Books with title My Book of Inventions

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and futurist. He is best known for his contributions to the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system. Tesla's patents and theoretical work helped form the basis of wireless communication and radio. His many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism were based on Michael Faraday's theories of electromagnetic technology. Born to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan (now in Croatia), Tesla was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen. Because of his 1894 demonstration of short range wireless communication through radio and his contributions to the development of alternating current, the successful system in the "War of Currents", he is widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America. This book, Tesla's autobiography, was first published as a six-part 1919 series in the Electrical Experimenter magazine, in the February - June, and October issues in 1919, at which time Tesla was 63 years old.

In 1919, Nikola Tesla wrote several articles for the magazine "The Electrical Experimenter", a magazine for which he had previously written several articles. These new articles were autobiographical in nature, and have often been gathered together and published as his "autobiographical notes". This new edition has been re-edited, and illustrations which were not present in the original 1919 versions have been added.

Excerpt:Marconi was a mere boy when he first began to dream of the marvellous possibility of sending telegraph messages without wires. He was barely twenty-one, a shy, modest, beardless youth, when he went up to London from his quiet country home in Italy to tell the world about one of the greatest inventions of the century. A few months later this boy had set up his apparatus and was telegraphing all sorts of messages through the air, through walls, through houses and towns, through mountains, and even through the earth itself, and that with a mechanism hardly more complicated or expensive than a toy telephone. The present system of telegraphy by means of wires, the sending of long despatches over continents and under oceans, is quite wonderful enough in itself, but here was an inventor who did away entirely with wires and all other means of mechanical connection, and sent his messages directly through space. It is for this that Marconi was famous the world over at twenty-five.

My Inventions is Tesla's autobiographical legacy. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to penetrate the inventor's complex personality and mysterious life. Here Tesla reveals in fascinating psychological detail how a photographic memory and a runaway imagination almost fatally cursed his childhood in Yugoslavia. Here he tells us how he willfully harnessed his visions to invention, yet never outgrew many of his childhood fears and compulsions. In his own words Tesla retells the famous story of his Faustian quest for the electric motor the experts said could never be built - a quest that nearly cost him his sanity. Here, at last, readers can learn the truth about this amazing and misunderstood man of genius.

" The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements.Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment, so much that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture. I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts..." N. T.

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. Tesla’s achievements and his abilities as a showman demonstrating his seemingly miraculous inventions made him world-famous.Although he made a considerable amount of money from his patents, he spent a lot financing his own projects. He lived for most of his life in a series of New York hotels although the end of his patent income and eventual bankruptcy led him to live in diminished circumstances. Tesla’s work fell into relative obscurity after his death, but since the 1990s, his reputation has experienced a resurgence in popular culture. His work and reputed inventions are also at the center of many conspiracy theories and have also been used to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories and New Age occultism. In 1960, in honor of Tesla, the General Conference on Weights and Measures for the International System of Units dedicated the term “tesla” to the SI unit measure for magnetic field strength.

“ The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment, so much that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture. I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts...” N. T.

Nikola Tesla was one of history’s greatest scientists, and though he is best known for his pioneering work with electricity, the fact that he is mostly remembered solely for that actually does a disservice to his legacy. Born a Serb in the Austrian Empire, Tesla came to the United States and worked in a laboratory for none other than the Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison. It was through his work on behalf of Edison that Tesla flourished and became a well-known figure in his own right. His work there helped him establish financial backing for his own projects, particularly the design of AC (alternating current) as a system for supplying electricity. This later put him at odds with Edison, who championed DC (direct current), but Tesla’s model would come out on top as the 19th century came to a close. Having established AC as an electrical supply system, Tesla became a global celebrity, and his devices and inventions fascinated people. Tesla tinkered with everything from X-rays to wireless communications and even attempted a primitive form of the radio. While Tesla was not able to successfully execute the devices and concepts he foresaw, his forward thinking in fields like wireless communication certainly proved prescient, and his futuristic devices and his later reputation for eccentricity helped create the “mad scientist” image that still remains a pop culture fixture. Tesla seemed to have come to grips with this aspect of his legacy late in life, noting, “The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.”

Starting in prehistory and moving through to the present day, the book charts the entire history of human ingenuity, from the first primitive tools to the latest space telescope. More than 500 inventions are featured both chronologically and thematically - each double-page spread is divided up vertically into time columns and horizontally into bands grouping inventions from daily life, travel and conquest, counting and communication, and agriculture and industry. The text combines with photographs - many of original and authentic objects - to bring each invention to life. Children can discover for themselves when the wheel, car, television and computer were invented, what was invented at the same time as the wheel and how much later it was before the bicycle was born.