Abraham Lincoln is the only president to ever get a patent, an ingenious, though impractical, method for lifting boats over shoals. This interest in technology served him well during the Civil War as battles increasingly relied on mechanization for transportation, communication, and weaponry.
I’ve hinted at some of these things in previous posts and will be enlarging on this as my new book develops. As I do that, here are some relevant posts you may have missed:
Abraham Lincoln’s Air Force – Balloons in the Civil War: A discussion with James L. Green, a Director of Planetary Science with NASA and a worldwide expert on Thaddeus Lowe and the use of gas-filled balloons during the early part of the war. Green is working on a new book on the topic and was gracious enough to host me for a lunch discussion.
Abraham Lincoln and the Technology of War: A recent exhibit held in the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership displayed telegraphs, weapons, and other artifacts reflecting various forms of technology that helped the North win the war.
While you’re at it, check out these two reviews of books comparing Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, two men born on the same day who each left a lasting legacy that changed the world.
Check back soon for more about Abraham Lincoln’s interest in science and technology. BTW, did you know that Nikola Tesla and Abraham Lincoln have a World’s Fair connection? Find out more here.
Way back in May I was contacted by a producer for a TV series for the History Channel called “10 Things You Don’t Know About,” hosted by Henry Rollins. They were interested in doing a program on the rivalry between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. I spoke with the producer and provided my thoughts on what interesting facts they could include, and although I didn’t make it into the final program, it aired on September 7, 2014.
Rollins talks to an interesting array of experts and gets himself zapped by The Oatmeal, deep dives to the sunken luxury liner Oregon, and checks out Edison’s handwritten notes for a planned science fiction book. He also delves into Mark Twain’s role as Tesla’s “test dummy,” Edison’s most profitable invention (it’s not what you think and is actually quite ironic), and Tesla’s inspiration from Christopher Columbus. All in all it’s a great program.
You can also check out my own “5 Things You Didn’t Know about Nikola Tesla,” including how Tesla was both a showman and recluse, his interest in renewable energy, and why some people thought he was an alien from another planet.
Search for Telsa in the box above for more things you didn’t know about Nikola Tesla. And if you downloaded my e-book, Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time, please leave a short review and rating to help others discover Nikola Tesla.
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It’s a busy week of writing – I’m working on articles for the Lincoln Group of DC newsletter, for Tesla Magazine, and for the Smithsonian Civil War Studies website. Amidst all of this I’m out science traveling. More on that in the future. Which gets me to a quick visit in Ipswich.
I previewed my most recent trip to my hometown in Massachusetts in this article. More articles are here (click and scroll down). The talk on Nikola Tesla I gave at the Ipswich Museum is here.
Ipswich is the “Birthplace of American Independence,” the home of the famous Ipswich clam (aka, steamers), the Clam Box, Crane Beach, and “The Castle.” It’s also home to more first period houses than any other place in the United States. In short, it’s pretty cool.
Some of the more famous houses include the Whipple House:
The John Heard House (now home to the Ipswich Museum), typical of the wealthier folks in town:
Directly across the street from the Heard House is a reconstruction of a simple timber frame structure called the Alexander Knight House, circa 1657. This was the kind of house that most families lived in during early Ipswich days (incorporated 1634):
And then there is this yellow house. I actually don’t know much about it even though it has stood on this prominent rise overlooking the main downtown area for my entire life. I’ll dig up more information for a later post.
There is much more to Ipswich than these glimpses. I’ll write more later but for starters you can check out the Stories from Ipswich blog by Historian Gordon Harris.
Nikola Tesla is well known for harnessing the power of Niagara Falls. But did he also figure out how to harness power from the rain? Whereas hydroelectric power is limited to areas with significant natural drops like Niagara or artificial drops like Hoover Dam, the rain falls everywhere.
So one of Tesla’s wilder ideas was to foresee getting electrical power from rainy days, an energy source he thought was essentially unlimited, at least in theory. He argued that the practical energy from rain would “represent over one-half a billion horsepower,” more than six times greater than the total horsepower that could be garnered from harnessing all of the waterfalls in the United States.
If you were one of the more than 500 people who have already downloaded the book, please take a moment to leave a review or rating on Amazon and Goodreads. Doing so helps spread the word about Nikola Tesla to as many people as possible.
In related news, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity is back in Barnes and Noble stores and is selling even faster than anyone anticipated – almost 5000 copies in less than three weeks! That’s half of the entire first print run that took six months to sell out. Get yours while you still can, either at Barnes and Noble stores, BN.com online, or Amazon.com. Or order a signed and inscribed copy directly from me.
Thanks again for reading about Nikola Tesla. And watch for the next book soon!
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A big thank you to everyone who downloaded a copy of Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time. There were over 500 downloads during this past week, which helped the e-book reach #1 in several Amazon categories. Thank you all for your support, both for this e-book and for Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (which is now back in Barnes and Noble stores this month).
After you read the e-book, please take a moment to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Doing so helps spread the word about Nikola Tesla to as many people as possible.
Thanks again for reading about Nikola Tesla. And watch for the next book soon!
Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn. Share with your friends using the buttons below.
July is such a great month. For starters, July 10th is Nikola Tesla’s birthday, which always results in an uptick in interest. This year we can add the release of the second printing of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, which is once again in Barnes and Noble stores nationwide and available on BarnesandNoble.com. And coming soonnow available – Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time.
The new book will be out exclusively on Kindle e-book format later this month now. That means you can read it on your Kindle, Kindle Fire, or Kindle app for any of the popular smartphones and tablets (I read via Kindle app on my iPhone). Download the app for free, then download the e-book. When it comes out I’ll even tell you how you can get the e-book free too – for a limited time specifically to thank all of you, the people who have been supporting my first Tesla book and Nikola Tesla himself.
Want a sneak preview? Check out the opening page after the cover photo below.
“My paramount desire today, which guides me in everything I do, is an ambition to harness the forces of nature for the service of mankind.” – Nikola Tesla
The active pursuit of renewable energy sources may seem like a new phenomenon. Only in the 1970s, as a result of the oil crisis and OPEC limitation of oil exports, did the modern world begin to seriously consider the widespread use of energy derived not from coal, oil, and natural gas, but from the sun, wind, and water. Unfortunately, this surge in interest was largely abandoned in the 1980s as the country redirected investment into the military as a means of “winning” the cold war. Now, with the 21st century upon us and with an emphatic understanding that fossil fuels are causing man-made global warming, we are seriously revisiting a shift to renewable energy. We lost over thirty years of renewable energy development, but even that delay pales in comparison when considering the first recognized need for renewable energy by a man named Nikola Tesla.
In fact, Tesla was into renewable energy long before it became cool to be into renewable energy. As the header quote indicates, Tesla had sought to harness the forces of nature for the good of mankind. And he was doing this a hundred years ago.
This volume will explore the motivations of Nikola Tesla and some of his contributions that predate our current efforts to harness the power of nature. The book is intended as an overview rather than a comprehensive treatise on renewable energy then or now. The primary goal is to show that Nikola Tesla, and others, were already seeing the need for renewable resources long before the current resurgence in interest. This e-book expands on a concept briefly addressed in my earlier book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, published by Fall River Press (2013).
There is much more that follows. I start by delving into his world-changing contribution to getting power from Niagara Falls…and then it really gets interesting. Tesla was a proponent of solar power, windmills, tidal energy, even getting power from the rain. He developed a system of geothermal energy. He claimed to have harnessed the power of cosmic rays and even the Earth itself. Tesla had all of these ideas when others were focused on energy from coal, oil, and gas – resources that Tesla said were wasteful, dirty, and finite.
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 at Barnes and Noble bookstores, as well as online at B&N.com and Amazon.com.
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Science traveling is a big part of this website. I’ve written on various trips taken to date, always with some sense of the science surrounding the majesty of the locations. And there is much more to come. I’m sure Nikola Tesla and Abraham Lincoln, both science travelers themselves, will be along for the ride. With this post I’ll introduce the Scents of Sandy Hook, along with a new writing endeavor.
The Scents of Sandy Hook is a short memoir-ish piece writing in response to a writer’s prompt. You can read it on my new creative writing blog, which I call Hot White Snow.
As you can see, the Hot White Snow site is specifically for short pieces of fictional, creative, and experimental writing, including responses to writing prompts. Heck, there is even a prose poem, a preview into some other poetry writing I’ve done and will do. The name of the site comes from the first piece I posted. Indeed, the very existence of the site is the result of requests from other writers to publish more of my creative writing side. Since this Science Traveler site focuses on non-fiction works related to Tesla, Lincoln, Aquariums, and of course, Science Traveling, creating a new site for fictional and memoir work was the obvious choice. I hope you like it.
Tagging flounder off Sandy Hook (me, in disguise)
Getting back to The Scents of Sandy Hook for a moment, let me give some background. In college I studied to become a marine biologist. I was a huge fan of Jacques Cousteau, having watched all his television programs as I was growing up. Soon after graduation I worked two summers at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) laboratory in Oxford, Maryland. After the second summer I got a full-time job with NMFS at the Sandy Hook laboratory in New Jersey. I was there for 2-1/2 years, leaving only after arson had destroyed the laboratory building housing all of the fish tanks used in our research, thus putting my continuing job prospects into limbo.
Now, all these years later (I won’t admit to how many), I’ll be dropping by Sandy Hook on my way to see the family for the holidays. I’ll get a tour of the new laboratory facility, which largely recreates the systems we had back in the day. Even more fortunate, the tour will be given by a colleague who was a co-worker at the time and is now the director of my former department at the lab. It was anticipation of this trip in which The Scents of Sandy Hook was born.
So if you’re interested in creative writing, check out Hot White Snow. For a science traveling follow up to my Sandy Hook visit, come right back here to Science Traveler.
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Last year at this time I had the privilege of meeting with the Director, Writer, and Cast of the Off-Broadway play, TESLA, about Nikola Tesla, the topic of my book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. The play was fantastic, playing to sold-out audiences for its entire run. Tesla Director, Sanja Bestic, and Writer, Sheri Graubert, have teamed up again for a new play that will open in New York on April 18th. You won’t want to miss Jackie and Marilyn.
We all know the story of John F. Kennedy, his beautiful yet stoic wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and the fabulous movie starlet, Marilyn Monroe. Or do we? The award winning Bestic and award winning Graubert bring to the Lion Theatre a new story of one of the most famous love triangles of all time, in the way it may have happened. The tragic ending to a charismatic president revealed hidden romances with two women who “represent the divided female psyche, lost love, beauty, fashion, quintessential style, the changes of marriage and relationships and more.” Jackie and Marilyn, the play, “is a fictional imagining of what might have gone on behind closed doors,” and is sure to bring out the most entertaining qualities of both Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.
The leads are played by Aaron Mathias (JFK), Lorraine Farris (Jackie), and Lella Satie (Marilyn), all accomplished actors with stellar credits in television, film, and stage. Opening night of Jackie and Marilyn is April 18th, and will run at the Lion Theatre on Theatre Row through May 3rd. Tickets are on sale now through Telecharge and the Lion Theatre box office.
Sanja Bestic and Sheri Graubert
Based on their amazing production of Tesla last year, I expect another smashing success from Sanja and Sheri with Jackie and Marilyn. I highly encourage everyone to check out the details on Facebook and make plans to come to New York City for the show.
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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You’ve probably seen photographs of the Perito Moreno Glacier. One of the most photogenic glaciers in the world, the Perito Moreno is a site to behold. And behold we did. It was one of the final scenic stops on our trip to Patagonia in southern Argentina, and it was worth the wait. I took hundreds of photographs, so picking the few that I use below was difficult. There will be more in the future, but let’s at least get in some of the highlights. Driving along the Peninsula Magallanes, we rounded a turn and, as a group, in unison, all exclaimed, “Wow!,” as we saw this:
Unlike many of the glaciers we had already encountered on the trip, this one is both massive and dramatically intrudes onto the lakes. If you look closely at the photo above, near the shore in the middle right, you’ll see a boat. That boat is roughly the length of the boats that take you into the mist at Niagara Falls. Luckily there was no mist (as it would have been ice cubes), for we were about to go on that boat right up close to the south face of the glacier. The north face, which I’ll get to later in this piece, is just off the right side of the above photo. Staying on this side for now, this is what the south face looks like up close.
To give you some perspective, those mountains in the background are between 2100 and 3000 meters high (6900 to 9800 feet). The face of the glacier runs about 50-55 meters above the waterline (165-180 feet), but remember that most of an iceberg is below water? Well, the total depth of the ice is actually more like 150 meters (nearly 500 feet). To get a really intimate look we decided to nudge up closer:
Imagine that much ice hovering over your head. Here’s another close up shot:
You can see how uneven and ragged the surface is of the glacier. Even more amazing, you can hear it. There is constant groaning and popping and cracking from all over the glacier. Every so often a chunk falls off into the water. And by chunk I mean anything ranging from small (the size of your chair) to medium (your car) to large (your house).
Okay, enough of the south face. Let’s get back onshore and drive around the point to the front and north faces of the Perito Moreno glacier. Look back at the first photo in this post; we’re going off to the right, around that little point of land in the middle. This is the first view you’ll have when you arrive:
See that little gray rock outcropping in the middle back of the ice field (not the mountain in the background, the little jagged rocks with ice surrounding it). That point is 14 kilometers (almost 9 miles) from the front face of the glacier (which is in the foreground, partially hidden by trees). Here’s an overhead shot (complements of Wiki Commons) to give you an idea of how massive it is as the glacier fans out toward the shore.
The front face in my photo is the tiny edge that touches the land on the right side of the Wiki photo. The lower face is the south face that I showed you above from the boat. But let’s go around to the north face (top right in the Wiki photo).
In the photo above you can see where the front face (left) meets the north face (right). By this time (mid-February) the front of the glacier had separated from the land (see the exciting video below). The icebergs in the water are from pieces of the glacier that have calved (broken off), a process that occurs sporadically but constantly as the glacier creeps towards us from the distant mountains. And just to remind you of the size, that shoreline in the right background? It’s about 2.5 kilometers away (1.5 miles).
Okay, one more photo – a close up of the north face:
Since the name of this site is Science Traveler it’s virtually imperative that I mention the state of the glaciers in Argentina. The Perito Moreno glacier is one of 48 glaciers in the South Patagonia ice field (with many more in other ice field further north). Of those 48 glaciers, Perito Moreno is one of only three that is actually growing. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why this one is growing while 94% of the glaciers are shrinking, but any ice growth in an otherwise warming planet is good news [or not, since it’s likely the growth is due to changing weather patterns as a result of man-made climate change].
Another cool science bit for this glacier is the periodic rupturing it undergoes. Because of the unique flow pattern and geography of the region, the Perito Moreno glacier tends to push up against the shores of the Peninsula Magallanes (right in the Wiki photo). Usually the glacier melts back a bit during the summer (which was when I was there). But roughly every 4 to 5 years it creates an imbalance that results in a spectacular display. As the glacier blocks off the flow between the two arms of the lake, it raises the water level of the Brazo Rico as much as 30 meters (100 feet). The pressure caused by the weight of the water starts to strain the section of the glacier that has dammed it in. Eventually the ice is worn away enough to create an ice bridge. Slowly the combined stresses of forward moving glacier, downward water pressure, and seasonal melting cause big chunks (the house size) to fall out of the bridge. Until the whole thing collapses in a huge splash.
The last rupture in January of 2013, but the most magnificent rupture occurred in 2004 where, over the course of nine months, the ice dam formed, eroded, and eventually shattered. The video below documents the process.
I’ve provided only a handful of the many fantastic photos I took at the Perito Moreno glacier. I hope you got at least a small sense of the wonder of the location. It’s an experience I won’t soon forget. For more photos and stories of our trip to Argentina click here and scroll down.
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Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.
I call this site Science Traveler. And I’m currently out science traveling. So, what is science traveling? I’m glad you asked. Though the answer isn’t as clear cut as it might seem.
I’ve been a scientist for many years, and as a result have done a little bit of travel. Emphasis on “little” and “bit.” Besides the many wonderful days spent in luxurious locales such as oil refineries, sewage treatment plants, and mud bogs, I regularly attended scientific conferences in cities around the United States and Canada. A delightfully drenched week in Vancouver spent entirely inside a convention center epitomizes the excitement of that annual opportunity. For the last 15 years, however, travel has became a lot more interesting.
I’ve been lucky enough to live overseas on three different occasions, in St. George’s, Bermuda; Edinburgh, Scotland; and most recently, Brussels, Belgium. I’ve been to Asia several times, tootled around a good part of Europe, and currently am trekking through a couple of countries south of the equator. Now that I’m writing books and freelancing full time, my travels will become more frequent and more adventurous. They will also become story lines. And those story lines will usually contain some science angle.
Science traveler. Like asking whether Galileo actually did drop balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and if he did, was someone at the bottom to catch them? Like, how is it that I could carry on a conversation with an elderly (and slightly inebriated) Japanese gentleman when neither one of us spoke the others language? Like, how many Argentinian students does it take to get a visiting scientist to wade into a stream alongside an electroshock fisherman?
Of course, science traveling can also mean simply appreciating the ephemeral beauty of a sinking sunset over a Mexican beach, the astonishing talent of a renaissance artist in the Vatican, or the portentous river of water sluicing down a melting glacier in Chile. It might also include crawling through caves in Tennessee after overlooking one of the Civil War’s most infamous battle sites, admiring the orchids of Tenerife, or visiting the latest in a long list of aquariums.
Science traveling most definitely includes photographs. Thousands of photographs. And with each photo comes a story…or many stories. Science traveler will tell those stories.
So while I’m out science traveling I’ll post some photos, some stories, and hopefully some scientific insights that will bring the world closer to everyone.
David J. Kent is an avid traveler and 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.
Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn. Share with your friends using the buttons below.
Abraham Lincoln is the only president to ever get a patent, an ingenious, though impractical, method for lifting boats over shoals. This interest in technology served him well during the Civil War as battles increasingly relied on mechanization for transportation, communication, and weaponry.
Abraham Lincoln’s Air Force – Balloons in the Civil War: A discussion with James L. Green, a Director of Planetary Science with NASA and a worldwide expert on Thaddeus Lowe and the use of gas-filled balloons during the early part of the war. Green is working on a new book on the topic and was gracious enough to host me for a lunch discussion.
Abraham Lincoln and the Technology of War: A recent exhibit held in the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership displayed telegraphs, weapons, and other artifacts reflecting various forms of technology that helped the North win the war.
Way back in May I was contacted by a producer for a TV series for the History Channel called “10 Things You Don’t Know About,” hosted by Henry Rollins. They were interested in doing a program on the rivalry between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. I spoke with the producer and provided my thoughts on what interesting facts they could include, and although I didn’t make it into the final program, it aired on September 7, 2014.
Nikola Tesla is well known for harnessing the power of Niagara Falls. But did he also figure out how to harness power from the rain? Whereas hydroelectric power is limited to areas with significant natural drops like Niagara or artificial drops like Hoover Dam, the rain falls everywhere.
And while you’re at it, leave a review for Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads.
Last year at this time I had the privilege of 
