IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 19

use of 3 phase electric power in the
United States.
In Tesla's late, middle period, we
learn of a huge tower he constructed
in Colorado Springs, CO, in the early
20th century. Paid for by John Jacob
Astor, it was powered by Nikola's
"magnifying transmitter," a device
capable of generating millions of
volts and spectacular sparks and
was intended to send not only wireless messages but electric power to
consumers through the air - thus
eliminating the use of copper wires
in the system and providing its consumers with "free energy." Having
no results to show for this endeavor and no more funds from Astor,
Tesla decamped to Wardenclyffe,
Long Island, New York. J.P. Morgan
poured $150 000 into yet another
tower and generator; Tesla again
claimed that he could send both
power and wireless messages with
this arrangement. With no signs of
success, Morgan refused to go in
further and the project was abandoned, leaving behind in 1905 a
tower 187 feet high and extending
a nearly comparable amount into
the earth. It becomes clear that Tesla's life as an inventor was headed
downhill but this didn't stop him
from giving newspapers interviews
where he spoke of having invented
death-beam particle weapons capable of killing millions (which would
make war unthinkable), an efficient
bladeless turbine (which never really caught on), a device that would
beam sufficient electric power to
ships to permit their crossing an
ocean, and a theory that the sun
was discharging particles moving
at 50 times the speed of light. He
died alone, a weird eccentric, in a
hotel in New York City in 1943.
Carlson's epilogue has an interesting remark about why a fetishized
new automobile carries the name
of someone who never worked on
automobiles except for the speedjune 2017

ometer: the name evokes not only a
wise for Darwin, Wallace, and evodisruptive, cool technology but also
lution. Bell and Gray were working
partakes of the spiritual; your new
on the telephone simultaneously,
$130K energy sipping car is saving
but most people have never heard
our planet and civilization. You, the
of Elisha Gray.
new owner, share the same deep
Cooper sets his sights on certain
awareness as Nikola. Your dream
myths beloved of the Tesla buff. To
machine uses the same energy as a
name three: Nikola invented altergasoline vehicle getting 90 miles per
nating current, he created the wiregallon - it's almost as good
as his free energy.
With the publication of
Carlson's impressive work,
one might ask why CooNikola Tesla has been a cult
per's book, reviewed here,
ever appeared. What might
figure for decades extending
he add? He does add someback to his own lifetime.
thing and his somewhat
idiosyncratic work is a welcome addition to serious
Tesla literature.
less transmission of electricity, and
The subtitle (The Myth of the
J.P.Morgan, Tesla's main financial
Lone Genius) [italics added] tells a
backer pulled the plug on backing
lot. This book is part of a small
such a system because he couldn't
but growing critical historiography
charge for the power.
of Tesla - a kind of Reformation in
The book is not, unlike Carlson's,
Tesla Studies. The volume derives
a university press creation. It's beauits thesis from something all seritifully illustrated and the author
ous students of the history of scigoes to some pains to explain varience and technology know: most
ous concepts surrounding electricbreakthroughs are overdetermined.
ity. Much of his discussion involves
There are great minds working on
describing technological advances
the same problem making simultathat either preceded or were simultaneous discoveries. A scholar in the
neous with Tesla's.
field will rarely say something like
Most historians of technology
"Alfred E. Neuman was the first to
see as Tesla's most solid contribuinvent the finagled kludge..." But the
tions the induction electric motor
non-expert needs to be reminded
and the system of polyphase elecof such truths and here Cooper is
tricity. Prior to the 1880s electric
invaluable in the case of Tesla.
motors required the use of a comAn excellent introduction to the
mutator. The spinning portion of the
concept of an invention's arrival
motor, known as the rotor or armabeing overdetermined is a piece in
ture, demanded that the direction
the New Yorker Magazine "In the
of current flow through its insulated
Air" by Malcolm Gladwell [1] which
turns of wire be reversed at least once
neatly conveys the truth that smart
in the course of a single rotation.
people are often simultaneously
This meant that current was proworking on the same idea and that
vided to the armature by a pair of
the glory often, and unfairly, attachstationary conducting brushes that
es itself to just one of them. Newmade contact with a couple of spinton and Leibnitz were developing
ning conductors forming a sort of
calculus at the same time and likesplit ring connected to the shaft of
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