Ask Slashdot: Best Books On the Life and Work of Nikola Tesla?

An anonymous reader writes The internet is full of interesting nuggets of info about Nikola Tesla's life and scientific exploits: The time a young Tesla improved an electric motor for Edison, and Edison simply would not pay Tesla the monetary reward he had promised him earlier. The friction between Tesla and wealthy industrialist J.P. Morgan, and Tesla's friendship with (kinder) industrialist George Westinghouse. The 2 different times Tesla's main laboratory burned to the ground. The time a Tesla lab experiment reportedly caused a small earthquake to trigger in lower Manhattan. Tesla's (never quite fulfilled) dream of transmitting electricity across great distances without using wires or cables, etc. All this fascinating stuff, and more, about Tesla's life is out there, mostly in shortish snippets — and sometimes woven into outright conspiracy theories — on the internet for anyone to examine. Now to my question: What are the best books to read to get a fuller picture of Nikola Tesla's life and work? Preferably something well researched and factually accurate. Are there any good documentaries or movies (apart from David Bowie playing a wizard-like Tesla in "The Prestige")? Why is Thomas Edison so well known and covered in education/popular culture, and the equally prolific and ingenious Tesla a "mysterious and ghostly figure" by comparison?

Comments

Not a narcisisst

[wiredlogic]

Because Edison was a Jobs-like narcissist who used people to elevate his status and promote himself. Tesla was too busy working in the lab to revel in fame and build a populist legacy.

Re:Not a narcisisst

[Bing Tsher E]

Probably Edison's greatest invention was the modern Research and Development Lab. Before him, inventions were made by individuals working out of barns or the back room in existing factories. Edison pioneered the idea of having a staff of scientists and engineers working for one organization.

Re:Not a narcisisst

[Moof123]

Edison and Tesla do a good job pointing to the difference between a "cut and try" design engineer, and a really good engineer who knows his theory. Edison got his stuff to work after many tries, often with sub-optimal solutions, and was quite the marketeer and salesman. Tesla quietly got the right solution, with math to back it up, and got screwed over thanks to his less effective self promotion.

Tesla nailed the guts of the 3 phase AC power grid pretty quickly. Edison's DC solution was lame and nuts at its face. Edison invented the electric chair to poison the well on AC for years, while Tesla had to give away his rights to Westinghouse to get the right answer adopted.

I see shades of this play out in engineering companies all the time, and the lesson I have learned is to always be doubly cautious whenever an engineer is a little too good at selling his idea and too confident in the promised results.

Re:Read Tesla's patents

[sribe]

or not, for long-distance transmission, High Voltage Direct Current systems may be less expensive and suffer lower electrical losses.

Sure, now with a century's worth of time passed, and significant advances in DC power electronics over the past couple of decades...

Why Edison is a household name and Tesla is a band

[Vellmont]

Other people talk about the self-promotional nature of Edison, and how Tesla wasn't as interested in that. That's true, and that's a piece of the answer. But there's another more basic difference in what they invented. Edison invented end products that people came into contact with every day, like the electric light or the phonograph. Tesla invented the infra-structure necessary for modern life like AC power generation, and the AC motor. Those are hugely important, but the average person doesn't come into contact with them directly, only the effect of it.

So it's much easier for the average person to see what Edison did for them, but harder for them to see what Tesla did for them. It shouldn't be any wonder that Tesla isn't well known.