Tesla: His Tremendous And Troubled Life

cover photo from Wisconsin Public Radio web page

 I started listening to this book on Chapter-a-day from WNMU (90.1 MHz) in Marquette, MI.  It's on here at 8 AM here while I'm exercising.

It can also be listened to on-line:  https://www.wpr.org/listen/1925416

or downloaded:  

https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/wpr-podcast.streamguys1.com/cad/cad220516h.mp3

I've only heard the first few days of the book but it seems to me that someone should have given Tesla a small notebook and a pencil, he literally scratched out the ideas for his polyphase AC system in the dirt of a Hungarian park !

Thinking of Tesla reminds me of my college electrical machines course when Dr. Staats taught us about the single phase induction motor.  It tickled him to death that there was a "theory" of how it works (the counter-rotating field theory).  And then he demonstrated the various ways that a single phase induction motor could be started (with a capacitor or a switched winding) and demonstrated that if those starting techniques weren't used the motor just sits there and hums (it's basically a transformer with a shorted secondary).  And of course it's possible to just start the motor by turning the shaft with your fingers :)  Anyway, it is the motor that works and underpins our modern consumer life.

Maybe Tesla knew exactly how the single phase induction motor worked but the rest of us just have to rely on "theory"  :)

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm