Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah Read Free Page A

also thought up a scheme to speed up worldwide travel. A stationary ring would be erected high above the equator, with the world turning underneath it. People would travel up onto the ring, then wait for their destination to appear below. He conceded that it would be impossible to build such a ring, but these thought experiments prepared his mind for later work. He said:
    I observed to my delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient.
    As good as his word, Tesla’s father secured a scholarship for him from the Grenzlandsverwaltungsbehoerde – the Military Frontier Administration Authority – paying 420 gulden a year for him to attend the Joanneum Polytechnic in Graz, Austria. When he has finished, he would then have to serve 8 years in the Military Authority. Tesla left for college with a bag covered with the embroidered designs his mother was famous for. He treasured that bag for the rest of his life.

Chapter 2 – Electric Brainwaves
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    It has cost me years of thought to arrive at certain results, by many believed to be unattainable, for which there are now numerous claimants, and the number of these is rapidly increasing …
    Nikola Tesla
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    Arriving at the Polytechnic in 1875, Tesla did not study engineering initially. Perhaps in deference to his father, he studied physics and mathematics with the aim of becoming a professor like his Uncle Josif. The Polytechnic had recently bought a Gramme dynamo which physics professor Jacob Pöschl used to teach his students about electric currents. During his lectures, he connected the dynamo to a battery, so it would work as a motor.
    While Professor Pöschl was making demonstrations, running the machine as a motor, the brushes gave trouble, sparking badly, and I observed that it might be possible to operate a motor without these appliances. But he declared that it could not be done and did me the honour of delivering a lecture on the subject, at the conclusion he remarked, ‘Mr Tesla may accomplish great things, but he certainly will never do this. It would be equivalent to converting a steadily pulling force, like that of gravity into a rotary effort. It is a perpetual-motion scheme, an impossible idea.’ But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibres that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other wilful effort of the brain, is futile.
    Tesla would go on to make a motor that did without troublesome brushes. It was his first great invention.
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    Experimenting with Thought
    While somewhat intimidated by his professor’s authority, Tesla was determined to prove that he was right and ‘undertook the task with all the fire and boundless confidence of youth’. To take up the challenge of building a spark-free motor, Tesla switched to the engineering course. However, electrical engineering was in its infancy and the course in Graz concentrated on civil engineering. Consequently, Tesla returned to his thought experiments:
    I started by first picturing in my mind a direct-current machine, running it and following the changing flow of the currents in the armature. Then I would imagine an alternator and investigate the progresses taking place in a similar manner. Next I would visualize systems comprising motors and generators and operate them in various ways. The images I saw were to me perfectly real and tangible.
    Tesla was a diligent student – for the first year. He worked from 3 am until 11 pm, 7 days a week, taking no holidays. He passed his exams way ahead of his fellow students. But when he went home with his exemplary