Jul 29, 2022
Nikola Tesla invented the radio, robots, and the remote control.
His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories, and
yet he has been often overlooked by history. In "Tesla: Inventor of
the Modern", Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of
this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind.
When Tesla’s first breakthrough―alternating current, the basis of
our electric grid―pitted him against Thomas Edison’s direct-current
empire, Tesla’s superior technology prevailed. Unfortunately, he
had little business sense and could not capitalize on this success.
His most advanced ideas went unrecognized for decades: forty years
in the case of the radio patent, longer still for his ideas on
laser beam technology. Although penniless during his later years,
he never stopped imagining. In the early 1900s, he designed plans
for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar
communications. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern
economy.
So who was this genius? Drawing on letters, technical notebooks,
and other primary sources, author Richard Munson pieces together
the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the
enigmatic inventor. Born during a lightning storm at midnight,
Tesla died alone in a New York City hotel. He was an acute
germaphobe who never shook hands and required nine napkins when he
sat down to dinner. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he
spoke eight languages and could recite entire books from memory.
Yet Tesla’s most famous inventions were not the product of
fastidiousness or linear thought, but of a mind fueled by both the
humanities and sciences: he conceived the induction motor while
walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust.
Tesla worked tirelessly to offer electric power to the world, to
introduce automatons that would reduce life’s drudgery, and to
develop machines that might one day abolish war. His story is a
reminder that technology can transcend the marketplace and that
profit is not the only motivation for invention.
Originally published in February of 2018.
Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.