Reddit reviews Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius (Citadel Press Book)

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius by Marc Seifer

Long overdue recognition for a true genius. If you have an interest in the man who invented the AC motor and generator, radio (you thought it was Marconi, right?), remote control and so much more, you might enjoy this - http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606

I just finished http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606

This is not a great biography. But the subject is so fascinating that it largely covers the significant flaws.

First the flaws:

The author is an unabashed fan of Tesla and clearly has an agenda to make sure that the reader recognizes Tesla above Edison and Marconi and the other giants of the age. For instance, he denigrates Edison as using the brute force of a massive volume of experiments to come to what works while Tesla would think it through and do the math and find what would work and then test it to confirm. The author celebrates Tesla as superior to Edison because of this difference--Edison is the plodding, dirty, workbench-chained technician--Tesla is the brilliant scientist with pencil and paper and thoughts soaring above. There might be some truth to this contrast, but it is made in an extreme sense and seems unnecessarily judgmental towards Edison. And so forth throughout the book.

A second flaw is that the author is so insistent in trying to prove Tesla's scientific priority over those that follows that he spends hundreds of pages going through technical aspects of patent applications and the inner-working of the various devices. This might be interesting to an electrical engineer, but to the lay reader it is tedious. I just about laid the book down once or twice. But there were enough brilliant insights to keep going.

A few interesting anecdotes:

Once Tesla nearly destroyed his lab building on Houston St. in NYC with one of his oscillators. Shortly afterwards he clamped one to a skyscraper under construction and nearly caused it to collapse, turning it off and slipping it into his pocket and slipping away in the confusion of men thinking an earthquake had struck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla's_... (the book does not calim the oscillator cause an earthquake, but that the effect of the oscillator connected to a building's support structure was like an earthquake an could tumble a buildng within minutes. Amazing if true (and it sounds true to this non-scientiest--resonence of marching on bridges and all that).

Tesla was backed at different times by both John Jacob Astor (the richest man in the world) and JP Morgan (the most powerful financier in the world). He failed to deliver both times, taking the money which was earmarked for one purpose and diverting it to another purpose. When he ran out of money to complete the non-disclosed purpose and came back begging for more money, he was rebuffed. If he had done what he told the two men he was going to do with the money (in both cases creating a product that could be taken to market) instead of burning through it on scientific research without an end, he would have been a very very wealthy man and who knows what he could have accomplished. As it was, he never was able to raise money after betraying JPMorgan and was unable to do much significant work after that time.

Tesla was constantly a deadbeat borrower, evicted from many hotels for unpaid bills, and constantly begging others for funding during the last half of his life. It is sad to read, really.

Tesla was a lifelong celibate, almost certainly homosexual, but never practicing. A man of amazing self-discipline and focus.

His consuming dream was to provide free electric powerful to the world. It is unlikely that there is merit to this scheme or it would have been implemented somewhere at some time (same with his death ray concept which he claimed to have build a prototype).

It seems the longer he lived, the crazier he became. For instance, he was fanatically committed to pigeons--paying people to feed them when he didn't have enough money to pay his rent. He loved pigeons more than anything for his last few decades. One favorite visited him, he claimed, and communicated to him it was dying and Tesla saw light shooting out of its eyes, telling Tesla that his work was also done. Very odd. He also had to circle the block of his hotel six times before he would enter each night. He wouldn't shake hands due to germs. Typical obsessive-compulsive behavior stuff. Sad.

Bottom line on the man: Tesla was brilliant and we owe him much for our modern world is built on his inventions--everything that runs on electricity is a grandchild of Tesla. Tesla invented: AC current, florescent light, X-Ray machines, radio broadcast (the US Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that Tesla's patents were violated by Marconi), remote control of boats/airplanes/etc, the electric motor, robotics (and the entire concept of a robot), the laser, wireless communication. That is quite a list. His name deserves to be immortal.

Bottom line on the book: Tesla is still awaiting the biography he deserves. But this one is worth picking up while we wait.

I am reading this one

its pretty good so far.

Sure, this book was shocking, and this one was electrifying.

He has an autobiography that talks about his intentions called "My Inventions".

But theres certainly some good biographies.

http://www.amazon.com/Tesla-Man-Time-Margaret-Cheney/dp/0743215362/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345616103&sr=1-2&keywords=tesla

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345616103&sr=1-4&keywords=tesla

Good book about him

I'm not relying on webcomics. Tesla has been largely underappreciated in his lifetime and for many years after it. 5 years ago, most people did not have any idea who Tesla was. Now, he has become a hot topic (through webcomics and things like this post) and more people know about his innovations.

I've done a lot of research on Tesla. Here are some of my sources, if you want them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

I read this thick ass biography on Tesla (http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420393751&sr=8-2&keywords=tesla+biography), and I have to say I really don't get the Tesla worship based on what I read in there.

Biography TL;DR: Here's a dude who does some really awesome stuff. Basically develops polyphase AC because of how it can drive a motor. Very neat. Does some really cool stuff with radio, and some very cool stuff with lighting. He also has very strange relationships with people and animals, he is constantly broke, and he has some really strange views on the occult and how physical forces work. Granted, I have the benefit of standing on his shoulders and 100 years of further discovery, but Wardenclyffe was NEVER going to work. Like not even close. The central premises of how he thought he could wirelessly transfer power indicate that he didn't really understand what he was working with at all. So let's not say he was 100 years ahead of his time. He was not. He was maybe 10 years ahead of his time. He did some cool stuff, but it's not like he's some untouchable genius and Edison is an idiot.

The research was done. He needed the money for physical implementation.

It was a fundamental misunderstanding at first. Morgan just wanted to be able to communicate with ships and get stock ticks from Wall Street while he was in London.

Tesla sold him on the idea that he could fulfill these requirements. When Morgan realized the full scope of Tesla's plan, he declined any further funding, and because part of the contract made Morgan 51% controller of the project, he also refused to release Tesla to pursue other sources of capital, effectively freezing the entire undertaking. All this despite Tesla's promise that the technology would produce a many-fold return.

The rationale is complex, but basically Morgan knew it would undercut his existing enterprises tied up heavily with investments in electric and oil. More than that, it would overturn the entire balance of society itself, effectively freeing the working class on which the power of the financial elite rested. He very well couldn't allow something to go forward that would ruin his empire of social control even if it promised a handsome ROI.

All of this was very well researched and explained by Mark Seifer in his book: Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius

Zero-point energy. The Frequency of the Sun. Basically anything stemming from the New Age movement.

Check out this if you want the true story on Tesla:

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606/ref=sr_1_1/188-3117367-0069910?ie=UTF8&qid=1420272983&sr=8-1&keywords=wizard+tesla

There's an analysis by an electrical engineer of Tesla's wireless energy system (in the book linked above). The conclusion is that it would work, but probably wouldn't provide nearly the amount of power we use today.

It also explains the historic causes of the myths regarding Tesla.

Here's a good start for a book this info is in history books or in books like my high school part of the info is left out. I'm not making any crazy statements or trying to belittle Tesla. You can look up and tell during the first World War he lost investors because people weren't investing in projects. If you have alternate info from other books saying how he lost money I'd be curious.

Nicola Tesla

Here is a link to his Biography

The best bio is supposed to be Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla. I just started reading it; it's very well written and seems to have the right kind of perspective and depth.

This one's supposed to be good, falls short on a few points, but I don't know of a better one.

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606/

Edison and everyone else, including Westinghouse, took advantage of Tesla.

Check out these books :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931882851/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0914732331&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1SCYAJCX2EN1R9X8YZ20

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606