from a book written by tesla's closest friend
When the acute sensitivity reduced to normal, permi
tting him to resume work, Tesla took a walk
in the city park of Budapest with a former classmate, named Szigeti, one late afternoon in
February, 1882. while a glorious sunset ov
erspread the sky with a flamboyant splash of
throbbing colors, Tesla engaged in one of his favo
rite hobbies— reciting poetry. As a youth
he had memorized many volumes, and he was now
pleased to note that the terrific
punishment his brain had experienced had not di
minished his memory. One of the works
which he could recite from beginning to end was Goethe’s Faust.
The prismatic panorama which the sinking sun wa
s painting in the sky reminded him of some
of Goethe’s beautiful lines:
“The glow retreats, done is the day of toil”
“It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring”
“Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil”
41
“Upon its track to follow, follow soaring”
Tesla, tall, lean and gaunt, but with a fire in
his eye that matched the flaming clouds of the
heavens, waved his arms in the air and swayed his body as he voiced the undulating lines.
He faced the color drama of the sky as if
addressing the red-glowin
g orb as it flung its
amorphous masses of hue, tint and chrome
across the domed vault of heaven.
Suddenly the animated figure of
Tesla snapped into a rigid pose as if he had fallen into a
trance. Szigeti spoke to him but got no answer.
Again his words were ignored. The friend
was about to seize the towering motionless figure and shake him into consciousness when
instead Tesla spoke. “Watch me!” said Tesl
a, blurting out the words like a child bubbling
over with emotion: “Watch me
reverse it.” He was still gazing into the sun as if that
incandescent ball had thrown him into a hypnotic trance.
Szigeti recalled the image from
Goethe that Tesla had been reciting:
“The glow retreats . . . It
yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring”
a poetic description of the setting sun, and then
his next words—“watch me! watch me reverse i
t.” Did Tesla mean the sun? Did he mean that
he could arrest the motion of t
he sun about to sink below the horizon, reverse its action and
start it rising again toward the zenith?
“Let us sit and rest for a while,” said Sziget
i. He turned him toward a bench, but Tesla was
not to be moved. “Don’t you see it?” expostulated the excited Tesla. “See how smoothly it is
running? Now I throw this switch—and I reverse
it. See! It goes just as smoothly in the
opposite direction. watch! I stop
it. I start it. There is no spar
king. There is nothing on it to
spark.”
“But I see nothing,” said Szigeti. “T
he sun is not sparking. Are you ill?”
“you do not understand,” beamed the still
excited Tesla, turning as if to bestow a benediction
on his companion. “It is my al
ternating-current motor I am talking about. I have solved the
problem. Can’t you see it right here in front of
42 me, running almost silently? It is the rotating
magnetic field that does it. See how the magnetic field rotates and drags the armature
around with it? Isn’t it beautiful?
Isn’t it sublime? Isn’t it simp
le? I have solved the problem.
Now I can die happy. But I must live
, I must return to work and bui
ld the motor so I can give it
to the world. No more will men be slaves to
hard tasks. My motor will
set them free, it will do
the work of the world.” Szigeti now underst
ood.
