Nikola Tesla Books
en route to Colorado Springs to conduct experiments on wireless power transmission. There, he produced the greatest length point-to-point electrical discharges ever achieved by man, by means of an enormous Tesla coil called a Magnifying Transmitter, and startled the technical community with photographs and claims of his work.
With the successful completion of his experimental work at Colorado Springs, Tesla returned to New York in January (1900) and the following year began construction of a world-wide communications system at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, sponsored in part by J. P. Morgan. However, the project was not completed because of insufficient funds, and the ultimate goal of wireless transmission of power to Paris was not demonstrated.
During the next several years Tesla turned his attention to the development of a novel turbine which now bears his name. Summarizing his work of the preceding 12 years, Tesla gave an address entitled "New Inventions of Tesla" before a meeting of the National Electric Light Association in New York on May 15, 1911, in which he described his Magnifying Transmitter and turbine developments.
It became evident to many in years following that Tesla had developed the fundamental concepts of television and radar, decades before their inception. He also spoke of the development of a "death ray." Many of his ideas, including the possibility of interplanetary communication, were simply too far ahead of the times.
In the United States alone, 111 patents were issued to Tesla. It is estimated that his name can be linked to several hundred inventions. Many honors and awards were bestowed upon him, including honorary degrees, the John Scott Medal, the Edison Medal, and awards from foreign countries.
Mentally active but physically weak toward the end, Nikola Tesla died Jan. 7, 1943, in his rooms at the Hotel New Yorker, having perhaps contributed more to our present technical society than any other single individual. Later that year, the U. S. Supreme Court invalidated the fundamental radio patent of Marconi primarily on the basis of the prior work of Tesla. On the occasion of the Tesla Centennial Anniversary in 1956, the International Electrotechnical Commission announced that the unassigned unit of magnetic flux density in the MKS System be named "tesla" in his honor. In 1976, on the occasion of Tesla's 120th anniversary, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (successor organization to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers) established the Tesla Award.
Suggested biographical account of Tesla's life and work are Prodigal Genius, by John J. O'Neill, and Lightning In His Hand, by Inez Hunt and Wanetta Draper.
