Nikola Tesla lived out the final ten years of his life in the New Yorker Hotel. Each year the Tesla Science Foundation and the New Yorker Hotel host a Tesla Commemorative Conference. The 2014 event will be held on Saturday, January 11th and includes a discussion on building a Tesla curriculum for schools, along with a wide range of Tesla-inspired technical presentations. The goal is to help bring the world of Nikola Tesla to a wider audience.
That is the goal of my book. One of the most gratifying responses to Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity has been the number of people who say they believe the book would be a wonderful addition to the curricula of schools ranging from middle school, high school, and even undergraduate college. Many people have told me that they are buying an extra copy of the book specifically to donate it to their local school or public library.
The need for such a book has been obvious. Traditionally the Tesla book market has been split between three categories – highly technical reprints of Tesla’s papers and patents, long scholarly studies of Tesla’s life, and books aimed at children or very young teenagers.
Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity has successfully appealed to a broader middle audience. The book includes many photographs, graphic arts, and highlighted quotes and stories, all of which bring Nikola Tesla to a general public that may have very little knowledge of the great inventor. The writing style is intentionally clear and fluid so that readers young and old can gain insights into both the technical achievements and personal stories that make Tesla such an interesting man as well as a critically important contributor to modern science. People that know a lot about Tesla and people who know very little, as well as everyone in between, have all found the book both entertaining and informative.
The January conference is a wonderful opportunity to further develop a curriculum that will spread the word about Nikola Tesla. Perhaps my book will become a part of that curriculum. The conference will delve into the best way to reach out to those who have yet to know and appreciate one of the most important, yet little known, inventors in our history.
The Tesla Conference is being held on January 11, 2014 at the famed New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, just steps away from Madison Square Garden and the Penn Station Amtrak stop. An agenda of the conference can be found on the Tesla MeetUp page.
My three part series on the 2013 Tesla Conference can be read at: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.
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