Several times in 1858 Lincoln delivered a lecture he called “Discoveries and Inventions.” Not a particularly successful lecture – the fragments we have remaining suggest it was a bit rambling and lacking in his later eloquence – it presented what was essentially the “American System” of economics based on continuing intellectual and technological improvements.
In his lecture he notes that man has figured out to substitute for his own brawn other “forces of nature” such as “the power of the wind” and of “running streams.” Lincoln strongly highlights the power of the wind:
“Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth’s surface—for instance, Illinois—- and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few wind-mills, and pumps, and you have about all. That, as yet, no very successful mode of controlling, and directing the wind, has been discovered; and that, naturally, it moves by fits and starts—now so gently as to scarcely stir a leaf, and now so roughly as to level a forest—doubtless have been the insurmountable difficulties. As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of the wind. That the difficulties of controlling this power are very great is quite evident by the fact that they have already been perceived, and struggled with more than three thousand years; for that power was applied to sail-vessels, at least as early as the time of the prophet Isaiah.”
Here is Lincoln fifty years before Nikola Tesla, using much of the same language, referring to motive power and the taming of the power of the wind. He also advocated for the power of running streams as “a motive power,” in particular its “application to mills and other machinery by means of the “water wheel” – a thing now well known, and extensively used.” In fact, Lincoln supposedly invented a water wheel as early as the spring of 1834, long before his lecture on Discoveries and Inventions.
Of course, Lincoln’s water wheel provided mechanical power. We would have to wait a few more decades before Nikola Tesla invented a means for large-scale use of the motion of water to create hydroelectric power, but Lincoln was already anticipating the idea. A few years later in the Civil War Lincoln worked closely with Joseph Henry, who prior to becoming the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution had developed the precursors to the induction motor.
Ah, but this wasn’t the first foray into science for Abraham Lincoln. More to come.
[The above is adapted from my e-book, Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate, available for download on Amazon.com.]
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 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.
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Nikola Tesla spent much time learning to exert self-control over his will. Once an addicted gambler, he worked hard to rid himself of that destructive desire. Not leaving a trace of desire apparently extended to his views on marriage and celibacy.
“Many a deluded inventor has spent years of his life in endeavoring to harness the tides.” – Nikola Tesla
In 1882, Nikola Tesla’s time in Budapest was coming to an end. His close relationship with the Puskas brothers led him to Charles Batchelor, who was Thomas Edison’s man in Paris. Batchelor was an Englishman and mechanic supreme, having learned his trade in the textile mills of Manchester. But Batchelor was more than just a good technician; he was a natural salesman and organizer. Nearly single-handedly he had overseen the spread of Edison’s direct current system across Europe, mostly as isolated power plants for individual factories, hotels, shipyards, and railroad stations. This highlighted the big problem with direct current—it was limited to low voltages and could not be transmitted more than a short distance. Direct current power plants had to be installed every mile or so to light up a city, a logistical problem that meant despite his sales skills Batchelor was only able to install three central power stations, one each in the cities of Milan, Rotterdam, and St. Petersburg.
During his illustrious scientific career, Nikola Tesla developed many inventions that changed the world, including his unique design for a rotating magnetic field motor that enabled the use of alternating current on a commercial basis, wireless communication across vast distances, and even early “shadowgraphs,” precursors to X-rays. He also made forays into areas that, while he did not succeed in commercializing, set the stage for future developments, including wireless remote control of boats and other devices (robotics). Tesla did make some grandiose claims that did not come to fruition, the biggest of which included the wireless transmission of power through the Earth, plus a directed energy weapon. He also claimed to have communicated with intelligent beings from the planet Venus or Mars.
When he was not 
Tesla had begun working on bladeless turbines when he was consulting with the Westinghouse Company in Pittsburgh, but this project, like so many others, was put on hold while he toiled on his alternating current designs of high potential and high frequency. But in 1906 he gave himself a fiftieth birthday present by demonstrating his bladeless turbine in public. The basic design of the turbine relies on the principle of boundary layer flow, that is, where the movement of the liquid or gas passes over a series of smooth disks. Some of the liquid or gas adheres to the disks, which creates a vortex that spirals toward the center and spins the turbine. Tesla described it in an interview with the New York Herald in 1911:
People today are fascinated by artificial intelligence and robotics. But did you know that Nikola Tesla was the first to demonstrate robotics in 1898? He enthralled onlookers with his robot boat in New York City long before Isaac Asimov made robots chic.
