Nikola Tesla Books
of them for their own purposes and from his ideas created fame and fortune. In all of this, Tesla himself was often to blame. A distinctly egocentric personality, full of inner contrasts and paradoxes, he had little understanding for the work and ideas of others. His collaborators were mostly ordinary mechanics; he did not know how to gather around him intelligent people who could independently further develop his ideas, through which his genius might have been expressed even more strongly. The only prominent figure among them was Charles F. Scott, later a professor at Yale University and president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, who collaborated with Tesla during his time with George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, where he participated in the construction of the polyphase motor.
Strong personalities in the same field often do not get along. Thus Tesla did not get along with his countryman and contemporary Mihajlo Pupin, professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University. Although he lagged behind Tesla, Pupin was more systematic and possessed all the formal qualifications of a university professor. He became famous for his "pupinized cables," which enabled long-distance telephone communication over wires.
Pupin told a correspondent of the newspaper Politika, who visited him in 1927: "Why are you celebrating Tesla over there? He is not some mystical man - he is an ordinary man like everyone else. How long will our people continue to celebrate only mysterious personalities, instead of what is clear and understandable to all?"
Confused by this statement, the correspondent went to see Tesla. Among other things, Tesla told him how, during a lecture he delivered at Columbia College, in which he spoke about the wireless transmission of energy
