Tesla

April 8, 2013
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.

May 1, 2013
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.

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May 15, 2013

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

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