NIKOLA TESLA THE GENIUS WHO LIT THE WORLD

Tesla Memorial Society of New York Website

Tesla Biography NIKOLA TESLA          THE GENIUS WHO LIT THE WORLD   Nikola Tesla symbolizes a unifying force and inspiration for all nations in the name of peace and science. He was a true visionary far ahead of his contemporaries in the field of scientific development. New York State and many other states in the USA proclaimed July 10, Tesla’s birthday- Nikola Tesla Day. Many United States Congressmen gave speeches in the House of Representatives on July 10, 1990 celebrating the 134th anniversary of scientist-inventor Nikola Tesla. Senator Levine from Michigan spoke in the US Senate on the same occasion.             The street sign “Nikola Tesla Corner” was recently placed on the corner of the 40th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. There is a large photo of Tesla in the Statue of Liberty Museum. The Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey has a daily science demonstration of the Tesla Coil creating a million volts of electricity before the spectators eyes. Many books were written about Tesla : Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O’Neill  and Margaret Cheney’s book Tesla: Man out of Time has contributed significantly to his fame. A documentary film Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World, produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, The Secret of Nikola Tesla (Orson Welles), BBC Film Masters of the Ionosphere are other tributes to the great genius.             Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika, which was then part of  the Austo-Hungarian Empire, region of Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor in her own right of household appliances. Tesla studied at the Realschule, Karlstadt in 1873, the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria and the University of Prague. At first, he intended to specialize in physics and mathematics, but soon he became fascinated with electricity. He began his career as an electrical engineer with a telephone company in Budapest in 1881. It was there, as Tesla was walking with a friend through the city park that the elusive solution to the rotating magnetic field flashed through his mind. With a stick, he drew a diagram in the sand explaining to his friend the principle of the induction motor. Before going to America, Tesla joined Continental Edison Company in Paris where he designed dynamos. While in Strassbourg in 1883, he privately built a prototype of the induction motor and ran it successfully. Unable to interest anyone in Europe in promoting this radical device, Tesla accepted an offer to work for Thomas Edison in New York. His childhood dream was to come to America to harness the power of Niagara Falls.             Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison: “I know two great men,” wrote Batchelor, “one is you and the other is this young man.” Tesla spent the next 59 years of his productive life living in New York. Tesla set about improving Edison’s line of dynamos while working in Edison’s lab in New Jersey.  It was here that his divergence of opinion with Edison over direct current versus alternating current began. This disagreement climaxed in the war of the currents as Edison fought a losing battle to protect his investment in direct current equipment and facilities.             Tesla pointed out the inefficiency of Edison’s direct current electrical powerhouses  that have been build up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The secret, he felt, lay in the use of alternating current ,because to him all energies were cyclic. Why not build generators that would send  electrical energy along distribution lines  first one way, than another, in multiple waves using the polyphase principle?             Edison’s lamps were weak and inefficient  when supplied by direct current. This system had a severe disadvantage in that it could not be transported more than two miles due to its inability to step up to high voltage levels necessary for long distance transmission. Consequently, a direct current power station was required at two mile intervals.             Direct current flows continuously in one direction; alternating current changes direction 50 or 60 times per second and can be stepped up to vary high voltage levels, minimizing power loss across great distances. The future belongs to alternating current.             Nikola Tesla developed polyphase alternating current system of generators, motors and transformers and held 40 basic U.S. patents on the system, which George Westinghouse bought, determined to supply America with the Tesla system. Edison did not want to lose his DC empire, and a bitter war ensued. This was the war of the currents between AC and DC. Tesla -Westinghouse ultimately emerged the victor because AC was a superior technology. It was a war won for the progress  of both America and the world.             Tesla introduced his motors and electrical systems in a classic paper, “A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers” which he delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. One of the most impressed was the industrialist and inventor George Westinghouse. One day he visited Tesla’s laboratory and was amazed at what he saw. Tesla had constructed a model polyphase system consisting of an alternating current dynamo, step-up and step-down transformers and A.C. motor at the other end. The perfect partnership between Tesla and Westinghouse for the nationwide use of electricity in America had begun. In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental principle in physics and the basis of nearly all devices that use alternating current.  Tesla brilliantly adapted the principle of rotating magnetic field for the construction of alternating current induction motor and the polyphase system for the generation, transmission, distribution and use of electrical power.             Tesla’s A.C. induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry and household appliances. It started the industrial revolution at the turn of the century. Electricity today is generated transmitted and converted to mechanical power by means of his inventions. Tesla’s greatest achievement is his polyphase alternating current system, which is today lighting the entire globe.             Tesla astonished the world by demonstrating. the wonders of alternating current electricity at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Alternating current became standard power in the 20th Century.  This accomplishment changed the world. He designed the first hydroelectric powerplant in Niagara Falls in 1895, which was the final victory of alternating current.  The achievement was covered widely in the world press, and Tesla was praised as a hero world wide.  King Nikola of Montenegro conferred upon him the Order of Danilo. Tesla was a pioneer in many fields.  The Tesla coil, which he invented in 1891, is widely used today in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment.  That year also marked the date of Tesla's United States citizenship.  His alternating current induction motor is considered one of the ten greatest discoveries of all time.  Among his discoveries are the fluorescent light , laser beam, wireless communications, wireless transmission of electrical energy, remote control, robotics, Tesla’s turbines and vertical take off aircraft. Tesla is the father of the radio and the modern electrical transmissions systems. He registered over 700 patents worldwide. His vision included exploration of solar energy and the power of the sea. He foresaw interplanetary communications and satellites.             The Century Magazine published Tesla's principles of telegraphy without wires, popularizing scientific lectures given before Franklin Institute in February 1893.  The Electrical Review in 1896 published X-rays of a man, made by Tesla, with X-ray tubes of his own design.  They appeared at the same time as when Roentgen announced his discovery of X-rays.  Tesla never attempted to proclaim priority.  Roentgen congratulated Tesla on his sophisticated X-ray pictures, and  Tesla even wrote Roentgen's name on one of his films.  He experimented with shadowgraphs similar to those that later were to be used by Wilhelm Rontgen when he discovered X-rays in 1895.  Tesla's countless experiments included work on a carbon button lamp, on the power of electrical resonance, and on various types of lightning.  Tesla invented the special vacuum tube which emitted light to be used in photography. The breadth of his inventions is demonstrated by his patents for a bladeless steam turbine based on a spiral flow principle.  Tesla also patented a pump design to operate at extremely high temperature.  Nikola Tesla patented the basic system of radio in 1896.  His published schematic diagrams describing all the basic elements of the radio transmitter which was later used by Marconi. In 1896 Tesla constructed an instrument to receive radio waves.  He experimented with this device and transmitted radio waves from his laboratory on South 5th Avenue. to the Gerlach Hotel at 27th Street in Manhattan.  The device had a magnet which gave off intense magnetic fields up to 20,000 lines per centimeter.  The radio device clearly establishes his piority in the discovery of radio.  The shipboard quench-spark transmitter produced by the Lowenstein Radio Company and licensed under Nikola Tesla Company patents, was installed on the U.S. Naval vessels prior to World War I. In December 1901, Marconi established wireless communication between Britain and the Newfoundland, Canada, earning him the Nobel prize in 1909.  But much of Marconi's work was not original.  In 1864, James Maxwell theorized electromagnetic waves.  In 1887, Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell's theories.  Later, Sir Oliver Logde extended the Hertz prototype system.  The Brandley coherer increased the distance messages could be transmitted.  The coherer was perfected by Marconi. However, the heart of radio transmission is based upon four tuned circuits for transmitting and receiving.  It is Tesla's original concept demonstrated in his famous lecture at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1893.  The four circuits, used in two pairs, are still a fundamental part of all radio and television equipment. The United States Supreme Court, in 1943 held Marconi's most important patent invalid, recognizing Tesla's more significant contribution as the inventor of radio technology. Tesla built an experimental station in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1899, to experiment with high voltage, high frequency electricity and other phenomena. When the Colorado Springs Tesla Coil magnifying transmitter was energized,  it created sparks 30 feet long.  From the outside antenna, these sparks could be seen from a distance of ten miles.  From this laboratory, Tesla generated and sent out wireless waves which mediated energy, without wires for miles.  In Colorado Springs, where he stayed from May 1899 until 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves.  By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency.  He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles( 40 kilometers) and created man-made lightning.  At one time he was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory, a claim that was met with disbelief in some scientific journals. The old Waldorf Astoria was the residence of Nikola Tesla for many years.  He lived there when he was at the height of financial and intellectual power.  Tesla  organized elaborate dinners, inviting famous people who later witnessed spectacular electrical experiments in his laboratory. Financially supported by J. Pierpont Morgan, Tesla built the Wardenclyffe laboratory and its famous transmitting tower in Shoreham, Long Island between 1901 and 1905. This huge landmark was 187 feet high, capped by a 68-foot copper dome which housed the magnifying transmitter.  It was planned to be the first broadcast system, transmitting both signals and power without wires to any point on the globe.  The huge magnifying transmitter, discharging high frequency electricity, would turn the earth into a gigantic dynamo which would project its electricity in unlimited amounts anywhere in the world. Tesla's concept of wireless electricity was used to power ocean liners, destroy warships, run industry and transportation and send communications instantaneously all over the globe.  To stimulate the public's imagination, Tesla suggested that this wireless power could even be used for interplanetary communication.  If Tesla were confident to reach Mars, how much less difficult to reach Paris.  Many newspapers and periodicals interviewed Tesla and described his new system for supplying wireless power to run all of the earth's industry. Because of a dispute between Morgan and Tesla as to the final use of the tower.  Morgan withdrew his funds.  The financier's classic comment was, "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?" The erected, but incomplete tower was demolished in 1917 for wartime security reasons.  The site where the Wardenclyffe tower stood still exists with its 100 feet deep foundation still intact.  Tesla's laboratory designed by Stanford White in 1901 is today still in good condition and is graced with a bicentennial plaque.   Tesla lectured to the scientific community on his inventions in New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis and before scientific organizations in both England and France in 1892. Tesla’s lectures and writings of the 1890s aroused wide admiration among contemporaries popularized his inventions and inspired untold numbers of younger men to enter the new field of radio and electrical science.             Nikola Tesla was one of the most celebrated personalities in the American press, in this century.  According to Life Magazine's special issue of September, 1997, Tesla is among the 100 most famous people of the last 1,000 years.  He is one of the great men who divert the stream of human history.  Tesla's celebrity was in its height at the turn of the century.  His discoveries, inventions and vision had widespread acceptance by the public, the scientific community and American press.  Tesla's discoveries had extensive coverage in the scientific journals, the daily and weekly press as well as in the foremost literary and intellectual publications of the day.  He was the Super Star.  Tesla wrote many autobiographical articles for the prominent journal Electrical Experimenter, collected in the book, My Inventions.  Tesla was gifted with intense powers of visualization and exceptional memory from early youth on.  He was able to fully construct, develop and perfect his inventions completely in his mind before committing them to paper.  According to Hugo Gernsback, Tesla was possessed of a striking physical appearance over six feet tall with deep set eyes and a stately manner.  His impressions of Tesla, were of a man endowed with remarkable physical and mental freshness, ready to surprise the world with more and  more inventions as he grew older.  A lifelong bachelor he led a somewhat isolated existence, devoting his full energies to science.  In 1894, he was given honorary doctoral degrees by Columbia and Yale University and the Elliot Cresson  medal by the Franklin Institute.  In 1934, the city of Philadelphia awarded him the John Scott medal for his polyphase power system. He was an honorary member of the National Electric Light Association and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On one occasion, he turned down an invitation from Kaiser Wilhelm II to come to Germany to demonstrate his experiments and to receive a high decoration.             In 1915, a New York Times article announced that Tesla and Edison were to share the Nobel Prize for physics.  Oddly, neither man received the prize, the reason being unclear.  It was rumored that Tesla refused the prize because he would not share with Edison, and because Marconi had already received his.

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The First Woman President of the United States – Mrs. Edith Wilson, 1919-1920

Culture Watch
tags: theater reviews, Woodrow Wilson, The Second Mrs Wilson      


by Bruce Chadwick

Bruce Chadwick lectures on history and film at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He also teaches writing at New Jersey City University. He holds his PhD from Rutgers and was a former editor for the New York Daily News. Mr. Chadwick can be reached at bchadwick@njcu.edu.
 

Laila Robins as Edith Wilson and John Glover as Woodrow Wilson. Photo © T Charles Erickson Photography

On October 2, 1919, while on a national speaking tour to drum up public support for his proposed League of Nations, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that debilitated him. He was rushed back to Washington, D.C., whisked to the White House and put in bed under a doctor’s care. He remained in bed, unable meet with anyone or do any work and often incoherent, for more than four months. What to do? Should he resign? Should the Senate declare him incapacitated and remove him from office?
That was when his second wife, Edith, a control freak, stepped in and made a decision. The President would remain in bed, unseen by anybody, and, on his behalf, she would run the United States. She set up a desk and phone for herself, conducted meetings, saw Governors, Congressmen, Senators, her husband’s aides, talked to the press and, a wife unelected to any post, took over the country.
The bizarre true story of Presidential incapacitation at the end of World War I and at the height of the struggle for the League of Nations, and the First Lady takeover, is told in Joe DePietro’s brilliant historical drama, The Second Mrs. Wilson, that opened last week at the George Street Playhouse, in New Brunswick, N.J. The play is a tour de force of political intrigue and high level drama, with the existence of the United States in the balance. The two stars, John Glover as President Wilson and Laila Robins as his wife, and director Gordon Edelstein, work hard and create a mesmerizing, enchanting, and a bit scary, story about Wilson’s disappearance into the bedroom and his replacement in the Oval Office by his determined and wily wife.
The story is known by historians, but not most Americans. Why did she do it? Simple. Congress threatened to declare him incapacitated and make Vice President Thomas Marshall the President. By hiding her husband away until her recovered (he never really did, but got through his second term), she was able to protect him. The playwright strongly hints, even though the actual story is not completely known, that she did not consult with her husband on decisions; she simply made them on her own.
The play starts with a quick build-up of Edith as a domineering woman and Wilson as a man smitten with her like a schoolboy. She has the Chief Executive wrapped around her finger. He is unable to get needed support in Congress and the Senate for his League of Nations, so he hits the political trail, taking a train across the country to give speeches for the League. The exertion and stress bring on his stroke (he was not well anyway) and he collapses. Mrs. Wilson then decides to protect him and stands up to the most important people in America and the persistent press to do so. She conspires with the White House doctor, Cary Grayson, lies about his condition to all and hopes, fingers crossed, that he will get better. Until he did, she ran the show.
Glover is just splendid as Wilson and Robins, with a lazy southern drawl, is even better as the tough First Lady, who stares down everybody. The play soars not just because of her, though. Other fine performances are by Sherman Howard as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, head of the Foreign Relations committee, Richmond Hoxie as Vice President Marshall, Stephen Spinella as diplomat Edward House, Stephen Barker Turner as the doctor and Christophe C. Gibbs, Brian McCann and Andre Penn as attendants. Together, they present a scintillating tale of political intrigue at the White House in 1919 and remind all that our Presidential succession law, even now, nearly 100 years later, is pretty uncertain.
Everybody in the audience at the intermission was the asking the question presented on stage by Mrs. Wilson: if the President gives up power because he is incapacitated, can he get it back? There was nothing about it in the Constitution at that time. (After John Kennedy died an amendment was added clarifying matters.)
The other question constantly asked in the play is about the President’s health. As long as he appears to be doing better, everybody goes along with his reclusive life. Mrs. Wilson, and the doctor, keep telling all that he is “improving” every day.
Those uncertainties were what forced Mrs. Wilson to lock the bedroom door and take over. Was she right? Did she do a good job?
The tension filled plot of the play, with as much high blood pressure in it as Netflix’s political series House of Cards, involves the fight to ratify the League of Nations. Edith Wilson entertains many amendments and changes to the League of Nations bill, agreeing with some and disdaining others, and fights tooth and nail with Senator Lodge and others over them. She tries to get advice from the President on them, but he was either unable to speak or just muttered. So she made all the decision herself, according to the playwright, but the bill was killed anyway. Was that her fault? Would it have been defeated anyway (probably)?
Playwright Pietro, working with masterful hands, has taken a complicated and important historical event and turned it into an absorbing drama.
Historically, Mrs. Wilson was not the first woman to run the country because her husband was ill. Dolley Madison did the same thing, locking her husband James in a White House bedroom, keeping everybody out and running the nation until he recovered from an illness.
Over the years, Presidents have been sick for weeks and months, shot, or rushed to hospitals. Nobody ever pushed the idea of making the Vice President the Commander in Chief. They all just let it go. That happened in Wilson’s case, too. Members of Congress never pushed that hard but insisted on knowing his condition. At one point,  Senators meet with the very sick Wilson, who does the best he can to impress them. They decide that he is an invalid and bedridden, but in decent enough shape to run the country. They let it go. They did not want, nobody ever wanted, to sail into the constitutional storm, full of political hurricanes, that declaring the President incapacitated would cause.
Could this happen today, with twenty-four hour press coverage of the White House? Could Michelle Obama hide the President away for four long months and run the United States herself? Probably not.
Then again, if she hid him away somewhere in Hawaii and Joe Biden became ill, and Paul Ryan quit as Speaker of the House in a huff like John Boehner just did and John Kerry went bike riding and broke his leg again ....
History lovers and political junkies will adore this play, but it is such a dynamic drama that people who do not know the West Wing from chicken wings will enjoy it, too.
PRODUCTION: The play is produced by the George Street Playhouse. Sets: Alexander Dodge, Costumes: Linda Cho, Lighting: Ben Stanton, Sound: John Gromada. The play is directed by Gordon Edelstein. It runs through November

“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
― Socrates


“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”
― Socrates


“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
― Socrates

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