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Tesla Science Foundation Sponsors Tesla Memorial Conference

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Nikola TeslaThe Tesla Science Foundation is sponsoring a Nikola Tesla Memorial Conference from January 5-7, 2013 at the New Yorker Hotel in New York City. Fans of Tesla will remember that Nikola Tesla lived at the New Yorker for many years and died on January 7th, 1943, in room 3327, exactly 70 years ago. The Tesla Memorial Conference thus seeks to honor the anniversary of Tesla’s final breath as well as continue to celebrate his life’s achievements.

The President and Executive Director of the Tesla Science Foundation, Nikola Lonchar and Marina Schwabic, respectively, describe with enthusiasm the aim of the Conference:

The world’s brightest minds, scientists, engineers, alternative energy entrepreneurs, innovation experts, artists and a myriad of Tesla enthusiasts will gather in this 3 day Tesla extravaganza to honor Tesla’s legacy, 70 years upon his passing on January 7th, 1943, in the New Yorker Hotel. This unique Tesla forum will include a diverse array of Tesla-related lectures, presentations, discussions and documented evidence of growing interest and recognition of Tesla’s contribution to the 21st Century.

Indeed the conference attracts some of the most avid followers of Tesla, including researchers continuing Tesla’s important work. The conference begins with a black tie Spirit Award Gala Benefit opened by the HRH Prince Filip Karadjordjevic of Serbia. Tesla Motors Founder Elon Musk is scheduled to give the keynote address and Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe President Jane Alcorn will be the guest of honor. Alcorn, along with some amazing crowdfunding spearheaded by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal, successfully obtained the property at Tesla’s last laboratory and will turn it into a museum and tribute to the great inventor.

The second day of the Conference will feature a series of presentations by those who are working to keep Nikola Tesla’s name alive. Among them are people working on films about Tesla, Tesla museum projects, and artistic inspirations. I am happy to say that I will also be giving a short (but inspiring) presentation about my forthcoming book Tesla: Wizard of Electricity. Due out in the spring, the goal of my book is to bring Tesla to the masses since Tesla’s amazing contributions to electrical science have been insufficiently acknowledged in the historical record.

The third day focuses on the modern day uses of Tesla technology and the advances that are still being made off his patents and his ideas.

The Conference looks to be a major milestone in the efforts to educate the world about Nikola Tesla. I am very happy and proud to be a part of the event and will report more as the time approaches.

Read about the conference here, here, and here.

More information about the Tesla Memorial Conference.

More about Tesla: Wizard of Electricity.

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Tesla Goes to the Movies

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Nikola TeslaFor a guy that died penniless in 1943, Nikola Tesla has sure become a modern day pop figure. Besides the usual documentaries, Tesla has made appearances in several mainstream movies.

For example, Tesla is a key character in the movie “The Prestige,” starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine.  In keeping with his rock star status, Nikola Tesla is played by none other than iconic rock star David Bowie.  The Prestige centers on the competing lives of two turn of the 20th Century magicians, each vying for fame and fortune in the emerging yet surprisingly cutthroat world of magic.  Each tries to outdo the other in developing new tricks and when one rival is seemingly able to be in two places at once, the other seeks out the mysterious Nikola Tesla, then working in his remote Colorado Springs laboratory.  At first, the “magic” of Tesla’s electronic machine seems not to be found, or was it?  Soon the secret is revealed to the magician and Tesla alike, but not to the filmgoing audience.  Now two magicians can seemingly be in two places at once, and the rivalry expands through deaths of loved ones – and the trial of one magician for apparently murdering the other.  But as with all magic and deceitful twists and turns, not is all what it seems.  And Tesla’s magic seems the most amazing of all, a magic that neither magician could replicate on his own.

Another movie due out in 2013 is “Fragments from Olympus: The Vision of Nikola Tesla.” In it, “the enigmatic life of electrical genius Nikola Tesla unravels through a posthumous F.B.I. investigation into his particle beam research, including a new super weapon called the “death ray”.” [More on the conspiracy theories surrounding Tesla in my book.]

Even more intriguing is the recent announcement by the Facebook site “Nikola Tesla,” which reported that “at fall begins the filming of a movie about the great Serbian scientist, Nikola Tesla.” The film is expected to be filmed, at least in part, in Chicago, home of the famous Columbian Exhibition that featured Tesla’s massive generators as commercialized by George Westinghouse. Slated to play Telsa is none other than Christian Bale of “Batman” fame – and to the Prestige movie noted above.

Bale not “Hollywood” enough for you. The same Tesla site on Facebook has revealed that Nicholas Cage (!) will play Thomas Edison, one-time employer and then arch-rival of Nikola Tesla. Also being considered for roles are Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija, and Hollywood luminaries Martin Sheen, Megan Fox and Jessica Alba.

The tentative title is “Tesla, Ruler of the World,” and reportedly “will revolve around a modern-day technological crisis that somehow ties back to Tesla’s life.”  According to the Tesla Facebook page:

The first stage recorders are going to take place in Serbia, and then the team is going to move to Chicago. For the purposes of the film, our country will build the whole “New York” scenery as well as the scenery of the other cities which are important in the biography of Nikola Tesla. A prominent weekly magazine “Hollywood Reporter” also wrote about this film ten days ago. They state that this is a Serbian-American cooperation, that the film will include an international actors team, and that the story about Tesla will reach the audience through a partnership with a major film studio. Renowned “Universal Studios” will partially finance the filming, but will also be responsible for promoting the movie and its distribution in the world. As the “Hollywood Reporter” said even before the shooting, this movie is seen as a “first pick” of prestigious awards.”

If all goes well the movie will come out roughly around the time of my book “Nikola Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity,” i.e., June 20, 2013.

Follow developments here or on my Facebook page.

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Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla – A Scientific Rock Star is Born

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Happy birthday Nikola TeslaToday is Nikola Tesla’s birthday.

Right out of central casting the storm arrived as Djouka Tesla went into labor.  Praying for an easy delivery of her fourth child, the roar of the thunder drowned out her muffled, yet experienced, cries of pain.  At precisely midnight the cries transferred from Djouka’s lips to those of the newly born Nikola.  In an omen that couldn’t have been scripted more eloquently, a lightning bolt crackled from the sky and lit up the small house just as Nikola entered this world.

Startled, the midwife turned to the young mother and said “Your new son is a child of the storm.”

“No,” responded Djuka, “He is a child of the light.”

And so it seems that from the beginning Nikola Tesla was destined to electrify the world with his discoveries.

That warm July 9th into 10th of 1856 took place in Smiljan, a small village located in what was then the Austrian Empire but now is part of present day Croatia. Being born exactly at midnight led to some uncertainty as to what date his birthday should be celebrated, but in practice Tesla’s birthdays were rarely celebrated much at all, at least until his later years when he was world famous.  Then his birthdays (officially July 10th) became celebrated affairs complete with press coverage.  But that was much later.  For now he was just the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest in a tiny country hamlet.

In contrast, his 75th birthday party was something of a marvel for Tesla, who by that time had become largely secluded in his New York hotel room. A young science fiction writer whom he had befriended, Kenneth Swezey, arranged to have famous engineers and scientists from all over the world send something to Tesla. Letters and tributes flooded in, including those from several Nobel laureates. Even a note from Albert Einstein, who congratulated Tesla on his contributions to the field of high-frequency currents. Time magazine put Nikola Tesla on the cover.

Science editor and publisher Hugo Gernsback nearly gushed his praise, writing:

“If you mean the man who really invented, in other words, originated and discovered – not merely improved what had already been invented by others – then without a shade of doubt Nikola Tesla is the world’s greatest inventor, not only in the present but in all history…His basic as well as revolutionary discoveries, for sheer audacity, have no equal in the annals of the intellectual world.”

All was good for Tesla. Unfortunately, over the remaining dozen years of his life he would become largely forgotten as others – notably Edison, Westinghouse and Marconi – got tactic credit for Tesla’s actual contributions. Tesla died in 1943 just a few months before the Supreme Court upheld his original patent and gave Tesla credit for invention of the radio (for which Marconi had received a Nobel Prize in 1909 after having “borrowed” Tesla’s ideas).

More on Tesla from the Tesla Society of USA and Canada.

In case you missed it, check out the two Tesla statues at Niagara Falls.

Nikola Tesla – The Book

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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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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Nikola Tesla and the Ugly Aunts

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Nikola TeslaAs my book on Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity  continues to grow in volume and excitement I’ve had a chance to explore Tesla’s early life and family.  He adored his mother’s intellectual abilities, at one point declaring that she was “an inventor of the first order.”  And as might be expected from the son of a clergyman, his feelings for his father were a mixture of admiration, awe, and fear.  But overall, Tesla had an immense respect and esteem for his family.

Tesla’s memories of other relatives are not so admiring.  In fact, he tells a story of his two aunts that is downright irreverent. These two aunts were, well, not exactly the local beauty queens.  They were old, at least in young Nikola’s eyes, and quite wrinkled in their faces.  One of them had “two teeth protruding like the tusks of an elephant.”  That vision must have been ghastly enough, but she had a habit of burying these tusks in Tesla’s cheek every time she kissed him.  Which in traditional Serbian culture is a lot.  Certainly too often for Nikola’s liking.  Being quite affectionate and adoring of their young nephew the aunts kissed and hugged to their heart’s content.  To Tesla this was a fate worse than death.  “Nothing could scare me more,” Tesla later said, “than the prospect of being hugged by these as affectionate as unattractive relatives.”

One day an occasion arrived that likely brought Tesla’s family more than a modicum of embarrassment.  Tesla’s mother Duka was carrying Tesla in her arms, and perhaps not anticipating the lack of political correctness of the young lad, unfortunately decided to ask Tesla which of the two aunts he thought was prettier.  Already the diligent observer that would later became the famous inventor, Tesla studied the faces of the two aunts intently.  After careful thought he pointed to one of them and proudly declared, “This here is not as ugly as the other.”

While we don’t know their reactions, we can assume young Nikola was not so warmly hugged after that.

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!

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

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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.