> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Tesla-Mes-inventions/362360

> “À ma grande surprise, je conçus bientôt que
*toutes mes pensées avaient été comme
manoeuvrées par des impressions extérieures et
que toutes mes actions se trouvaient
commandées de la même manière. Au fur et à
mesure, il devint flagrant que j'étais un simple
automate dont les mouvements survenaient en
réaction à des ‘stimulations' de mes organes
sensoriels.”
--Nikola Tesla - Mes Inventions

> “L'être humain est un automate autonome
entièrement sous le contrôle d'influences
extérieures. Délibérées et prédéterminées
lorsqu'elles apparaissent, ses actions sont régies
non pas de l'intérieur mais de l'extérieur. Elles
sont comme un flotteur jeté dans les vagues
d'une mer turbulente.”
--Nikola Tesla

> “Mon cerveau est seulement un récepteur.
Dans l'univers, il y a un coeur qui nous fournit
du savoir, de la force, de l'inspiration. Je n'ai
pas pénétré dans les secrets de ce coeur mais je
sais qu'il existe.”
--Nikola Tesla

Luckily for society, Tesla devoted his life to inventing vs. writing. Maybe because his original manuscript was written almost a hundred years ago, I found the style of the text somewhat dry, disorganized, and disjointed. It's a shame, because he was a brilliant man and visionary inventor.
I think Tesla gave his future readers too much credit for being able to clearly understand and envision just what he was talking about when describing some of his work and inventions. There were many opportunities to explain more, to describe the conditions and work that went into his ideas, etc., but those opportunities weren't always taken. That may have been because the book is so short.
For a better story about Tesla and Westinghouse and Edison and the era of electricity innovations and development, I actually preferred ​Graham Moore's "The Last Days of Night". Even though that was a fictionalized account of their actions, disagreements, and progress, you get the idea of just what Tesla was like, and what he was able to accomplish. ( )

While reading bits of information about the life of Nikola Tesla, I wish he got more credit than Thomas Edison. I remember when the latter, together with Albert Einstein, was featured in our English book in Grade Four. There's also an interesting historical animé series that features the greatest inventors in history; I don't recall Tesla being included. In fact, I only learned about him while reading my favorite genre. (You can read about him in almost every Steampunk book). ( )

Curious little book, with startling insight into the thoughts of Nikola Tesla, who may well have been given a sensory disorder diagnosis if these insights were shared in more recent times. His abilities and insights are quite remarkable, some of his predictions for the future were extraordinary and some were quite on the mark. Worth a read, even though it is relatively short, because we rarely get this snapshot of the minds of people like this. ( )

Very short, and with its abrupt ending it feels unfinished. Parts of the book do not age well, for example Tesla's political digressions. Other parts age better. For example, over a century later, it is now easy to forgive Tesla's enormous ego. Tesla was eager to claim credit for everything, and found it impossible to admit that he could ever be wrong. This must have been annoying to his contemporaries. Now it comes across as cute and quirky. While it does give some insight to his personality, though, it also makes it harder to glean insight from his life and work; Tesla is not being honest with us.

> This horse was responsible for my brother's injuries from which he died. I witnessed the tragic scene and although fifty-six years have elapsed since, my visual impression of it has lost none of its force. The recollection of his attainments made every effort of mine seem dull in comparison. Anything I did that was creditable merely caused my parents to feel their loss more keenly

> When a word was spoken to me the image of the object it designated would present itself vividly to my vision and sometimes I was quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not. … I soon discovered that my best comfort was attained if I simply went on in my vision farther and farther, getting new impressions all the time, and so I began to travel—of course, in my mind. Every night (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would start on my journeys—see new places, cities and countries—live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations.

> In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automaton endowed with power of movement, responding to the stimuli of the sense organs and thinking and acting accordingly. The practical result of this was the art of telautomatics which has been so far carried out only in an imperfect manner. Its latent possibilities will, however, be eventually shown. I have been since years planning self-controlled automata and believe that mechanisms can be produced which will act as if possessed of reason, to a limited degree, and will create a revolution in many commercial and industrial departments

> Even now I am not insensible to some of these upsetting impulses. When I drop little squares of paper in a dish filled with liquid, I always sense a peculiar and awful taste in my mouth. I counted the steps in my walks and calculated the cubical contents of soup plates, coffee cups and pieces of food—otherwise my meal was unenjoyable. All repeated acts or operations I performed had to be divisible by three and if I mist I felt impelled to do it all over again, even if it took hours.

> Another one of my projects was to construct a ring around the equator which would, of course, float freely and could be arrested in its spinning motion by reactionary forces, thus enabling travel at a rate of about one thousand miles an hour, impracticable by rail. The reader will smile

> I had a veritable rnania for finishing whatever I began, which often got me into difficulties. On one occasion I started to read the works of Voltaire when I learned, to my dismay, that there were close on one hundred large volumes in small print which that monster had written while drinking seventy-two cups of black coffee per diem. It had to be done, but when I laid aside the last book I was very glad, and said, "Never more!"

> One of the administrators had promised me a liberal compensation in case I succeeded, as well as a fair consideration of the improvements I had made in their dynamos and I hoped to realize a substantial sum. There were three administrators whom I shall designate as A,B and C for convenience. When I called on A he told me that B had the say. This gentleman thought that only C could decide and the latter was quite sure that A alone had the power to act. After several laps of this circulus vivios it dawned upon me that my reward was a castle in Spain.

> I managed to embark for New York with the remnants of my belongings, some poems and articles I had written, and a package of calculations relating to solutions of an unsolvable integral and to my flying machine. … in April, 1887, the Tesla Electric Company was organized, providing a laboratory and facilities. The motors I built there were exactly as I had imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected.

> One day, as I was roaming in the mountains, I sought shelter from an approaching storm. The sky became overhung with heavy clouds but somehow the rain was delayed until, all of a sudden, there was a lightning flash and a few moments after a deluge. This observation set me thinking. It was manifest that the two phenomena were closely related, as cause and effect, and a little reflection led me to the conclusion that the electrical energy involved in the precipitation of the water was inconsiderable, the function of lightning being much like that of a sensitive trigger. … this mighty life-sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers and provide motive power in unlimited amounts. This would be the most efficient way of harnessing the sun to the uses of man. The consummation depended on our ability to develop electric forces of the order of those in nature

> Despite my rare physical endurance at that period the abused nerves finally rebelled and I suffered a complete collapse, just as the consummation of the long and difficult task was almost in sight.

> So long as it operates I am safe from danger, due to overwork, which threatens other inventors and, incidentally, I need no vacations which are indispensable to most people. When I am all but used up I simply do as the darkies, who "naturally fall asleep while white folks worry." To venture a theory out of my sphere, the body probably accumulates little by little a definite quantity of some toxic agent and I sink into a nearly lethargic state which lasts half an hour to the minute. Upon awakening I have the sensation as though the events immediately preceding had occurred very long ago, and if I attempt to continue the interrupted train of thought I feel a veritable mental nausea. Involuntarily I then turn to other work and am surprised at the freshness of the mind and ease with which I overcome obstacles that had baffled me before.

> While I have failed to obtain any evidence in support of the contentions of psychologists and spiritualists, I have proved to my complete satisfaction the automatism of life, not only through continuous observations of individual actions, but even more conclusively through certain generalizations. These amount to a discovery which I consider of the greatest moment to human society, and on which I shall briefly dwell. … whenever either myself or a person to whom I was attached, or a cause to which I was devoted, was hurt by others in a particular way, which might be best popularly characterized as the most unfair imaginable, I experienced a singular and undefinable pain which, for want of a better term, I have qualified as "cosmic," and shortly thereafter, and invariably, those who had inflicted it came to grief … A very sensitive and observant being, with his highly developed mechanism all intact, and acting with precision in obedience to the changing conditions of the environment, is endowed with a transcending mechanical sense, enabling him to evade perils too subtle to be directly perceived. When he comes in contact with others whose controlling organs are radically faulty, that sense asserts itself and he feels the "cosmic" pain. The truth of this has been borne out in hundreds of instances and I am inviting other students of nature to devote attention to this subject, believing that through combined and systematic effort results of incalculable value to the world will be attained.

> Telautomata will be ultimately produced, capable of acting as if possessed of their own intelligence, and their advent will create a revolution. As early as 1898 I proposed to representatives of a large manufacturing concern the construction and public exhibition of an automobile carriage which, left to itself, would perform a great variety of operations involving something akin to judgment. But my proposal was deemed chimerical at that time and nothing came from it. ( )