and continue to be written, developed, and made about him, or including him. Others are in the planning stages.

With a car company bearing his name, a science center being created in his former laboratory, new investigations being made into his science, and films being made about his life, Tesla is again the fascinating figure he once was.

A true futurist, Tesla realized that people wouldn't necessarily understand him in his own time. But it was for the future, now being realized, that he worked. In his own words,

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

With all the new interest in Nikola Tesla and his work, the demand for information is growing. There have been several scholarly works published in recent years that reflect this interest, but they tend to be aimed at those who want in-depth, heavily-footnoted, detailed information. This volume is written with students and general readers in mind. Tesla For Beginners provides an introduction to the man and his accomplishments. In this work of graphic nonfiction, students of any age can find solid information and background about a genius who gave so much to the world.

Jane Alcorn is President of the Tesla Science Center at
Wardenclyffe, Shoreham, NY (www.teslasciencecenter.org)

STOP. BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER, take a few moments and note all the devices that are powered by electricity within 10 feet of your body's radius. You will be astonished by the number. Imagine how this number grows exponentially as you broaden the circle beyond the room, throughout the building, around the block, and out across the world. It is hard to imagine that one man was responsible for inventing the process, the machinery, and the distribution network that delivers alternating current (AC) to power all these devices.

Oh, by the way, are you reading this book under fluorescent lighting? Or perhaps you are listening to a radio at the same time. Maybe a television is on. And is that a cell phone ringing in your pocket? These are just some of the inventions or devices that employ ideas or circuitry invented by this same man, who filed nearly 300 patents in his lifetime. Many of these patents resulted in functioning inventions. Others were little more than wide-eyed dreamsor still await possible development.

The man behind alternating current and wireless technologies traveled from Serbia by steamship to arrive in the United States with only four cents in his pocket. It was in the early 1880s, at the tail end of the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution, that America beckoned him.

Into this age of wild, individual invention strode an idealist with a head full of potential improvements that would radicalize the distribution of electrical current, boost the well-being of society, and contribute to world peace. He would tangle with some of the most brilliant minds in America's history, including Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, J.P. Morgan, and Stanford White. His social circle was legion, among them Mark Twain, Robert Underwood Johnson and his wife Katharine, poets, musicians, and writers. Such notables flocked around him in hopes of profiting one way or another from his plans for global wireless communication systems.