Nikola Tesla Books
IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA tistical data for his hypothesis, Burt seems to have invented some of his subjects and fabricated their raw data. Here was a clear case of a scientific fraud which had deceived hundreds of research workers and had been perpetuated in countless learned publications. No wonder the idea of a scientific hoax is as repellent to the scientific community as sexual deviation would have been to the Victorian middle class. Just as lesbianism had never been added to England's criminal code due to Queen Victoria's famous refusal to believe such acts possible, so it seemed that many scientists would be almost prepared to accept the impossible rather than believe a colleague guilty of deliberate deception. I began to realize how complex my reactions were to Tesla's lecture. Here was a scientist who claimed to have observed a phenomenon of such importance that to accuse him of having made a casual mistake, a slip of the tongue or a careless observation was out of the question. My initial reaction was that Tesla was mad, a liar or - and this seemed equally absurd - that he was correct. I began to wonder what sort of a man Tesla had been. Apart from the papers provided by PACE, I had very little evidence of his actual existence. Not one of my textbooks made mention of his name beyond referring to the Tesla coil. Was he indeed a scientist of repute and the inventor responsible for modern power transmission as PACE claimed? I went across to my bookcase and began to search through the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sure enough, in Volume 18, there was an entry for Tesla, Nikola; born in Smiljan, Croatia, in July, 1856. What first caught my eye on that page was not the text, but a photograph: Tesla as a young man, handsome, dark and with penetrating eyes. He had been placed in a formal, almost Victorian pose by the photographer. His cheek rests on his left hand and his face is turned towards the camera. Well-greased black hair is parted symmetrically into two waves and he has a small neat moustache. There is a curve to his mouth and the lower part of his face looks thin and sensitive, but with a certain tension as if any expression was to be kept tightly under control. Around the eyes, something of humour seems to dart, but it is the eyes themselves which give the photograph its whole quality. The line of the shoulder, of the left wrist, the movement of 27
