>> you can watch this another's online. >> is look at books being published this week. in jerusalem, a member of trump's legal team offers a political argument for the existence of israel as a sovereign nation. the world governing body for soccer in red car. then they were called america's black pioneers. sarah looks at the prevalence of workers in today's economy. eli bergman and jacob shapiro explore how wars have been fought. >> and doctor edward -- talks about how he shaped his psychiatric career. look for the titles and

bookstores this week. watch for the authors in the near future book tv on c-span2. >> welcome to the technology center. my name is eric, my pronouns are he, him. we have a guest speaker who's here to talk about his book that came out this week. who's heard of nicola tesla? >> thank you. tesla is getting wet so many people know about it.

there's been a modern revival of him. larry page two is a cofounder came out and referred to them as a hero that he has had. probably most people think about elon musk car, battery and solar equipment. i want to talk more about the man in the process that it took four years for writing this book. i thought i would offer some insights to those that i thought was key. first, is the extent of this man's genius. this man invented the electric motor, the long-distance distribution of electricity. he invented radio, he did a

remote control and robot. these are very basic of the economy. there was a quote by the american institute of electrical engineers that said if we were to eliminate from the industrial world the industry would cease its current in our town would be dark. it's not only what we did in the life but this fantastic imagination to envision things. even if the technology was not it available. he first saw cell phones, artificial intelligence, vertical lift aircraft and the list goes on. one quote that knocked me out, but 110 years ago he was talking about the ability to have something in your vest pocket

give you news. he said we should see and hear one another so perfectly as if we were face to fac and a man will be able to carry one of these in his pocket. that's 105 years ago. as a visionary, he was remarkable. he also came up with this quick sonic notion that would either complicate his legacy i make him more interesting. he spent years trying to figure how to communicate with intelligent beings on other planets. he spent years trying to read your mind by having monitors in your retina. he had great success. he got some things wrong but for

an inventor he had an amazingly high batting average of getting things right. i work for the environmental defense fund. i do clean energy work in chicago. another surprise is that he was a pioneer. his first major article was near 1900 and century magazine. at the time it was the largest circulation newsletter at the time. the subtitle is how to capture the sun's energy. hundred and ten years ago he was describing how you can capture energy from the sun and the wind. as environmentalists i'm mixing my day in writing job, what a wonder it would be to have him a live today so he could think outside of the box.

particularly in the electricity industry which he helped create. it has been an op allies for many years. imagine what he could do. he be thinking about ways to send electricity wirelessly. or to generate electricity and to send it to everyone around the world including 2 billion people today that still don't have electric power. he was a magician he would give presentation is still a wonder that to be honest, physicist don't understand exactly what it is. we know it works, keeps her beer cold and the computers running. somehow or another he captured and was able to control this resource. he would create lightning.

it was reserved for nature along even though they are not connected to any wire. it was quite a remarkable individual. my third surprise is to present this guy struggle between the present and the future. you can call it weird or appropriate, but he was born during an intense lightning storm at the very stroke of midnight between the ninth and tenth of july, 1856. this became the story and he has some special qualities. it doesn't happen to everybody.

i is a biography looked at this. i think it explains about him. he was stuck between focusing on today and looking at the future. he was trying to balance the realities of the present and then spending time envisioning what the future might look like. in 1897 he had just completed capturing the immense power of niagara falls. he was able to put it through a series of generators and distribute that first 26 miles to buffalo, new york and then to new york city. they could only send something to for about half a mile. but tesla invented he spent

400 miles. the new york times referred to this as the technological accomplishments of the 19th century. they said to tesla, belongs the man who made this project possible. there is still a statue that commemorates his work. this is 1897. he just did this in his thinking, this is so today. i am bored with today. this is a real accomplishment, i want to think of something new. so he created a new field of science. we would prefer today as robotic. his first piece of equipment was a model boat. about 4 feet long, and 3 feet high. this was, at a time he presented it in some flashy places like

that madison square garden in new york. he set up a pool or pond in the middle of this area to demonstrate the material. recognize that this is three months after the battleship had exploded in the harbor. we were just at the beginning of the spanish-american war. they're trying to figure out if there are new ways to make weapons. he brings in the navy, and other inventors, scientists, journalists. for about 15 minutes he has a model boat going forward .., going around the pond. everybody sitting there, some people were saying it was controlled by a tiny monkey was inside trying to move it around. other people thought it was

hunted. what he then did after mesmerizing everybody, he turned to the crowd and said would anybody like to ask the boat a question. everybody has a blank look on their face. so some math nerd comes up and says what is the key root of 64. tesla is standing in the back with his hand underneath a secret panel and he flips a button four times that flashes the light on the model boat. and then the crowd went nuts. there are thinking, there has to be a monkey inside there. this was his conflict between the realities of today. he did probably the major accomplishment of the century and that bored him. what is remarkable is that

marconi, who gets the credit for radio, he tries to do something like this a few months later. he brought out a boat and pretended there is a spanish -- on the other side of the pond. he placed a little tiny bond. so he gets his boat, maneuvers it, punches the button and nothing happens. suddenly, there's a huge explosion in the back room. he had not figured out how to individualize messages. the message went back to the store room and it blasted smoke come pouring out into the area. for tesla, he looks at this and thinks big. so some reporter asked him, is this a model boat?

or summary that's able to deliver bombs? he said this is the first nonbiological form of -- it is embodied with a mind. his view of this was that he's foresaw artificial intelligence and then went on to say that the boat would be able to follow the course laid out obey commands and it may be capable for distinguishing what it ought what it ought not to do. this is the beginnings of artificial intelligence almost 100 years ago today. my fourth surprise of this, there's a lot of articles about

tesla make him appear to be a superman. one biographer said he was like the super -- of the human race. to be fair, inventing the electric motor, robots, remote control, those are pretty super accomplishments. the part that intrigued me was that he was also a human, and charmingly so. one of the great benefits of being a biographers sometimes you get to be surprised about things. i was at the library and asked the library what they had on tesla. they said i have boxes in the back. in the boxes were letters that tesla had been writing to his friends or business associates. suddenly you got to see this man up front. he has lots of friends. his closest friends were robert and kathryn johnson.

robert was the editor of the century magazine. catherine, his wife ran an intellectual salon at the townhouse in manhattan. they were not rich but they acted that way. they brought together artists, musicians and other luminaries. th is mark twain. he would come to dinner. after dinner he would go to tesla's laboratory. these two bodies played like kids. they were shooting lightning beings across the lab. they are having a marvelous ti time. my point is this superman the intriguing part is you is human.

one example of the letter, tesla had been sick with a cold so robert wrote him a letter and it exemplifies their daily note that they sent to each other about their health. it has been a whole week since we saw you and you need cheering up. come as early as possible and get cheered. we are in a jolly mood. we only need you. so this very human superman sort of reveled in the excitement of discovery. he said, i do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that then the inventor that sees a creation unfolding, set in motion and make a man forget.

>> was interesting as an inventor, he was perhaps one of the last curiosity driven inventor, motivated by idealism. thomas edison invented largely practical products that he could make money. there's nothing wrong with that. the tesla felt that it's not like he didn't like money, he enjoyed his nice apartment at the waldorf historian. he felt that technology transcended the marketplace. that invention was more important than profit. so, no doubt he ain't high, perhaps higher than any inventor we have had. part of my reason for writing the book is to give him more credits and exposure than he had.

i am not trying to criticize edison or others. but tesla did as well and these are a few pictures of him through his idealism, he thought that he would bring power to everyone around the world freely. he thought he would create robots that would eliminate drudgery. he basically was driven by inner forces that felt that sheer creation was the most important thing in the world. i would argue that we are better for it. thank you. [applause] >> we have time for a few questions if anybody has questions for our guest author. >> hello. in your book you speak of his

brilliance. but you mention -- he made a lot of mistakes. >> for instance not long after the right brothers flew the airplane he said airplanes are not going to make it. they are too heavy. he said -- relative to einstein he was two decades younger, tesla thought that he had split and adam and that no energy came out. he said atomic power is bunk. he felt like cosmic rays could go faster than the speed of light. so, he got things wrong but my point was that his batting average was really good. all inventors, if they're out there on the cutting edge are going to make mistakes.

edison thought he had brilliant new ways of increasing efficiency of extracting or for more rocks. it failed. tesla had a better batting average the most. what he gave us are at the very core of our economy. [inaudible question] >> he went up and down. his first job was working at paris in budapest and looking at the phone systems. he got to come to the united states to work for edison. edison paid him a tiny bit of money and he quit because there is a squabble about money.

he got cheated by his partners and spent a year digging ditches making $2 per day. then he sells electric motor patents to the pittsburgh industrialist and suddenly he is really wealthy. heats every dinner at delmonico. after he and westinghouse did the niagara falls project westinghouse was a bit stretched and j.p. morgan, the ruthless banker that he was, when after trying to take over his company. westinghouse had to turn to tesla who had a contract to get a royalty for every horse power of a mortar that came out and that was worth billions of dollars. westinghouse says, i am about to lose my company. can you help me? tesla, a horrible businessman and negotiator says, you have always been kind to me.

you are the one who will bring my ideal of this great electric motor to the world. let me tear up my contract. he gave away a billion dollars. for the rest of his life he struggled and he died a poor man alone in the hotel new yorker. he was deported only because a few scientists at the westinghouse company realize that he made the company possible gave him a stipend. that was a long answer. but he was up and down on the money front. >> do you think his reaction would be surprised, proud? >> i think he would still be looking at the future. thinking of totally new ways of doing things.

he would probably look at the cell phone and say i have thought of that. then move on. and think maybe i can think of a new way to send lightning bolts into the earth taking advantage of the earth's natural electricity. getting some echo and then make electricity available so you can plug a plug into the earth outside of your home. i come back to the balance between him making the reality of today and being happy about it. but also thinking that's not enough. >> so he may be impressed at the technology today, what would you think of the march for science and some of that outcome the most recent election?

>> he was proud to be a scientist. i think any attack on the ability to think creatively would have a poured him. he wasn't much of a political person. in my mind the interesting thing he would look at is how the inventing process happen. in my view, and in his would be that it is mostly done now in teams. so either teams out of universities, corporate research labs, i was at a conference the other day and they're talking about a research project they what had 165 people on it. he was an individual inventor. we have sort of lost that. he would lament in trying to figure out how to we create a culture by which we allow

individuals with their crazy and great ideas to flourish and not necessarily push them into a team. i would guess he would lament the loss of the individual inventor. >> after he came to the united states, did he go back and forth? >> not very often. he did a few times. he gav went back wants to protet his patent. his mother died while he was back there. he spent most of his time in the united states. most of that was in new york city which was the core of where he works. he loved being in the laboratory. he had a few assistance, but it was clearly managed by him.

again, what came out of that laboratory was the foundation of our modern economy. >> please join me in thanking our guest summertime. [applause] >> if you are interested in the book, i am supposed to promote my book. you can go to tesla-book.com. there's information with the reviews and others. i appreciate your interest and thank you for your attention. [applause] book tv is on twitter and facebook. we want to hear from you. twitter.com/book tv or poster, tell her facebook page.

>> travel outside this country and ask someone to describe an american to you. and the image they will conjure somewhere in the back of their mind is very much texan. it's very much that image we have of the cowboy on the open range. it is very much the image of that individual. that is really not have been the case for a hundred years in texas. that is not who you are or who we really are as americans. we are largely urban country.

and you are the fastest urbanizing state in it. there are values that need to be preserved. there are interests that need to be preserved going forward. there is going to have to be a reckoning. you all know what rule of capture is. i don't need to explain that. there is going to need to be a reckoning on role of capture. not just here, a good portion of the east still does it. they're going to have to be some discussions about the responsibility that comes with that right. that probably is going to have to take place at 30,000 feet.

that probably is going to have to take place from the perspective of the entire state. looking at the entire thing as assistant. resin entity the problem you have in texas is that never that you didn't have enough water, it's always that you didn't have enough water where you needed into much where you didn't. >> the only way to do that than to approach that is to try to find some mechanism. to balance the needs, and rights of the individual with the

responsibilities of the larger state. it has happened and it has happened here in texas. i would argue that to a great extent the edwards aquifer was a model, not perfect, but a model for how those interests could be brought into alignment. we all know how that happened. that happened because the one thing that unites texans, is the fact that they do not want the federal government to do anything. it is with federal action that turned around and created the opportunity.

it has been 50 years since texas last really took a top-down approach in trying to address the water problem. you know about the 1968 texas state water plant. it would have replied the entire state of texas. it would have channeled the mississippi river all the way across the northern part of the state. it would have created a system of reservoirs and require phenomenal energies. the waters of the mississippi would've reached out. connolly was an advocate of that plan. when governor connolly was trying to sell that plan, one

thing he used was that if we don't do this, the federal government will. that plan failed but you know how much it failed by? it failed by 6000 and change. there are more people at the festival today then counts for the margin for which that loss. i'm not saying that would've been an answer, think it would it created problems we do not anticipate there are a lot of reasons to oppose the network of the waters. that was really the last one. an approach was taken for the

top down. maybe we need to revisit that. >> you can watch this other programs online at booktv.org. >> the u.s. north korea summit is set for tuesday. book tv will feature authors and books about the region. starting at 5:00 p.m. eastern with the book, in order to live, a north korean girls journey to freedom. and undercover among the sons of north korea's elite. bruce in his book, north korean regional security in the kim jong-un era. and thomas hendrickson in his book of america and the rogue state. much book tv sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. >> these are not normal times. believe me. in ten or 15 years from the will be talking about the trumpet era we will know that was not

normal. it is not normal to have a president who makes racist, sexist remarks. that's not normal. today i was doing an interview and we had a great conversation. at some point there asking me about trumps remarks. i told them how would you feel if your prime minister would say that a grouping great britain is composed by drug traffickers and rapists. what would be the reaction. they cannot even imagine that. these are the times that we are living right now. for me, look, i have been here for 35 years. my son and daughter were born here.

this country gave me the opportunity that my country of origin cannot give me. i was a reporter in mexico. i started young and worked in radio. at some point, i did a report on mexican politics which was really a president who is deciding who is gonna be his successor. i wrote it and was happy in the my boss told me, you crazy, and i said i'm just reporting that the president will choose his successor. forget about democracy, this is the 80s. and they said you cannot say that. so he wanted me to rewrite it. i didn't. somebody else wrote a report and i didn't and i quit. at 24 i have no possibilities of getting another job. i have no money and the only

country that open possibilities for me was the united states of america. they gave me the opportunity to be an uncensored journalist. ucla extension offered me help and thanks to that possibility, i am here. my only goal is that the immigrants who came after me to be treated with the same generosity with which i was treated. i am thankful for this country. i came i remember when ronald reagan was president and when i started working some of my fellow journalist they were criticizing ronald reagan. i was expected to foster say cannot say that. but nothing happened. nothing. that is beautiful. that idea of a generous country

open to immigrants giving us opportunity, that is how i felt america was going to be. and then came donald trump. it is not only donald trump. started bef. but for me, it was when this candidate coming down from the escalator and trump tower, he launched his campaign junjune 1, 2015. then he said openly, mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists. right there, national tv. i am saying, of course that's not true. what he same is not true. who's gonna say what you're saying is a lie. nobody said anything. so i did what any journals would've done, when was last time he wrote -- other than

that, nobody would've done that. i wrote a letter to donald trump and put it in the fedex package and that we sent it to trump tower. the next day, i was in my office and somebody came to my office, my phone started ringing one after the other. i started getting text and i thought something was wrong with the phone or the phone company. and somebody said trump publisher cell phone number on the internet. and instagram. my cell phone number. and many things happen. first, i had to change my number. which by the way, i love my

number, it ended in 1212, it was so easy. when you're an immigrant like me know whenever you call the cold phone company or gas company at first you say it's a problem. you're in trouble because nobody can pronounce that. or worse. so i ended up being george sue. and then after you go through this explanation with an operator who does not want to hear you, then it's always good to end up with 1212. that number, i completely lost it. i got hundreds of text messages, some criticizing me, some offending me, some telling me to go back to my country. and others asking to send me songs and poems and asking for

jobs. all kinds of things. it was not really that bad. the fact is, i had to change my number. but then we made a plan. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. . . welcome to the 34th annual prince fast. i want to give you special thank you to all of our sponsors. it will be broadcast live on book tv. there will be time at the end of the session for q&a. we ask that you use the microphone off to the side so we can hear your important? before we begin the program we have for you turn off your cell