Nikola Tesla and Samuel Clemens: The Friendship between Two Luminaries of the Gilded Age
Bratislav Stojiljković, Dragoljub A. Cucić, Zoran Pajić · 2014
IntroductionNikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an American scientist of Serbian origin. His greatest contributions to science and technological progress of human civilization were invention of rotating magnetic field, induction motor, polyphase alternating current, as well as complete system of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. He constructed a generator of high-frequency and high-voltage alternate currents, better known as Tesla transformer, coreless transformer, or Tesla coil. He made numerous inventions and discoveries in fields of lighting, radio technology, wireless transmission, application of high-frequency currents in industry and medicine, as well as unusual but original inventions in mechanical engineering and aviation. In 1960 his name was given to unit of magnetic induction in International System of Units.Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan (Military Frontier of Austria, today Republic of Croatia) in a Serbian priest family. He received his education in Austria and, later, in Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (founded on 29 May 1867). He started school in Smiljan in 1862. A year later, family moved to Gospic, after his father Milutin (1819-1879) was appointed pastor of local Church of Saint George. There Nikola finished elementary school (Hauptschule) between 1863 and 1867. After that he attended junior high school (Unterrealschule) in Gospic (1867-1870) and senior high school 0Oberrealschule) in Karlovac (Carlstadt) (1870-1873). From 1875 to 1878 he was a student of Polytechnic School ( Technische Hochschule) in Graz,1 and in 1880 he enrolled in Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. In European part of his life, he worked in Maribor, Budapest, Paris, and Strasbourg.He moved to United States in June 1884 so that he could develop and materialize his inventive ideas more easily. He mostly lived and worked in New York, where he accomplished almost all of his inventions and discoveries.Using Teslas inventions and discoveries as a background, we study him as a person, a man with innovating gifts, comprehensive education and strong charisma that helped him meet, collaborate, and socialize with some of most distinguished people of time profoundly influenced contemporary society. One of them was famous American writer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain.Their friendship lasted nearly twenty years, from beginning of 1890s until Clemens's death in 1910. Although they worked hard and changed places of residence, they did their best to keep friendship and mutual respect. This assertion is supported by John Joseph O'Neill (1889-1953), a science journalist for New York Herald Tribune and first biographer of Tesla, calls them close friends, as does David Fears, in his four-volume chronology of Clemens's life.2Wondrous effects, proficiently made by Tesla during his laboratory experiments, deeply impressed visitors used to call him master of light or master of lightning. One of them was Clemens, sincerely appreciated gift of inventiveness, mentioned in his book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. At one point he says that inventors are the creators of this world-after God,3 naming among others Gutenberg, Watt, Morse and Bell. His biographer Milton Meitzer says that despite sorrows that brought him, Mark couldn't root up his love for inventions,4 this opinion is shared by David Fears, claims that various inventors often mesmerized Clemens, and Tesla was a particularly brilliant and prescient one.5By end of August 1908 Clemens got a letter from an American encyclopedist, Henry Ruoff, asking him to examine and expand list of nearly one hundred persons who have had largest visible influence on life and activities of race.6 In his reply7 dated 28 August, under Industry section, Clemens penned a candidate described as The Wireless Man. …