Search results for ""Author F. David Peat""

This is an account of the author's investigation, on behalf of the Canadian government, into the life and ideas of the eccentric genius Nikola Tesla. This is a completely revised and redesigned edition, with a new introduction by the former head of the Tesla Museum, a new chapter and a selection of photographs of Tesla and his work in search of the holy grail of electricity - the transmission of power without loss. As a student in Prague in the 1870s, Tesla "saw" the electric induction motor and patented his discovery, -the first of many inventions whose plans seem to have come to him fully fledged. He worked for the Edison company in Paris before emigrating to the US and battling with Thomas Edison himself to ensure that alternating, rather than direct current, became the standard. He sold his patent in the induction motor for $1 million dollars to George Westinghouse, who used this system for the Niagara Falls Power Project. Moving to Colorado Springs, Tesla worked on resonance, building enormous oscillating towers in experiments which still intrigue today. In later life Tesla became a recluse, bombarding newspapers with eccentric claims, including energy transmissions to other planets. Though he died alone and virtually forgotten, rumours gradually grew that Tesla had made further remarkable discoveries. In an attempt to replicate his experiments, people still build Tesla towers and puzzle over the possible link with low-frequency broadcasts which can supposedly disrupt the weather and affect the human mind.

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"The Pari Dialogues" are the first in an annual series of essays contributed by experts in their fields who are known for the breadth and depth of their knowledge. The main focus of this first volume is on the dialogue between religion and science with essays by the former director of the Vatican Observatory who asks what should be the proper boundaries between religion and science and what can religion and science each say about creation? Other essays deal with the role of belief in the lives of scientists; the connection between science and Sufi mysticism; the parallel visions of Simone Weil and the theories of superstrings and multiverses; on ways in which religions can ensure a just society; the complementary visions of Western Science and the Native American world view; the possibilities of new paths to peace; and the nature of the creative act in both art and literature. The volume also includes a dialogue with the sculptor, Antony Gormley on how Buddhist meditation and his experience of "the inner darkness of the body" informs his art.

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