Wizard
Page 67
4. Michael Markovitch, personal interview, 1988.
5. Louis Adamic, My Native Land (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943).
6. Michael Boro Petrovich, The History of Nineteenth-Century Serbia, 2 vols. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 5.
7. Petrovich, History, p. xii.
8. Markovitch, interview, 1988.
9. Markovitch, interview, 1988.
10. Adamic, My Native Land, p. 270.
11. Ibid; Petrovich, History, pp. 142-43, 350-51.
Chapter 2: Childhood, pp. 5-14
1. NT, “A Story of Youth” (1939). In John Ratzlaff, ed., Tesla Said (Milbrae, Calif.: Tesla Book Co., 1984), pp. 283-84. Articles included in this volume will be referred to hereafter by two dates—of original composition and the date of the Ratzlaff anthology.
2. John O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla. (New York: Ives Washburn, 1944), p. 12.
3. Ibid., p. 13.
4. Nikola Pribic, personal correspondence, April 19, 1988.
5. V. Popovic, Nikola Tesla. (Belgrade: Tecnicka Knjiga, 1951).
6. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 11.
7. Nikola Tesla, “Scientists Honor Nikola Tesla.” Unidentified newspaper article, 1894. Displayed at the Edison Archives, Menlo Park, N.J.
8. Nikola Tesla, My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla (Williston, Vt: Hart, 1982), p. 29; originally published in Electrical Experimenter, in six monthly installments, February-July, 1919.
9. William Terbo, interview, 1988.
10. Birth charts from M. Markovitch archives.
11. Tesla, My Inventions, p. 30.
12. Terbo interview, 1988.
13. T. C. Martin, “Nikola Tesla,” Century, February 1894, pp. 582-85; Tesla, April 22, 1893. Branimira Valic, ed., My Inventions (Zagreb: Moji Pronalasci; Skolska Kanjiga, 1977).
14. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 10.
15. NT, My Inventions, p. 31.
16. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 12.
17. Tesla, 1939/1984.
18. T. C. Martin, “Nikola Tesla,” Electrical World 15, no. 7 (1890), p. 106.
19. NT, My Inventions, p. 45.
20. NT, 1939/1984, p. 285.
21. Ibid., pp. 284-85 (condensed).
22. NT, My Inventions, p. 29.
23. Ibid., p. 30.
24. NT, “Nikola Tesla and His Wonderful Discoveries,” N.Y. Herald, April 23, 1893, p. 31.
25. D. Budisavljevic, “A Relative of Tesla’s Comments on the Tesla Library,” in Nikola Kasanovich, ed., Tesla Memorial Society Newsletter, Spring 1989, p. 3.
26. NT, My Inventions, p. 30; NT, 1939/1984, p. 283.
27. The date may have been 1861.
28. NT, My Inventions, p. 28. Rumors suggesting Niko pushed his brother down a flight of stairs stem from A. Beckhard, Electrical Genius, Nikola Tesla (New York: Julian Messner, 1959). Beckhard’s book, clearly written for young adults, utilized only one referenced source, the O’Neill work. An imaginative writer, Beckhard made up the names of the townspeople from Tesla’s childhood as well. In Tesla: Man Out of Time (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981) Margaret Cheney repeats the rumor without referencing it. Leland Anderson, who helped on the research, stated that Cheney heard the story at the Tesla Museum. The original source was probably still Beckhard, as the book is prominently referred to by V. Popovic, professor at Belgrade University and vice president (in 1976) of the Tesla Society in Belgrade in his article “Nikola Tesla—True Founder of Radio Communications,” in Tesla: Life and Work of a Genius (Belgrade: Nikola Tesla Society, 1976).
29. Ibid., p. 47.
30. Phillip Callahan, “Tesla the Naturalist,” in Steven Elswick, ed., Tesla Proceedings, 1986, pp. 1-27.
31. Michael Markovitch personal archives, New York City.
32. NT, My Inventions, p. 46.
33. Ibid., p. 32, 36 (condensed).
34. Ibid., pp. 32-33 (condensed).
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
37. Marc Seifer, Nikola Tesla: Psychohistory of a Forgotten Inventor (San Francisco: Saybrook Institute, 1986). (Doctoral dissertation.)
38. NT, My Inventions, p. 53.
39. Ibid., pp. 35-36 (condensed).
40. TCM “Nikola Tesla,” p. 106.
41. NT, My Inventions, p. 47 (condensed).
42. NT, April 23, 1893.
43. NT, My Inventions, p. 53.
44. Nikola Pribic, “Nikola Tesla: A Yugoslav Perspective,” Tesla Journal 6&7 (1989/1990), pp. 59-61 (condensed).
45. NT, My Inventions, p. 54; Valic, 1977, p. 101.
46. Ibid., p. 53.
47. Ibid., p. 54.
48. Ibid., p. 55.
49. Ibid.
50. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 29.
51. NT to R. U. Johnson, April 5, 1900 [BLCU].
Chapter 3: College Years, pp. 15-26
1. NT, Electrical Engineer, September 24, 1890.
2. NT, My Inventions, pp. 56-57.
3. Franz Pichler, “Tesla’s Studies in College,” ITS Conference, Colorado Springs, 1994.
4. Kosta Kulishich, “Tesla Nearly Missed His Career as Inventor: College Roommate Tells,” Newark News, August 27, 1931.
5. NT, My Inventions, p. 56.
6. Pichler, “Tesla’s Studies in College.”
7. K. Kulishich, “Tesla Nearly Missed…”
8. NT, My Inventions, p. 37.
9. Thomas Edison, “A Long Chat With the Most Interesting Man in the World,” Morning Journal, July 26, 1891, p. 17 [TAE].
10. T.C. Martin, The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla (New York: Electrical World Publishing, 1894), p. 3.
11. NT, reconstructed from: “A New Alternating Current Motor,” The Electrician, June 15, 1888, p. 173; NT, My Inventions, p. 57.
12. NT, My Inventions, p. 37.
13. Ibid.
14. Alfred O. Tate, Edison’s Open Door (New York: Dutton, 1938), p. 149.
15. Timothy Eaton, to author, quoting William Terbo, 1988.
16. W. Terbo, “Remarks at Washington, D.C., premiere of The Secret Life of Nikola Tesla.” (Yugoslavia: Zagreb Films, 1983).
17. Kulishich, “Tesla Nearly Missed…”
18. Nikola Pribic, personal discussion with the author, Zagreb, 1986.
19. Dragislav Petkovich, “A Visit to Nikola Tesla,” Politika, April 27, 1927, p. 4 [LA].
20. Blackmore, John T. Ernst Mach: His Life and Work. (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 38-39.
21. Karel Litsch, director, Archiv Univerzity Karlovy, Prague, Czech Republic, to author, September 28, 1989.
22. William James, quoted in J. Blackmore, Ernst Mach, p. 76.
23. Ibid.
24. Robert Watson, The Great Psychologists: Aristotle to Freud (New York: Lippincott, 1963), pp. 198-200.
25. NT, “How Cosmic Forces Shape Our Destiny,” (February 7, 1915), in Lectures, Patents, Articles, 11956, p. A-173.
26. Blackmore, Ernst Mach, pp. 41-43.
27. C. C. Gillispie, ed, “Ernst Mach,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribners, 1977).
28. Ibid.
29. NT, My Inventions, p. 59.
30. Velac, p. 102.
31. Batchelor to Edison, October 24, 1881; Batchelor to Mr. Bailey, April 11, 1882 [TAE].
32. Inez Hunt and Waneta Draper, Lightning in His Hands: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla (Hawthorne, Calif.: Omni Publications, 1977), p. 33; originally published, 1964.
33. Petkovich, “A Visit to Nikola Tesla.”
34. T. C. Martin, “Nikola Tesla,” Century, February 1894, p. 583.
35. Anthony Szigeti, Deposition to the State of New York (February, 1889), in Tribute to Nikola Tesla (Belgrade: Tesla Museum, 1961), p. A-398.
36. NT, My Inventions, pp. 60-61.
37. For a full discussion of this event from both a neurological and metaphysical point of view, see author’s doctoral dissertation, chapter 52 on �
��Creativity, Originality and Genius.”
38. NT, My Inventions, pp. 59-60 (condensed).
39. P. Lansky, “Neurochemistry and the Awakening of Kundalini,” in J. White, ed., Kundalini, Evolution & Enlightenment (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), pp. 295-97.
40. NT, My Inventions, p. 61.
41. NT, “A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers” (1888), in T. C. Martin (ed.), The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla (New York: Electrical Review, 1894), pp. 11-16.
42. NT, My Inventions, pp. 62-63.
43. Ibid., p. 65.
44. Ibid., p. 66.
45. Walter Baily, “A Mode of Producing Arago’s Rotation,” Philosophical Magazine, 1879, pp. 286-90.
46. Silvanus R. Thompson, Polyphase Electrical Currents (New York: American Technical Book Co., 1899), p. 86. See also Kline, 1987, p. 287.
47. Ronald Kline, “Science & Engineering Theory in the Invention and Development of the Induction Motor,” Technology & Culture (April 1987), pp. 283-313.
48. “Marcel Deprez Gets Publicity for Efficient Power Transmission,” New York Times, November 2, 1881.
49. Henry Prout, George Westinghouse: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Wiley, 1939), p. 102.
50. Ibid., p. 100.
51. Galileo Ferraris, “Electromagnetic Rotations With an Alternating Current,” Electrician, vol. 36 (1895), pp. 360-75; C. E. L. Brown, “A Personal Conversation With G. Ferraris.” Electrical World, February 6, 1892; O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 115; Thompson, Polyphased Electric Currents, 1897, p. 88.
52. T. Hughes, Networks of Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 118.
53. EW. Silvanus P. Thompson, portrait, January 9, 1892, p. 20; Thompson, 1897, pp. 93-96.
54. Tesla stated that the invention began to take form while he was attending the University of Prague. A review of the holdings of the university by the director of archives, K. Litsch, reveals that Philosophical Magazine was not subscribed to at that time.
55. Ibid., Tesla quoted in Thomson, 1897, pp. 96-97.
56. “Sweeping Decision of the Tesla Patents,” Electrical Review, September 19, 1900, pp. 288-91.
57. “Westinghouse Sues General Electric on the Tesla Patents,” Electrical Review, March 22, 1899, p. 183; 9/19/1900, pp. 288-91; “Tesla Split-Phase Patents,” Electrical World, April 26, 1902, p. 734; “Tesla Patent Decision,” May 17, 1902, p. 871; September 30, 1903,p. 470.
58. “Tesla Split-Phase Patents,” Electrical Review, p. 291.
Chapter 4: Tesla Meets the Wizard of Menlo Park, pp. 27-39
1. Thomas Edison, quoted in “Wizard Edison Here. ‘Sage of Orange’ Tells About Tesla’s Enormous Appetite as a Youth,” Buffalo New York News, August 30, 1896 [TAE].
2. Charles Batchelor to T. Edison, November 21, 1881 [TAEs].
3. Alfred O. Tate, Edison’s Open Door (New York: Dutton, 1938), p. 148; New York Evening Sun, December 22, 1884.
4. Batchelor papers, Edison Archives; New York Evening Sun, ibid.
5. Szigeti, in NT, 1961.
6. Charles Batchelor to T. Edison, January 2, 1881 [TAE].
7. Ibid., November 26, 1881.
8. Ibid., October 22, 1883.
9. NT, My Inventions, p. 66.
10. Ibid.
11. TCM, “Nikola Tesla,” Century, 1894, p. 4.
12. Branimir Jovanovich interview, Belgrade, 1986.
13. NT, My Inventions, p. 34.
14. Ibid., pp. 34-35.
15. The timing is taken from NT, My Inventions, and Batchelor to T. Edison, September 24, 1882, and November 22, 1882 [TAE].
16. Charles Batchelor Papers, 1883 [TAE].
17. NT, My Inventions, p. 67.
18. Batchelor to T. Edison, January 23, 1883 [TAE].
19. Batchelor to T. Edison, January 9, 1882 [TAE].
20. Ibid., October 28, 1883 [TAE].
21. NT, My Inventions, p. 67.
22. Ibid.
23. Szigeti, in NT, Tribute to Nikola Tesla (1961), pp. A399-400.
24. NT, My Inventions, p. 67.
25. Ibid., p. 70.
26. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 60.
27. Batchelor to T. Edison, March 1884 [TAE]. It is possible that Batchelor returned to Paris before Tesla’s arrival between March and late spring of 1884.
28. Edison, “Wizard Edison Here…,” August 30, 1896.
29. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 58.
30. Thomas Edison, quoted in “An Interview With the Most Interesting Man in the World,” New York Journal, July 26, 1891.
31. Batchelor to T. Edison, October 23, 1883 [TAE].
32. NT to RUJ, April 5, 1900 [BLCU].
33. Nicholas Kosanovich, ed. and trans., Nikola Tesla: Correspondence with Relatives (Lackawanna, New York: Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum, 1995), p. iv.
34. NT, My Inventions, p. 70.
35. NT, Tesla Said, Letter to the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare (May 11, 1938), in John Ratzlaff, ed. (Milbrae, Calif.: Tesla Book Co., 1984), p. 280.
36. M. Josephson, Thomas Alva Edison (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 178.
37. Ibid., p. 184; H. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 144-45, 178-79.
38. Josephson, Thomas Alva Edison, pp. 194-99.
39. Robert Conot, Streak of Luck (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), pp. 151-52.
40. R. Silverberg, Light for the World (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1967), pp. 134-35.
41. Herbert Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan (New York: Macmillan, 1939), p. 207.
42. TCM, “Nikola Tesla,” Electrical World, 1890, p. 106.
43. NT, “Letter to National Institute…” (May 11, 1938) in Tesla Said, p. 280.
44. Ibid.
45. NT, quoted in “Tesla Has Plan to Signal Mars,” New York Sun, July 12, 1937.
46. NT, “Some Personal Recollections,” Scientific American, June 5, 1915, p. 537, 576-77.
47. W. Dickson and A. Dickson, The Life and Inventions of T. A. Edison (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1892), p. 236.
48. NT, “Letter to National Institute…” (May 11, 1938), in Tesla Said, p. 208.
49. TCM, “Nikola Tesla,” Century, February 1894, pp. 582-85.
50. NT, quoted in “Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist,” New York Times, October 19, 1931, p. 25.
51. TCM, “Nikola Tesla,” Century, February 1894, p. 583.
52. NT, My Inventions, p. 71.
53. NT, October 19, 1931, quoted in “Tesla Says Edison Was…” October 19, 1931.
54. NT, My Inventions, p. 72.
55. NT, October 19, 1931, quoted in “Tesla Says Edison Was…” October 19, 1931.
56. Josephson, Thomas Alva Edison, p. 9.
57. Harold Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 180.
58. Carole Klein, Gramercy Park: An American Bloomsbury (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).
59. T. Edison, “Pearl Street,” Electrical Review, January 12, 1901, pp. 60-62 [condensed].
60. R. Conot, Streak of Luck: The Life Story of Edison (New York: Bantam, 1981), p. 305.
61. Ibid., p. 259.
62. David Woodbury, Beloved Scientist: Elihu Thomson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1944), pp. 155-57.
63. F. Dyer and T. C. Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions (New York: Harper Bros., 1910), p. 391.
64. Josephson, Thomas Alva Edison, pp. 230-32.
65. Edison, “Pearl Street,” January 12, 1901.
66. Dickson and Dickson, Life and Inventions, p. 236.
67. NT, My Inventions, p. 72.
68. Kenneth Swezey, “Nikola Tesla,” Science, May 16, 1958, pp. 1147-58; NT, My Inventions, p. 72.
69. Ibid., p. 41.
70. Alfred Tate, Edison’s Open Door (New York: Dutton, 1938), p. 147.
71. Batchelor correspondence, July 14, 1884 [TAE].
72. Tate, Edison’s O
pen Door, 146-47.
73. NT, “Some Personal Recollections,” Scientific American, June 5, 1915, pp. 537, 576-77.
74. NT, Letter to National Institute…May 11, 1938, in Tesla Said, p. 280.
75. Kenneth Swezey, archival material, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
76. Conot, Streak of Luck, pp. 272x73 [condensed].
Chapter 5: Liberty Street, pp. 40-50
1. NT, “Tesla Has Plan to Signal Mars,” New York Sun, July 12, 1937, p. 6.
2. Leland Anderson, ed., Nikola Tesla: On His Work With Alternating Currents and Their Application to Wireless Telegraphy, Telephony and Transmission of Power (Denver, Colo.: Sun Publishing, 1992). This work contains Tesla’s original testimony before his patent attorneys on the origins of the invention of the wireless in 1916.
3. NT, March 18, 1891/1980, p. 15; NT, 1959, p. P-199; R. Conot, Streak of Luck: The Life Story of Edison (New York: Bantam, 1981), p. 597.
4. “Tesla Electric Co.” (advertisement), Electrical Review, September 14, 1886, p. 14.
5. NT, My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, Ben Johnston, ed., p. 72; Anderson, Nikola Tesla, p. 12.
6. “Tesla Electric Co.,” September 14, 1886, p. 14.
7. Kulishich, “Tesla Nearly Missed His Career,” 1931.
8. NT, Letter to the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare (May 11, 1938), in Tesla Said, 1984, p. 280.
9. NT, My Inventions, p. 72.
10. NT, Letter to the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare (May 11, 1938), in Tesla Said, 1984, p. 280.
11. Ibid.
12. Alfred S. Brown, “Arc Lamp Patents,” Electrician and Electrical Engineer, 1886.
13. NT. 12/1931, p. 78.
14. Hugo Gernsback, “Tesla’s Egg of Columbus,” Electrical Experimenter, March 19, 1919, p. 775 [paraphrased].
15. NT. Nikola Tesla: Lectures, Patents, Articles (Belgrade: Nikola Tesla Museum, 1956).
16. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 67.
17. TCM, Nikola Tesla, 1890, p. 106.
18. “Thomas Commerford Martin Dies,” Electrical World, May 24, 1924, p. 1100.
19. Ibid.; Who’s Who of Electrical Engineers, 1924 ed.
20. W. J. Johnston, “Mr. Martin’s Lawsuit: Why and How It Failed,” Electrical World, Part I, September 30, 1893, pp. 253-54; Part VII, November 11, 1893, pp. 382-87.
21. “Thomas Commerford Martin Dies,” Electrical World, May 24, 1924.