Month: March 2016

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Writing Bulgaria, Traveling Serbia, Mourning Brussels, Tesla, Edison and More

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It’s been a hugely busy month of writing, traveling, mourning, Tesla, and Edison. Here’s a quick catch up in case you missed anything.

Writer pyramidHot White Snow: My more “creative” writing, responses to writing prompts, some memoir-ish works, and articles “On Writing.” Featured recently:

IrelandThe Dake Page focuses on communicating science to the general populace, with a sometimes emphasis on climate change. Recent articles:

KotorScience Traveler: Here on my author website I focus on my non-fiction works (Tesla, Edison, Lincoln), plus tips and tales about traveling the world. Several recent posts:

This past month also so a draft cover for my Thomas Edison book due out in July, and I’ll share that with you all shortly. Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World is in the same style and format as my Tesla book. And while I continue with the sample chapters of my Abraham Lincoln book, another potential book offer arose. More on that later.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in July 2016.

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Science Traveling Bulgaria

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Several years ago, while I was still living and working in Brussels, I received a call in the middle of the night telling me that I would need to be in Bulgaria to defend a client’s business venture. Shortly I found myself in Sofia, the capital.

Bulgaria is squeezed in between Romania (where I’ve still never been) and Greece (where I have). Just to the west is Serbia (where I’ll be going this summer). Its language looks like a cross between Greek and Russian. To make matters worse all the street signs were in Bulgarian but the map given to me by the hotel showed the street names only in English. Despite this handicap I was able to find my way around the city, including witnessing the changing of the guard at the presidential palace and a variety of ancient churches. Dominating the skyline is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral:

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, Bulgaria

While grabbing a bite to eat at a street-side cafe I became acquainted with the local beggar boys (to whom a shake of the head means “yes”). While prevalent, it seems they are outnumbered by the approximately 6600 street dogs (to whom shaking of anything seems to be a trigger for gnashing and drooling anything that looks edible).

I was only one afternoon and night in Sofia. The next morning a driver picked me up for the two hour ride to Plovdiv, the “City of the Seven Hills,” where the international meeting I was attending would take place. For the next three days I alternated science lobbying work with nights out on the town (including some variant of belly dancer and the local hard liquor). Plovdiv also is the site of some ancient Roman ruins, not the least of which was an old amphitheater now used as a concert venue:

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

I’m happy to say that the meeting was successful for my client (though he would lose that success two years later after someone else represented him). I’m also happy I had the opportunity to visit such an interesting country, and to do so even before making the acquaintance of friends who hail from there.

Meanwhile, I’m busy planning for the next trips. More on that in future posts.

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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Of Nikola Tesla and Actors

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Yesterday I had a fascinating conversation with actor Bobby Campo about Nikola Tesla. It reminded me of the fascinating connections between actors and the electrical engineer that was the topic of my book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity.

Bobby CampoCampo currently plays Seth Branson in the Scream: The TV Series. He also appeared in movies such as Legally Blondes and Final Destination, not to mention roles in various popular TV programs like CSI, CSI:Miami, and Gray’s Anatomy.  We had a pleasant conversation about a wide range of Tesla-related topics. I has impressed by Campo’s technical knowledge; he’s actually done experiments and built a Tesla coil. I gave him some background about my book, suggested he also check out Bernie Carlson’s Tesla book, and hooked him up with the Tesla Science Foundation. I enjoyed our conversation immensely.

James Lee TaylorCampo was sent to me by another actor, James Lee Taylor (aka, Jammy). I first met James when I was asked to advise the Director, Writer, and Cast of the off-Broadway play, TESLA, in 2013. I reviewed the play here, and it went on to a huge hit, completely sold out every night of its run in New York. James Lee Taylor has gone on to star in several acting endeavors, most recently in a guest starring role as the love interest of Gabrielle Union (yes, THAT Gabrielle Union) in the hit BET TV show, Being Mary Jane. Taylor is also a highly sought after model; so much so that it seems every update he posts comes from a different continent.

David Bowie

The fascination with Tesla by actors doesn’t stop there. Pop icon and actor David Bowie played Nikola Tesla in The Prestige, a 2006 movie about magicians featuring other big stars who like Tesla: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis, and Michael Caine. Other actors fascinated by Tesla include prolific actor Jack Dimich, who not only co-starred with James Lee Taylor in the above mentioned TESLA play but plays Tesla in a new documentary in production. Another huge Tesla project is Tower to the People, directed by Joseph Sikorski, one of the biggest supporters of Nikola Telsa and the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. Sikorski is also the driving force behind another Tesla movie in production, Fragments From Olympus: The Vision of Nikola Tesla.

I’ve been privileged to have been associated with these people. The interest and dedication to keeping Nikola Tesla’s name alive has been a wonderful experience, one that I hope will continue for a long time.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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Feeling Brussels

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My feelings about the events of yesterday remind me that I’m coming up on the fifth year anniversary of my return to the states after my 3-year stay in Brussels. It hardly seems possible as I feel it was just yesterday I was admiring the biennial flower carpet in the Grand Place.

Flower carpet in Grand Place

Four months ago I scrambled for news that friends in Paris were safe after the November attacks. Today I repeated the now-too-frequent scurry for information, this time friends and former colleagues in Brussels. In both cases all were fine. My heart then turned to those whom I’ve never met but instantaneously became close to on these fateful days.

Brussels is a beautiful city. In some ways it’s typical of old European cities with its central plaza (the Grand Place), impressive cathedrals, and amazing architecture. In other ways it is supremely atypical. As both the capital of Belgium and the capital of the European Union, the city has the aura of Washington, DC with its international flavor and populace. Away from the old city sits the EU quarter, glass skyscraping office buildings replacing the ancient mix of Gothic, Baroque, and Louis XIV edifices. Like DC, the city features the embassies of virtually every foreign nation. Even Belgians are multinational, with three official languages reflecting its Dutch, French, and German heritages.

I have fond memories of the city, the people, and my former colleagues. I have the urge to see them again, and so will put a return trip on my busy travel calendar. For now, my feelings for the events of yesterday are best represented by one of Brussels’s most iconic landmarks, the Manneken Pis.

Manneken Pis

Until we meet again, mon cher.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln – No Other Marks or Brands Recollected

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Abraham Lincoln InstituteThis past weekend I attended a fascinating day at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, where the Abraham Lincoln Institute held its annual full-day symposium, “The Life and Legacy of Abraham Lincoln.” Little did I expect to hear Lincoln’s advertisement as a slave, with “no other marks or brands recollected.”

Taking place on the stage where John Wilkes Booth boldly declared Sic Semper Tyrannis after assassinating our 16th President, Ford’s Theatre was both a somber and appropriate venue for the symposium. This year the speakers were Sidney Blumenthal, Edna Greene Medford, Louis P. Masur, Stacy Pratt McDermott, and Thomas L. Carson. All were fantastic speakers who discoursed on various aspects of Lincoln’s (and Mary’s) life.

Among the gems of the day was mention by Sidney Blumenthal of a description Lincoln provided to journalist Jesse Fell in late 1859 when Lincoln was preparing to run for president. One portion of the bio says:

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and grey eyes—no other marks or brands recollected.

I’ve read this passage many times over the years and yet never made the connection Blumenthal raised, that is, that this is not unlike the kind of newspaper advertisement seen when slave owners were searching for fugitive slaves. It reads like a spec-sheet: height, weight, skin complexion, hair and eye color, and presence or absence of other identifying marks. All the information needed to hunt down human beings attempting to escape from two hundred and fifty years of bondage.

During the break I spoke with Blumenthal (as well as his main source for the passage, eminent historian Michael Burlingame). I thanked him for bringing to light something that seems obvious now that it has been said overtly. Lincoln was, in his own clever way, bringing the role of slavery into the race for the presidency, a race that would pit the new Republican party against a history of racism and pro-slavery sentiment. A race that would, ironically, result in the end of slavery as it existed.

No other marks or brands recollected. The phrase shivers under this cold beam of light.

More on the Symposium can be found here. And the C-SPAN video of Sidney Blumenthal can be seen here: Sidney Blumenthal.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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Book Review – Lincoln Inc.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America by Jackie Hogan

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Lincoln IncThis book is much more substantive than the colorful cover featuring a Lincoln bobblehead doll might suggest. It starts out light enough, with chapters cataloging various ways Abraham Lincoln is “sold” to the modern public. These include how Lincoln has been adopted by both current political parties, does brisk sales in memorabilia and museum visits (even if much on display is reproduction), and gets featured in a variety of sales pitches. But the book also delves into more scholarly questions such as how Lincoln is presented to the public. Hogan suggests this is mostly as a positive “boy scout” model who rose from meager beginnings to epitomize the American dream while his more negative attributes are ignored.

And she does seem to have some negative opinions. Perhaps because of her background in gender and race studies (she is a sociologist, not a Lincoln scholar), she at times appears to give undue weight to fringe opinions. For example, she laments that opinions on Lincoln’s “racial bigotry” and “suggestions of homosexuality” are largely ignored in biographies and museum displays. While she acknowledges that most public facilities have competing pressures for what they display, she disregards the main reason they are not highlighted; because scholarship tells us they are not supported by the facts.

This particular bias and some other more superficial understanding of Lincoln scholarship, however, should not dissuade people from reading the book. Each chapter ends with a section headed “An Outsider’s Perspective.” It is in these sections that Hogan most adeptly employs her sociologist perspective. Many of her insights, which Lincoln scholars may or may not always agree with, offer up substantive topics for debate that are highly worthwhile.

The book gives us a closer look not only at how we view Lincoln but in how those views reflect our desire to elevate him as an icon of the American Dream. He started low and ended high, as we all would like to believe can be achieved through hard work. This view can be inspiring, but as Hogan notes, can also set unreasonable standards not reflected by modern reality.

A short book (157 pages of text), it nonetheless has extensive endnotes (though most are to published biographies rather than primary literature). An interesting read.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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Visiting Nikola Tesla in Belgrade

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I’m going to visit Nikola Tesla in Belgrade, Serbia. Last month I mentioned that my originally planned trip to Machu Picchu had hit a snag and that an opportunity to see the Tesla Museum in Belgrade had popped up. After examining the options I decided on Serbia for this July. [A bigger and better trip to Machu Picchu with my friend from Argentina will be done in 2017]

This particular Serbia trip was too good to pass up. Organized by famed Eurocircle travel guru Sherry Kumar in conjunction with an international Tesla Conference , the trip will take us to three countries and a cocktail party with royalty.

HRH Prince Alexander and HRH Princess Katherine

Yup, royalty. After a day of touring around Belgrade we’ll change into formal attire for an evening reception at the Royal Palace with HRH Prince Alexander and HRH Princess Katherine of Serbia. We’ll also get a tour of the royal palace.

While in Belgrade we’ll also visit the Nikola Tesla Museum, whose director I met here in the U.S. some time ago. Since I didn’t have a chance to visit the Museum itself prior to publishing my book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, I’m eager for this chance. We’ll even have dinner in the Bohemian quarter.

Kotor

After Belgrade we’ll head to Montenegro, where we’ll have a chance to see the historic environs of Tivat and the island of Sveti Stefan on the Adriatic Sea, plus travel to see Kotor (photo above), Cetinje, and Lovcen. If that wasn’t enough, we’ll check out the Blue Cave.

The last few days will be spent in famed Dubrovnik, Croatia.

I’ll have a lot more information before and after the trip, which we’ll do in July, but to give you a feel for what we’ll see, check out these cool videos.

It should be an exciting trip. We still have to work out flights into Belgrade and out of Dubrovnik, but the deposit is down and we’re committed to visiting a part of the world I haven’t seen yet.

So who is coming with me?

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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[Photo of HRH Prince Alexander and HRH Princess Katherine by By Holger Motzkau 2010, Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0)]

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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Thomas Edison (and yes, Tesla)

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Thomas EdisonEveryone knows everything there is to know about Thomas Edison, right? Not so fast. While writing my book on Nikola Tesla I found tons of unknowns about him (see 5 Things You Didn’t Know about Nikola Tesla), and now that I’ve written a book on Thomas Edison I’ve discovered so much about him that likely you didn’t know. Here’s a sample:

  1. Edison was mostly deaf: Edison started losing his hearing at an early age, probably around the time he was working on the railroads as a news butch. The exact cause is a mystery (even Edison had two different versions), but he says it allowed him to ignore the chitchat of people around him and focus on his work.
  2. He had two wives: And six kids. No, he wasn’t a bigamist. His first wife died very young after they had three children, then he married another young woman who gave him three more. Since he often worked 20 hour days and slept on a lab bench, it’s a wonder he found the time for intimacy at all.
  3. His biggest achievement was also his greatest failure: Edison had cornered the market on electricity distribution. He was wiring up New York City from his Pearl Street Power Plant and putting electric lights into the houses of the richest of the rich. Unfortunately it was all DC power and when Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse came along with AC power, well, Edison lost the war of the currents and got tossed from the company he started (we know it today as General Electric).
  4. He invented concrete houses: After 10 years trying to make a go of mining low grade iron ore, Edison turned to making houses out of concrete. The whole thing – including bathtubs, sinks, and stairs – could be built by pouring concrete into prebuilt molds. If you look hard enough, you might find one still standing.
  5. Edison was an avid writer: For a man who was tossed out of elementary school because he was “addled,” Edison became both an avid reader and writer. He wrote (and published) a mobile newspaper as a teenager, wrote technical articles, and started a textbook on telegraphy. But his most mysterious writing was a science fiction novel. Yes, complete with Amazons and Antarctic expeditions, and of course, strange ethereal electrical forces.

There is much more about Edison that most people would find surprising, and I cover them all in my new book coming out July 2016 from Fall River Press, Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World. I’ll share the cover design with you all soon.

And if you’re interested in Nikola Tesla, check out this comparison: Edison vs Tesla: Two Very Different Men of Invention.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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The Hot and the Cold Climate of Tenerife

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You might guess that Tenerife would be a warm place given that it is part of the Canary Island group sitting off the southernmost coast of Morocco in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. And you would be right, but not completely right. Tenerife is approximately the same latitude as Orlando, Florida, but unlike Orlando, the island goes from sea level to 12,198 feet in altitude.

A few years ago I experienced both extremes within a matter of hours on the same day. After barely escaping Brussels in a snowstorm and spending a sub-freezing Christmas eve in Madrid, I arrived in Tenerife North Airport (site of the worst airline disaster in history, the 1977 runway collision between two 747s that killed 583 people). Luckily, no drama for my arrival.

cactus

 

The initial wave of high heat and humidity was a welcome change from the dreary winter I had left behind. There were many cacti, but also a wide variety of subtropical trees and plants. Loro Parque, a combination zoo, aquarium, and botanical garden, was like walking into a jungle and reef all in one. As the name suggests, the parrot collection alone is the largest in the world. The number of orchids was astounding, as I talked about in this earlier post. We even met a gorilla.

gorilla

After building up a good sweat, it was time to head to the highlands. More specifically, it was time to drive up the winding roads to the summit of El Teide in Teide National Park. This snow-capped volcano is the highest point in all of Spain (the Canary Islands are Spanish possessions), not to mention the highest in all the Atlantic Ocean islands and the third largest volcano in the world.

El Teide, Tenerife

The twisting roads for this trip are a topic deserving of their own post, but eventually you get to a spot where you can park and board a cable car up to just below the summit, at 11,663 feet. From there you can hike to the top, though on the day we were there the snow and ice was considered too dangerous and park officials banned hikers for the last section. The views were amazing, as was the cold.

From there we wound our way back down and continued our drive around the island. From heat and humid to cold and ice and now back to the rocky beaches. Definitely a day to remember.

Tenerife

Of course, that was just the beginning. I’ll have more on the science of Tenerife, and even some parasailing, in future installments.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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