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Peregrine Falcons, Albatross, and Sumatran Tigers – The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

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When you think of a place to go bird watching – specifically to see peregrine falcons – you most likely would not have been thinking of a trip to the Tate Modern museum in London. But here I was strolling along the Thames River when I spotted, well, spotting scopes, the cross between binoculars and telescopes used by avid birders seeking distant raptors. Drawn to the small group earnestly gazing at the tower that rises above the world famous museum of modern art, I soon found myself also drawn into the world of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Tate Modern London

Based in the United Kingdom but working worldwide, the RSPB is a non-profit group whose work “is driven by a passionate belief that we all have a responsibility to protect birds and the environment.” With over a million members and 18,000 volunteers donating their time, the RSPB has grown into an effective and far-reaching force.

Carol Rawlings, RSPB

One of those volunteers is Carol Rawlings, who graciously spent time telling me about peregrines as we searched for the pair who make the top of the Tate tower their home, along with their single offspring. Named Misty and Houdini, they join more than a dozen breeding pairs of peregrine falcons soaring above London’s skyline. The birds perch on the high buildings and then upon spotting potential prey – usually other medium-sized birds – the peregrine goes into a steep dive, called a stoop, at speeds of over 200 miles per hour. Usually the prey doesn’t stand much of a chance.

But peregrine falcons in London are not the only focus of the RSPB, as Carol explained to me over lunch during her recent trip to Washington DC.

One current project is working with fishermen to reduce or eliminate the death of albatross from longline fishing. These huge birds with wingspans up to 12 feet spend most of their time at sea. They catch fish and squid by diving near the surface, which puts them at severe risk from the up to 80-mile long squid-baited fishing lines containing thousands of hooks being dragged behind fishing vessels. According to the RSPB, around 100,000 albatrosses are drowned every year after getting caught on these longline hooks. This is the main reason that 18 of the 22 albatross species are now threatened with extinction. A short film highlights the problem.

The RSPB has collaborated with fishermen and engineers in the design of a hook cover that effectively eliminates 80% of the albatross deaths from longlines in pilot programs. The next step is to get funding to provide these devices to all fishermen.

So what about Sumatran tigers…aren’t they a bit far-afield for a UK based charitable organization? Actually, no. The RSPB partners with other bird and wildlife protection organizations around the world. One such partnership has employed a unique strategy to help save the rainforests of Sumatra, part of the nation of Indonesia.

The Sumatran tiger is rare subspecies that is critically endangered. The main reason – logging of its shrinking rainforest habitat. To combat this loss, the RSPB and its partners bought the logging rights to thousands hectares of rainforest in the Harapan region of Sumatra. They also got the laws changed to allow them to restore the forest – previously the law required the logging rights owners to log the property. The project is a big one and will be ongoing for many years. Check here for more background and a video explaining the efforts to save the tigers and birds of Sumatra.

A stroll along the Thames has turned into a renewed appreciation for the natural world, both within the urban environs of London and Washington DC and the almost anachronistic beauty of far-flung locations such as Sumatra. As Carol and I chatted over lunch it seemed appropriate that we both have visits to the Galapagos Islands at the top of our travel lists. I’m looking forward to writing more about RSPB and their work internationally, and am already planning a series of articles for national and international magazines to highlight their work.

More travel stories and photographs can be found on my travel page or by searching on the keyword “travel” at the top of the page.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) (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. His next book is on Abraham Lincoln, due out in 2017.

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[Note: The photos of the peregrine falcon, albatross and Sumatran tiger all are from Wikimedia Commons.]

 

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Nikola Tesla and Renewable Energy

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Nikola TeslaHow many people knew that Nikola Tesla was a proponent of renewable energy? More than 100 years ago Tesla was pushing the idea that fossil fuels – most coal and oil at that time – were not sustainable resources. In an article he wrote in 1905 he offered:

“Long before this consummation, coal and oil must cease to be important factors in the sustenance of human life on this planet.  It should be borne in mind that electrical energy obtained by harnessing a waterfall is probably fifty times more effective than fuel energy.  Since this is the most perfect way of rendering the sun’s energy available, the direction of the future material development of man is clearly indicated.”

Yes, Tesla was into solar power even before it became fashionable.

He saw two ways in which this could be achieved – “either to turn to use the energy of the sun stored in the ambient medium, or to transmit, through the medium, the sun’s energy to distant places from some locality where it was obtainable without consumption of material.”

Of course, there were tremendous technological challenges in the year 1900 to accomplish this vision, but Tesla believed the best option “to obtain power would be to avail ourselves of the sun’s rays, which beat the earth incessantly and supply energy at a maximum rate of over four million horsepower per square mile.” He believed that “an inexhaustible source of power would be opened up by the discovery of some efficient method of utilizing the energy of the rays.”

The capture and storage technologies for exploiting solar energy would take another 100 years to reach a level of commercial feasibility, but the man who could envision an entire alternating current transformer in his head also envisioned both the need and potential of tapping the energy of the sun.

I have used the renewable energy quote in my new Facebook author’s page cover photo.

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“Lincoln” Trailer – Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis do Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals”

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Abraham LincolnThe trailer for the long-awaited film on Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg is now out and it portends an excellent movie to follow. Based on the best-selling book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” the movie captures the tensions between the many strong wills – and many former rivals – sitting in Lincoln’s cabinet.

Goodwin’s book, which I will unequivocally state is one of the best books ever written on our 16th President, is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the dynamics between Lincoln, his cabinet, and the various factions in Congress that he fought as much as he fought the states in secession. Because of the book’s length (over 900 pages including notes), Spielberg’s Lincoln focuses on the final four months of the war, and as it turns out, of Lincoln’s life.

Lincoln is played by the amazing Daniel Day-Lewis, a two-time best actor Oscar winner for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood. As a method actor that lives in character for the duration of filming, Lewis is expected to bring to life the inner Lincoln. Sally Field, another two-time Oscar winner, plays Mary Todd Lincoln. The rest of the cast is just as stellar, with sharp viewers also noting the presence of Hal Holbrook, who won an Emmy portraying Abraham Lincoln in a 1970s mini-series.

Given the presence of such distinguished actors, the directorial history of Steven Spielberg, and the truly magnificent book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, there are high expectations for the movie.

Fast Fact: Goodwin’s book was published in 2005, but Spielberg had already bought the film rights to it back in 2001 after Goodwin, who had been consulting on another Spielberg project, had told him of her intent to write the book. Goodwin had already won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her earlier book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Wireless and Wardenclyffe – Nikola Tesla’s Coil

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Nikola TeslaWith his huge Tesla coil ready to go, Tesla was eager to try some large scale experiments way beyond the scope that he could have accomplished in his little New York City laboratory. This new lab in Colorado Springs was perfect. His long-time assistant, Kolman Czito, had made all the preparations. The primary device was a fence-like wall seventy-five feet in diameter, around which were wound “the turns of the giant primary coil.” Inside was a secondary coil “about ten feet in diameter,” also wound with wire. In the center of this coil stood a 200-foot tall mast stretching through the open roof into the crisp Colorado sky, a three-foot copper ball gracing its point.

As instructed by Tesla, Czito closed the switch for one second exactly as Tesla watched the coil from the open doorway. Electrical charges glistened around the secondary coil, then immediately were gone as the switch was opened again. Satisfied that all was working after another short test, Tesla told Czito to close the switch on his command and then hold it closed until Tesla told him to open it. Once Tesla got outside where he could watch the copper ball on the tip of the mast, the command was given:

“Czito, close the switch—now!

As with the brief contacts, the secondary coil became immersed in electrical fire. But now with the extended contact the electricity crackled and popped with energy. Soon the crackling turned to sharper snapping like rifle fire, then roars like cannons. “The thunder was terrifying and the thunder shook the building in a most threatening fashion,” Tesla would write in his notebook.

Outside, Tesla stood in awe of his own device. Streaks of lightning shot from the ball. First extending only about 10 feet, then 20 feet, then 30…40…80 feet. Finally, bright blue bolts of lightning more than 135 feet long were shooting out from the ball further than the length of the building itself. Tesla was even creating thunder.  It was the most spectacular sight, even to the someone who had been creating electrical charges nearly all his life. Tesla marveled at all that this accomplishment could do for bettering the lives of mankind throughout the world.

And then as suddenly as a bolt of lightning, nothing. The whole apparatus went dead. No lightning, not even the slightest spark. The entire lab was dark. There was no power in the lab at all.

Furious, Tesla called up the Colorado Springs powerhouse to complain about having his power cut off. Only then did he realize that not only his lab, but the entire city, had lost power. Tesla’s experiments had knocked the city’s generator offline, and worse, it was on fire.

Tesla had overstayed his welcome. Worse, the city later charged him for all of the “free electricity” that had been promised when he agreed to move to Colorado. Feeling both elated by his discoveries and dejected by how he was treated, Tesla made plans to return to New York.

And from New York – to Wardenclyffe.

[The above is an adaptation modified for the purposes of this short space. Much more will be in my forthcoming book: Nikola Tesla: Scientific Rock Star.]

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Tesla, Edison, Westinghouse, and the Electric Chair

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Nikola TeslaDuring the “War of the Electric Currents,” the battle was waged over whether Direct Current (DC) would hold off Alternating Current (AC) for the future of America’s electricity. Nikola Tesla invented the system and components that made it possible to transmit alternating current to virtually unlimited distances, a limitation that had plagued direct current. Tesla teamed up with George Westinghouse, which shot them to the forefront of the race to get lucrative contracts lighting the Chicago World’s Fair and getting hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls.

Edison’s reaction to the teamwork of Westinghouse and Tesla was immediate. He had pamphlets printed and mailed to reporters and lighting utilities that accused Westinghouse and other Edison competitors of being in violation of his patents. Edison also started pushing the idea of the dangers of alternating current at high voltages versus the safety of his low voltage direct current.

The technical battle was mostly the dry stuff of scientists and argued deep inside the technical journals and scientific meetings.  Most of this was not visible, and certainly not understandable, to the general public.  But one thing that was understandable was the occasional death by electrocution.  And with cities like New York strung tight with hundreds of electrical wires from a dozen electric light utilities, the public feared the occasional might become more frequent.

Edison got some help in this regard from a few grizzly electrocutions that occurred over a short period of time. One such occasion was the unfortunate circumstance of an electrical repairman named John Feeks, who fell into a spider web of charged wires and was slowly incinerated as the horrified pedestrians on the street below gazed up at the gruesome scene. Needless to say this bolstered Edison’s case that alternating current current was too dangerous to be used while direct current – on which his own systems were based – was perfectly safe.

But a few accidents weren’t going to be enough to convince the public that alternating current should be banned from all use. It would take a lot more death to do that.

Ever the opportunist, Edison enlisted the help of Harold Pitney Brown, an electrician with a decade of experience and a bit of a mean streak.  Brown set up shop in Edison’s laboratory and proceeded to electrocute stray dogs – which he paid neighborhood kids to acquire – with alternating current electricity. Edison called these animal executions getting “Westinghoused” because of the use of the alternating current system that his main competitor, using Tesla’s technology, was developing. Later the term “Westinghoused” would be applied to the first execution by electrical current. On August 6, 1890, New York State accomplished the first execution using the new alternating current electric chair. William Kemmler had murdered his philandering wife with an axe and then calmly asked his son to contact the local police. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Edison had convinced the board that Kemmler’s death would be rapid and painless because of the incredibly high voltages by the dangerous alternating current.

When the day came, however, the execution did not go smoothly. No, it did not go smoothly at all.

[The above is an adaptation modified for the purposes of this short space. Much more (and the riveting execution) will be in my book: Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity.]

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) (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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Nikola Tesla Invents the 20th Century

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Nikola TeslaFor months Tesla fought his own demons, both psychological and physiological.  Convulsions periodically wracked his body and mental fatigue drained him of the will to live.  On top of his ailments Tesla was also besieged with his continued failure to solve the problem of the commutatorless AC motor – a problem that had first become his obsession in Prof. Poeschl’s lecture hall back in Graz.  Likely the pursuit of this solution was what kept him going.

Part of his therapy, if you will, was to take daily walks, something that his friend Anton Szigeti had insisted upon.  It was during one of these walks that Tesla was to make the discovery that would change his life and eventually put the world on the path to modern electricity.  In 1882, Budapest was less than a decade past the official merging of the twin capital cities of Buda and Pest, along with Obuda (ancient Buda).  Construction of the now imposing parliament building that dominates the Pest side of the Danube River wouldn’t be started for another three years, while high on the hill of the opposite bank the centuries-old Buda Castle was undergoing yet another remodeling as the city grew to accommodate its new role in the autonomous Hungarian government.  Electric lighting – by direct current – had been installed in the city center in 1878.

It was here that Tesla walked one evening with Szigeti as the sun slowly settled down over the horizon.  The glistening sunset reminded Tesla of one of the many poems that he had memorized – from the tragic play Faust by the German writer and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Tesla fell into a near trance as he recited aloud Goethe’s famous lines in its original German*:

“Sie ruckt und weicht, der Tag ist uberlebt,
Dort eilt sie hin und fordert neues Leben.
Oh, dass kein Flugel mich vom Boden hebt
Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben!

Ein schoner Traum indessen sie entweicht,
Ach, zu des Geistes Flugeln wird so leicht
Kein korperlicher Flugel sich gesellen!”

[The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.]

Tesla suddenly stopped.  Then, as he relates in his autobiography:

“As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed.  I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams…The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him: ‘See my motor here; watch me reverse it.’ I cannot begin to describe my emotions.  Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved.  A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence.”

The AC motor was invented, if only in his magnificently detailed mind’s eye.  It would be another six years before Tesla, by then working in New York City, would be cajoled by Thomas Commerford Martin into presenting the design in an address to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. For now the invention that would change the world remained in Tesla’s head, in such intense detail that for the next several years he modified and improved on the device entirely through visualization.  As Tesla later describes in My Inventions:

“For a while I gave myself up entirely to the intense enjoyment of picturing machines and devising new forms.  It was a mental state of happiness about as complete as I have ever known in life.  Ideas came in an uninterrupted stream and the only difficulty I had was to hold them fast.  The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minute marks and signs of wear.  I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to mind’s eye a more fascinating sight.  When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots.  In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name.”

Still, it would be years later before his new invention would be actually put into use.

[Adapted from my book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. For more, check out the links below]

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David J. Kent is the author of 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. His next book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, is scheduled for release in summer 2017.

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Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses – Emma Lazarus was born today

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Emma Lazarus was born on this date in 1849. A native New Yorker, her sonnet “The New Colossus” would be engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal that supports the Statue of Liberty. The words, and the Statue that held them, would welcome millions of immigrants to this “land of the golden promise,” a phrase used by Nikola Tesla as he prepared to set sail for America.

On a recent trip to New York I shot this rather different photo of the Statue of Liberty. Look close, to the right of the post, but don’t ignore everything else that the picture tells us.

Statue of Liberty

From 1892 to 1954 most immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island; before that they entered through Castle Garden Immigration Depot on the southern end of Manhattan. Ellis Island, below, now joins Liberty Island itself to be part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

Ellis Island

I leave you with Emma Lazarus’s poem:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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Edinburgh Scotland – Have Fun Storming the Castle

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Ah, Edinburgh. I have fond memories of this wee city, the capital of Scotland. I had the good fortune of living there for all too short a time – only three months – but during the brightest summer in recent history I’m told. I was there to work, but spent most weekends exploring the surroundings.

One of the centerpieces, both figuratively and literally, is the Edinburgh Castle. The summer I was there saw the release of J.K. Rowling’s last (or perhaps second to last) Harry Potter book. Though born in England Rowling called Edinburgh her home and so there was a grand book launch at the castle the likes of I’ve never seen before. The castle (needless to say) sits on a hill in the center of town and the line of children and their parents stretched all the way out of the castle and down the narrow streets:

Edinburgh Castle

The above photo was taken from the top of Arthur’s Seat, the rocky outcrop looming over the city.  Here’s a view to give you an idea. It was a beautiful place to hike up to and contemplate life.

Edinburgh Scotland

The Seat hovers above the Salisbury Crags, here seen from below to give you an idea of how high up I was:

Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh, Scotland

And the castle a bit closer:

Edinburgh Castle

Ah, this inspires a bit of poetry, like the opening lines of Jason Fenton’s appropriately named “Edinburgh Castle:”

Roots of stone
rise unfettered out of the earth;
crenellations of cobble
burnish with pride that cascades
into the Firth of Forth.

Okay, let’s leave town so I can show you a gorgeous photo of the Ballachulish Mountains at Loch Linnhe, a half day drive north of Edinburgh towards the Isle of Skye:

Ballachulish Mountains at Loch Linnhe

More about Edinburgh Castle can be read here. If you go try to do it in August when they have the “Fringe,” a festival of art and music performances that fill the halls and the streets for a full month.

That’s it for now. This is just a teaser as I’ll be out visiting a bunch of old rocks standing in the (likely) rain. I promise more stories and photos when I return.

David J. Kent is 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.

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

[Fragile]

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Two Views of Nikola Tesla at Niagara Falls

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Nikola Tesla and his alternating current system enabled the harnessing of hydroelectric power at Niagara Falls, the first great electrical power generation and transmission system in the country. To honor his contributions there are now two statues of Tesla at Niagara.

The first one was installed on Goat Island on the American side in the 1970s. The bronze statue is a copy of one sitting at the University of Belgrade in Belgrade, Serbia. It shows him sitting in a chair studying blueprints.

Nikola Tesla Niagara Falls American side

The second was installed in 2006 in Queen Victorian Park overlooking the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. Here he is standing, a dashing young man in a long formal coat, holding an elegant cane, and a fancy top hat.

Nikola Tesla Canadian side

Which statue do you like best?

I’ll have more on Tesla’s contributions to the generation of electricity at Niagara in the book.

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Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial – Washington DC

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The photograph below is a close-up of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC. This beautifully massive monument represents King as a “Stone of Hope” emerging out of the “Mountain of Despair,” from the famous line in his “I have a dream” speech given August 28, 1963 on the steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial.

Martin Luther King

The site, which covers four acres along the Potomac tidal basin, was opened to the public on August 22, 2011. The dedication ceremony was scheduled for August 28th – the anniversary of his famous speech, but was postponed to October 16th because of the arrival of Hurricane Irene. In addition to the “stone” and the “mountain” there is a long wall displaying some of his most well known quotes.

Martin Luther King Memorial

Overall, the effect is breathtaking. King emerging from the mountain and gazing stalwartly toward the memorial to Thomas Jefferson standing resolute across the tidal basin. The artist did justice to the man and to the memory of his accomplishments.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty 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!