good morning. welcome the center here he museum of science in boston. this is a very special guest event. we have guest speaker, richard minutesons who is here to talk but "tesla: inventor of the modern." we hear all about the life and accomplishments of tesla. >> tesla is getting -- i'm glad so many people know about hit. he has become sort of a -- there's been a modern revival of him. larry paige referred to tesla as the hero that he has had. probably most people think about elon musk are car and battery and so on, but i today want to talk sort of more about the man and the process that i went

through over the last to be honest four years writing the book and i thought i offered some insights from my perspective, like four of them i thought were key to surprises i had impossibly surprises for you as well. the first is the extent of this man's genius. this man invented the electric motor. he invented the long distance distribution of electricity. accord ago the united states supreme court he invented radio. did remote control, robots, the list goes on and these are the basics of our economy. we're done by one single man. there was a quote by the american institute of electrical engineers who said, were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of mr. tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our towns would be dark. and it's not only the things he

did in his life but he has this fantastic imagination. he was able to envision things and outlined what they looked like even if the technology was available. he foresaw cellphones, radar, laser weapons, artificial intelligence, vertical left aircraft. the list guess on. one quote that knocked me out, on a cellphone, guy 110 year was talking about the ability to have something in your vest pocket which would give you news and he said we shall see and hear one another so perfectly as though we were face-to-face, despite intervening distance of thousands of miles. a man will be able to carry one of these in his vest pocket. 105 years ago he comes up with this plan. so, as a visionary, he was quite remarkable. i should admit, however, that this man also came up with some

quixotic notion that you say ethink complicate his legacy or make him more interesting he spent years trying to figure out how to communicate with intelligent beings on other planes. spent years how to readure mind by putting little monitors in your retina. a guy who had great success. missed several thousands. the thought of some thing what were totally wrong but as an envettor, an amazingly high batting average of getting things right. the second thing is my day job is i work for environmentam defense fund and i do clean energy work in chicago. another surprise was nikola tesla was a environment pioneer.

a subtitle was how to capture the sun's energy. so 118 years ago he was describe thing great detail how you can capture energy from the sun and the wind. as an environmentalis, i keep thinking what a wonder to be able to have nikola tesla alive here today so he would think outside of the boxer, particularly at the electricity industry he helped create, which has become a little bit stagey because it's -- stodgy because it's been monopolized for years and he would be thinking bet ways to send electricity wirelessly, ways to generate electricity without pollution. thinks out ways of sending electricity to everybody around the world, including the 2 billion people today that still don't have electric power.

he was in fact a magician. he would give presentations -- this was his view. electricity is still sort of a wonder that to be honest physicists don't really still idea until what it is but we know it works, keeps our beer cold, keeps or computers running, it's a wonder. he somehow or another captured and was able to control this wonderful resource. he would create lightning. this was something that had been reserved for nature alone. he was able to make globes to glow even though they were not connected to any wire. this was quite a remarkable individual. he guess my third surprise is to present this guy's struggle between the present and the future.

you could weird, appropriate, but he was born during a intense lightning storm at the very stroke of midnight, between the 9th and 10th of july, 1856. how weird is that. this became the birth -- the burg story became the part of tesla family lore and he as a result felt he had some special qualities. doesn't happen to everybody. i as a biographer looked at this -- it explains a lot about him because this was man that was stuck between focusing on today and looking at the future, and he was always trying to sort of balance the realities of the present and then spending time envisioning what the future might look like. in 1897 he just completed

capturing the immense power from niagra falls, and he was able to put threw a series of generators and distribute that electricity, first 26 miles to buffalo, new york, and then an amazing 400 miles to new york city. just to give you some sense of how unbelievable that is, thomas edison approached to sending electricities which was called direct current, could only send something for about a half a mile. what tesla invented using alternating current, he sent 400 miles. "new york times" referred to this as the technological accomplishment of the 19th 19th century, and they said, to tesla, belongs the man who made this project possible. there's still a statue that commemorates his work there. but this is 1897. he just did this, and he is

thinking, this is so today. i am bored with today. i -- this is a real accomplishment. i want to think about something new. the decided to create a whole new field of science. he referred to it as telemet chronics. we refer to it as robotting. his first piece of equipment was a model boat. it's about four feet long, three feet high, and this was at a time he present it in some flashy places at madison square garden, the old madison square garden in new york, and he set up there a pool or a pond in the middle of this exhibition area to demonstrate this material. recognized that this is about three months after the battleship maine exploded in the havana harbor so just can he beginning of the spanish american war. a lot of interest in trying to figure out are there new ways of

making weapons. so he has this presentation, brings in the navy and inventors, other invendors, scientists, journalist and for 15 minutes he has a little mod model boat going forward, going back, dancing like a water bug, going around the pond and basically everybody is sitting thereyear you read the comments from the newspaper reports afterwards. some people were saying it was controlled by a tiny little monkey was inside that was trying to move it around. other people thoughts it was haunted. but what he then did, after mesmerizing everybody, he sort of turned to the crowd and said, would anybody like to ask the beat question? and everybody sort of has this blank look on their face, what do you mean ask the beat question. so, some probably math in other words comes up and says, what's the cube root of 64 and tesla, standing there in the back, has his hand underneath a secret

panel and he flips a button four times that flashes the light on the model boat, and as he said, the crowd went nuts because they were thinking, there has to be a monkey inside there. has to be something. this was his sort of conflict between the realities of today. he just did amajor, probably the major engineering accomplishment of the 19th century and that bored him. what is remarkable is -- of his accomplishment is that marconi who gets credit for the radio, he brought out a little boat and he had pretended there was spanish frigatoon the other side of the pond and he would place as tiny bomb and blow up this spanish frigate, remember, we're at the again of the spanish american war. so guest is his boat, maneuvers

to its he spanish frigate, punches the button and nothing happens. the frigate goes by and suddenly there's huge explosion in the back room because he had not figured out how to individualize messages and so the message went back to the storerooms that hand been storing the bombs, and blasts and smoke comes pouring out into the area. for tesla, he looked at this and he thinks big. i mean, so some reporter asked him, is this a model boat? is this a submarine able to deliver bombs? he was aghast. are you kidding me? he said, this is the first nonbiological form of life. it is embodiesed with a mind. his. and his view of this was that he forsaw artificial intelligence and then went on to say that the

boat would be able to follow a course laid out or obey commands given far in advance but it may by capable of distinguishing what it ought and what it ought not to do. this is artificial intelligence or the beginnings of it. begin, almost 100 years ago today. my fourth surprise of this was, everybody -- when they talk -- not everybody but a lot of the articles about nikola tesla make him appear to be a superman, one biographer said he was like super nova of the human race, and to be fair, inventing the electric motor, long distance electricity, robots, remote control, radio, pretty supper accomplishments, but the part that intrigued me was that he was also a human, and charmingly so. one of the great benefit of

being a biographer is you get to be surprised out things. i was surprised when i was at the library of congress and i asked the librarian what they had on tesla. she says, oh, i have a whole bun of boxes in the back and in those boxes were letters that tesla had been writing to friends of colleague's business associatees. suddenly you got to see this man in reality up front he had a lot of friends so be quite honest. his closest friends were robert and katherine johnson, robert was the editor of the century magazine which we discussed before. katherine, his wildfire, ran an intellectual salon at their townhouse in the blur hill district of man had tan, and they were not particularly rich but acted that way and brought together for dinners, artists, musicians, other luminaries. one who came all the time, if you recognize this gentleman, mark twain.

he would come to dinner, and after din we're good to tesla's laboratory, and that is nikola tesla in the brown, and these two buddies played like kids. they were shooting lightning beams across the lab, making globes glow. they were having a marvelous time, and i guess my point here is that this man, this superman, which i'm willing to say did superaccomplishments, the intriguing part was that he was human. there's -- that was both robert and katherine again. one example of their letter -- tesla had been sick with a cold for a couple of days so robert wrote him a letter which i think just exemplifies their daily notes they sent to each other about their health or writings, and it said, it's 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 and the

fire is lighter than the heart and we only need you. so this very human superman, i think, just to conclude, sort of revels the excitement of discovery. this was at his core. he said, i do not think there is any thrill that can good through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success, such emotions make a man forget sleep, food, friends, love, everything. what is interesting about tess los angeles i think, as an inventor, he was perhaps one of the last curiosity driven inventors, motivated by idealism. thomas edison invented largely practical products to make money. there's nothing wrong with that. no criticism. but tesla felt that even though -- it's not like he didn't like money. he enjoyed his meals at delmony

icko, enjoyed a nice apartment at the waldorf astore ya but he built a technology that tran scened the markplace and invention was more important than simply profits. so, he no doubt, i think, aimed high , perhaps higher than any other inventor we have had in this country, and i guess pardon my reason -- part of my reason for writing this is book is to give him more credit and exposure than he has gotten. not trying to criticized disson or marconi, they did amazing things, but tesla did as well. these are few pictures of him as he ages. you get some sense of him. through the idealism the hogue he bring power to ann around the world freely. thought he would create robots

that would eliminate drudgery. basically driven by inner forces that felt that sheer creation was the most important thing in the world, and i would argue that we all are the better for it. so thank you very much. [applause] >> we have time for just a few questions. if anybody has questions but tesla for our guest author. yep? >> hi. in your book it seems like outcome speak of his brilliance, but you mentioned any of his ex-sentriesties. >> he made a lot of mistakes. not long after the wright burglary flew their airplanes he ceremonies cannot make it. they're too heavy. said he zeppelin.

>> tess la thought the split an atom and no energy came out so it's atomic power is bunk. won't work. he thought that cosmic rays could go faster than the speed of lying. so he got things right but my point was that his batting average was really, really good. all inventors, if they're out there on the cutting edge, are going to make mistakes. edison thought that he had a brilliant new way for increasing the efficiency of extracting ore from rocks. it failed. all inventors fail. i my opinion is tesla had a better batting average and what he gave us through electricity, and radio and robots, are at the very core of our economy and i'm grateful we had him. any other questions?

>> yes, sir. >> how did he do financially? >> well, that's a very good question. he went up and down is the short answer. his first job was working in paris in bud da pest, installing phone systems and then came to united states to work for edison, edison paid him a tiny amount of money and the quit because there was a squabble about money and he spend a year digging ditches making two dollars a day and then suddenly he sells this electric motor pat tens to joest westinghouse, the pittsburgh industrial gist, and suddenly he is wealthy, he even really wealthy. he moves into the wag doctor as astoria and then after the niagra falls, westinghouse was

stretched and jp morgan, ruthless banker, went after trying to take over westing howe's company, and westinghouse has to turn to tesla, who had this contract to get a royalty for every horse power of a motor that came out, which was worth billions of dollars, and westinghouse says to him, i'm about to lose my company. can you help me? and tesla, unbelieve whether i horrible businessman and negotiator that he was, says, you have always been kind me, you are the one who is going bring my ideal of this great electric motor to the world. let me tear up my contract. he gave away a billion dollars. and so for the rest of his life he struggled and to be honest he died a poor man, alone in the hotel new yorker. and support -- had declare bankruptcy and was supported only because of a few scientists at the westinghouse company, who realized the had actually made the company possible, gave him a

little sty spend so he had a -- stipend so he had a room at the hotel new yorker. that's a long answer but up and down on the money front. any other questions? >> i would like to know, something in our moder team that tesla was able to see the moder world, do you think his reacts would be surprise, proud? >> i think he would still be looking at the future. so, thinking of just totally new ways of doing things. so, probably look at the cellphone and said, yeah issue thought of that. and then sort of move on and think, you know -- well maybe i can think of a new way of sending lightning bottoms into the earth, taking advantage over the earth natural electricity and get something resonance or echo and make electricity available to ashe in the world and you can plague plug into the

agency and have it. i come back to balance between him making the reality of today and being happy about it but always sort of thinking that's not enough. has to be thinking but tomorrow. please. >> from the -- so tesla might be impressed at the technology today. what would he think of the march for science and some of that outcome of the most recent election as a reflection in science and society. >> the viewed him and was proud be a scientist, and so i think any attack on the ability to think creatively would have abhorred him. just could not have fathomed -- he wasn't much of a political person. got involved every now and then but didn't do anything. in my mine issue think the interesting thing that he would look at today is how the

inventing process happens, which is in my view, and i think in his, would be it's mostly done now by teams. and so either teams out of universities, corporate research labs, i was at a conference the other day and they were talking beaut research project had 165 people on the project. he was an individual inventor, and we sort of have lost that. i think he would sort of lament and try to be figuring houston how to create a culture by which we allow individuals with their crazy idea busy their great ideas to be able to flourish and not necessarily push them into a team. this is not a criticism of the team approach. obviously given us great things. but i think i would guess he would lament the loss of the individual inventor. >> yes. >> after he came to the united states, did he go back and forth or was he strictly --

>> not very often. he days couple of times help went back once to give speeches and to protect his own patents in both london and then in paris, and his mother died while he was back there, but, no, he spent most of his time in the united states and actually most of that even in new york city, which was sort of his core of where he worked. he loved being in his laboratory. that was his favorite place. had a few assistant but it was clearly managed by him and, again, what came out of that laboratory was the foundations of our modern economy. >> richard will be here for a few more minutes. join me in thanging him for talking today, i. [applause] >> if i might, if you are interested in the book i'm supposed to promote my book go to tesla -- books.com and there's information with the reviews reviews and other speaking

inning gaugements and order forms. practice you in mr. tesla and thank you for your attention. [applause] vision for serious re.

now, here is historian, rachel devlin on the desegregation of american public schools.good evening. good evening! welcome to the author series. i am vivian fisher manager of this beautiful department. it is my pleasure and honor to introduce our guest speaker, rachel devlin.