Margaret Cheney (1) (1921–2010)

Tesla’s genius has finally come into its own these days, as almost all practicing scientists acknowledge both Tesla’s contributions and superiority to Edison. Many inventors now still find that Tesla beat them to a particular electric design or element. Cheney’s biography is full of many interesting anecdotes and personal letters, but there are times where it deifies its subject rather than explain it. Tesla, for all his inventiveness, was still a very flawed, bombastic, and neurotic show more human being. This book, however, will give you a very good understanding of his age and work.

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It's strange when you lose interest in a book. I'm up to page 234/354 and feel that Margaret Cheney has lost me. I'm not sure if I want forge on and finish the book when I'm not enjoying it. It's not that Tesla isn't interesting or that I'm not interested in what ultimately happened to him. It's more that there is something missing in Cheney's portrayal of Tesla.

It could be that she is just not able to explain the intricacies of how Tesla solved AC, or radio tuning, or wireless power show more transmission? It could be that there seems to be no sense of the sequential nature of his discoveries? It could be that Tesla's successes become a series of unrelenting failures.

Yet such prescience: About his solar powerhouse, he wrote

... a great deal less artificial than for men to delve down into the bowels of the earth...in order to get a few handfuls of coal to run an engine for a short time (p. 156)

About radio (it could have been the internet)

Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain capable of response in every one of its parts. (p. 224)

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In Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney explores the brilliant and prescient mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest scientists and inventors. Called a madman by his enemies, a genius by others, and an enigma by nearly everyone, Nikola Tesla was, without a doubt, a trailblazing inventor who created astonishing, sometimes world-transforming devices that were virtually without theoretical precedent. Tesla not only discovered the rotating magnetic field -- the basis of most show more alternating-current machinery -- but also introduced us to the fundamentals of robotics, computers, and missile science. Almost supernaturally gifted, unfailingly flamboyant and neurotic, Tesla was troubled by an array of compulsions and phobias and was fond of extravagant, visionary experimentations. He was also a popular man-about-town, admired by men as diverse as Mark Twain and George Westinghouse, and adored by scores of society beauties.

From Tesla's childhood in Yugoslavia to his death in New York in the 1940s, Cheney paints a compelling human portrait and chronicles a lifetime of discoveries that radically altered -- and continue to alter -- the world in which we live. Tesla: Man Out of Time is an in-depth look at the seminal accomplishments of a scientific wizard and a thoughtful examination of the obsessions and eccentricities of the man behind the science. show less

Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney

★ ★ ★

Tesla was a great inventor and great contributor to modern technology. Yet, he has often been forgotten and slipped through the cracks until the last couple decade. And if you're looking for a biography on this great (yet slightly neurotic and crazy) man, this is definitely the biography for you to pick up. It is detailed and is equal in talking about the good and the bad of this man. There are several books about him but from what I can show more tell, this is the best so far.

I rated this book 3 stars but felt it deserved more. My lack of more stars is more due to me than the book. I read most this book in a haze. I tried to read it mostly when evacuated and for obvious reasons my brain just didn't comprehend it. There is some technical jargon that is explained for even those with no experience in the world of science but my poor brain was elsewhere. And unfortunately for that reason the poor book suffers because of my inability to concentrate. But regardless, this IS a good book and a lot of good information. Just remember when reading this book that it was written in the 1980s'. So “technology of today and the future” aren't so today and future like. Definitely a must read for fans of Tesla and his work or for those that don't even know who he is!

PS. Just by chance I finished this book on Tesla's 156th Birthday. This made me happy and was fitting. show less