My inventions - Nikola Tesla

This was an incredible book, that lets a peek inside the mind of a genius. Although typical of tesla, the book was a bit too self-obsessed.

“I could clearly discern objects in the distance when others saw no trace of them. Several times in my boyhood I saved the houses of our neighbors from fire by hearing the faint crackling sounds which did not disturb their sleep, and calling for help.”

“ I could hear very distinctly thunderclaps at a distance of 550 miles.”

“A fly alighting on a table in the room would cause a dull thud in my ear. A carriage passing at a distance of a few miles fairly shook my whole body. The whistle of a locomotive twenty or thirty miles away made the bench or chair on which I sat vibrate so strongly that the pain was unbearable. The ground under my feet trembled continuously. I had to support my bed on rubber cushions to get any rest at all.”

Tesla clearly had a streak of genius from his childhood and being from a family with a lot of faculties in life helps as well (he talks about having workers at his house and farm.) Tesla also suffered from a lot of illnesses and had to compensate for that.

Also, his focus on getting work done and seeing works to completion is incredible. Being able to visualise things beyond years and working on them consistently to see the results is mind-blowing.

Edison said to me: “I have had many hard-working assistants but you take the cake.”

Tesla clearly, lived in the edges of genius and insanity and is sad that, insanity took over in the end

I loved his description of an inventor, as a “harnesser of the forces of nature”. It is quite true and inventor is someone who harnesses physical forces and turns it for the utility of others.

“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. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. ”

last update: 2024-09-06