Nikola Tesla Books
The Tesla/Westinghouse generators, which supplied the electrical needs for the Chicago 1893 World's Fair, set the stage for the installation of the alternating current generator system at Niagara Falls, and in April, 1895, the first generator began turning. By 1903, when the Niagara plant was completed, almost all new generating plants in the country were founded on the basic Tesla inventions. The immense royalties which Tesla might have received did not materialize when Tesla elected to forego the contract arrangement at a time of financial crisis for Westinghouse. FL
Soon after Tesla's announcement of his polyphase system of power transmission, he turned his attention to the production of alternating currents of vastly increased frequency and voltage. His researches led to his famous trio-series of demonstration lectures delivered in this country and abroad, and the name "Tesla coil" was soon applied to his invention of the disruptive-discharge tuned-circuit apparatus used to produce these high frequency and high voltage effects. The first lecture, entitled "Experiments with Alternate Current of Very High Frequency and Their Application to Methods of Artificial Illumination," was given May 20, 1891, before a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York. The second, entitled "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency," was given February 3, 1892, before the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London, and, by special request, a day later (with some condensation) at the Royal Institution; by invitation he again delivered the lecture (with some variation) in Paris on February 19 before the Société Internationale des Electriciens and the Société Francaise de Physique. The third, entitled "On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena," was given February 24, 1893, before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and (with some variation) in St. Louis on March 1 before a meeting of the National Electric Light Association. It was in this lecture that the principles of radio communication and the apparatus for its implementation were presented.
On August 25, 1893, Tesla gave a demonstration lecture entitled "Mechanical and Electrical Oscillators" before members of the International Electrical Congress at the World's Fair, Chicago, which was repeated (with some variation) before a meeting of the New York Electrical Society on November 29. On January 12, 1897, he delivered an address entitled "On Electricity" at the Ellicott Club in Buffalo, New York, on the occasion of the commemoration of the introduction of Niagara Falls power in that city. On April 6, 1897, he gave an address entitled "On the Streams of Lenard and Rontgen, with Novel Apparatus for Their Production" before a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, and on September 13, 1898 an address entitled "High Frequency Oscillators for Electro-therapeutic and Other Purposes" before a meeting of the Electro-therapeutic Association in Buffalo; these two addresses summarized his work up to those times in the application of electrotechnology to the medical field.
At an incredible pace, Tesla made basic discoveries and inventions in high frequency heating, electrotherapeutics, neon and fluorescent lighting, electric clocks, x-ray equipment and techniques, radio, and radio-controlled devices (boats used as weapons, etc.). On May 13, 1899, he gave an address entitled "Telautomatics" before a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago during which he demonstrated the operation of the radio-controlled boat on water. At this time, Tesla was
