Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla—Biography of a Genius

Marc J. SeiferRobert H. March,

Citation: 50, 9, 65 (1997); doi: 10.1063/1.881937

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.881937
View Table of Contents: http://physicstoday.scitation.org/toc/pto/50/9
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 BOOKS
Tesla—a Flamboyant Visionary
and an Under-Appreciated Genius
less visionary who carried most of his the human race from the burden of
Wizard: The Life and inventions to the proof-of-concept stage manual toil! Feminists may note his
Times of Nikola and a patent, but he showed little conviction that, once sheer muscle
interest in the final polishing into a power was thus depreciated, the natu-
Tesla—Biography marketable product. A promising fluo-
rescent light lay neglected while Tesla
ral superiority of women would assert
itself. He was convinced that power
of a Genius spent John J. Astor's investment in it transmitted at the extremely low fre-
on more speculative projects. quencies of global resonance would
• Marc J. Seifer
Birch Lane Press, Secaucus, N.J.,
1996. 542 pp. $32.00 he
Had Tesla teamed with a competent
partner, less impatient than he, he
traverse the planet unattenuated until
snatched from the sky by a suitable
receiver. He would pursue this un-
ISBN 1-55972-329-7 might have been fabulously productive.
But by predisposition, Tesla was a workable vision to the end of his long
Reviewed by Robert H. March loner. He remained a lifelong celibate, life, in 1943, emerging from isolation
Though the name Nikola Tesla is though hardly an ascetic. A stranger from time to time to regale the press
hardly obscure, his role in the early to frugality, Tesla spent money as fast with boasts of even more fantastic in-
development of the electrical industry as it came in (or faster) on high living: ventions such as "death rays."
is not widely appreciated. Nonethe- a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, dinners Tesla was born in 1856 to a Serbian
less, there exists a small but ferociously at Delmonico's, suits from the finest family living in Croatia and was edu-
loyal Tesla "cult" that sees him as a tailors. He enjoyed the company and cated at the Polytechnic in Graz, Aus-
neglected genius whose scientific vi- the respect of New York's financial and tria. His understanding of the science
sion was centuries ahead of its time cultural elites. underlying his work was superior to
and whose inventions were either pur- Tesla's decline began in 1901, when that of Edison or even Marconi, but
loined or suppressed by jealous rivals he induced J. P. Morgan to invest in a clearly inferior to that of Charles Stein-
and greedy tycoons. wireless transmitter designed to reach metz or of fellow Serb immigrant Mi-
Tesla's most remarkable achieve- ships at sea and possibly span the chael Pupin. For example, Tesla be-
ment was to conceive the polyphase ac Atlantic. But stung by Guglielmo Mar- lieved that his transmitters generated
induction motor, as well as modern coni's transatlantic success, Tesla de- non-Hertzian longitudinal aether
power generation and the long-dis- cided that mere wireless telegraphy waves that moved faster than light.
tance transmission system that goes was beneath him. He would build a Though biographer Marc Seifer ac-
with it. This was back in the 1880s, transmitter with worldwide reach, cepts the notion that character flaws
when the electrical industry was con- with hints that it would be upgradable contributed to Tesla's downfall, he does
fined to dc lighting systems with a to a system that would provide cheap support much of the Tesla cult myth,
service reach of no more than a few wireless electric power to the nation taking some of Tesla's scientific mis-
hundred meters. and possibly the entire globe. The conceptions at face value. He attrib-
Thomas Edison recognized Tesla's initial stake quickly ran out, and Mor- utes to Tesla the invention of the laser,
talent and brought him to work in his gan refused to sign on to this more and he hints darkly that Morgan sup-
US laboratory in 1884, but they soon ambitious scheme. Since Tesla had pressed wireless power transmission
parted company over Edison's dogged impetuously assigned Morgan a major- to preserve the profits of his utility
commitment to dc. Tesla's moment of ity interest in the underlying patents, companies. If one discounts these se-
triumph came in 1894, when the Niagara it proved impossible to attract new rious demerits, this is a well-re-
Falls power plant opened service to Buf- investors, and the transmission tower searched (but not always well-written)
falo, New York, with a system based he had built on New York's Long Island biography that gives an interesting
I largely on his patents, which he had was ultimately scrapped to cover glimpse of the interactions of inven-
unwisely sold to the Westinghouse Corp. Tesla's unpaid hotel bills. tors, financiers and the public in Amer-
Fame followed swiftly. Tall, dark Indeed, through most of the devel- ica's Gilded Age.
and gaunt, with a regal carriage and opment of wireless, Tesla designed
a penetrating gaze, Tesla fully fit the far more powerful transmitters and
popular image of a genius. His flair selective receivers than did Marconi,
for showmanship gave rise to spectacu- but he lacked the latter's determina- Macmillan
lar public demonstrations, most of tion to build and demonstrate a mod-
them based on his celebrated induction est system step-by-step to the point Encyclopedia of Physics
coil. These deeply impressed the of becoming a commercial success. Edited by John S. Rigden
press, the public and a string of inves- Tesla rejected an offer of partnership • Simon & Schuster Macmillan,
tors, most of whom would know bitter by Lee DeForest, a combination that New York, 1996. 1881 pp.
disappointment. For Tesla was a rest- could well have dominated the devel- $400.00 he ISBN 0-02-897359-3
opment of radio. It is a brave venture to compile an
ROBERT MARCH is a professor of physics Tesla envisaged himself as nothing encyclopedia of physics from scratch;
and chairman of the integrated liberal less than a savior of mankind. Only John Rigden and his five coeditors—
studies program at the University of he could bring cheap electric power to Jim McGuire, Helen Quinn, David
Wisconsin—Madison. the remotest farm and hamlet, freeing Schramm, Roger Stuewer and Carl To-

1997 American Institute of FhysFcs, S-OCTM-TZZO-VTOT-ZW- ? SEPTEMBER 1997 PHYSICS TODAY 65

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