The Book in 3 Sentences

1. I actually finished this book ten or fifteen years ago – I was looking through my highlights trying to find some bits about his prodigious imagination and ability to visualize objects and concepts. I did not find that, I guess I did not highlight it. The book is interesting throughout. I will probably reread it at some point in the future – putting this review into existens for the sake of completeness. A good, honest autobiography, as these things go. These days he would totally be diagnosed with several spectrum disorders, probably accurately. His descriptions of his imagination and visualization is what stands out. I will probably reread purely for that part. It’s always interesting to hear genius describe itself.

How I Discovered It

The Kindle auto discover feature.

Who Should Read It?

People interested in that era. I think the original impetus was hearing The Handsome Families “Tesla’s Hotel Room” from their “Last Days of Wonder” album. I’ve always found the phrase captivating – such a pleasant way to hint at a since of an earlier time of insight and beauty. To “bask in the light of an older heaven” as Stapledon would say.

How the Book Changed Me

I suppose the bits about Tesla’s imagination had an impact – some people really have “spikey” talents in some or fashion and that is why we hear about them a century later. It’s also odd – he was all engineering, no science.

Highlights

Genius is its own passport, and has always been ready to change habitats until the natural one is found. Thus it is, perchance, that while some of our artists are impelled to set up their easels in Paris or Rome, many Europeans of mark in the fields of science and research are no less apt to adopt our nationality, of free choice. They are, indeed, Americans born in exile, and seek this country instinctively as their home, needing in reality no papers of naturalization.

give us, through ripening years, of many deep problems; but when a man springs from a people who have a hundred words for knife and only one for bread, it is a little unreasonable to urge him to be careful even of his own

Government Telegraph Engineering Department at BudaPest. His salary was small enough to please those who hold that the best endowment of genius is poverty,

Emerson has said that steam is half an Englishman; may we not, in view of what such men as Edison have done, add that electricity is half an American?

The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs.

Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment, so much that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture. I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am,

for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts.

Altho I must trace to my mother’s influence whatever inventiveness I possess, the training he gave me must have been helpful. It comprised all sorts of exercises–as, guessing one another’s thoughts, discovering the defects of some form or expression, repeating long sentences or performing mental calculations. These daily lessons were intended to strengthen memory and reason and especially to develop the critical sense, and were undoubtedly very beneficial.

and make it visible. Such an advance would revolutionize all human relations. I am convinced that this wonder can and will be accomplished in time to come; I may add that I have devoted much thought to the solution of the problem.

This I did constantly until I was about seventeen when my thoughts turned seriously to invention. Then I observed to my delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient. The moment one constructs a device to carry into practise a crude idea he finds himself unavoidably engrost with the details and defects of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle. Results

at the sacrifice of quality. My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything.

During that period I contracted many strange likes, dislikes and habits, some of which I can trace to external impressions while others are unaccountable. I had a violent aversion against the earrings of women but other ornaments, as bracelets, pleased me more or less according to design. The sight of a pearl would almost give me a fit but I was fascinated with the glitter of crystals or objects with sharp edges and plane surfaces. I would not touch the hair of other people except, perhaps, at the point of a revolver. I would get a fever by looking at a peach and if a piece of camphor was anywhere in the house it caused me the keenest discomfort. Even now I am not insensible to some of these upsetting impulses. When I drop little squares of paper in a dish filled with liquid, I always sense a peculiar and awful taste in my mouth. I counted the steps in my walks and calculated the cubical contents of soup plates, coffee cups and pieces of food—otherwise my meal was unenjoyable. All repeated acts or operations I performed had to be divisible by three and if I mist I felt impelled to do it all over again, even if it took hours. Up to the age of eight years, my character

knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves.

taken in as whiskey or produced in the stomach from sugar. But it should not be overlooked that all these are great eliminators assisting Nature, as they do, in upholding her stern but just law of the survival of the fittest. Eager reformers should also be mindful of the eternal perversity of mankind which makes the indifferent “laissez-faire” by far preferable to enforced restraint.

me. I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.

I had a veritable rnania for finishing whatever I began, which often got me into difficulties.

But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.

When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots. In

less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name. It

machines, I determined to try my fortunes in the Land of Golden Promise. But the chance was nearly mist. I liquefied my modest

“Is this America?” I asked myself in painful surprise. “It is a century behind Europe in civilization.” When I went abroad in 1889 – five years having elapsed since my arrival here – I became convinced that it was more than one hundred years AHEAD of Europe and nothing has happened to this day to change my opinion.

time. We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences. When

My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time. But the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.

not less menacing than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and unlimited power at any point of the globe this accomplishment, instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy which would ultimately result in the enthronement of the hated regime of force. The greatest good will comes from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is preeminently such.

because of the directional character of the circuit. This was perfectly self-evident, but came as a revelation to some simple-minded wireless folks whose experience was confined to forms of apparatus that could have been improved with an axe, and they have been disposing of the bear’s skin before killing him. If

This invention is a logical outcome of observations begun in my boyhood and continued thruout my life. When

Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races, and we are still far from this blissful realization.

As I view the world of today, in the light of the gigantic struggle we have witnest, I am filled with conviction that the interests of humanity would be best served if the United States remained true to its traditions and kept out of “entangling alliances.” Situated as it is, geographically, remote from the theaters of impending conflicts, without incentive to territorial aggrandizement, with inexhaustible resources and immense population thoroly imbued with the spirit of liberty and right, this country is placed in a unique and privileged position. It is thus able to exert, independently, its colossal strength and moral force to the benefit of all, more judiciously and effectively, than as member of a league.

The proposed League is not a remedy but on the contrary, in the opinion of a number of competent men, may bring about results just the opposite. It is particularly regrettable that a punitive policy was adopted in framing the terms of peace, because a few years hence it will be possible for nations to fight without armies, ships or guns, by weapons far more terrible, to the destructive action and range of which there is virtually no limit.