The Problem of Increasing Human Energy

by Nikola Tesla

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy by Nikola Tesla focuses on his ideas for the survival of the human race and is based on his expertise as both a mechanical and electrical engineer. The Problem of Increasing Human Energy is recommended for those interested in scientific ideas toward furthering the longevity of the human race. It has been used as a starting point for understanding Global Warming, harnessing the Sun's energy and other issues. Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer. He was an important contributor to the birth of commercial electricity, and is best known for developing the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system. Tesla's patents and theoretical work also formed the basis of wireless communication and the radio.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, Philosophy, Technology, Health, Biography

37 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1900

About the author

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla first studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree. He then gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His AC induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed.
Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wirelessly controlled boat, one of the first ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it.
After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943. Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the International System of Units (SI) measurement of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s.

Reviews

[Jan Adam King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Tesla reminds me that great minds do not and usually by definition come in cookie box cut forms.

They are different by design.

So, in our world where we tolerate so much more and yet find ourselves with our drugs, medications , prescribed expectations, social media , anti social behaviour squads, block watches, and gossip shows , we actually tolerate less With so many educated by these quick draw school of social media or the self regulating media mainstream, even the fly by night schools of degree, we are often encouraged to judge and be jury too.

So world of tolerance or just social bullying. If feels far more like the latter.

In this world I wonder how many Teslas of today there are locked up or medicated down. In this world where greed is good and the "strong "aka thieving survive, how many dreamers die?

Here is to the dreamer who lived and in this and his many books, may he live evermore.

Reminds me of a young boy and his friends I read about once .

....I Solemnly swear I am up to good...... ish....

[Danijel Luketa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tesla was a true humanitarian who was concerned about human prospect and at the same time was an eternal optimist. His optimism was not based merely on belief in human empathy, it was intellectually founded on his inventions and theories.
This book blew we away thinking that his theory was true and what development we would see today, were Tesla able to continue his projects. In other books about Tesla it can be read that J.P. Morgan stopped funding Tesla when he found out that energy could be provided to humanity free of charge. Unfortunately not all are as concerned as Tesla, so we'll have to wait until another genius comes along, hopefully with more business acumen.
Tesla already proved some of his theories presented in the book but not on a large scale. The mere idea of free energy and boost in human energy contributing to more or less erasing war is mind blowing.
I strongly recommend reading the book, hopefully it will at least contribute to grasp the human potential in symbiosis with our planet. We are better of expanding our abilities and potential of the universe rather than being robots working 9-17 for someone else's need of power and wealth .

[Alexander Curran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fascinating book from Tesla addressing the problem of increasing human energy. Energy from the sun, population needs, and using a physics lens to see what is possible or at first concievable. Tesla is thinking about alternative energies which is unusual, because of the focus on fossil fuels after the industrial revolution, perhaps we could say again that Tesla was ahead of his time by looking at this already.

[Jerry Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a mind. When human civilization was just starting to impact the natural world, Tesla was already worrying about problems like what happens when all the fertilizers run out, like the natural ammonium nitrate deposits in Chile, which took millions of years to form. Just like oil, once they're gone, they're gone. As the population increases and these unrenewable resources run out, we'll be left with a huge population without any means of supporting it. Tesla was not only pointing this out, but was already working out the solutions at a time when nobody else seemed to know or care.

[AttackGirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was not the version I read. I down loaded a text copy from Archive.com which is where I get a lot of documents to read, which are downloadable in various formats as well as borrowing options.

I donate because all of their items are cough cough FREE.

Of course if you have read any of my comments you know I am a Tesla supporter the man had wisdom and understood after a while the absolute greed of men with no honor, and thankfully did not share his rather aggressive pocket size creations. You have to love THE HAMMER.

[Louis Phillips]

Most of us border madness. It's a value judgment at best, [the nonclinical sanity.] This guy had to be mad to take the extra step. The needs of sanity involve dealing with the everyday. This book is hard going [thin] and requiring a mind of equal value. This I cannot supply. I'm working on it.

[Christine Kenney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fast fun read on several dimensions.

Self help aspect-- I wish Gretchen Rubin had written an "Energy Project" book instead of an "Happiness Project" since I see depression and that energyless ennui that comes with it as the antithesis of happiness. Tesla is more interested in this topic at the macro scale of increasing the collective energy of humanity with physics! Energy = (Mass * Velocity^2)/2. It would be a stretch to say this is readily applicable to everyday life. Maybe find ways to live a healthier life to increase my lifespan and the time my mass is here on earth; pursue goals and environmental conditions that reinforce rather than undermine each other or produce a lot of friction that put a drag on my velocity; and er... find ways to increase my velocity as an human atomic unit through education in...? Speaking of velocity, he leaves a two foundation concepts problematically vague, but filling in that ambiguity for yourself is an interesting exercise. (i.e. What "direction" are we trying to impel humanity? Without knowing that, how do we determine what forces to consider "negative?" What exactly is human "velocity?" What rubric do we use to determine if the children are higher/lower/same velocity as their parents and thus desirable/undesirable to add to human mass?) I found myself concluding that some heterogeneity of beliefs, values, goals even if wasteful in moving humanity forcefully in a singular direction sets us up to be able to collectively adapt to changes in our environment and the pressures those changes exert on our fitness... kinda like humans having resilience through many different blood types and immune system combinations.

Victoriana-- I love the broad background this era draws on for analogies, the optimism to believe all problems are imminently solvable, and the understatement with which they convey their ideas. "...when a misfortune befell me in the burning of my laboratory, which crippled my labors and delayed me." (!) "There is, of course, a popular prejudice against using an electrical pressure of millions of volts, which may cause sparks to fly at distances of hundreds of feet..." (!!)

History of technological thought-- how rad would it be to have a 15 min Youtube rejoinder for each of Tesla's speculative technology chapters. How prescient were his speculations? What things did he not anticipate? How did the field evolve post 1900? He's speculating about communicating and terra forming planets before we even had much in the way of air travel. Considering the possibilities of wireless communication and power conveyance while much of his world is still running on coal or possibly gas lighting. Contemplating the use of sonar types of devices to detect "an iceberg or other object at sea" 12 years before the mishap with the Titanic.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

All humanities problems: solved. This book, right here.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this on Audible. Though I admire the efforts of amateurs in many cases, the reader was quite poor. There are dictionaries widely available that will help with pronunciation.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short read. Mostly filled with opinions and ideas that do not align with my own. It almost read like a comedy more than anything.

I have never touched anything related to Nikola Telsa, and couldn't tell you much of anything about the man, so this was my first introduction to his works.

He has some interesting opinions that I do not agree with, for example... eating meat makes us barbarians and we should all be vegetarians. I felt like this was a bit out of place and super opinionated, but hey its his book.

Here are some quick bullet points:

- Sun is going to die in 6 million years.
- Say hello to the Great Freeze.
- Bacteria will live on in the cold; life will become anew.
- Humans and living creatures all connected; murder and guilt example.
- Lots of math.
- Stimulants are bad and are killing us.
- All water should be boiled, filtering alone is not enough... including ice cubes (this made me laugh).
- He basically says "cleanliness is godliness" as he focuses a quite a bit on hygiene, connects it with religion, and the importance of human energy within good hygiene. Not a bad thing. I do find it amusing how he delivers it though.
- Meat eating makes us barbarians.
- If you only eat vegetables you'll have a better physique. This made me laugh.
- Artificial food is evil.
- Crystals are living beings. Huh. Lol. Oh, you are doing the whole fire/flame comparison as opposed to what we perceive as normal life... like a house cat. Gotcha.
- Ignorance is the #1 evil.
- Organized war is the #2 evil.
- The Sun is the spring the drives all.
- Iron is bad.
- Aluminum is better (wonder if he had stocks/if this is a conflict of interest.... lol).

The way I wrote the bullet points above may come across as comical. Well, I felt the same way when I read the material.

Jokes aside, his deep dive into soil, his speculations of artificial intelligence and what he called tele-automatics (drones) were very interesting. Even his iron hate was supported by a deep dive that was quite good as well.

Mr. Telsa, that will be all for now. Thanks. I am good for probably the rest of my life and I do truly appreciate all of your ideas, thoughts, and contributions.

I enjoyed writing this review while drinking my unboiled water, filled with stimulants that are killing me, and also about to go make a barbarian style breakfast with extra meat.

[Mayur Sinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man is not an ordinary mass, consisting of spinning atoms and molecules, and containing merely heat-energy. He is a mass possessed of certain higher qualities by reason of the creative principle of life with which he is endowed. What is most wonderful of all, he is capable of increasing or diminishing his velocity of movement by the mysterious power he possesses by appropriating more or less energy from other substance and turning it into motive energy. Tesla is not just referring to velocity as a physical speed but the metaphysical speed of the progression of mankind.
In conclusion, why is it so important that we always bring our A-game? To fulfill our existential purpose. That is to move the human race forward. We now know that Tesla was too far ahead of time.

[Pascale · Rating 4 out of 5]

If we had just listened to that man... he expresses his ideas with such clarity and he really thought everything through. The only negative thing I would say is that I am under the impression that many of the figures are missing or are far back so when he describes an apparatus, you don't have the image and it makes it difficult to "see" what he is explaining.

[Lu Molina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the vision of this guy.

[dennise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nikola Tesla is my all-time favorite scientist.

[Zak Boston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating and maybe a little ominous

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro con muchas ideas tecnológicas, humanísticas y futuristas de Tesla, que se nota muy adelantado a su época, pensando en temas tan trascendentales como la forma de incrementar la energía para mejorar los sistemas de producción humanos, para mejorar la vida humana.

Tesla usa conceptos como masa, fuerza y resistencia haciendo referencia al ser humano, en que aumentar la energía humana es equivalente a aumentar la masa humana, a incrementar su fuerza de empuje y disminuir las resistencias que frenan el avance humano. Como solución plantea incrementar la masa mediante varias alternativas como la combustión de nitrógeno atmosférico (alimentación), reducir la fuerza que retarda la fuerza humana usando la teleautomática, aumentar la fuerza que acelera la masa humana mediante el uso de energías limpias como la energía solar.

Tesla dice que las tres posibles soluciones a la gran problema de incrementar la energía human se contestan con tres palabras: comida, paz y trabajo. La comida aumenta la masa, la paz disminuye las fuerzas de resistencia, y el trabajo acelera el movimiento humano. Y solucionar el hambre no es suficiente, es necesario una nutrición saludable y piensa que el vegetarianismo es una gran opción para mejorarla. La mayor fuerza de fricción o resistencia al avance humano es la ignorancia y la guerra. Lo que lo lleva a hablar acerca del desarme de las naciones y la paz mundial y de que son imposibles a corto plazo, y que contrario a lo que muchos creen, el incremento del poder destructivo de las armas no acabará con las guerras, la tecnología no frena a la guerra sino multiplica sus efectos, aquí en el año 1900 pronosticando que en el futuro se fabricarían armas que no requerirían muchas personas para su manejo pero que desatarían un enorme poder destructivo.
Tesla habla de la suprema importancia del agua potable, que era una de las mayores fuentes de mortalidad humana. También dice que si las nuevas generaciones son más inteligentes, es decir mejor educadas, entonces esto significará el incremento de una masa de mayor velocidad lo que ayudará a incrementar la energía humana en la sociedad.

Otros temas de los cuales habla Tesla son acerca del despilfarro en la fabricación del hierro y su importancia en la humanidad, y del papel cada vez más importante que tendrán otros metales como el aluminio. El uso del carbón, la transmisión eléctrica, el motor a gas, la batería de carbón frío, molinos de viento, motores solares y fuentes de energía eléctrica producida de fuentes naturales, las telecomunicaciones inalámbricas, la transmisión de energía eléctrica sin cables, y hasta de las telecomunicaciones interplanetarias. Todo un visionario, y este un libro para leer, releer y reflexionar sobre la situación y el avance de la humanidad.

[⋊ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only God knows how beautiful the brain of this man truly was.

Tesla establishes the human race in this publication as a figurative free body diagram that can be influenced to move in a positive direction by:

1. Increasing Mass | Human health and productivity as derived from nutrition, lifestyle, and education. He suggests, in the tone of a scrawny bookworm, that physical strength and the development of an objectively 'strong' human form is a bygone era - a dangerous equation that equates physical strength and development with wasting resources.

2. Decreasing Retarding Forces | Primarily: ignorance, conflict, and inefficient structures of government. Tesla suggests that knowledge and science alone have the potential to decrease these forces substantially. He chooses to quote Buddha in saying that ignorance is "the greatest evil in the world."

3. Increasing Accelerating Forces | Natural energy sources - solar in particular. This solution was the one I found most intriguing due to the original date of publication: 1900. It is also the solution Tesla focuses on the most for the remainder of his deliberation. He touches on his research into the atmospheric transmission of electrical energy without the use of wiring, oscillation, geothermal energy, Maxwellian theory, and laments the prejudice many hold against the safe, practical usage of electrical pressures in the scale of millions of volts.

Tesla was a man whose decline is heartbreaking and whose inventions, when mentioned, summon forces few have the resources to counter. He is a coffee that can only be had with its grinds. What leaves me with a bittersweet taste is not these grinds, however - but Tesla's own decay - which I believe was most honorably eulogized in his own words:

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter - for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes with the poet who says:

Daily work my hands' employment,
To complete is pure enjoyment!
Let, oh, let me never falter!
No! there is no empty dreaming:
No! these trees, but bare poles seeming,
Yet will yield both food and shelter!

Goethe's 'Hope', 1789."

[Mika Auramo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Visionääri Nikola Teslan alkujaan vuonna 1900 julkaisema opus The Problem of Increasing Human Energy keskittyy pitkälti eri energiamuotojen hyötykäyttöön ja ihmiskunnan hyväksi. Tehdään katsauksia ja laskelmia, miten eri metalleja, aurinkoenergiaa ja nestemäistä happea voitaisiin käyttää entistä tehokkaammin kiihtyvän energiatarpeen tyydyttämiseksi.

Loppupuolella alkaa mennäkin entistä kiintoisammaksi, kun käsitellään planeettojen välisisiä energiasiirtoja, sähköenergian siirtämistä maata pitkin ja ilman johtoja, ja miten lopulta voitaisiin käyttää ihmismassojen tuottamaa energiaa. Tässä tulikin mieleen ihmisenergian keruu radioaalloilla (5G-verkkojen lähetin-vastaanottimet), jollaista on pidetty lähinnä salaliittoteoriana, mutta jotain samantapaistahan Teslakin lienee visioinut jo yli sata vuotta sitten. Suuri yleisöhän ajattelee, että liikuteltava data on vain sitä, mikä kulkee päätelaitteesta tukiasemaan ja päinvastoin…

[Iliiaz Akhmedov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. Some memorable words from the book: "food, piece, and work".

I totally didn't expect Tesla to start the book with some contemplation on how a man should utilize his time and body, what makes you productive, and what increases your "energy" in the human capacity. I am stunned how stylish and how unordinary he is in approaching human potential energy from the physics perspective tying it to the mass, speed, and removal of retarding forces. This is yet another very rational approach to answering some of the daily questions for anyone. I am slightly surprised with the understandable philosophical shade of the writing. As I am scratching my head, I am guessing, it becomes inevitable as humans deal with global progress they raise ethical matters where every mind draws its own fine lines.

[Faris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Naučnik ne teži neposrednom rezultatu. On ne očekuje da će se njegove napredne ideje spremno prihvatiti. Njegov rad je kao rad onog koji sije - za budućnost. Njegova dužnost je da postavi temelje za one koji će doći, i da ukaže na pravi put. On živi, radi i nada se s pjesnikom koji kaže:

Geteova "Nada"

Pruži mi uzvišenu sreću
Da i to ostvarim
Vrijednim radom svojih ruku
I ne dopusti da se umorim.

Ne, to nisu prazni snovi;
Zasad samo izdanci,
Jednom će nam to drveće
Dati plod i hlad."

Tesla je, još jednom se u to uvjerivši, bio daleko iznad svog vremena. Istraživač, naučnik i nadasve sanjar koji, čini mi se, do samoga kraja nije izgubio vjeru u snagu ljudske energije sposobne da bude usmjerena u bilo šta kako bi život i življenje učinili boljim.

[Rubi · Rating 3 out of 5]

İnteresting Read

He had a brilliant mind and was well ahead of his time. In 1886, he discussed concepts like sentient robots and wireless electricity—remarkable ideas for that era.

However, his views on women were quite sexist; he believed that women would contribute more to humanity by not pursuing education, staying home, and stopping trying to be men. Additionally, he seems to display traits of a low-level religious fanatic. Unfortunately, his thinking was influenced by the social norms of his time.

Despite this, I agree with his three steps to advance humanity: Food, Peace, and Work.

[Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

letto nel giro di pochi giorni, il libro è interessante perchè permette di entrare maggiormente a contatto con la realtà immaginativa e lavorativa di Nikola Tesla con uno sguardo privilegiato a ciò che realmente stava al centro dei suoi pensieri, almeno da un punto di vista tecnico-scientifico. Consigliato a quelle persone incuriosite da personaggi importanti nel mondo della scienza ma anche a professionisti o futuri scienziati.
Byeee!

[Sandip Bhadani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the things that Tesla envision using electricity are the reality today, except his bold ideas that required genius like him. For example giving free electricity, wireless electricity transmission.

But it might have been a great read if this was 1900.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to the year this book written, the concept here of course very brilliant, but maybe not in this age where the fussion for energy and the era of internet achieved. But the thinking here was indeed an enlightment for many scientists after tesla.

[Q. Rigal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly Helpful Text.

This is an incredibly helpful text if you want to know more about the power in the atmosphere and the wireless life we are living in. I thank God for Tesla.

[Diego Fernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

Visionary man who pursued a mankind-focused development. Good match thinking in what humanity needs, the opportunities and limitations of our Earth and the industry. A book aging well. But, for me, not a fun book.

[Manish Reddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insights.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/4 stars

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting historical read.

[Chiara Zucconi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alcune parti molto tecniche e fuori dalla mia comprensione ma straordinarie le visioni di questo genio