Nahu Lanham
The ideas in the book span a number of intense years of study in many diverse fields, but tend to culminate in relativity and chaos theory and, believe it or not, Nikola Tesla's life as a small boy. Tesla discovered the enormous potential of alternating current and developed giant turbines powered by huge natural sources, such as Niagara Falls, to generate enough electrical energy to provide power to millions of homes.
What was most fascinating about Tesla, is that as a small child he spent his time next to a stream and was fascinated with the power of the current; noting how it carried objects along, pushing them down stream. In his youthful and fertile mind, it gave him many ideas for building small, wooden turbines which became the prototypal model for the enormous turbines he made later on. He also spent much time rolling tiny snowballs down a mountainside and watching in awe when they compounded into giant avalanches of forces and crashed with thunderous impact into the valley below.
In the movement of the stream, as with the snowballs, he saw the invisible presence of cosmic forces at work. The holistic images reminded me of the imaginative thoughts of another intellectual giant Albert Einstein. He too, as a child was drawn to the contemplation of cosmic forces. One day he was given a compass. What thrilled him most about this wonderful object was that the compass needle always pointed toward magnetic north, as if guided by some mysterious force. This impression became the foundation for his imaginative 'thought experiments' which led to the discovery of relativity and the formula for the speed of light.
Both Tesla and Einstein realized that we are immersed in invisible forces that are cosmic in proportion, and that they are responsible for the perpetuation of intricate, clocklike mechanisms that move small, local processes.
In a flash of inspiration, I saw, as did these two perceptive thinkers, what must have jolted Malcolm Gladwell's (author of The Tipping Point) awareness and may have ignited Steven Johnson, author of the book Emergence.
These two men seem to have sensed the presence of invisible and often microcosmic forces which provide an underlying current which carries macrocosmic process.
In this analogy I too sense that we are driven toward our destinies, as it were, by forces and processes far outside our ken.
What was most fascinating about Tesla, is that as a small child he spent his time next to a stream and was fascinated with the power of the current; noting how it carried objects along, pushing them down stream. In his youthful and fertile mind, it gave him many ideas for building small, wooden turbines which became the prototypal model for the enormous turbines he made later on. He also spent much time rolling tiny snowballs down a mountainside and watching in awe when they compounded into giant avalanches of forces and crashed with thunderous impact into the valley below.
In the movement of the stream, as with the snowballs, he saw the invisible presence of cosmic forces at work. The holistic images reminded me of the imaginative thoughts of another intellectual giant Albert Einstein. He too, as a child was drawn to the contemplation of cosmic forces. One day he was given a compass. What thrilled him most about this wonderful object was that the compass needle always pointed toward magnetic north, as if guided by some mysterious force. This impression became the foundation for his imaginative 'thought experiments' which led to the discovery of relativity and the formula for the speed of light.
Both Tesla and Einstein realized that we are immersed in invisible forces that are cosmic in proportion, and that they are responsible for the perpetuation of intricate, clocklike mechanisms that move small, local processes.
In a flash of inspiration, I saw, as did these two perceptive thinkers, what must have jolted Malcolm Gladwell's (author of The Tipping Point) awareness and may have ignited Steven Johnson, author of the book Emergence.
These two men seem to have sensed the presence of invisible and often microcosmic forces which provide an underlying current which carries macrocosmic process.
In this analogy I too sense that we are driven toward our destinies, as it were, by forces and processes far outside our ken.
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