Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

Author: BBC Radio 4 May 2, 2024 Duration: 52:50

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) and his role in the development of electrical systems towards the end of the nineteenth century. He made his name in New York in the contest over which current should flow into homes and factories in America. Some such as Edison backed direct current or DC while others such as Westinghouse backed alternating current or AC and Nikola Tesla’s invention of a motor that worked on AC swung it for the alternating system that went on to power the modern age. He ensured his reputation and ideas burnt brightly for the next decades, making him synonymous with the lone, genius inventor of the new science fiction.

With

Simon Schaffer Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge

Jill Jonnes Historian and author of “Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World”

And

Iwan Morus Professor of History at Aberystwyth University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (Princeton University Press, 2013)

Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth, Tesla: Master of Lightning (Barnes & Noble Books, 1999)

Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)

Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New (Open University Press, 1988)

Iwan Rhys Morus, Nikola Tesla and the Electrical Future (Icon Books, 2019)

Iwan Rhys Morus, How The Victorians Took Us To The Moon (Icon, 2022)

David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (MIT Press, 1991)

John J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (first published 1944; Cosimo Classics, 2006)

Marc J. Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, Biography of a Genius (first published 1996; Citadel Press, 2016)

Nikola Tesla, My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla (first published 1919; Martino Fine Books, 2011)

Nikola Tesla, My Inventions and other Writings (Penguin, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production


Melvyn Bragg and a panel of academic experts gather each week to explore the vast history of scientific thought on In Our Time: Science. This BBC Radio 4 podcast delves far beyond simple explanations, instead tracing the long and often winding paths of discovery that shaped our understanding of the world. Each episode focuses on a single idea, from the concept of zero to the theory of plate tectonics, unpacking its origins, the controversies it sparked, and the key figures who championed or challenged it. You’ll hear lively, in-depth conversations that place science firmly within its human and historical context, revealing how principles we take for granted today were hard-won through centuries of debate, accident, and insight. The discussions are rigorous and accessible, designed for the curious mind eager to appreciate not just what we know, but how we came to know it. By treating science as a deeply historical endeavour, this series offers a richer appreciation of the discipline itself. Tune in for a thoughtful and engaging journey through the experiments, the arguments, and the brilliant flashes of imagination that have defined our quest for knowledge.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

In Our Time: Science
Podcast Episodes
Dorothy Hodgkin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:22
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work and ideas of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994), awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for revealing the structures of vitamin B12 and penicillin and who later determined…
Kinetic Theory [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:38
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how scientists sought to understand the properties of gases and the relationship between pressure and volume, and what that search unlocked. Newton theorised that there were static particl…
The Evolution of Teeth [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:15
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss theories about the origins of teeth in vertebrates, and what we can learn from sharks in particular and their ancestors. Great white sharks can produce up to 100,000 teeth in their lifetim…
Pheromones [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:09
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how members of the same species send each other invisible chemical signals to influence the way they behave. Pheromones are used by species across the animal kingdom in a variety of ways,…
Aristotle's Biology [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:10
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable achievement of Aristotle (384-322BC) in the realm of biological investigation, for which he has been called the originator of the scientific study of life. Known mainly as a…
Emmy Noether [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:20
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and life of one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, Emmy Noether. Noether’s Theorem is regarded as one of the most important mathematical theorems, influencing th…
Venus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:25
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet Venus which is both the morning star and the evening star, rotates backwards at walking speed and has a day which is longer than its year. It has long been called Earth’s twin,…
Free Radicals [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:03
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the properties of atoms or molecules with a single unpaired electron, which tend to be more reactive, keen to seize an electron to make it a pair. In the atmosphere, they are linked to rea…
Automata [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:23
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of real and imagined machines that appear to be living, and the questions they raise about life and creation. Even in myth they are made by humans, not born. The classical Gree…
Echolocation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:02
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some bats, dolphins and other animals emit sounds at high frequencies to explore their environments, rather than sight. This was such an unlikely possibility, to natural historians fro…