Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age

It is a very well researched book. The language Carlson used is very easy to understand. He had used many Tesla's letters as the backbone of his chapters. The technical issues may be difficult for most to understand. But, what can one expect? Tesla was an inventor.

Carlson did not shy away from the shortcomings of Tesla. He painted an accurate account of Tesla. Good or bad. Tesla is a person. Unlike authorised biography, it is frank.

I was looking for a narrative of Tesla's life and accomplishments. This book seems to be a very detailed analysis of all of the influences that made Tesla the man he became. I think this book would be better appreciated by someone who already knows the details of Tesla's life.

It's very technical, not just hagiography-narrative. The writer is a professor at the Univ. of VA (science, technology and society), and approaches the facts of Tesla's life and work utilizing a more scientific method. I have only gotten a bit into it--I read several books at once--but I love it so far, and it's ignited my desire to continue to delve into Tesla's story.

THE best Tesla biography. So well written. Carlson thoughtfully and thoroughly approaches invention by examining Tesla's personality/traits/experiences, without over glorifying his successes. The scientific explanation of electrical devices of era gives the reader a broad understanding of the time period, and an better appreciation for Tesla's work. definitely recommended.

Yes, I should have paid more attention to the reviews, which indicated that this was a technical book, so I'm not blaming the author. If I were more technically inclined, I'd probably be giving this 5 stars but I'm not technically inclined, so I'm giving it a FAIL, because I bailed in the middle of chapter 3. I wanted a bio of Tesla. What I got was a classroom textbook on the science behind his inventions, the psychology behind his unique way of visualizing his inventions and, somewhere in between, his bio. It was tedious and I quit it. WARNING! FOR ENGINEERS ONLY!

This book arrived on time and just as discribed. Tesla has never received the credit that he deserves. He really invented the Electrical age and not Edison. The world is a much better place because of his genius.

Before I read Tesla: Inventor of Our Modern Electric Age by Bernard Carlson I had an image of Nikola Tesla’s contribution to the field of electrical engineering that I picked up from the culture. As stated in the title of the book, Tesla is credited as the inventor of the electric age, pioneering our modern day AC power systems. He is remembered as a humble inventor didn't care about money, making him the prey of greedy businessmen like Thomas Edison. Tesla is celebrated as a genius ahead of his time who, because of circumstances outside of his control, was not able to produce the technology he set out to. As it turns out, many of the commonly held beliefs about Tesla turned out not to be true.

Nikola Tesla is often credited as the person who is responsible for the success of AC power transmission, but this is not true. Tesla did not pioneer AC distribution systems, invent the transformer, or discover that AC was better than DC current for transferring power over long distances. Tesla’s contribution to the field of electrical engineering is limited to his invention of the AC motor. He cannot be credited with the development of the AC power distribution systems that were adopted during his time or that we use today. Tesla was an engineering student in Graz, Austria in1882 when came up with the concept for the AC motor. At this time there were already AC power systems for arc lighting in Paris. When Tesla, a recent college graduate, joined Graz & Co in Budapest the engineers had already developed one of the first systems to use a transformer and to transmit AC over long distances. The transformer, a crucial component to AC power distribution, is often mistakenly credited as an invention of Tesla’s but he only made further improvements to it. Michael Faraday invented the first version of a transformer which went on to be further developed by other inventors such as the engineers at the Ganz factory, the Westinghouse company and Tesla.

Another popular myth is that there was a professional and personal rivalry between Edison and Tesla, and that Edison somehow screwed Tesla over. Tesla moved to New York in 1884 and went to work for Edison two days after landing because had a good reputation with the company from doing work on dynamos at Edison Electric in Europe. At this point in time Edison had already invented the incandescent bulb, but there was still a demand for AC powered arc lighting for outdoor applications. Edison had patented a design for an arc lighting system and he tasked Tesla with working out the details. Tesla labored intensely and came up with good results, but Edison ended up deciding to not use the system because of business reasons. Tesla took it personally that his hard work was shelved and angrily quit in disgust. He had only worked for Edison for 6 months. There is also a story that, while Tesla was working for Edison, Edison joked in passing that if Tesla achieved a certain efficiency with a DC system he was working on Edison would give Tesla $50k, an outrageous sum of money at the time. When Tesla achieved the desired efficiency, he asked Edison for the money who laughed it off saying that Tesla didn’t understand his sense of humor, and the story goes that Tesla felt exploited.

There was a period of time between 1880 and the early 1890's that is famously known as the “war of the currents” which is mistakenly retold as a battle between Edison and Tesla. It was a period of commercial rivalry between businesses providing AC and DC power transmission systems, which turned into a marketing and propaganda smear campaign between opposing camps. During this period of time Edison was heavily invested in and marketing DC systems. Edison was wrong about which system was more practical, and fear-mongered about the dangers of AC in order to win business. Tesla was invested in AC but there was never a public or private debate directly between him and Edison. The current wars ended in 1893 with the decision to use multi-phase AC power at the first Niagara Falls power station. The Niagara Falls power station was funded by Wall Street banker Edward Dean Adams. Adams consulted many engineers and scientists, including Edison, about the preferred form of power for this station. He went with Tesla's recommendation of multi-phase AC and awarded the work to the Westinghouse Electric Company. Although Tesla is credited with championing multi-phase AC at Niagara, the person who deserves credit for the decision is Adams.

Tesla is viewed as someone who didn't care about celebrity or money, in contrast to Thomas Edison's obsession with fame and fortune, but this is also not true. Part of this misunderstanding is because he tore up his contracts he had made with George Westinghouse licensing his motor, sacrificing a tremendous amount of money. After Tesla left Edison to work on his AC motor in 1884 he eventually ended up doing business with Westinghouse, who had founded a company to provide AC power in 1885 . Tesla licensed his patents to Westinghouse in 1888 for a large sum of money but by 1891 Westinghouse was in severe financial distress. He was generating a lot revenue in his electric business but had over-expanded his staff, facilities and had spent a lot of money acquiring smaller competing business. Even though the AC motor was an important piece of technology, the market had not caught onto it and there were few customers who could actually use the technology at the time. There were still technical problems with the motor that had to be resolved. The motor ended up being a commercial success in the late 1890's but by 1891 it was not clear that this would be true. Westinghouse's investors did not see Tesla's motors as having any potential in 1891 and they requested that Westinghouse terminate his contract with Tesla. Although Tesla had an intense dedication to his love of invention and experimentation, it is incorrect to say that he did not care about money. Tesla lived in the fanciest hotel in NY, dined in the most exclusive restaurant, and befriended the richest and most famous people he could. Tesla was a total fame-hound and put a lot of effort into getting as much publicity as he could. Tesla was a devoted inventor and part of his motivation for acquiring fame and fortune was to help fund his projects, but he was hardly the humble stoic figure that many imagine. Unfortunately, over the years Tesla made too many bold claims about his inventions that he did not live up to and lost all credibility.

The chapters of the book that detail Tesla's other inventions were depressing because he had so many failures and missed opportunities. Tesla spent decades working on wireless lighting technology but never produced any marketable technology. He experimented with x-rays as the technology was beginning to develop, and narrowly missed the opportunity to come up with a useful invention. He strongly believed, for some bizarre reason, that it was possible to transmit power through the earth's crust- even though the ground is used to dissipate electric energy in every form of electric technology that I've ever heard of. He made many bold claims about the technology he would invent to transmit wireless communication, and was deeply hurt when he was beat by Marconi in the invention of the radio. Tesla spent months in Colorado Springs experimenting with wireless power and believed his results proved he could build a functional station to transmit wireless power, but the Wardenclyff Station that he built was a complete failure. For the last decades of his life Tesla worked on a particle-beam accelerator that was never proved to function as he claimed.

Tesla is mythologized as a genius inventor because of his claims about his ability to visualize an invention, test it in his mind, and then build a perfectly functional prototype in real life. However, this seems to be untrue. His only significant invention, the AC motor, required many different iterations before he created a working prototype and it still had kinks to work out after he licensed the patents. In popular culture he is often used as an example of the power of visualization, but almost all of his inventions were complete failures.
I have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed to discover that Tesla was not the man I thought he was, and confused about his popularity in today's culture. I admire his dedication to invention and the enormous amount of energy and creativity he channeled into it, but I don't think he was a good role model. One of his greatest shortcomings was his lack of connection to reality- he believed that if he could visualize something in his head it would therefore work in real life, but he often ignored evidence that might prove him wrong. This lack of respect for reality, in my opinion, led to his long string of failures and devastating mental breakdown. There have been many different scientists and inventors that have contributed to the field of electrical engineering, Tesla made an important contribution but should not be considered the “inventor of the electric age” as the title of this book suggests.

Tesla was the most influential inventor in history. Where would civilization be without the AC electrical system he single-handedly invented, surpassing Edison's direct current? We'd still be in 1880!

I found this book to be informative but it was dry and rather bland in my opinion. A lot was written about experiments and projects threat delved into the technical aspects to a point where it was tough to follow or stay interested. If you are an engineer, scientist or physicist, then this book may be of great interest to you. For the average person as I am I found it difficult to stay interested in this book.

After reading a variety of books on Steve Jobs, Einstein, Elon Musk and others- I was hoping this would be a good book to read. Unlike the other books, this book goes WAYYYYY into the technical side. What made the other books great was "insider" information and personal details about these amazing individuals. About 98% of this book is all technical (stuff that you can just find on wikipedia). There are only about 20 total pages of "insider" personal information about the lifestyle of Tesla. Thus, I was quite disappointed and not a fan of this author.

I am a retired EE motor control engineer who has long worked on induction motors and who has studied Tesla's motor patents. From an engineering viewpoint Tesla's greatest invention was unquestionably the induction motor, sometimes called the AC induction motor or Tesla's induction motor. This motor is the workhorse of the modern world, the type of motor in your refrigerator and garbage disposal, and factories are full of them. Carlson devotes several chapters to a detailed narrative of Tesla's work in 1887 to develop an AC motor so you would think the induction motor would be featured. Well it's mentioned (p 110), but that's about all. Below I fill in a few details in the motor/power distribution story that Carlson bypasses or gets wrong.

Tesla filed three patents on motors in 1887. The first was 381,968 on Oct 12, 1887 and seven weeks later two more 382,279 and 381,969 on Nov 30, 1887. I am going to dismiss 381,969 as it appears to be some sort of hybrid where Tesla was trying to cover some hole. However the other two patents (381,968 and 382,279) each describe a unique and well performing motor, and both are included in Carlson's narrative.

Figures 4.3 and 4.5 of the book come from patent 381,968, which as the figures show contains a steel rotor with NO copper. This motor is NOT an induction motor. It is technically a variable reluctance AC motor. It operates as the patent notes 'synchronously', meaning that the rotor rotates (within the motor's normal load ratings) at 'exactly' the same frequency (or an integer submultiple) as the frequency from the generator. This motor works on the principle that the 90 degree excitations of the stator windings produces a smoothly rotating magnetic field, as Carlson correctly details in the book, but as seen from the rotor can be though of as spinning energy well. The steel of the rotor by providing the magnetic flux sort of a short circuit settles into the bottom of the energy well and is swept along. As the load on the motor in increased it will shift in phase riding higher up in the well, but it will still rotate synchronously at the same frequency.

The motor of patent 382,279 (filed Nov 30,1887) is what we are interested in. This is the induction motor. It appears in the book in the picture of fig 4.6, but you can't make out any detail of the rotor in the photo. The patent shows that the rotor of this motor contains a pair of shorted quadrature windings, which because they are just a single turn are made with "copper plates" (over a steel core). The motor works on the principle of the rotor magnetic field caused by currents induced in its copper winding pushing against the rotating magnetic field of the stator. Tesla clearly understands how this motor works saying in the patent that currents are "induced" in the "closed conductors" on the rotor, and that the rotation of the rotor is "nearly synchronous" with the rotation of the stator magnetic field.

The patents reveal that these two new AC motors both worked pretty well and could be shown to the experts Tesla's backer hired to evaluate his work, though which motor(s) they evaluated is not clear. The difference between them (initially) seems small, one runs 'synchronously', the other just slightly slower 'near synchronously', a frequency difference that in modern terms is called 'slip'. This is why your shop induction motor (wound with two pole pairs on the stator) operated on 60 hz is rated (at load) at 1,750 rpm (29.167 rotations/sec) not 1,800 rpm (30 rotations/sec), a slip of about 3% to needed induce high currents in the rotor copper.

However, note that Tesla in his lab and demos had two ways of starting these motors, which he was running with a dedicated generator. He could either a) first connect the motor to the stationary generator and then power up the generator with his steam engine, in which case both motors would follow the generator frequency up. Or b) he could have inserted a switch between the motor and generator and first powered up the generator, and then closed the switch. This would simulate how the motors would operate in the field where they would have to start when being suddenly switched onto the AC voltage of a central station.

Starting in case a) the difference between the two motors seems trivial, the one with copper, the induction motor, just runs slightly slower, but starting in case b) a dramatic difference is observed. The induction motor starts, the variable reluctance motor does not! A stationary induction motor suddenly switched on to the high frequency, high voltage of a central stator will draw a surge of current (as will a stationary DC motor starting) and generate pretty good torque to accelerate. However the variable reluctance motor, because the frequency difference is so great has a very feeble starting torque, so with any load at all it simply does not start. This is why the variable reluctance motor is relegated to a few niche applications, whereas the induction motor became the workhorse of the modern world. In an induction motor the only part to wear with no commutator, as the consultant in the book marvels, is the bearing of the motor.

Carson notes that questions were asked about whether Tesla's new AC motors could be used for vehicles. The answer is no, but he doesn't explain why. The reason is that the AC motors are essentially fixed speed motors, whereas DC motors are variable speed motors, which is what is needed for traction control. In a DC motor the speed can be varied two ways, either by increasing the input voltage or by changing the (low power) field current. In an AC motor the speed is set by the frequency of the generator, so if operated from a central station, the AC motor becomes a fixed speed motor. Even in a mine application, which the book mentions, if multiple motors were coupled to a single generator, it is equivalent to a central station, so the AC motors can only be turned on/off, no speed variation is possible.

On the change in frequency and phases of Westinghouse's AC power stations that Tesla advocated, I think there is little doubt that a driving factor in lowering the frequency from 133 hz to 60 hz was to improve the performance of the induction motor. Lowering the frequency not only lowered the baseline speed of the motor by more than a factor of two, yielding a more efficient and easier to use motor, but also very likely it improved the the starting torque of the motor.

The final step in development of the modern AC power distribution system was the recognition that a uniform rotating magnetic field (for motors) didn't require four wires, it could be done with three wires. Carson here credits Tesla's former assistant Charles Scott working at Westinghouse after Tesla left for the development of the Scott T transformer which allowed two phase power for lighting to be tapped off three phase power from the central station. If you think of three phase power as a six wire system with 120 degrees between the phases, a surprising thing happens when you connected the 'return' wire of the three phases together, the three 'return' currents cancel each other, allowing it to be connected to earth. The result is the modern power distribution supplies one phase power to homes for lights and small induction motors, like in your refrigerator, and three phase power to factories for its larger induction motors.

In Tesla, W. Bernard Carlson takes a historian's care to accurately portray Tesla's psychological profile and analyze the motives and illusions pertaining to his inventions. Carlson's portrayal casts doubt on the current near superhuman celebrity status of Tesla, presenting us with a critical analysis of both the great and the regrettable aspects of this inventor's life. He provides balanced insight into Tesla's genius to illuminate the factors behind Tesla's ascent to fame and tragic downward spiral. Some biographers awkwardly adhere to a rigid timeline, Carlson transitions unobtrusively from one event or time period to another. What we have here is the complicated truth behind Tesla's accomplishments, his contributions to the electrical revolution, and his failures.

Presenting us with balanced dose of both the man and his work and recognizing his complex contradictions, Carlson does an excellent job in this detailed exploration of the context, intentions, and motivations of Tesla. He only occasionally speculates about Tesla's motivations, such as the effect of his religious beliefs.

Black and white photos and diagrams of inventions also embellish this critical history. I haven't read other Tesla bios, but I'd be surprised if this isn't the definitive portrait of this fascinating inventor. One note for general readers, Carlson is a scholar and tends to ply his trade; that is, there may be more details than the average reader wants. For those very interested in Tesla, this is a plus for others, expect to do some skimming.

This is an incredible biography that reveals the truth behind Nikola Tesla's interesting life. In this book Carlson wrote an in-depth biography covering Tesla's entire life. He gives a technical description of Tesla's key inventions, while explaining how each one works. Carlson also draws conclusions about Tesla's personality as well as how he thought, and how he invented. He not only covers the good in Tesla's life, but reveals Tesla's flaws along the way. In Tesla: The Inventor of the Electrical Age, Carlson covers the entire journey of Nikola Tesla in a fun and interesting manor. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in knowing the truth about Nikola Tesla!

Tesla made important contributions to the practice and understanding of electircal engineering. Then for reasons I cannot understand, he went off on several tangents to the productive paths in electrical engineering. I suppose the odd path is interesting but the productive paths are more important.

The subtitle here is crucial to understanding what you're getting. The book is not a fully rounded biography. It is a tightly selective biography focused on Tesla the Inventor. It includes an enormous amount of technical detail, both about the evolution of Tesla's AC motor and about Tesla's attempts to broadcast power through the earth. Carlson spends the 20 pages of Chapter 1 on Tesla's childhood. Chapter 2 is entitled "Dreaming of Motors." The great bulk of the book is spent stepping through Tesla's inventions and patents during his first 20 years in the U.S., 1884-1904. The last third of Tesla's life is covered in 7% of the book; whatever else Tesla may have been doing during that time, he wasn't inventing much, so it's out of Carlson's purview.

Carlson all but states that Tesla was a homosexual. He includes a quote from Richard Sogge of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers that, if true, seems to settle the question. After Tesla's one year as vice president of AIEE, in 1892, the organization shunned him. It must have been incredibly stressful for Tesla. Such a 'double life' would explain a great deal about Tesla's peculiar peek-a-boo relationship with society. Carlson does not explore this at all. Given that Carlson is everywhere inserting his own fantasies of what makes inventors tick, it's a little surprising that he avoids this issue entirely. It seems to me to be a significant piece missing from the puzzle.

Carlson's personal maunderings, on inventors' emotional make-up and on inventors' role in civilization, are not only superfluous, they are also tedious. A 'biography', even a selective one, is not the place for the biographer to peddle his own pet theories. Some of Carlson's pronouncements are so fatuous as to threaten his credibility. Chapter 1 (An Ideal Childhood) opens with the pronouncement: "Inventors must live with an exquisite tension." Really, Carlson? How about closeted homosexuals in the U.S. around 1900? The book is riddled with Carlson's sermons. Toward the end of the book the reader gets this beauty: "Clearly the success of any economy depends on getting the right mix of disruptive and adaptive innovations."

I hate critiquing books, as I feel like it's discrediting countless hours of an authors work, but I really didn't like this book. It spent almost no time actually conveying to the reader teslas personality, and spent a long time talking about the technicalities of his inventions, but it didn't seem to do that well either. Additionally, the book was not cronological. I swear to you this is an exact quote from the book: "the westinghouse company reluctantly agreed in 1934 to put tesla on the payroll as a consulting engineer, and pay him $125 a month. To supplement this income, Tesla wrote articles for popular magazines, and his autobiography appeared in several installments of the Electrical Experimenter in 1919." How can you be talking about 1934 then suddenly jump 15 years earlier and relate the two events as if the future event caused the past event. And this happened so much throughout the book. He would jump from 1895 to 1890 to 1893 then 1889, which if done right can be fine but Carlson made it hard to keep track of what was going on.

I only read 50 pages and had to put this one down. I wouldn't call this book a biography and the cover, in my opinion, is very misleading. When I read a biography I expect it to focus on the person's life. For example: the Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein biographies by Walter Isaacson (which were really great!). However, this book is more focused on Tesla's inventions than on Tesla's life. It shouldn't be called "Tesla: Inventor of Electrical Age" but something along the lines of "Tesla's Inventions and Discoveries". And it shouldn't have Tesla's face on the cover but pictures of the inventions. I was very open-minded and kept pushing myself to read this book but it was a huge bore. For a biography, the author goes into unexpectedly deep technical detail about how the inventions work and I think this would alienate most readers (I am a mechanical engineer by the way and it was too much for me!).

In summary: if you're really interested in the technical details of Tesla's inventions, this book could be for you; however, I can't see most people enjoying this book - it's more of an electrical engineering textbook than a biography.

This is not the first Nikola Tesla biography that I've read, but, to my delight, it is certainly the most technical. In prose that is clear, relatively accessible, and frequently intense with technical details, the author recounts the life of inventor Nikola Tesla. After covering Tesla's childhood and education, the author concentrates mainly on his subject's technical skills, hard work, inventions, associates, business ventures, technical rivals, campaigning for funds, occasional frustrations and many accomplishments. Highlights of Tesla's personal life are also, albeit briefly, covered, e.g., county of origin, family, friendships, health, etc.

Plenty of figures throughout the book serve to illustrate some of Tesla's inventions and the scientific principles behind them, and the main text provides excellent descriptions of how they work. However, a few of these descriptions differ from those provided in the corresponding figure captions - the latter being usually the correct ones.

Finally, the author discusses the mental characteristics of good inventors, including dreams, ideas, insights, foresight and other important psychological features necessary for success. These are discussed in light of Tesla's mental approach to inventing.

This biography should be of great interest to Tesla admirers, particularly those who are more technologically/scientifically inclined.

WoW...what a complete biography of a genius!!! This book resonates on so many levels; from an accurate biography, to a scientific treatise, to an introspective journey that grips you like a thrilling mystery the whole way through. Let me just say that I'm exhausted after reading this book; nobody could write fiction as good as the story of Tesla's life. But if there's one thing I like about Carlson's approach, it's in the storytelling approach he uses to explain the complexities of a complicated man. Listening to Carlson's voice throughout the narrative is like sitting around a campfire hearing the wisdom of the elders, his approach keeps you spellbound***!

But while I marveled at the unfolding drama, what sets this book apart is the exhaustive research and elaborate details that Carlson included about Tesla's work amidst the dynamically turning century; you can almost feel the gears of time shifting by the transcendence of technology. And while the story surges ahead, it's the details about how all this came together that really intrigued me. Carlson thoroughly describes the business relationships that Tesla cultivated and all the minutiae of legal and financial agreements. You learn how Tesla succeeded, and unfortunately why at times he commercially failed.

And for all the rich technical details of Tesla's work, and the rigorous analysis of business arrangements with Tesla's patrons, the book pulses with intriguing insights into Tesla's personal, emotional and intellectual life. The result is like a front row seat to one of his Tesla's scientific exhibitions - you'll be entertained, educated and energized!

As a sociologist of science but also a fan of edge science and New Age ideas, I loved this book, because I want my magic to be real. Carlson does an incredibly scholarly job of demystifying Tesla, while crediting his incredible (sometimes unappreciated) genius, and allowing for possible spiritual/paranormal influences in his life. With an introductory background in physics, I was able to understand (mostly) Carlson's explanations of the physics of Tesla's electrical devices, something that obviously adds to an understanding of Tesla. It's difficult to get real about Tesla because his outsider status and bold claims set up a pop culture, conspiracy-theory image of Tesla (which is not to say that nothing in that image is based in reality).

Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson, was a wonderful biography, quite obviously, about Nikola Tesla. What I discovered about Tesla through this book was that he was the one who made the world, with the help of Westinghouse electric, standardize to AC rather than DC. This book was very enlightening about the era (late 1800's & early 1900's) and how Tesla came to be from one of the greatest inventors in the world to crazy old man who died poor and lonely. I rate this book to be a 5 of 5 and recommend it to anyone who is interested in invention or innovation.

The book begins with biographical detail that includes Tesla's religious background and uses that as a basis to claim his inventions were attempts to scientifically realize natural ideals, just as some views of the universe claim that perceptible phenomena are manifestations of a logos. My impression is that a lot of technical data followed which was meant to reinforce that idea, but what actually happened I don't know because I switched to another life of the inventor, 'Wizard'.

This book is very well thought, very well researched and very well written and it's simply the definitive Nikola Tesla biography. The book covers comprehensively both the man and the inventor, and while a little bit too technical sometimes, it provides for a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

Quick Overview: Tesla was born in 1856 to a Serbian family in what is not Croatia, started inventing as a boy, studied engineering in Austria, and immigrated to America in 1884. After briefly working for Thomas Edison, he struck out on his own, set up a laboratory, and invented a new AC motor that incorporated a rotating magnetic field that eliminated the need for commutator brushes. Entrepreneurs behind the massive hydroelectric project at Niagara Falls later rejected Edison's DC system and chose Tesla's - now backed by Westinghouse. These accomplishments all came prior to 1894 and Tesla reaching age 40. Tesla then went on to develop a high-frequency/high-voltage transformer (Tesla coil), built a radio-controlled toy boat, and experimented with radio transmission.

Author Carlson's intent in this new book is to strike a balance between celebrating and criticizing Tesla, contending the former has been overdone, and the latter neglected. The later years of Tesla's life brought a dramatic fall, matched only perhaps by his meteoric ascent from 1884 - '94. Carlson pays particular attention to what he describes as the process of creating new devices/processes that serve human needs/wishes. Sometimes those needs are well-known (eg. stronger rails and cannon barrels) and society readily adopts a new invention (Bessemer's new steel-making process - 1856). Other times there's no apparent preexisting need and an inventor must convince society of an invention's value (eg. Alexander Bell's telephone in 1876).

Per Carlson, Tesla and Bell preferred to edit and shape inventions in their minds, while Edison preferred to develop by either sketching or manipulating devices on his workbench. Tesla was not particularly interested in converting his inventions into profitable products. Instead he used demonstrations, technical papers, and newspaper interviews to capture the interest of the public, and surface entrepreneurs that would purchase and develop his inventions. Carlson contends Tesla peaked in 1894, and after that concentrated more and more on creating excitement through demonstrations, etc., rather than converting those ideas into working machines. For example, he saw the potential of radio, experimented with it, and made exciting predictions about how it would provide trans-Atlantic communications - but allowed Marconi to beat him with actual commercialization in 1901. Others - Tesla overlooked the X-rays produced by his gas-discharge lighting tubes, found no takers for his remote-controlled vehicles, and failed to use electricity to convert atmospheric nitrogen into fertilizer after promising to do so. (Fritz Haber devised a chemical method a decade later.)

Tesla first confronted the challenge of developing an AC motor during his university days (1876 - '77) while observing the school's new DC dynamo. The device required careful commutator brush adjustment to prevent sparking - Tesla began thinking of how to eliminate their need. Subsequent work for an Edison subsidiary in Paris earned him a strong recommendation to Edison, and Tesla immigrated to America in mid-1884 to begin work two days later at the Edison Machine works in New York City. He stayed there for six months, quitting in disgust when his contributions to street lighting and dynamo design went unrewarded and unused.

Almost immediately Tesla was approached by two businessmen excited by the prospects of electric lighting. Tesla proposed they develop an arc-lighting system - the fastest-growing segment at the time, with the number of lights installed doubling every year between 1881 and 1885. Tesla's lamp and regulator were similar to those already in use, but his generator reduced energy losses from heat and eddy currents. By 1886, Tesla's system was used in Rahway to light some streets and several factories. He assigned his patents to their new firm in exchange for shares - this proved a mistake as his partners decided to exit manufacturing and focus on operating lighting in Rahway. Tesla then was reduced to working as a ditch digger for a year.

Fortunately, his supervisor was related to an electrical engineer and Tesla met to individuals that underwrote efforts to develop his inventions into practical devices such as his pyromagnetic generator (their prime interest - converted heat from burning coal directly into electricity), alleviating problems caused by commutators in DC motors, and his AC motor. The 'good news' for Tesla was the central station operators wanted to expand their customer base by adding motor service during the day to complement their selling electricity for lighting at night. Europeans had already learned that high-voltage AC could be used to distributed power over longer distances using small copper wires. (Copper was expensive then.)

George Westinghouse was also interested in AC transmission, and hired an associated to explore existing systems. By the end of 1887, Tesla's new partners, Peck and Brown, urged Tesla to patent his new AC motor. Tesla did so, then gave a lecture (reprinted by all major engineering journals) on how it worked. This led to Westinghouse's buying Tesla's patents - $75,000 in cash and notes, and a royalty of $2.50/horsepower for each motor. Tesla and Westinghouse engineers then worked to improve his motor - increasing the amount of copper wire in the rotors and replacing the wrought-iron cores of the rotor and stator with soft Bessemer steel, more than doubling their power. Westinghouse initially marketed these motors for use in mining machinery, and used graphite bearings in them over Tesla's objections. (He thought they would overheat and fail.) At this point Tesla decided to leave - August, 1989. Carlson credits the ultimate success of Tesla's new AC motor design to his partners' skill in getting the 'right' patents, technical endorsement from a respected academic, lecture/demonstration/paper, as well as their skill in playing Westinghouse to get the best price.

Westinghouse sales boomed from $800,000 in 1887 to $.7 million in 1890. George Westinghouse responded by increasing engineering staff, enlarging factories, buying up smaller companies, and vigorously defending patents. By mid-1980 he'd added $3 million in short-term borrowings to the company balance sheet. Then the failure of a major London brokerage set off a financial panic and Westinghouse's creditors called in their loans, forcing the company into receivership. The new bankers insisted on terminating Tesla's contract to avoid paying million in royalties. Reality, however, was that Tesla would only have received $47,000 in 1891, there were technical difficulties needing solutions, and there was little sign the motors would be a big success at the end of the decade. Carlson believes the bankers' real motivation was to limit George Westinghouse's spending on R&D. Regardless, Tesla agreed and tore up the contract, most likely out of personal loyalty, and possibly also because of a preference for dealing in the future with Westinghouse than bankers for additional work. Unfortunately, this eventually proved financially ruinous for Tesla.

Tesla ended up contributing two disruptive innovations that changed the world economy. His AC motor encouraged utilities to shift to AC power, providing them with greater scale economies. (They already had the 'evening' business with lighting - Tesla's AC motors offered day work in addition.) His polyphase power was equally important, allowing more efficient power transmission. Another contribution was Tesla's innovative use of demonstrations to excite potential backers, and mostly eschewing the growing professional norm of writing up papers instead. Unfortunately, later in life when Tesla became focused on wireless transmission of power he then over-focused on getting his demonstrations right, eventually losing both the patience of his then financial backer (J.P. Morgan) and the race to implementation to Marconi.

Carlson continues with both an interesting and insightful summary of Tesla's career, up to his death as a pauper.

Best and most authoritative bio on Tesla that I've read. Since it was written by an electrical engineer and not just a writer, it contains technical detail of great interest to those with training in the field. May not be of such great interest to those who failed their high school physics class.

This is a gift for my husband. He loves tesla and this seemed like the newest and best version of the book to get for him. He was very excited to get and and shared with me a lot of in formation that he has learned already from this book. Good buy.

A biography of Tesla that ties the man's life to his inventions and pulls no punches about what worked, what didn't, and what factors in Tesla's personality caused him to pursue some of the errors so passionately. Some of his explanations contain annoying errors, though those do not affect his conclusions. It would take someone with a specialty in advanced electromagnetics to explain the subtlety of Tesla's errors and would make for a more boring book than this is.

The first half of the book was very informative about Tesla, his background, and his ideas and the competition with the Edison group.
The last 40% of the book held no interest for me since it was exposition about the author's thoughts & commentary which held no interest for me.

This was painful reading. While the author gives a fairly good insight into the works and life of Tesla, it feels as if the book was written by a high school student. Endless citations do no add pertinent information and seem to have been included because they were just easy to access. The book is full of repetitions and on the other hand leaves many questions unanswered. The latter part of Tesla's life is skimmed over which is a pity since it would be interesting how the genius continued his life after the incredible surge of ideas and inventions in the first 15 years.

While I didn't finish it, I'm very disappointed with this book. The author seems arrogant to me. He is overly critical of Tesla and doesn't treat the subject with the respect he deserves. On many occasions the author belittles Tesla's great accomplishments--as if these inventions were obvious at the time.

I also didn't care for the writing style.

I was so annoyed that I requested a refund of this Kindle book, something I've never done before. If I had bought it as a paper book, it would be kindling right now.

Finished reading this on Tesla's 158th birthday. This was book was a treat! As an engineer I loved the careful and accurate descriptions of Tesla's inventions. A fantastic job by the author in citing dozens of records including personal letters, interviews, patents, presentations, speeches, etc. It clarifies a number of popular inaccuracies about his life from his origins, his struggles and his persevering attitude. A great book about a great man.

Carlson has fleshed out most of the key aspects of Tesla's contributions to invention and engineering in greater detail and with a more balanced approach than any of the previous biographers have achieved. In particular, he has painted a fuller, clearer picture of the early development of polyphase AC, crediting Tesla and highlighting the contributions made by others. He has steered away from unsubstantiated conjecture and his technical descriptions are more accurate and better conveyed (with a few minor caveats).

I suspect that Carlson was able to go into greater technical detail but probably chose not to, in case the book became too dry. There is ample information out there on AC and RF theory for those who want to dig deeper. His interpretation of Tesla's philosophical purpose that underpinned his inventing is refreshingly different to previous biographers and all the better for it.

Minor tech caveats: Carlson incorrectly states that a 2 phase motor has currents 90deg. out of phase, this should be 180deg. He also states (a commonly repeated misconception) that skin effect is the reason why large high frequency voltages from a Tesla coil oscillator didn't harm Tesla; the main reason is that in a resonant series LC, voltage and current peaks are out of phase (but I certainly don't advocate taking a shock from one - safety first).

With a greater focus on these key points, this has left less room for Tesla himself, which Seifer's biography covers in greater detail. If you only buy one biography about Tesla, buy this one, but be aware that others do have a contribution to make to understanding more about Tesla.

Bought this for my kindle... for which I am glad.
I must say that everything someone would like to know about electricity, motors, Europe.... it's in here.
I felt like I was reading a text book. Lot of facts.... not much of a story.

In short, a most comprehensible (I scarcely had to plague my wife the physicist with questions) I found it read very much like an interesting history, complete with anecdotes that "fleshed out" the great man. My congratulations and thanks to Dr. Carlson.
Raymond C Gaudreau, Somerset, MA

Carlson creates and incredibly balanced portrait. The book looks at the man without indulging too much into popular fiction. His work also looks into the science and its contemporary reception without being overly academic.

A truly top-notch piece of literature.

An interesting genius, but the story lacks when it comes to readability. The author actually repeats several incidents several times, making me wonder if he is padding the story or recycling for effect. I did learn a lot about Tesla thought process and his emotionalism when begging for funding so it was a worthwhile read.

Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age. W. Bernard Carlson

I had always thought that Tesla was the inventor of the electrical age especially with reference to three phase transmission of power over long distances. This well written book changed my ideas and made me realise that his contribution to the electrical age was very small. One criticism I have of the book is that Carlson did not critically examine some of Tesla’s more dubious ideas. For example, Tesla didn’t believe in the then modern theory of atoms and subatomic particles. He believed there were no such thing as electrons creating an electric charge, atoms were immutable, there was an all pervasive “ether” that transmitted electrical energy and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was wrong..

Tesla was the first to come up with the idea of the AC motor (but not the only person) but it was left to Westinghouse to develop the motor into a practicable machine. Tesla favoured polyphase AC because it could power his AC motor rather than looking at the other advantages of this form of power.

I found Tesla’s idea of transmitting power through the Earth and his theory of resonance and standing waves poorly explained and unbelievable. There was no explanation how he differentiated between power being transmitted through the Earth and the atmosphere during his Colorado Springs experiments.

Tesla jumped from one impracticable idea to another, from wireless lighting, X-rays, bladeless steam engine, ion-based death ray to the colossal failure to transmit signals and power through the earth. Tesla was famous for his breathtaking electrostatic demonstrations to the public. He was described as a ‘veritable magician’ or a ‘wizard’. One wonders if he was closer to a salesman than a real inventor!

An interesting book and wealth worth reading. But I strongly disagree with the title of the book, “Inventor of the Electrical Age”.

While Bernard Carlson provides a well-documented and extensively researched history of Tesla and his inventions, this biography fails on multiple levels.

First, technical descriptions are dumbed down to the point of being unintelligible. The section entitled "Is the Earth like a Water Balloon or the Ocean?" in Chapter 15 was particularly egregious. (The answer to this rhetorical title is an emphatic "NEITHER!") This section is fraught with errors, misstatements, and false analogies. Further, the discussion completely fails to take into account resonance and standing waves that were clearly part of Tesla's thinking after the Colorado Springs experiments. If indeed Tesla was sincere in his attempt to transmit electricity through the Earth (he may have simply been conning JP Morgan out of investment dollars), the relative position the receiver relative to tower would play a huge factor in the both signal strength and power transmission. Incredibly, Carlson's explanation fails to account for any of these factors.

Second, Carlson fails to take Tesla to task for his deep personal flaws and his astounding lack of contributions after the early 1890's. For most of his life, Tesla was a lot closer to a snake-oil salesman than a real inventor. Tesla was narcissistic to a fault, willing to make false promises to extract money from wealthy benefactors, and completely lacking in the discipline required to turn an idea into a real product. Tesla had two enduring inventions, the AC motor and the variable frequency oscillator ("Tesla Coil"), and even these contributions may not have been fully his. Tesla depended on engineers at Westinghouse to develop the AC motor, and the variable frequency coil was developed at a time when he had multiple assistants and needed a simple way to generate variable high frequency currents for his wireless lighting demonstrations. In addition, his associate, Charles Peck, played a large part in almost all of his significant patents (the ones that actually resulted in a usable product). Peck died in 1890 and Tesla's technical contributions were never the same. Without Peck, Tesla jumped from one impractical concept to another: from wireless lighting (dangerous; requires people to live in massive, high frequency electrical fields), to X-rays (Tesla badly burned one of his assistants), to bladeless steam engines (grossly inefficient), to ion-based death rays (charged particles propagate extremely poorly in any kind of media, including atmosphere), to the colossal failure to transmit signals & power through the Earth (never successfully demonstrated over even intermediate distances). After the early 1890's, Tesla's only successes were the repeated extraction of money and free dinners from rich New Yorkers with limited technical background.

Finally, Carlson misses on his attempts to make connections between Tesla and the broader literature on technical change. In spite of Carlson's repeated assertions, none of Tesla's inventions were disruptive in accordance with Clay Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation. (Christensen's model is itself pretty questionable: see Jill LePore's recent article in the NYT.) The Tesla Coil is a useful lab device, not a disruptive innovation that changed industries. Electric motors may have been disruptive to the established steam power widely used in the late 1800's, but steam would have been disrupted by DC motors even if the AC motor had never been developed. Further, Christensen's model is based on disruption of a mature technology through low-end market encroachment. The Westinghouse AC motor that Tesla contributed to doesn't fit Christensen's definition because it was clearly not "low end" technology. In the 1880's, DC and AC motors were expensive, complex and required a massive capital investment in electrical generating & distribution systems. Carlson similarly misses on his discussion of Tesla in light of Plato's concept of the real and the ideal, and Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction.

Prior to retirement, I spent 22 years on Product Teams responsible for the specification and design of electromechanical devices. From the perspective provided in this biography, I wouldn't want Tesla within a hundred miles of any project that I was working on. He repeatedly made preposterous claims, failed to follow through on promises, jumped from idea to idea with the attention span of a 3-year old, and was totally oblivious to schedule and cost performance. Carlson's description of Tesla's bladeless steam engine demonstration in Chapter 16 was particularly telling. Tesla had problems with disk failures at high speed, which may have compelled him to set up a public demonstration with two of his engines applying force in opposite directions through a torque spring. The engines were effectively stalling each other out, and were not turning during the demo. Carlson states that the engineers "didn't understand the set up" and promptly walked out. Carlson misses the point. At the time, steam power had been well understood for at least 60 years. There are standard methods for evaluating engine performance, and stall torque is just one performance dimension. The only thing Tesla demonstrated was his lack of understanding of rigorous engineering methods. I would have walked out on him, too, and instructed my team to ignore him at all costs.

Jack Hitt
August 24, 2014

I could not wait any longer for this book to come out and read it. Fifteen years in the making has given significant weight to what the book would be about.
Then, major disappointment. It is all about balanced approach. Why? Nothing about Tesla was balanced. It was extraordinary, exceptional. Out of this world. No need for translation how Tesla developed his discoveries; his patents precisely demonstrate all. Next comes ideals and illusions, and promotions, and many other stereotyping when nothing about Tesla is stereotype.
Tesla was not poor - he had worked in Europe, and provided for himself and his scientific work. He was robed while waiting to board the ship. He was very explicit about it in his interviews, and his letters to his family states the same. Yes, he did come, therefore, without money, but, he was not poor prior to departure on US soil.
Tesla's nervous breakdown, from the letters is 'devastation for lost apparatuses' that he immediately needed, come out of the someone's deliberately set fire in his laboratory.
Why is so hard for people who take responsibility to write books about someone and something to get it authentically, the way originator presented. Twelve decades later, army of scientists work on Tesla papers and patents, yet, nobody has come close to decode his statement: "If you knew the magnificence of 3, 6, and 9, you would have the key to the universe." For, the 'madman'...'eccentric' expressions from his time till now. Has anybody hear from Tesla something like this: "Hmm, these people are so mediocre, limited, so ordinary they are not capable to see what they will need for the future. Oh, my God! I am strange to them feeding pigeons. They can not even grasp it is escape to paradise being in the company of these brilliant birds. One ought to try fitting Tesla's brain power into ordinary cliche."
Chapter sixteen, page 368, first paragraph reads that MIT professor Trump finds Tesla's papers (1943) speculative, philosophical, and promotional. Again, Carlson concludes that ideal and illusions have been fundamentals to Tesla's work. Now, comes his sexuality and 'contributed to his internal confusion'!!!. OMG!!! Can it not be anything better?
Any other thoughts? Conclusions? How many inventors in Tesla time would have liked to be him? It is still today. Why urge to bring Tesla down to the mare, average mind?

Is it possible that nobody, still, does not understand? Tesla was/has been YOGI in the Western world what YOGI has been in the Himalayan world. Tesla had his escapes in his laboratories to discover and make our lives better. And, he did! He scientifically/mathematically expressed Himalayan philosophy of existence desperately trying to make people understand; for the betterment of humans! But, someone did not like to give him credit much less financial satisfaction as normal ROI. It was/has been fine, however, for others to scoop all rewards on his discoveries. YOGI in Himalayas did not border to make people's life better! They already knew no hope for it! Himalayas are great shelter from pond-weed of ordinary mind. The true is still today.