in World War II, 315–22
Zagreb (Yugoslavia), 94
Zivic brothers, 314
ZMAJ, see Jovanovich, Zmaj
Jovan Zworykin, Vladimir R., 83
Nikola Tesla in 1885, aged 29. The portrait is by Sarony, Tesla’s favorite photographer. (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History)
Tesla’s birthplace. His father’s church stands nearby. (Tesla Museum, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, photo by Professor P. S. Callahan)
One of Tesla’s original two-phase induction motors. When linked to his polyphase method of generating and transmitting electricity, this motor became the foundation stone on which the modern electrical power industry was built. (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History)
“To Tesla.” An autographed picture of Edison, Tesla’s first American employer. (Tesla Museum)
George Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. in 1886 and purchased Tesla’s alternating current patents. (Westinghouse Electric Corp.)
Tesla’s famous 1891 lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at Columbia College.(Electrical World)
Some Tesla inventions shown at the Columbian Exhibition. In the center is the induction motor; on the right, a spinning metal egg that demonstrated the effect of alternating current. On the left is the Tesla turbine engine which came later. (Tesla Museum)
A model of a radio-controlled robot ship designed by Tesla in the mid-1890s. Another of these “teleautomatons” was submersible. (Century magazine, 1900)
Tesla in his laboratory, 1898. The device shown is an unconnected coil illustrating the action of two resonating circuits of different frequencies—today one of the basic circuits used in computers. The pressure at the end of the coil facing the viewer (illuminated by streamers) is approximately one half million volts. (Courtesy L. Anderson)
An early version of the inventor’s famous steam turbine. Without blades, vanes, or valves, it was operated by the adhesive action of steam spiraling between closely set metal discs. (Tesla Museum)
The Columbian Exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893, exemplified the new “Age of Light,” which Tesla did so much to bring about. (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History)
A photomontage from The World Today illustrates Tesla’s theory that the earth itself could be “split open like an apple” by applying the principle of mechanical resonance.
Mark Twain and actor Joseph Jefferson in Tesla’s laboratory, 1899. (Columbia University Libraries)
A classic Sarony portrait of Tesla in 1894, contemplating his wireless light. (Tesla Museum)
Discharge of several million volts cascading around Tesla in his Colorado Springs laboratory. The roar that accompanied such discharges could be heard 10 miles away. (Burndy Library)
Katharine Johnson, from her husband’s book Remembered Yesterdays. (Courtesy Little Brown and Co.)
Tesla’s Colorado Springs experimental station. A 30-inch metal sphere tops the 145-foot mast. (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History)
Robert Underwood Johnson with Tesla in the inventor’s laboratory. (Columbia University Libraries)
The ill-fated Wardenclyffe tower built in 1901–03. It was intended for radio broadcasting and wireless transmission of power across the Atlantic. (Courtesy L. Anderson, after photo by Lillian McChesney)
An artist’s rendering of Tesla’s concept of war of the future. The tower-like structures (based on the intended final form of the Wardenclyffe tower) are directing remote-controlled defenses against robot attackers. As Hugo Gernsback wrote in Science and Invention, where this illustration appeared, “machines only will meet in mortal combat. It will be a veritable was of Science.” (Gernsback Publications, Inc.)
The letterhead of Tesla’s business stationery recalls some of his more important inventions. In the center is the Wardenclyffe tower as it was intended to look when finished. (Courtesy L. Anderson)
Tesla in his offices at 8 West 40th St., across the street from the New York City Public Library. (Columbia University Libraries)
At age 75 Tesla presented two more plans for deriving energy from nature. At left, an earth-heat system; at right, an ancestor of modern ocean thermal energy conversion systems. The sketches are from a 1931 issue of Everyday Science and Mechanics. (Gernsback Publications, Inc.)
Some mementos of the days when the dapper Tesla was a well-known man-about-Manhattan. (Tesla Museum)
The Tesla bust by Ivan Me;štrovi;š, ca. 1939. (Columbia University Libraries)
* The society has been disbanded.
* To this day no one has duplicated this demonstration.
* The Edison camp has a different version: that Tesla offered to sell his AC patents to Edison for $50,000, and the latter jokingly declined.
* Patents 334,823, 335,786, 335,787, 336,961, 336,962, 359,954, 359,748.
* Patents 396,121, Thermomagnetic Motor, and 428,057, Pyromagneto-Electric Generator. See also 382,845 Commutator for Dynamo-Electric Machine.
* Patents 381,968, 381,969, 381,970, 382,279, 382,280, 382,281, and 382,282 covered his single and polyphase motors, his distribution system, and polyphase transformers.
† The remainder of his polyphase system were numbered 390,413, 390,414, 390,415, 390,721, 390,820, 487,796, 511,559, 511,560, 511,915, 555,190, 524,426, 401,520, 405,858, 405,859, 406,968, 413,353, 416,191, 416,192, 416,193, 416,194, 416,195, 445,207, 459,772, 418,248, 424,036, 417,794, 433,700, 433,701, 433,702, 433,703, 455,067, 455,068, and 464,666.
* Memorandum of Agreement dated July 7, 1888, between Westinghouse Electric Company and Tesla Electric Company. A further agreement between Nikola Tesla and the Westinghouse Electric Company was signed July 27, 1889. Several earlier biographers incorrectly state that Tesla’s royalty was to be only $1 per horsepower sold.
* AIEE, Columbia College, May 20, 1891; Institution of Electrical Engineers and Royal Society of Great Britain, London, February 1892; Society of Electrical Engineers of France and the French Society of Physics, Paris, February 1892. For books containing his lectures, see the bibliography.
* Today this would be in the medium-to-low range.
* He was not, however, the first Prince Albert to visit the Falls. In 1860, Bertie, Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII of England, went to Niagara as a young man and wished to be pushed across the Falls in a wheelbarrow on a tightrope by a French acrobat. He was restrained.
* Tesla’s anti-Semitism appeared sporadic and was unusual among gentiles of his time. Once he called one of his secretaries to him and hissed as if it were a revealed truth, “Miss! Never trust a Jew!”
* Tesla’s letter to Meissner erroneously listed patent 723,189, the correct number being 725,605, which was issued April 14, 1903.
* In a heterogeneous basic group: No. 454,622 (first patent of the coil named after Tesla), 462,418, 464,667, 512,340, 514,167, 514,168, 567,818, 568,176 568,178, 568,179, 568,180, 577,670, 583,953, 593,138, 609,245, 609,246, 609,247, 609,248, 609,249, 609,251, 611,719, and 613,735, plus the two relating to wireless transmission of power and messages, 645,576 and 649,621, all filed prior to his Colorado experiments. His work in Colorado provided the foundation for several important patents: No. 685,953, 685,954, 685,955 and 685,956 referring to receivers; and for most of them he applied while in Colorado. Shortly after returning to New York he filed another group (see footnote p. 208).
* When accepting the Edison Medal in 1917, Tesla recollected he had reached a potential of 20 million volts.
* First in this series was No. 685,012, means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations by use of liquefied air, issued in 1901; followed by 655,838, method of insulating electrical conductors; 787,412, art of transmitting electrical energy through the natural medium; 723,188, method of signaling; 725,605, system of signaling; 685,957, apparatus for utilization of radiant energy; and 1,119,732.
* June 21, 1943—“United St
ates Reports; Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States,” Vol. 320; Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. United States, pp. 1–80.
* The IRE is now incorporated in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., or IEEE.
* At one time much earlier Tesla had been a close friend of Richard Watson Gilder’s, who preceded Johnson as editor in chief of Century. From many exchanges of invitations between Tesla and Gilder, followed by Gilder breaking such engagements, it appeared that Mrs. Gilder frowned upon her husband’s friendship with the inventor. On January 24, 1898, Tesla wrote to Mrs. Gilder: “We have all been greatly disappointed for not having Mr. Gilder with us… apologizing for bothering you.…”
* Patent No. 1,329,559, valvular conduit; 1,061,142, fluid propulsion; 1,061,206 turbine. Also filed in the period 1909–1916: 1,113,716, fountain; 1,209,359, speed indicator; 1,266,175, lightning protector; 1,274,816, speed indicator; 1,314,718, ship’s log; 1,365,547, flow meter; 1,402,025, frequency meter.
* Patent No. 1,655,114, Apparatus for Aerial Transportation.
* A prototype of radar was officially credited to England’s Robert A. Watson-Watt in 1935. But the history of modern microwave radar dates from 1940 when the multicavity magnetron became available. (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
† A blue-green laser communication system from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory shows similar promise.
* A duplicate was also cast in bronze on Meštrović’s order, which may be seen at the Technical Museum in Vienna. It was unveiled June 29, 1952, by Tesla’s nephew, Sava Kosanović.
* Much later, after the inventor’s death, Swezey made a careful effort to verify this story by examining the Westinghouse archives. He could find nothing to support it.
* The others: Method of and Apparatus for Compressing Elastic Fluids; Method of and Apparatus for the Thermodynamic Transformation of Energy; Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for Balancing Rotating Machine Parts; Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for Deriving Motive Power from Steam; Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for Economic Transformation of the Energy of Steam by Turbines; Improvements in Methods of Generation of Power by Elastic Fluid Turbines; Improvements in Apparatus for the Generation of Power by Elastic Fluid Turbines.
* This may have referred to improvements on the patent filed in 1922 which Tesla did not process to completion.
† Maurice Stahl suggests that the “blazing star” from Tesla’s high-vacuum discharge tube may have been Leonard rays, which are very high-speed electrons able to penetrate very thin windows and show luminous paths by ionization of air molecules. This experiment does not necessarily multiply charged electrons. However, Tesla himself did not think this the effect he observed.
* Raditsa belonged to a family in southern Croatia that had always favored a union of Croatians and Serbs.
* Charlotte Muzar, formerly secretary to Sava N. Kosanović, carried Tesla’s ashes to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade in 1957. Throughout the years Kosanvić had spoken of leaving the ashes in America and had hoped an appropriate memorial to the inventor would be raised in the United States as their resting place. —Archives, Tesla Memorial Society.
* Until recent years plasma had no major industrial importance but was merely a laboratory curiosity. Richard L. Bersin, executive vice president of International Plasma Corp., believes that the first practical application of plasmas came in the 19th century when “the glowing plasma produced by a Tesla coil was used to locate leaks in glass vacuum flasks.”
† Teslian ideas are also involved in other aspects of fusion research. Superconducting magnetic coils, cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero, are used in magnetic containment devices; and, in a rival process, hydrogen fuel pellets are being bombarded by high-energy particle beams.
* Labmert Dolphin says of Golka’s replica of the Colorado Springs Tesla coil: “It is spectacular indeed, to either scientist or layman. I hope it ends up in a museum such as the Smithsonian where it can be appreciated.” He too is a proponent of further research in ball lightning.
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Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time
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