The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla

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 · 318 ratings  · 12 reviews

Start your review of Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla

This was quite the undertaking but worth the effort. I know more about polyphase currents than this former physics teacher living with 2 electricians ever expected. Tesla's use of the word phenomenon was phenomenal. This was quite the undertaking but worth the effort. I know more about polyphase currents than this former physics teacher living with 2 electricians ever expected. Tesla's use of the word phenomenon was phenomenal. ...more

May 06, 2017 Andy rated it really liked it

Not for the casual read. Definitely one of the most challenging books I've ever read. I watched a lot of YouTube videos to help me to understand parts. Not for the casual read. Definitely one of the most challenging books I've ever read. I watched a lot of YouTube videos to help me to understand parts. ...more

This was an interesting, fun and open read. I mostly bought it because I needed it to complete a reading challenge, and well, the cover was really, really pretty. What I didn't expect was that I would enjoy this adventure so much… after all, it's been quite a while since I picked up anything physics-related.

Physics is an incredibly intense and fun subject – one that I'm kind of realising I miss a bit. This book explains that fact really well – not only is the use of electricity really intricate

This was an interesting, fun and open read. I mostly bought it because I needed it to complete a reading challenge, and well, the cover was really, really pretty. What I didn't expect was that I would enjoy this adventure so much… after all, it's been quite a while since I picked up anything physics-related.

Physics is an incredibly intense and fun subject – one that I'm kind of realising I miss a bit. This book explains that fact really well – not only is the use of electricity really intricate and intense, but this collection actually manages to explain it in a really fascinating way. And accessible… you don't need a physics degree to understand what discoveries and creations Tesla came up with. The diagrams also go a long way to helping you understand exactly what engines, power sources and discoveries he made.

I did really enjoy the biographical aspects of Tesla's life throughout this as well. Although it was very science-heavy, there was just enough of the personal to keep even the least scientifically-minded person engaged. So, not only did I learn a lot about what the actual discoveries, researches and inventions of Tesla were, I also learnt quite a bit about his personal journey and life in his obsession with electricity.

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This is written by an Electrical Engineer for Electrical Engineers, so right off it is not an easy read for anyone else, and even then you must use context to follow some terms. When he says the ether, I am thinking is he speaking as the Greeks, but then he describes the ether as attached to molecules and holding the vibrational energy I believe, and ohhhh, he means the electron cloud. There is a ton of making lightbulbs and such to do experiments, and it was tedious without his actual demonstr This is written by an Electrical Engineer for Electrical Engineers, so right off it is not an easy read for anyone else, and even then you must use context to follow some terms. When he says the ether, I am thinking is he speaking as the Greeks, but then he describes the ether as attached to molecules and holding the vibrational energy I believe, and ohhhh, he means the electron cloud. There is a ton of making lightbulbs and such to do experiments, and it was tedious without his actual demonstrations with sparks and arks, but I would also find some of the wonder in him and what i was searching for, his ultimate dream, his goal, and finding that which I was looking for, in a paragraph here and there, was worth it. Not saying if only I'd had a smaller book that gave me that more directly, I'd have been thrilled. ...more

Nov 09, 2020 David Hibberd rated it really liked it

This took me almost a year and a half to read. Did it in short spurts. Having had some limited dealings with electronics I could understand some of what he presented. Some illustrations were difficult to decipher because it appears that they were taken from larger pictures and shrunk down to fit the pages of the book. The book does show what an inventive genius Nikola Tesla was. One chapter I found of particular interest is one where he deals with how the eye functions. He does refer to other in This took me almost a year and a half to read. Did it in short spurts. Having had some limited dealings with electronics I could understand some of what he presented. Some illustrations were difficult to decipher because it appears that they were taken from larger pictures and shrunk down to fit the pages of the book. The book does show what an inventive genius Nikola Tesla was. One chapter I found of particular interest is one where he deals with how the eye functions. He does refer to other inventors of his day. This is a technical writing and not a biography so don't expect to learn about Tesla from a non-technical viewpoint. ...more

This Book was too technical for my tastes, sounded as if it were a school text book!
Maybe I will pick it up again someday!

Apr 11, 2021 Andy Bintoro rated it really liked it

A better compilation of Nikola Tesla works. Its not the complete one, but better compiling

This book describes the inventions and the writings of Nikola Tesla in old timey language. Not all of it was written by Tesla, since a few of the patents and descriptions are from a first hand source. Since the descriptions of things are so old, it is somewhat difficult to know what he's talking about at times, but it works out. Only the names for things have changed, but the underlying physics hasn't so you can tell what some things are. Then there are descriptions that needed to be looked up, This book describes the inventions and the writings of Nikola Tesla in old timey language. Not all of it was written by Tesla, since a few of the patents and descriptions are from a first hand source. Since the descriptions of things are so old, it is somewhat difficult to know what he's talking about at times, but it works out. Only the names for things have changed, but the underlying physics hasn't so you can tell what some things are. Then there are descriptions that needed to be looked up, like with ebonite and some types of apparatus that he uses.

All in all, the book was enjoyable, but it was slightly hard to understand sometimes.

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Sep 06, 2011 Valerie is currently reading it

Well, I've got it in hand, anyway. Tesla is a fascinating subject--but that doesn't mean there haven't been any tedious and tendentious books about him. We'll see how this one goes. Well, I've got it in hand, anyway. Tesla is a fascinating subject--but that doesn't mean there haven't been any tedious and tendentious books about him. We'll see how this one goes. ...more

Nikola Tesla was a genius polymath, inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He is frequently cited as one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity, a man who "shed light over the face of Earth," and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents an Nikola Tesla was a genius polymath, inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He is frequently cited as one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity, a man who "shed light over the face of Earth," and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current (AC) electric power systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, Vojna Krajina, in the territory of today's Croatia, he was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen. After his demonstration of wireless communication (radio) in 1894 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Never having put much focus on his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86.

The SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field "B"), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960), as well as the Tesla effect of wireless energy transfer to wirelessly power electronic devices which Tesla demonstrated on a low scale (lightbulbs) as early as 1893 and aspired to use for the intercontinental transmission of industrial energy levels in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.

Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Many of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.

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"Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise.

I expressed these ideas long before the behaviorists, led by Pavlov in Russia and by Watson in the United States, proclaimed their new psychology. This apparently mechanistic conception is not antagonistic to an ethical conception of life."

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The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla

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