The Truth About Tesla: The Myth of the Lone Genius in the History of Innovation

202 Pages·2015·35.8 MB·English

by  Christopher Cooper

the
truth about
tesl a
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For my two favorite patent agents,
Rob Pilaud and Filip Vanevski, whose work
I would never describe as imprecise and ignoble.
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the
truth about
tesl a
the myth of the lone genius
in the history of innovation
Christopher Cooper
. , P .d.
foreword by marc j seifer h
Font: Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk Light
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Quarto is the authority on a wide range of topics.
Quarto educates, entertains and enriches the lives of
our readers —enthusiasts and lovers of hands-on living.
www.quartoknows.com
© 2015 Christopher Cooper
Illustrations (pages 68, 72, 76, 79, 81, 83, 89, 90, 91, 95, 117, 123, 141)
© 2015 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
First published in the United States of America in 2015 by
Race Point Publishing, a member of
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the
copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the
artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of
copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that
credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have
occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-63106-030-4
Digital edition: 978-1-62788-707-6
Hardcover edition: 978-1-63106-030-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Project Manager: Greg Oviatt
Technical Editor: Alexandra von Meier
Illustrations: Robert Steimle
Interior Design: High Tide Design
Cover Design: Heidi North
Printed in China
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contents
Introduction 7
Myth of the Lone Genius 11
chapter one
T h e Conventional Account
chapter two
of a Modern Genius 21
chapter three Understanding Electricity 65
T he Polyphase Alternating
chapter four
Current (AC) Motor 87
E lectrical Transformers
chapter five
and the Tesla Coil 113
Wireless Transmission 135
chapter six
chapter seven The Truth about Tesla 159
Afterword 169
Endnotes 175
Index 188
Photo Credits 197
Acknowledgments 199
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Who today, can read a copy of The Inventions, Researches & Writings of
Nikola Tesla, published before the turn-of-the-century, without being fascinated
by the beauty of the experiments described and struck with admiration for Tesla’s
extraordinary insight into the nature of the phenomena with which he was dealing?
Who now can realize the difficulties he must have had to overcome in those early
days? But one can imagine the inspirational effect of the book 40 years ago on a boy
about to decide to study the electrical art. Its effect was both profound and decisive.
—Edwin Armstrong, inventor of am and fm radio1
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Introduction
Marc J. Seifer Ph.D.
he nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart myself what Tesla’s role was in the development of
Mill is known for his “great person” theory. so many different inventions.
T
Do individuals or group effort determine In the case of the induction motor and Tesla’s
history? It is Mill’s contention that in many instances discovery of the rotating magnetic field, it is clear
single individuals do indeed change the course of that Tesla was not the first to discover how to create
history. Isaac Newton, Galileo, Napoleon, Adolf a rotary effect by using two AC circuits out of phase
Hitler, Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Thomas with each other. Walter Baily preceded him and
Edison, Nelson Mandela, and Steve Jobs come to Galileo Ferraris came up with the same idea inde-
mind. Ultimately Chris Cooper’s text The Truth about pendent of Tesla’s or Baily’s work.
Tesla asks the question, had Tesla not lived what Two major factors to keep in mind in this
would our world have been like? instance are (1) What was the present-day technol-
This simple question gets to the heart of the ogy before Tesla introduced his induction motor
book but also to the process of invention itself, and AC polyphase system to the world in May of
as well as Tesla’s role in the development of the 1888? And (2) What did his contemporaries say
modern age. Cooper cites Supreme Court Justice about Tesla’s invention?
Wiley B. Rutledge, who suggests that we should This problem has to do with the very nature
not use modern sensibility to try and under- of alternating or AC current, which changes its
stand the role someone played within their times. direction of flow at many times per second. Trying
Rather, it makes more sense to see what con- to make it go in one direction involved the use
temporaries thought. And that certainly was of a commutator, which eliminated the reverse
my approach when I was trying to figure out for flow but at a great cost of efficiency. Thus all DC
(direct current) or prevailing AC (alternating cur-
opposite: Tesla in his office in New York City, 1916 rent) electrical transmission systems made use of
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the commutator. Tesla’s system did away with the development, to a rousing applause, he spoke at the
commutator, and neither Baily nor Ferraris devised inauguration of the Niagara Falls power plant as the
patents to achieve that same end. inventor, and his name is on the patent plaque for
Thus, before Tesla’s May 1888 speech before the nine patents.
electrical community at Columbia College, the pre- In citing a previous case on a similar issue, Judge
vailing thought was that electricity, whether DC Townsend responded to what today is called the
or AC, could only be transmitted about a mile, as “doctrine of obviousness” as such: “The apparent
power dropped off over distance, and only used for simplicity of a new device often leads an inexperi-
lighting. If a company wanted electrical power, it enced person to think that it would have occurred
had to be situated along a waterfall or construct an to anyone familiar with the subject, but the decisive
enormous electrical coal-operated generator at the answer is that with dozens and perhaps hundreds
site of the plant. of others laboring in the same field, it had never
Shortly after Tesla’s talk, he sold his induc- occurred to anyone before.”3 This is precisely the sit-
tion motor and 40-patent AC polyphase system to uation in Tesla’s case.
George Westinghouse for a king’s ransom, and three Chris Cooper covers this topic from sever-
years later, in the spring of 1891, Westinghouse al angles and he also goes into the issue as to who
transmitted electrical power 2.6 miles in Telluride, invented wireless communication. One of the cen-
Colorado. That achievement was astonishing, tral themes of this book is that inventions are the
but it was eclipsed the very same year in dramat- product of many individuals. Certainly, Tesla did
ic fashion when British engineer C. E. L. Brown not harness Niagara Falls by himself. Westinghouse
of the Oerlikon company and Russian engineer had an entire crew do that and, no doubt, hun-
Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, from Allgemeine dreds of technical decisions had to be made by many
Elektrizitats Gesellschaft (AEG), transmitted elec- highly intelligent engineers. Further, Tesla shared
tric power from Lauffen, Switzerland, to Frankfurt, the patent plaque with three other inventors, Albert
Germany, a distance of 108 miles. Although Dolivo- Schmid, Arthur Kennelly and William Stanley.
Dobrovolsky tried to claim the invention as his own, In the case of wireless, Tesla was certainly not
Brown, a highly respected engineer and a man of the first to transmit electrical impulses without
integrity, said without equivocation that they suc- wires. As Cooper points out, a system very sim-
ceeded by using Tesla’s patents.2 ilar to Tesla’s was developed by Mahlon Loomis
Just six years later, Westinghouse put the system twenty years earlier. And this system was not only
in at Niagara Falls, where through one single renew- patented, it was also funded by an act of Congress!
able source of clean energy, a waterfall, hydroelectric However, there has to be a reason why Adolf Slaby,
power came to electrify the entire northeast, cover- a highly regarded German engineer and contem-
ing a distance of 400 miles in any direction. Now porary of both Tesla and Marconi, called Tesla the
millions of homes could be illuminated and run “Father of the Wireless.” And also why John Stone
appliances, thousands of miles of streets could be Stone, physicist and electrical engineer, educated at
lit at night, and factories run by electricity could Columbia and also Johns Hopkins University, and
be located anywhere. Although controversy still president of the Institute of Radio Engineers, testi-
exists as to what Tesla’s precise role was in this fied in 1916 that the present-day radio systems have
8 o the truth about tesla
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