My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

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Section 1 of My Inventions and Other Works, The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, Electrical Experimenter, February to October 1919.

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My Inventions, Part 1, My Early Life, by Nikola Tesla.

This article was published in Electrical Experimenter, February 1919.

How does the world's greatest inventor invent? How does he carry out an invention? What sort of mentality has Nikola Tesla? Was his early life as commonplace as most of ours? What was the early training of one of the world's chosen? These and many other very interesting questions are answered in an incomparable manner by Nikola Tesla himself in this, his first article.

you finish eventually but the the process took three times longer than it needed to because you were designing and building at the same time nikola tesla identified this as the core time problem in creative and technical work and built a method to eliminate it he called it completing the design before touching anything physical The Tesla's mind build protocol is about completing the entire design in your mind, including where it will fail before doing any visible work.

Tesla described this method in his 1919 autobiography, My Inventions.

Before building a prototype, before drawing a single diagram he ran the invention completely in his imagination he'd operate the device mentally identify where it would break adjust the design in the mental model until the failure points were resolved only then would he build he wrote it is absolutely immaterial to me whether i run my turbine in thought or test it in the shop the inventions i have conceived in this way have always worked In 30 years, there has not been a single exception.

The mind simulation costs nothing.

But that, he objected, would draw still bigger, bothersome, trampling crowds about the place, for who ever heard of anything so queer as a big clock on the top of a tree? So I had to lay aside its big wheels and cams and rest content with the pleasure of inventing it and looking at it in my mind and listening to the deep, solemn throbbing of its long, two-second pendulum with its two old axes back to back for the bob.

One of my inventions was a large thermometer made of an iron rod about three feet long and five-eighths of an inch in diameter that had formed part of a wagon box.

The expansion and contraction of this rod was multiplied by a series of levers made of strips of hoop iron.

The pressure of the rod against the levers was kept constant by a small counterweight, so that the slightest change in the length of the rod was instantly shown on a dial about three feet wide, multiplied about 32,000 times.

When we arrived at the village tavern, it seemed deserted.

Not a single person was in sight.

I set my clock baggage on the rickety platform David said goodbye and started for home leaving me alone in the world the grinding noise made by the wagon in turning short brought out the landlord and the first thing that caught his eye was my strange bundle then he looked at me and said hello young man what's this machines I said for keeping time and getting up in the morning and so forth well well that's a mighty queer get up you must be a down east Yankee where did you get the pattern for such a thing in my head I said someone down the street happened to notice the landlord looking intently at something and came up to see what it was three or four people in that little village formed an attractive crowd and in fifteen or twenty minutes the greater part of the population of partyville stood gazing in a circle around my strange hickory belongings I kept outside of the circle to avoid being seen and had the advantage of hearing the remarks without being embarrassed almost everyone as he came up would say what's that what's it for who made it the landlord would answer them all alike why a young man that lives out in the country somewhere made it and he says it's a thing for keeping time getting up in the morning and something that i didn't understand i don't know what he meant oh no one of the crowd would say that can't be it's for something else something mysterious mark my words you'll see all about it in the newspaper some of these days a curious little fellow came running up the street joined the crowd stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder quickly made up his mind and shouted in a crisp confident cock-crowing style i know what that contraption's for it's a machine for taking the bones out of fish this was in the time of the great popular phrenology craze when the fences and barns along the roads throughout the country were plastered with big skull-bump posters headed know thyself and advising everybody to attend schoolhouse lectures to have their heads explained and be told what they were good for and whom they ought to marry my mechanical bundle seemed to bring a good deal of this phrenology to mind for many of the onlookers would say i wish i could see that boy's head he must have a tremendous bump of invention others complimented me by saying i wish i had that fellow's head i'd rather have it than the best farm in the state i stayed overnight at this little tavern waiting for a train in the morning i went to the station and set my bundle on the platform along came the thundering train a glorious sight the first train i had ever waited for when the conductor saw my queer baggage he cried hello what have we here inventions for keeping time early rising and so forth may i take them into the car with me you can take them where you like he replied but you had better give them to the baggage master if you take them into the car they will draw a crowd and might get broken so i gave them to the baggage master and made haste to ask the conductor whether i might ride on the engine he good-naturedly said yes it's the right place for you run ahead and tell the engineer what i say but the engineer bluntly refused to let me on saying it don't matter what the conductor told you i say you can't ride on my engine by this time the conductor standing ready to start his train was watching to see what luck i had and when he saw me returning came ahead to meet me the engineer won't let me on i reported won't he said the kind conductor oh i guess he will you come down with me and so he actually took the time and patience to walk the length of that long train to get me on to the engine charlie said he addressing the engineer don't you ever take a passenger very seldom he replied anyhow i wish you would take this young man on he has the strangest machines in the baggage car i ever saw in my life i believe he could make a locomotive he wants to see the engine running let him on then in a low whisper he told me to jump on which i did gladly the engineer offering neither encouragement nor objection as soon as the train was started the engineer asked what the strange thing the conductor spoke of really was only inventions for keeping time getting folk up in the morning and so forth i hastily replied and before he could ask any more questions i asked permission to go outside of the cab to see the machinery this he kindly granted adding be careful not to fall off and when you hear me whistling for a station you come back because if it is reported against me to the superintendent that i allow boys to run all over my engine i might lose my job assuring him that i would come back promptly i went out and walked along the footboard on the side of the boiler watching the magnificent machine rushing through the landscapes as if glorying in its strength like a living creature while seated on the cowcatcher platform i seemed to be fairly flying and the wonderful display of power and motion was enchanting this was the first time i had ever been on a train much less a locomotive since i had left scotland when i got to madison i thanked the kind conductor and engineer for my glorious ride inquired the way to the fair shouldered my inventions and walked to the fairground When I applied for an admission ticket at the window by the gate, I told the agent that I had something to exhibit.

What is it? He inquired.