Nikola Tesla Books
At first, Tesla enrolled in the chemical-technical department of the Polytechnic in Graz, but he soon turned to electricity. In his autobiography, speaking of his studies in Graz, Tesla recounts:
In the second year of my studies we received in our laboratory a Gramme dynamo-machine from Paris, which had a horseshoe laminated magnet and a ring armature with a commutator. We put it into operation and obtained various effects with the current. When Professor Poeschl carried out experiments with it, using it as a motor, we had great difficulties with the brushes. The commutator threw off large sparks, and I remarked to the professor that it must be possible to make a motor without brushes and without a commutator. The professor then declared that this was not possible and delivered a lecture in my honor, at the end of which he stated: "Mr. Tesla may perhaps create great works, but he will nevertheless never succeed in this. That would mean wanting to transform a force that acts in one direction, similar to gravity, into a rotating force. That would be a perpetual motion machine, therefore an impossible idea."
Instinct is something that stands above knowledge. We undoubtedly possess very delicate nerves that enable us to sense truths that are not accessible to logical deductions or other deliberate processes of our mind. At first, under the influence of the professor's authority, I abandoned this idea, but I soon came to the conviction that I was right, and I threw myself into solving this problem with all the enthusiasm and boundless confidence of youth.
Thus, already in 1877, at the age of twenty-one, Tesla received the first inspiration for his greatest life's work, in which he showed that alternating current makes possible the construction of rational generators and motors, thereby enabling its transmission and use over unlimited distances - on which today's modern electrification of the civilized world is based.
At the end of the second year Tesla was still passing his examinations. In the third year he slackened in his work, his scholarship was withdrawn, he disappeared from Graz, and broke off all contact
