Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah (15 page)

In disappointment, Tesla returned to Colorado Springs where he conducted some experiments in the lab of the local engineering school and relived old times.

After a sojourn at Waltham Watches in Boston, he worked on a petrol-powered turbine at Budd Manufacturing in Philadelphia. And he was not without his successes. He sold a motor that was used in cinema equipment to Wisconsin Electric and a ‘fluid diode' to an oil company that was said to be ‘the only valving patent without moving parts'. Money began coming in, but never in the amounts that he over-optimistically predicted.

 

Planet Earth Calling ...

Marconi moved onto Tesla's patch again when he claimed to have detected radio signals coming from outside the atmosphere. Tesla pooh-poohed this, claiming that Marconi was only picking up signals from other terrestrial wireless operators. This could not have been the case with his own signals from Mars in 1899, he claimed, as there were no radio transmitters with a range of more than a few miles at that time. Nevertheless Robert Johnson wrote to Tesla pointing out that, once again, when Marconi had repeated one of his ideas, it was ‘no longer laughed at'.

‘Communication with intelligence on other stars? It may someday be possible,' said Marconi. Language may be a problem, but Marconi said:

Well, it is an obstacle, but I don't think it is insurmountable. You see, one might get through some message such as 2 plus 2 equals 4, and go on repeating it until an answer came back signifying ‘Yes', which would be one word. Mathematics must be the same throughout the physical universe. By sticking to mathematics over a number of years one might come to speech. It is certainly possible.

Tesla said that he had little confidence in Marconi's idea of trying to communicate with aliens using mathematics. He thought it would be better to send pictures by wireless – the human face, for example.
The New York Times
was surely being sarcastic when it suggested that they follow up by sending movies. Perhaps it could even be a commercial enterprise. ‘With this beginning whole feature films can be sent by radio across the solar system and released on Mars on the night that sees their premiere on Broadway,' the paper said.

In 1919, rocket-pioneer Robert Goddard (1882 – 1945) published
A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes
, claiming that it would be possible to send things as far as the Moon. Tesla said that this scheme seemed far-fetched as the fuels then known did not have the necessary ‘explosive power'. He also doubted that any rocket could ‘operate at 459° [F] below zero – the temperature of interplanetary space'.

 

PART FOUR: DESCENT AND RE-ASSESSMENT

Chapter 13 – Talking to Pigeons

 

I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years; thousands of them. But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere. No matter where I was, that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her. I loved that pigeon. I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me … As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.

Nikola Tesla

 

Back in New York, Tesla moved into the Hotel St Regis. Robert Johnson had been appointed ambassador to Italy, so his friends left for Rome. On his own, Tesla became more eccentric. He would circle the block three times before entering the hotel, avoiding stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. And he was fanatical about cleanliness, except when it came to pigeons which he still fed outside the New York Public Library.

Having given up the appetites of his youth, he now practised what he called ‘gastronomical frugality' to which he owed his perpetual youth. According to Hugo Gernsback, Tesla believed that most people not only eat all of their bodily ills, but actually ate themselves to death by either consuming too much, or else by eating food that does not agree with them. His daily menu consisted of:

Breakfast: One to two pints of warm milk and a few eggs, prepared by himself.

Lunch: None whatsoever, as a rule.

Dinner: Celery soup or similar, a single piece of meat or fowl, potatoes and one other vegetable; a glass of light wine. For dessert, perhaps a slice of cheese, and invariably a big raw apple.

And that's all.

While he ate very little, Tesla insisted that what he did eat must be of the highest quality. He was also an accomplished cook who invented a number of appetizing dishes.

‘His only vice is his generosity,' said Gernsback. ‘The man who, by the ignorant onlooker has often been called an idle dreamer, has made over a million dollars out of his inventions – and spent them as quickly on new ones. But Tesla is an idealist of the highest order and to such men, money itself means but little.'

 

Filet Mignon and Roast Duck

Tesla's frugal diet in his later years is markedly different from his consumption in his heyday. Then at dinner he would enjoy thick steaks, preferably filet mignon, and often two or three of them, though he never put on weight. He remained 10 stone (142 pounds or 64 kg), from 1888 to around 1926 except for a brief period of illness, when he lost 5 pounds (2 kg).

Later he turned to lamb, ordering a roast saddle large enough to serve several people. He would eat only the central portion of the tenderloin. Another favourite was a crown of baby lamb chops, or duck roasted under a layer of celery stalks – a dish of his own invention. He would often supervise its cooking in the kitchen and it would be the centre-piece when entertaining friends. But Tesla would only eat the meat either side of the breast bone.

Gradually, he substituted boiled fish, then turned to a vegetarian diet. Throughout his life he drank milk and towards the end warm milk became the mainstay of his diet. When he was young, he drank a lot of coffee. Although he decided it was bad for him, he had difficulty giving it up. So with each meal, he would order a pot of coffee so that he could smell the aroma. Eventually he went off the smell and gave up this practice. He had always avoided tea and cocoa, but, along with wine, he drank whisky. This, he believed, was responsible for the longevity of his ancestors and prolonged his own life. When Prohibition was introduced in 1919, Tesla denounced it, saying it was an intolerable infringement of the rights of an individual. ‘It imposes restrictions on the most needed and harmless of stimulants,' he said, ‘while permitting unlimited consumption of poisons by all classes, from childhood to old age.'

He admitted that he had consumed enough alcoholic beverages to ‘form a lake of no mean dimensions'. But, being a law-abiding citizen, he gave it up, declaring that it was 6 months before he could digest a meal and that abstinence would reduce his life-expectation to 130 years.

‘I feel sure that if everyone had done the same,' he said, ‘millions of Americans would have shortened their life-span and thousands would have died in the first 2 years. A sudden change of diet or the omission of one of its important elements, especially in advanced years, is extremely dangerous.'

In later years, after the repeal of Prohibition, he would have a bottle of wine brought in an ice bucket, but not have it opened. It remained there purely to show that he could restrain himself from drinking.

He had also been a heavy smoker in his youth, particularly enjoying cigars. However, when he was in his early twenties, one of his sisters fell ill. She said she could try to get better if he gave up smoking. She recovered and he never smoked again.

 

Extreme Germ Phobia

After studying microscopic organisms before he left Europe, Tesla developed a phobia about germs. The washroom in his laboratory was private. No one else was allowed to use it. He would be impelled to wash his hands on the slightest pretext, insisting that his secretary provide a freshly laundered towel each time to dry them. He would also avoid shaking hands, usually keeping his hands clasped behind him in social situations.

This led to embarrassment when visitors advanced proffering their hand. If Tesla was caught unawares and his hand was shaken, he would rush to the washroom at the first possible opportunity to scrub it, ignoring any business the visitor was there to conduct. And he found it particularly nauseating when workmen ate their lunch with dirty hands. Hotel staff were kept at a distance of at least 3 feet.

Head waiters grew used to his demand to be seated at a table that was not to be used by other customers. He needed a fresh table cloth with every meal and two dozen serviettes. The silverware had to be sterilized before it left the kitchen. Tesla would then pick each item up with a serviette, and polish it with another. Then he would drop both serviettes on the floor before attending to the next item of cutlery. And if a fly alighted on the table, he would insist that everything was removed from the table and the meal would start over.

He lived in hotels that could meet his meticulous standards and only employed assistants that were scrupulously clean. When he visited the barbers to have his half-hour scalp massage three times a week, he insisted on fresh towels on his chair, but strangely he did not object to being shaved using the same brush and shaving mug as the other customers.

 

Stepping Out in Style

To the end of his life, Tesla was a fastidious dresser. Well-cut clothes suited his tall, slim figure. ‘In the matter of clothes', he observed, ‘the world takes a man at his own valuation.' He wore white monogrammed silk shirts that had to withstand constant laundering. Collars and cuffs were discarded after a single use, as were handkerchiefs. Ties were replaced every week. Costing a dollar each, the only colours he would consider were red and black. They were tied in the old-fashioned, four-in-hand style. His pyjamas also had his initials embroidered on the left breast and his linen arrived freshly packaged.

Except on formal occasions, Tesla wore high-laced shoes, possibly to give his ankles extra support because of his height. They extended halfway up his calves. He insisted on a long narrow shoe with a tapered, square toe which had to be handmade.

His suits had waisted coats and he usually wore a black bowler or derby, which gave him an air of quiet elegance. He carried a cane and wore grey suede gloves. At $2.50 a pair, they were also replaced weekly, even if they were as clean as they had been when they came from the makers.

 

Restless Sleeping Habits

Tesla claimed that he usually slept for just 2 hours a night, 3 hours being too much. But he would go to bed at 5 am and get up at 10, the extra three hours rest, he maintained was for quiet contemplation. Once a year, he would sleep for the full 5 hours which, he said, gave him a tremendous reserve of energy.

In this, he competed with Edison who claimed only to sleep 4 hours a night, though when he sat in his lab he would take two 3-hour naps a day. Tesla probably did the same. Hotel staff said that they often found him sitting transfixed and they found they could work around him in his home without disturbing him.

He took brisk walks to aid his concentration, but even then he was often in a dream. People who he knew quite well could walk past him, even though he appeared to be looking straight at them. In 1935, he said he was lucky not to have been killed while jaywalking in such a state. Two years later, he was hit by a taxi and badly injured though, refusing to see a doctor he limped home. He had three cracked ribs and was confined to bed for 6 months.

 

Wardenclyffe Revisited

Tesla still had not given up on Wardenclyffe and sued the Waldorf-Astoria over its destruction. He maintained that he had put up Wardenclyffe as collateral against the $20,000 he owed. They assumed that it was theirs. They had torn it down to sell for scrap and resell the land. Tesla, of course, was expecting to make $30,000 a day from Wardenclyffe if it was ever finished. If he then paid the $20,000, the experimental station would then be his again. In court he insisted that the Waldorf-Astoria were supposed to take care of it but, even before it had been torn down, they had allowed vandals to break in and steal expensive equipment.

During the trial Tesla was to give a loving description of his lost palace. The attorney for the Waldorf-Astoria tried to block this testimony, but the judge let him go ahead.

The building formed a square about 100 ft by 100 ft [30 by 30 m]. It was divided into four compartments, with an office and a machine shop and two very large areas … The engines were located on one side and the boilers on the other side, and in the centre, the chimney rose. There were two 300-horsepower boilers surrounded by two 16,000-gallon water tanks. To the right of the boiler plant was one 400-horsepower Westinghouse engine and a smaller 35-kilowatt engine to drive the dynamo for the lighting. Along with them was the main switchboard that controlled the pumps and various compressors.

Towards the road, on the railroad side, was the machine shop. That compartment was 100 ft by 35 ft [30 m by 10 m] with a door in the middle and it contained, I think eight lathes. Then there was the milling machine, a planer and shaper, a spliner, three drills, four motors, a grinder and a blacksmith's forge.

Now, in the compartment opposite, there was contained the real expensive apparatus. There were two special glass cases where I kept historical apparatus which was exhibited and described in my lectures and scientific articles. There were at least a thousand bulbs and tubes each of which represented a certain phase of scientific development.

Then there was also five large tanks, four of which contained special transformers created so as to transform the energy for the plant. They were about, I should say, 7 ft [2 m] high and about 5 ft by 5 ft [1.5 by 1.5 m] each, and were filled with special oil which we call transformer oil, to stand an electric tension of 60,000 volts. Then there was a fifth similar tank for special purposes. And there were my electric generating apparatus. That apparatus was precious because it could flash a message across the Atlantic, and yet it was built in 1894 or 1895.

The Waldorf-Astoria's attorney objected again, but the judge allowed Tesla to continue.

Beyond the door of this compartment, there were to be condensers, what we call electric condensers, which would store the energy and then discharge and make it go around the world. Some of these condensers were in an advanced state of construction, and others were not. Then there was a very expensive piece of apparatus that the Westinghouse Company furnished me, only two of its kind have ever been constructed. It was developed by myself with their engineers. That was a steel tank which contained a very elaborate assemblage of coils, and elaborate regulating apparatus, and it was intended to give every imaginable regulation that I wanted in my measurements and control of energy.

 

He went on to describe a special 100-horsepower motor equipped with elaborate devices for rectifying the alternating currents and sending them back to the condensers. On this apparatus alone, Tesla said he had spent thousands of dollars. ‘Then along the centre of the room I had a very precious piece of apparatus,' he said. It was his remote-controlled boat.

 

A Bolt from the Blue

Asked whether that was all, Tesla replied: ‘Oh, no, nowhere near.' And he went on to describe a series of cupboards that contained numerous devices that each represented a different phase in the development of his work. In the testing room there were other instruments, some of which had been given to him by Lord Kelvin. Tesla then described the tower with its expensive underground workings containing special apparatus for ‘gripping the earth'.

The shaft, your honour, was first covered with timber and the inside with steel. In the centre of this there was a winding stairs going down and in the centre of the stairs was a big shaft through which the current was to pass, and this shaft was so figured in order to tell exactly where the nodal point is, so I could calculate exactly the size of the Earth or the diameter of the Earth and measure it exactly within 4 ft [1.2 m] with that machine.

And then the real expensive work was to connect that central part with the earth, and there I had special machines rigged up which would push the iron pipes, one length after another, and I pushed, I think 16 of them, 300 ft [90 m]. The current through these pipes was to take hold of the earth. Now that was a very expensive part of the work, but it does not show on the tower, but it belongs to the tower.