TESLA, NIKOLA O

friend Arthur Hallam in Vienna. They had matters by conflating the love of his dead
met at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1828, comrade with the love of Christ. Probably
and had taken two continental trips to- in his own mind the poet laureate was
gether, which had deeply impressed the never sure what the meaning of the whole
poet. Tennyson's continual and intense searing experience was. It is significant
brooding over the loss yielded many that he was able to marry his cousin Emily
manuscript drafts, which he finally com- Sellwood, as he had long planned, only
bined in his major poetic sequence, In after the final publication of In Memo-
Memoriam, published anonymously in riam.
1850. Later he gained fame for a number of I
individual shorter poems, as well as for the BIBLIOGRAPHY. Christopher
Arthurian cycle, The Idyls of the King 1 Craft,"'Descend and Touch and Enter':
Tennyson's Strange Manner of Address,"
(1859).Profiting from the innovations of Genders, 1 (19881,83-101;Alan Sinfield,
the romantic poets, Tennyson enjoyed a 1 Alfred Tennyson, Oxford: Basil Black-
superb ear, and was able to combine color well, 1986.
and richness of imagery with ethical state- Wayne R. Dynes
ment. By no means the apologist forvicto-
rian beliefs that he is sometimes taken to
be, Tennyson found the way to capture
TESLA, NIKOLA
some of the chief moral dilemmas of his
(1856-1943)
Serbian-American scientist and
age in verse of matchless eloquence.
inventor. Born the son of an Orthodox
From the first, In Memoriam
priest in the village of Smiljan in the prov-
puzzled and disconcerted many of
ince of Lik, he received his higher educa-
Tennyson's admirers. It is difficult to avoid
tion at the Technische Hochschule in
'
the challenge of a prolonged expostulation
Graz and at the Charles University in
to a dead friend that speaks of "A spectral
Prague. In 1882 he worked for the tele-
doubt which makes me cold,/ that I shall
phone company in Budapest and invented
be thy mate no more." For Tennyson,
the amplifier, and in February of that year
Hallam had once been "the centre of a
discovered the phenomenon of the reverse
world's desire," its "central warmth dif-
magnetic pole. Between 1882 and 1884 he
fusing bliss." The years had only brought
worked inParis and Strasbourg, rebuilding
more depth of feeling: "My love involves
the Edison dynamos. Then he came to
the love before;/ my love is vaster passion
America and worked with Edison himself
now;/ tho' mixed with God and Nature
for a time. In 1886 he invented the arc
thou,/I seem to love thee more and more."
lamp for lighting city streets, and in April
In a contemporary review of In
1887 he founded the Tesla Electric Com-
Memoriam, Charles Kingsley found the
pany. He also built the first high-effi-
poetic sequence a descendant of "the old
ciency multiphasic current machines and
tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and
motors. In November and December 1887
Pythias, Socrates and Alcibiades,
he applied for patents for the Tesla induc-
Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of
tion coil and other inventions. In 1888-89
'love passing the love of woman."' Ben-
he worked for WestinghouseinPittsburgh,
jamin Jowett, wondering whether it was
applied for a patent for the transmission
manly or natural to linger in such a mood,
of alternating current, and built the first
excused the poems by speakingvaguely of
high-frequency generators, and in 1890 he
their "Hellenism." For a century and a
discovered high-frequency currents. In
quarter after the publication critics twisted
1892he patented a transformer to increase
'and turned to avoid directly addressing the
oscillating currents to high potentials,
disturbing implications of this pivotal
and began his workon wireless telegraphy.
work. To be sure, Tennyson complicated
4 TESLA, NIKOLA

Between then and 1899 he pioneered in BIBLIOGRAPHY. Margaret Cheney,

the development of radio communication 1 Tesla: Man Out of Time, New York:
and in the transmission of electricity with- Laurel, 1983; JohnJ. O'Neill, Prodigal
Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla, New
out wires, which he realized at a distance York:Ives Washbum, 1944.
of more than 1000 kilometers. This Warren Johansson
marked the end of his creative period,
though he continued to be an active inven-
tor for more than twenty years afterward. THAILAND
He became an American citizen and lived Previously known as Siam, in
in New York until his death in 1943. 1939 the country was officially renamed
Tesla never married; no woman, Prathet Thai, or Thailand-literally, "the
with the exception of his mother and his land of the free." The change of name
sisters, ever shared the smallest fraction closely followed a change in the country's
of his life. He believed that he had inher- form of government, from the previous
ited his abilities as an inventor from his absolute monarchy to the modem consti-
mother. As a young man he was not unat- tutional monarchy with a representative
tractive, though too tall and slender to be legislature. With some fifty-two million
an ideal masculine type; he was handsome citizens, Thailand occupies a key position
of face and wore clothes well. He idealized in the rapidly developing Asian economic
women, yet planned his own life in a sphere, and aspires to join Taiwan and
coldly objective manner that excluded Korea as a world-wide economic force.
women entirely. Only the highest type of An ethnically and linguistically
woman could win his friendship; the diverse nation, Thailand began to assume
remainder of the sex had no attraction for its present shape only within the last
him whatever. In 1924 he gave an inter- thousand years, and many key elements of
view published in Collier's magazine in Thai culture reached their present form in
which he asserted: "The struggle of the the relatively recent past. The formation
human female toward sex equality will of the nation began with the arrival in
end up in a new sex order, with th fe- Thailand of members of a linguistic and
males superior. . . . The female mind has cultural group designated by the term
demonstrated a capacity for all the mental "Tai." (Some important members of this
acquirements and achievements of men, group are the Siamese, the Lao, and the
and as generations ensue that capacity will Shans of northeastern Burma; altogether
be expanded; the average woman will be the "Tai" comprise about 70 million per-
as well educated as the average man, and sons in southeast Asia.] The modern Thai
then better educated. . . . Women will may be a descendant of the incoming Tai,
ignore precedent and startle civilization but he may also come from the indigenous
with their progress." Mon and Khmer groups whom the Tai
Tesla tried to convince the world joined, or from much later Chinese and
that he had succeeded in eliminating love Indian immigrants to Thailand. The
and romance from his life, but he merely modem Thai is not so much a member of
drew a veil over the secret chapter of his a race as a person claiming fealty to the
lifewhich an intolerant world had no right state of Thailand; secondarily, a Thai is
to know. The mystery of his devotion to identified by his language ("a speaker of
science is one of those episodes in the Thai"].
annals of invention and discovery that are During the eighteenth and nine-
illuminated by insight into the androgy- teenth centuries, Thailand managed to
nous character of genius. avoid colonization by any European
power: the primary foreign influence was