Genius at Work - Dr. Nikola Tesla

By Adam Sudetic
Member, Lodge 519

DETROIT, Mich. — On the occasion of his 75th birthday, in 1932, the late Dr. Nikola Tesla read and heard praise and acknowledgements rarely enjoyed by a man during his lifetime.

America, England, France, Germany and the rest of the world joined at the time in paying glowing tribute to this great man and praise came his way from scientists all over the earth, men who appreciated what Dr. Tesla had done for the good of mankind.

It would take all six pages of the English Section of the Zajednicar to repeat what was said and written about Dr. Tesla during that 1932 milestone in his life. But here are some of the more memorable tributes.

W. H. Bragg (1862-?), The Royal Institution of England, a Nobel Prize Winner: "I remember vividly the eagerness and fascination with which I read your account of the high tension experiments more than forty years ago. They were most original and daring; they opened up new vistas for exploration by thought and experiment."

Gratitude And Respect

Robert A. Millikan (1868-1953), California Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize Winner, measurer of speed of light: "When I was a young man of 25 as a student in Columbia University I attended a downtown lecture in New York at which you made one of the first demonstrations of your Tesla Coil and its capabilities. Since then I have done no small fraction of my research work with the aid of the principles I learned that night, so it is not merely my congratulations that I am sending to you now but with them also my gratitude and respect in overflowing measure."

Arthur H. Compton, University of Chicago, Ryerson Physical Laboratory, Nobel Prize Winner: "To men like yourself, who have learned first hand the secrets of nature and have shown us how her laws may be applied in solving our everyday problems, we of the younger generation owe a debt that cannot be paid."

L. W. Austin, National Research Council, International Scientific Radio Union, American Section: "As one of the early workers in radio telegraphy, I am glad to express to you personally, as I have already done in print, my feeling of the great debt that the radio art owes to your genius."

Still World's Choice

Louis Cohen, Ph. D, Consulting Engineer, Washington, D. C.: "I am sure that all of us who are familiar with the early developments of the radio art appreciate the pioneer work of Tesla and are glad to place his name in the first rank of those who helped to create this magnificent art."

Lee De Forest, American Television Laboratory, Ltd., Hollywood, Cal., brilliant scholar and inventor in his own right: "Not only for the physical achievement of your researches on high frequencies which laid the basic foundations of the great industry of radio transmission in which I have labored, but for incessant inspiration of your early writings and examples do I owe you a special debt of gratitude."

G. H. Clark, Secretary of Radio Museum Board, Radio Corporation of America: "To dwell upon the many achievements of Nikola Tesla would require volumes. Suffice it here to mention his high-frequency coil, which is used today in one form or another at all radio stations. This is still the world's choice when demonstrations of the effect of high voltage are desired."

(To Be Continued)