Tesla in front of his high-voltage coil transformer, 1896
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a magnificently bizarre genius. He was strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed; he was germophobic and never shook hands. In his later years, he only ate white food and conversed with pigeons in New York’s Bryant Park. Tesla, a Serbian immigrant, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp, and the remote control. But his strange persona kept getting in his way.
Drawing on his new book, Tesla: Inventor of the Modern (W.W. Norton), Richard Munson shines a light on the man behind the legend and how his unique way of doing things meant some of his most advanced ideas would go unrecognized for decades. Tesla felt inventing required the linking of science and the humanities. Unlike his better- known rival, Thomas Edison, he was not motivated by profit and preferred working in isolation.
While many contemporaries–including Edison and J.P. Morgan–believed electricity would remain a luxury item, Tesla wanted to bring it to the masses, which meant perfecting a way to distribute it. His big breakthrough was in alternating current, the basis of the electric grid and long-distance electrical transmission. This pitted him against Edison’s direct-current empire and bitter patent battles ensued. His vision was successfully realized on a grand scale when his alternating-current technology was used to transmit electric power first to Buffalo and then to New York City. But so many of his ideas remained in the dark for years. Tesla died nearly penniless, but he left the world a far richer place.
Munson is director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s clean energy efforts for the Midwest and an activist for clean energy and industrial-energy efficiency,
Tesla: Inventor of the Modern (W.W. Norton), is available for sale and signing.
