Nikola Tesla's Diary

All the great scientists like Copernicus, Da Vinci, Galileo, were, by the nature of their doings, incomprehensible and mysterious for laymen and “common” mortals. It was no surprise that stories and legends emerged after they had left the stage of life; stories about their work and fantastic discoveries that somehow vanished after their deaths, so humankind would never be able to use all the benefits they would have brought.

After his death the public was overwhelmed with the sensational news that Tesla made some important inventions which unexplainably disappeared after he had died. The newspapers wondered what were the discoveries about, who and why had stolen them, was the world in danger?

Many claimed that the discoveries were in the diary that he had been writing in his laboratory in Colorado Springs from January 1, 1899, until November 7, 1900, when, for some reason, he had ceased writing it.

Many dreamed about having that notebook, in which, on 471 pages written in slanted handwriting in the English language, he described his experiments.

However, when the notebook is being read, there is no word about secrets in it. Everything he wrote about was about the everyday work of a scientist. The style was cold, realistic, and measured. There is no writer’s temper in it, and there is no notion about whether or not the experiments were successful. However, if a man immerses himself in reading, he will not discover hidden secrets, but he will discover a lot about Nikola Tesla - an ordinary man.

By reading the text the reader gets the impression that the writer, apart from science, was a very skillful writer, which implies that as a youth he was very successful in writing poetry.

However, by judging the text, an expert can reveal the spirit of the author at the time of writing. When the text is nervous and jagged, the writer was indisposed because the experiment had not been successful; but when the text is full of lyric descriptions of the landscape that surrounded the lab, it is clear that the success was accomplished.

Therefore, this diary does not hide any secret, but it does help, better than any other writing, to perceive Tesla as an ordinary man, like any of us.