Tesla: Inventor of the Modern
Tesla: Inventor of the Modern
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W. W. Norton
Annotation: "[A] penetrating biography...Munson makes vivid the genius's eventful life." --Barbara Kiser, Nature
 
Reviews: 2
Catalog Number: #587769
Format: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Copyright Date: 2019
Edition Date: 2019 Release Date: 10/15/19
Pages: 306 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates
ISBN: 0-393-35804-6
ISBN 13: 978-0-393-35804-9
Dewey: 921
LCCN: 2017055596
Dimensions: 25 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Tue Jan 03 00:00:00 CST 2023)

A lucid, expertly researched biography of the brilliant Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a contemporary and competitor of Thomas Edison who was equally celebrated during his life.Munson (From Edison to Enron: The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity, 2005, etc.), who directs the Environment Defense Fund's clean energy work in the Midwest, emphasizes that Tesla was a prodigy starting from his childhood in Serbia. Coming to the United States in 1884, he worked for Edison, whose company was installing the first electric lighting in American cities using complex direct current generators, which were limited to transmitting short distances and suitable only for electric lighting. An eccentric workaholic who knew far more science than the uneducated Edison, Tesla had been working on an efficient alternating current system. Edison rejected it, but George Westinghouse hired Tesla; after a bitter, decadelong "war of currents," Tesla emerged victorious. His AC "dramatically expanded the potential market for electricity, allowing it to be sold not just at night for lighting but also during the day for factories, appliances, and streetcar lines. For the first time, [AC] could be pumped for hundreds of miles and efficiently power machines as well as lamps." By the 1890s, Tesla was a wealthy celebrity whose lectures thrilled audiences with demonstrations of spectacular electrical phenomena. Although he continued to invent and patent essential features of radio, wireless telegraphy, and even computers, he grew obsessed with visionary, expensive megaprojects—e.g., wireless power transmission—most of which never panned out. Investors stopped investing, and he spent his final decades entertaining journalists and the public with sometimes-accurate, often wacky predictions but producing little of commercial value. As the author notes, "he believed the joy of inventing went beyond the accumulation of profits."Readers will share Munson's frustration at this seeming frittering of a magnificent talent, but they will absolutely enjoy his sympathetic, insightful portrait.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A lucid, expertly researched biography of the brilliant Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a contemporary and competitor of Thomas Edison who was equally celebrated during his life.Munson (From Edison to Enron: The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity, 2005, etc.), who directs the Environment Defense Fund's clean energy work in the Midwest, emphasizes that Tesla was a prodigy starting from his childhood in Serbia. Coming to the United States in 1884, he worked for Edison, whose company was installing the first electric lighting in American cities using complex direct current generators, which were limited to transmitting short distances and suitable only for electric lighting. An eccentric workaholic who knew far more science than the uneducated Edison, Tesla had been working on an efficient alternating current system. Edison rejected it, but George Westinghouse hired Tesla; after a bitter, decadelong "war of currents," Tesla emerged victorious. His AC "dramatically expanded the potential market for electricity, allowing it to be sold not just at night for lighting but also during the day for factories, appliances, and streetcar lines. For the first time, [AC] could be pumped for hundreds of miles and efficiently power machines as well as lamps." By the 1890s, Tesla was a wealthy celebrity whose lectures thrilled audiences with demonstrations of spectacular electrical phenomena. Although he continued to invent and patent essential features of radio, wireless telegraphy, and even computers, he grew obsessed with visionary, expensive megaprojects—e.g., wireless power transmission—most of which never panned out. Investors stopped investing, and he spent his final decades entertaining journalists and the public with sometimes-accurate, often wacky predictions but producing little of commercial value. As the author notes, "he believed the joy of inventing went beyond the accumulation of profits."Readers will share Munson's frustration at this seeming frittering of a magnificent talent, but they will absolutely enjoy his sympathetic, insightful portrait.

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Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Tue Jan 03 00:00:00 CST 2023)
Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
Bibliography Index/Note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Reading Level: 9.0
Interest Level: 9+

Tesla's inventions transformed our world, and his visions have continued to inspire great minds for generations. Nikola Tesla invented the radio, robots, and remote control. His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories, yet he has been largely overlooked by history. In Tesla , Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind. When his first breakthrough--alternating current, the basis of the electric grid--pitted him against Thomas Edison's direct-current empire, Tesla's superior technology prevailed. Unfortunately, he had little business sense and could not capitalize on this success. His most advanced ideas went unrecognized for decades: forty years in the case of the radio patent, longer still for his ideas on laser beam technology. Although penniless during his later years, he never stopped imagining. In the early 1900s, he designed plans for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar communications. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern economy. Who was this genius? Drawing on letters, technical notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor. Born during a lightning storm at midnight, Tesla died alone in a New York City hotel. He was an acute germaphobe who never shook hands and required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he spoke eight languages and could recite entire books from memory. Yet Tesla's most famous inventions were not the product of fastidiousness or linear thought but of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences: he conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe's Faust . Tesla worked tirelessly to offer electric power to the world, to introduce automatons that would reduce life's drudgery, and to develop machines that might one day abolish war. His story is a reminder that technology can transcend the marketplace and that profit is not the only motivation for invention. This clear, authoritative, and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of Tesla's remarkable life.


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