Tesla - Man out of Time by Margaret Cheney

Author:Margaret Cheney [Cheney, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science / Alternative
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16. RIDICULED, CONDEMNED, COMBATTED

As the “wonder tower” lifted its airy spars ever higher, Tesla drove himself and a large staff without mercy. He sent money to Germany for radio engineer Fritz Lowenstein’s return, and the latter soon joined the Wardenclyffe team. Another well-known engineer, H. Otis Pond, who had worked for Edison, helped build the laboratory.

Years later Pond was to say that he disagreed with history’s assessment of the two inventors. Edison was “the greatest experimenter and researcher this country has produced—but I wouldn’t rate him as much of an originator,” he said. Tesla, however, he considered “the greatest inventive genius of all time.”1

Pond often accompanied Tesla on long walks. They were together on the day in December 1901 when Marconi sent the first transatlantic signal. “Looks like Marconi got the jump on you,” he said.

“Marconi is a good fellow,” replied Tesla. “Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.”

Pond also recalled Tesla’s worrying about the instruments of war that he had been inventing. He had just launched his model wireless torpedoes in the Sound, encircled a ship with them, and landed them on the beach. “Otis,” he said, “sometimes I feel that I have not the right to do these things.”2

The inventor’s hectic schedule often gave the impression that he was three or four individuals. His New York laboratory had become a meeting place for scientists from all over the world. The nights were filled with social activities, arduous experimental work, the writing of patent applications, professional-journal articles, and letters to editors.

Seeing and being seen by the “right” people compelled him to function as both a day and night person; nights in a row passed during which he scarcely closed his eyes. An inevitable consequence of this frenetic schedule was that his friends became compartmentalized, occupying cells of his life that others were unaware of. Intimates such as the Johnsons, for example, had no idea of the prominence or even the identity of some of his newer confidants, which is not to say that they were ever displaced in his affections.

The daylight hours were important for beseeching his patron, Morgan, to advance funds more rapidly; for reminding him that inflation was threatening to sink the ship. He met with other potential investors. He pleaded with manufacturers to expedite machinery and advance credit. And while he remained in New York, he wrote daily letters of instruction to Scherff.

One welcome event in this hectic year of 1902 was a visit to the United States by England’s famous Lord Kelvin, who proclaimed himself in complete agreement with Tesla on two controversial issues: 1. that Mars was signaling America; and 2. that the conservation of nonrenewable resources was of critical importance to the world.3 Kelvin, like Tesla, was convinced that wind and solar power should be developed to help save coal, oil, and wood. Windmills, he declared, should be placed on roofs at the earliest opportunity, to run elevators, pump water, cool houses, and heat them in winter.4

Edison, however, differed with

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