Nikola Tesla Books
CHAPTER SIX became manager of a telephone office in Budapest responsible for installing new machinery. His inventive genius received its first reward at this time with the granting of a patent for a telephone amplifier. The idea of a new and improved electric motor continued to nag at him and, early in 1882, he contracted a minor illness and spent a few days off work. His young assistant, Szigeti, stopped by and suggested that they should walk together in the park. The two friends strolled along admiring the sunset, which inspired Nikola to recite from Goethe. Suddenly, the young man stopped as if paralysed. Tesla describes in his own words what happened next: When in a moment of inspiration I was pronouncing these words, the idea occurred to me like a flash of lightning and in a second the truth revealed itself. With a stick I drew in the sand the diagrams... At that instant Tesla had conceived the plans of an induction motor, a motor upon which all modern electrical generating systems would rely and which, one day, would find its way into a host of electrical devices. Inventing a new device is one thing, financing its development and marketing is another. Tesla moved to Paris and the Continental Edison Company where, in a fever, he drafted new designs for motors, generators and transformers. In those early days he created out of his own head all the components of our present-day electrical transmission systems, yet no one seemed interested. Tesla looked in vain for someone who would finance his ambitious plans, then in despair he cashed his final savings and booked passage on the steam ship Saturnia. Nikola Tesla had decided, in 1884, that he must go right to the top. He would sail to New York and talk with the only man who could understand the importance of his invention, Thomas Alva Edison. 62 62
