Nikola Tesla Unique Genius or a Model for Everyone

Nikola Tesla: Unique Genius Or A Model For Everyone?

Apr. 28 2011 - 4:46 pm | 445 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

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Nikola Tesla. Image via Wikipedia

Last night, I was playing around on my Kindle, looking for some books on science to read or mark on my wish list. In so doing, I came across a book I had to download and start reading right away – My Inventionsby Nikola Tesla. Written in 1919, this is an autobiographical account of Nikola Tesla’s life and the story of his inventions. Now, I haven’t finished the book yet, but I’m loving it so far. Tesla’s writing style is simultaneously plain and rich; matter-of-fact and full of wonder. He’s very easy to understand, even as the things he’s writing about are complicated and amazing.

Tesla’s Approach to Creativity

There is, however, one passage that has particularly struck out at me, which is Tesla’s account of his own creative process. Here it is in full:

My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the...