Nikola Tesla chapter outline is now in the publisher’s hands!

Nikola TeslaMy book chapter outline is contractually due May 1st and so I’m diligently adding the finishing touches so I can send it to the editor.  Meanwhile, the contract is finally finished and the first installment of the advance should arrive within 30 days. (Yay!)

Here’s a preview:

Chapter 1:           A Scientific Rock Star is Born

Chapter 2:           Coming of Age in Europe

Chapter 3:           The Odd Mr. Tesla

Chapter 4:           Of Edison and Westinghouse

Chapter 5:           A Man Always at War

Chapter 6:           Wireless and Wardenclyffe

Chapter 7:           Taking on Einstein

Chapter 8:           Beyond the Grave – Conspiracies and Pop Culture

Chapter 9:           A Lasting Legacy

It’s in!!  I sent the Chapter Outline in to my editor at Sterling Press tonight.  The signed contract gets put into snail mail tomorrow (yeah, snail mail, go figure).

Now back to the writing…

Nikola Tesla – A Life Lived and Died

Nikola TeslaAs the Nikola Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity book slowly springs to life (and sometimes to a life of its own), it became necessary to put together a rolling timeline of major events from birth to death.  Tesla’s life, of course, is interwoven with other key players in the development of alternating current, radio, wireless transmission, remote control guided weapons, and a few other exciting inventions to be named later.  As the timeline develops I’ll add some of the peculiar oddities that Tesla engaged in, as well as non-inventor folks like Mark Twain and Robert Underwood Johnson, but for now the following hints at some of the key scientific events.

1856    Born

1861    Brother killed

1862    Family moves to Gospic

1870s   Cholera

1875    Enters Graz for electrical engineering

1878    Leaves Graz w/o degree; breaks off relations with family

1881    Employed as assistant engineer in Marburg for 1 year; has nervous breakdown

1880    Attends University in Prague for summer term; father dies so leaves University

1880-1881   Moves to Budapest to work for Puskas in a telegraph company

1882    Moves to Paris to work for Continental Edison with Batchelor; conceived of induction motor and rotating magnetic fields patents

1884    Arrives in US w/letter of introduction from Batchelor to Edison

1885    Quits Edison feeling like cheated by him

1885    Digs ditches; works on polyphase system design; gets first patent

1886    Forms Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing company

1887    Constructed initial AC induction motor; began investigating what would later be called x-rays

1888    Demonstrates to IEEE; develops principles for Tesla coil; begins work with G. Westinghouse

1891    Early demonstration of wireless energy transmission

1891    Becomes naturalized American citizen

1891    Invents Tesla coil

1893    First wireless transmission; Columbian Exhibition (Chicago)

1895    Lab burns down

1896    Electrical generation from Niagara Falls using his AC system

1898    Moves into Waldorf-Astoria hotel

1899    Moves to Colorado Springs

1900    Returns to NYC

1901    Signs contract with J.P. Morgan; construction on Wardenclyffe begins

1906    Invents bladeless turbine

1917    Wardenclyffe demolished; awarded Edison Medal

1931    On cover of Time magazine for seventy-fifth birthday

1943    Dies on January 8 in Hotel New Yorker; government seizes estate

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Need some inspiration? This inspired me…

A was looking at random videos on YouTube and came across this one.  It feeds my desire to travel to all those places I haven’t traveled yet – though I probably will take more than 10 days to do it.  As the video says – Make It Count!

It’s time to go…

A Whale of a Tale – Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

In one of my past lives I was a marine biologist.  Yep, Jacques Cousteau was my idol. I loved the beach not so much for the sand but for the psammon (pronounced like the fish, but really the microscopic flora and fauna of the interstitial spaces between sand grains of sea-shore and lake-shore areas).  Okay, too technical, I get it.

In any case, I did a lot of scrounging on the rocky shores of New England, snorkeling in the pristine clear waters of Bermuda, and scuba diving in the murky muck of the Jersey coast (long story).  I even worked at the National Marine Fisheries Laboratories on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Sandy Hook, New Jersey.  I studied jellyfish in the first and fish behavior in the second. The only problem with marine biology as a career was that there was basically one high-paying job in the business – and Jacques had it.  So, alas, despite my all too brief discussion with Jean-Michel Cousteau about growing algae in Iowa (another long story), my marine biology days are behind me.  At least professionally (yet another long story).

I did recently make my way back to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where I strolled past the Fishmonger Cafe and The Captain Kidd, passed along the moored boats, and said hello to a new old friend – the whale in front of the NMFS aquarium (more on aquariums later).  So here are a couple of photos reminiscent of days long gone but never forgotten.

A Whale of a Tale

Something about the reflection in this photo brings back fond memories.

Nikola Tesla is Born, Danilo Tesla is Killed – Who is Nikola Tesla?

As my book on Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity slowly took shape, the question was begged – Who is Nikola Tesla? Of course, you’ll have to buy the book to find out all the interesting history of the man, but here’s a teaser to get you started. Nikola begins his life, and his brother loses his life.

Born in the small village of Smiljan in what was then the Austrian Empire but now is part of present day Croatia, Tesla was born “precisely at midnight” as July 9th rolled into July 10th in 1856. This led to some uncertainty as to what date his birthday should be celebrated, but in practice his birthdays rarely were celebrated much at all, at least until his later years when he was world famous.  Then his birthdays became celebrated affairs complete with press coverage. But that was much later.  For now the young Nikola lived the rather mundane life of the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest.

The fourth of five children, Nikola became the only male heir after the rather mysterious death of his older brother, Danilo. As Tesla later tells it, Danilo met his end at the hands, or rather the hoofs, of the family horse. The horse itself had actually been a favorite of the Tesla family as it had supposedly “saved my father’s life under remarkable circumstances.” A “magnificent” Arabian breed, Telsa relates the story:

“My father had been called one winter night to perform an urgent duty and while crossing the mountains, infested by wolves, the horse became frightened and ran away, throwing him violently to the ground. It arrived home bleeding and exhausted, but after the alarm was sounded immediately dashed off again, returning to the spot, and before the searching party were far on the way they were met by my father, who had recovered consciousness and remounted, not realizing he had been lying in the snow for several hours.”

And so his father was saved by the horse. Brother Danilo was not so lucky. Again according to Tesla, “this horse was responsible for my brother’s injuries from which he died.” Worse yet, young Nikola “witnessed the tragic scene” and the “visual impression of it has lost none of its force” over the 50+ years that had elapsed.

Others suggest that Nikola may not have been such an innocent bystander.

[More about Nikola Tesla]

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.