From School Library Journal
Grade 5-9?Many readers may have heard of the Tesla coil, but few understand what it is or know much about its inventor. This book partially fills that void in that it tells the story of the man’s life, but it makes little attempt to explain his multitudes of inventions, which are basic to the use of alternating current and wireless transmission. He was a complex character?genius, showman, neurotic, recluse, and always more interested in giving the world c…
Buy Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius at Amazon
“Tesla: A Spark of Genius”, by Carol Dommermuth-Costa, Lerner Publications, MN 1994. ISBN 0-8225-4920-4, HC 144 pages, includes Index & Biblio., plus 76 B&W photos and illustrations. 8 3/4″ x 6 1/4″.
A delightfully written well-illustrated book authored by a teacher, importantly, a member of the Tesla Memorial Society which enabled her access to important documentary and photographic material of the TMS ,the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, a grandnephew, etc. Hence, it’s well-research and the story nicely spun.
We are introduced to Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) of Croatia, born to a father who was a Priest and a mother, avid reader and of inventive mind who fostered his education. Nikola developed a distinctive disciplined mindset, exerted self-control of lifestyle and prone to uncanny real and imagined objects imageries enabling an inventive mind to forego pen and pencil drafting. In time, he excelled in physics, mathematics & mechanics and, working alone, he solved problem of creating A/C motors. After coming to America & working briefly with Thomas A. Edison, he was financed by George Westinghouse, lectured for the AIEE, worked with x-rays, devised the Tesla coil, wireless transmission (radio), generation of AC current for the 1893 World’s Fair (Chicago) and divers inventions, almost too inumerable to tabulate but included the speedometer, lightweight airplane engines, geothermal turbines, efficacious transmission of electric current over long distances, oscillators, transformers, and condensers, etc.
Remaining single, but singularly active and inventive into his 80′s, he died, an American citizen, in 1943 at age 86. His hobby, feeding pigeons, especially the white one with silver gray wing tips.
Born on July 9 at midnight, Nikola Tesla’s mother heard lightning strike and declared that her child was a “child of the light”. As he grew up his brilliant mind was tested time and time again by challenges he met as he traveled from his hometown of Smiljan in Croatia to Gospic. His father would constantly bombard him with mathematical equations to stimulate his brain when he was young. After graduating school he went to series of colleges and universities in 1878. Nikola the looked for jobs, finding one in the city of Moribor.
Having a gift for engineering, Tesla invented the AC motor, or Alternating Current motor. His dreams were realized when a pleased man who was helped by Tesla’s genius referred him to work for the esteemed Thomas Edison. He eventually was hired by Edison and invented the famous radio, which was wrongly considered to be the invention of another man Guglielmo Marconi. Although that this man was credited for his astounding work, he is remebered today as the “Electrical Wizard”. The author of this book, Carol Dommermuth Costa illustrates the brilliance of Tesla’s work and inventions through the story of his life, and photos. This book was great and I recomend this book to anyone interested in inventions, or the breakthroughs of science.
AC motors are more efficient than DC motors and requires less maintennance ,