Nikola Tesla: Biography of a True Genius by Luke Johnston

Nikola Tesla: Biography of a True Genius by Luke Johnston

Author:Luke Johnston [Johnston, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nikola tesla, elon musk, biography, tesla biography, bio, nikola tesla book, autobiography, nikola tesla biography
ISBN: 9781097607020
Google: aiKYxQEACAAJ
Amazon: 109760702X
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp Print Us
Published: 2019-05-24T23:00:00+00:00


Tesla’s Mother

Tesla’s success made him think of home. He frequently sent money orders to his mother, sisters, and uncles. He thought often about his mother, of whom he said, “My mother was an inventor of the first order and would, I believe, have achieved great things had she not been so remote from modern life and its multi-fold opportunities” (Tesla, 2014, My Early Life, para. 9). This was one of his motivators, the idea of making electricity available to a remote village like Smiljan, his place of birth.

His success was also making him feel guilty about not going home enough to see his mother, but he kept putting it off. He said of this, “A consuming desire to see her again gradually took possession of me. This feeling grew so strong that I resolved to drop all work and satisfy my longing, but I found it too hard to break away from the laboratory” (Tesla, 2014, The Art of Teleautomatics, para. 1).

In February 1892, Tesla was due to give two lectures in Paris, but at the end of his first lecture, he received word that his mother was gravely ill and was not expected to recover. Canceling the second lecture, he rushed home. She was in a bad way, and he stayed at his mother's bedside for the last six weeks of her life, only leaving her to go back to his hotel to catch moments of sleep.

I wonder if in that six weeks he thought of his childhood, of how strict his father was about young Nikola reading his books from his copious library. His mother, whilst ostensibly equally disapproving, never reported him to his father when she caught him, and in fact, let him carry on reading those books.

He would have probably remembered conversations with his mother as they were walking through the mountains; they talked about lightning and discussed whether or not it could be controlled, indeed speculating on how to control weather systems. It is little wonder he attributed his curiosity and his inventiveness more to his mother than his father.

While at her bedside, he was convinced by his sisters to go and get some sleep. In his autobiography, he claimed that he had a dream or a vision in which he saw his mother being carried along by clouds before vanishing, and when he woke up he described “a certitude, which no words can express, that my mother had just died” (Tesla, 2014, The Art of Teleautomatics, para. 12). When he returned to her bedside, he discovered that she had died that night.

As part of the eulogy at her funeral, he said, “She was a truly great woman, of rare cool, courage and fortitude, who had braved the storms of life and passed through many a trying experience. I must attribute to my mother's influence whatever inventiveness I possess” (Tesla, 2014, My Early Life, para. 8). After the funeral, he had another breakdown, and during this one, lost his memory.

It's worth pointing out here that



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