Artistic Invention: Nikola Tesla

How Inspiration Can Come from a Walk in the Park

When thinking about some of history’s greatest inventors and their artist-like creative thinking, one name immediately enters the mind: Nikola Tesla. Nikola was exceptionally well-known for his unique brand of creative thought which was shaped by many varying influences and experiences in his life. He recounts many of these experiences in his autobiography: My Inventions.

Nikola was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Lika in the Austrian Empire, today part of Croatia. His mother and father were two polar-opposite influences on his childhood development. His father was a clergyman in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Nikola’s father wanted him to become a clergyman; he was repulsed by this idea, as he deeply despised religious zealotry. His mother, on the other hand, was characterized by her ingenuity. She came from a deep lineage of inventors and scientists. Despite never having been formally educated, she had a remarkable talent for dreaming up and developing tools and machines for use in rural home life. Famously, Nikola had photographic memory, which he attributed to his mother’s influence.

In his autobiography, Nikola recollects a time in his youth where he and his friends managed to climb a steep mountain on a cold wintery day. As they climbed the mountain, they started to play with the snow; they began to throw snowballs down the mountain. They noticed something peculiar: the snowballs would gather snow, becoming larger as they rolled down the mountain. Nikola and his friends began to compete amongst each other to see who could create the largest snowball using this effect. On one occasion, a snowball managed to grow “to the size of a house!” This house-sized snowball, once it impacted the valley at the bottom of the mountain, made the ground noticeably tremble. That snowball impacted Nikola’s imagination with almost as much force as it impacted that valley; this phenomenon of small actions magnifying into enormous consequences continued to fascinate him for decades thereafter.

One of the most influential periods of Nikola’s life occurred during the early 1870s. During this time, he attended school in Carlstadt, today known as Karlovac in Croatia. Nikola frequently found himself captivated by the demonstrations which the professors would perform. He remarked at how these demonstrations were a “powerful incentive to invention.” Among the most potent of these influences was one particular professor named Martin Sekulić. Mr. Sekulić fostered an immense interest and fascination with electricity within Nikola. He described Mr. Sekulić as an “ingenious man,” primarily because he would perform demonstrations using devices of his own design and fabrication.

In the early 1880s, Nikola moved Budapest. There, the telephone was becoming much more prevalent; one of Europe’s first telephone exchange systems was to be installed in Budapest. The Budapest Telephone Exchange was headed by Tivadar Puskás, a long-time family friend. Nikola saw this as an opportunity; he decided to seek employment at the Budapest Telephone Exchange. Over the course of his employment there, Nikola developed several new inventions in the field of telephony. Many of these inventions were implemented in Budapest’s telephone system. Among the most important such inventions was an improved amplifier. Unfortunately, not much else is known about his other inventions from this period; they were never patented nor talked about publicly in much depth.

During his time in Budapest, one of the most important inspirational underpinnings behind Nikola’s future work transpired. Nikola was walking with a friend in Budapest’s Városliget park. As they were walking, they recited lines from Goethe’s Faust:

“The glow retreats, done is the day of toil; It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring; Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil Upon its track to follow, follow soaring! A glorious dream! though now the glories fade. Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.⁠”

While reciting the words of the poem, the view of the sunset struck Nikola. This is where one vital nugget of creative thought occurred. Unfortunately, no source seems to further elaborate on Nikola’s thought process in making these connections, so I will attempt to speculate. He spotted several connections between the sunset, magnetism, and the words of Faust. I believe he also thought about the rotation of the Earth which cause the day and night cycles. This, in turn, would have inspired him to think about phases in relation to electromagnetism. The connections between these thoughts led him to the revelation of the rotating magnetic field. He proceeded to draw diagrams in the sand which depicted his new idea for a rotating magnetic field. It is this unlikely spotting of connections which served as the cornerstone for Nikola’s most important future work.

Széchenyi Bathhouse at Városliget Park

After working in the Budapest Telephone Exchange for a short while, Nikola accepted a job offer in Paris. Paris left a deep impression on him; he described it a “magic city” with innumerable irresistible attractions. While working as an electrical engineer at the Société Electrique Edison, he met several Americans. They clued him into the culture of experimentation and invention which characterized America in that era. Shortly thereafter, Nikola decided to emigrate to America.

Shortly after he arrived in America, Nikola met Thomas Edison; he recalled that meeting being one of the most memorable moments in his life. He was particularly enthralled with how Mr. Edison was able to confidently accomplish so much without early scientific training. Nikola worked at the Edison Machine Works for about six months before quitting over the unkempt promise of a substantial bonus.

After leaving the Edison Machine Works, Nikola helped form a new company: the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company. From here, he developed a new type of electric arc lighting system and began mass-producing it. It is here where Nikola developed many of his other ideas into practical inventions. Many of the ideas behind his inventions significantly challenged the status quo of his time. The status quo of that time, having significantly favored direct-current systems, meant that investors were uninterested in Nikola’s new alternating-current systems. This was an influence that may have caused him to double-down on promoting his alternating-current systems, which also contributed to the start of the “war on currents.” Nikola was determined to think differently from the crowd in this respect; he would ultimately prevail.

At the heart of Nikola’s new alternating-current system was the aforementioned idea of the rotating magnetic field. That idea which was inspired by his earlier walk in the Városliget park was finally starting to come to fruition! The rotating magnetic field was induced within the motor by means of alternating-current which was delivered in multiple phases. The motor’s rotor would chase the rotating magnetic field, causing it to rotate as well. Nikola’s polyphase alternating-current motor had several important advantages which challenged the direct-current systems that represented the status quo of the time. For example, the polyphase alternating-current motor did not require a commutator, was self-starting, and was more efficient. Nikola’s work on polyphase alternating-current motors and grid systems ended up being so influential that it remains almost unchanged to this day; modern electrical grids and electric motors still utilize the same principle of the rotating magnetic field in the same manner!

In his autobiography, Nikola recounts an occasion where he was roaming the mountains. While he was there, a hefty storm approached his area; however, the storm appeared restrain its fury at first. Then suddenly, a lightning flash appeared. Although seemingly mundane, Nikola’s observation of this flash of lightning got him thinking: if humans could replicate this phenomenon, we could change the entire world. This inspiration set into motion the experimentation around wireless power transmission. Further inspiration came from the previous snowball incident of his youth. In much the same way as the snowball became larger as it rolled down the hill, so too may an electric potential be amplified over time. This inspiration became the basis of the magnifying transmitter, the core component of Nikola’s wireless power transmission system. Eventually, the magnifying transmitter also became known as the Tesla coil.

Wardenclyffe building which features the antenna of the magnifying transmitter.

As Nikola was working on his magnifying transmitter, he started to become obsessed with it. This obsession became detrimental to his mental and physical health; he became forgetful of everything else in his life. This reached a point where he could not recall any memories apart from the ones of his early childhood. He then started to reflect on moments from his childhood, with images of his mother being the most prolific of these memories. This reflection caused him to want to return home to see his mother. Soon, he decided to drop all the work he was doing in his laboratory to go see her; he found it painfully difficult to put aside his research, but the longing to see his mother eventually took over his mind. On his journey to see his mother again, he received the news that his mother was dying.

It is often the case with famous inventors and scientists that there are almost entirely unknown facets of their life and personality. I think

Gunnar

did an excellent job illustrating this concept with Sir Isaac Newton in his article Alchemy. One of the seldom-known aspects of Nikola’s personality was the fact that he was a highly spiritual person. He had a particular fixation with death and spirituality. In his state of detrimented health, he experienced a vision which impacted him as eerily and genuinely supernatural. One early morning while in a daze, he saw a cloud which carried a loving and angelic figure which bear striking resemblance to his mother. Nikola watched as the figure slowly and gently floated around him. Then, the figure suddenly vanished; he now understood, with undeniable certainty, that his mother had just died. His vision had indeed been correct.

His mother’s death severely impacted his views on spirituality. This caused him to intensely reflect on the nature of sentience, free will, and sovereignty. He referred to humans as “automata” which were “entirely controlled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water,” who also mistook the influence of these outside forces for free will. He believed that humans were not genuinely sovereign beings; instead, being interconnected via “invisible links” of perhaps a cosmic or spiritual nature.

Nikola’s reflections on the illusion of human sovereignty served as another critical point of creative inspiration; he wanted to emulate this concept in machinery. Thus, he invented the art of telautomaton, a precursor to remote-control as we know today. Foundational to this concept of telautomaton was his previous work on the magnifying transmitter. He would use the transmitter to control some form of automaton, mirroring how he viewed humans to be controlled. The wireless nature of his telautomaton also resembled the previously mentioned “invisible links.” To demonstrate his new idea, Tesla built a small boat whose movements were controlled remotely from land. Nikola hoped that this concept would greatly intrigue to the American military; it had practical combat applications, from which he illustrated the example of a remotely controlled torpedo. Unfortunately, his idea for a telautomatic torpedo failed to spark interest on the part of the military.

Nikola’s telautomatic boat

Interestingly, Nikola believed that a new idea or creative work, whether invention or art, should not be judged according to its immediate reception. With respect to the idea of polyphase alternating-current, Nikola managed to provide a convincing solution to an immediate and long-standing problem. This is why his alternating-current system became so popular so quickly, even in the face of stark opposition.

On the contrary, the art of telautomaton remained relatively unknown for some time; at the time, few people were thinking about, nor had the desire for the concept of telautomaton. There would not be any significant demand for telautomatic systems until the second world-war. Nikola further reflected on the possible applications for his telautomatic and wireless power systems. Perhaps inspired by the Wright brothers’ work in powered flight in combination with his own work, he wrote of “a flying machine quite unlike present ones” which would be controlled through his telautomatic system. In essence, this was one of the first ideations toward the concept of a drone. Unlike modern drones though, Nikola’s idea of such a flying machine involved the use of the wireless power transmission system for propulsion. This flying machine would not need to carry fuel, nor would it need to stop to refuel; it would be able to remain airborne indefinitely, powered solely by wireless electricity.

This creative thought also led him to the idea of using his wireless power system for communication; he particularly ideated on its potential application in telephony, perhaps influenced by his previous employment at the Budapest Telephone Exchange. He remarked on how a telephone subscriber may call any other on Earth via his wireless systems. These ideations, while not necessarily popular within Nikola’s lifetime, certainly became increasingly momentous even long after his death. This idea may have inspired the development of AT&T’s “long-lines” system, which effectively formed wireless trunk lines that first enabled long-distance calling. Furthermore, it may have led to the advent of cell phones.

As such, much of Nikola’s creative thought managed to successfully challenge the status quo and influence societal norms, whether that effect was immediate or delayed. Other ideas of his haven’t managed the same level of success as polyphase alternating-current or telautomatics. His idea of wireless power transmission never fully materialized. Another example of Nikola’s less successful inventions was the bladeless turbine, otherwise known as the “Tesla turbine.” His idea was to use the boundary-layer effect to impart a fluid’s motion on to the turbine rotor. He initially developed the bladeless turbine for use in power plants, especially geothermal ones. He predicted that his bladeless turbine would eventually scrap all other types of turbines. Unfortunately, a combination of engineering challenges and efficiency issues meant that the bladeless turbine never realized the potential that Nikola imagined for it. Eventually, he did license his bladeless turbine for use in precision instrumentation.

Nikola Tesla was a fascinating inventor who habitually challenged the societal thinking of his time; the impact of his creative thought is still prevalent in society today. This creative thought of his was shaped by the various influences, experiences, and inspirations which he encountered throughout his life. Similarly to how such influences may show up in an artists artwork, so too did these influences show up in Nikola’s inventions. That walk in Városliget park, Goethe’s Faust, the snowball incident, the vision around his mother’s death, among many others were vital inspirations to Nikola’s work. So this begs the question: how would the world be different today if Nikola hadn’t gone for a walk in the park that evening?