 Statue of Nikola Tesla |
A group of third and fourth-graders from Ann Arbor, Michigan, are on a mission, set by their teacher John Wagner, to restore the reputation of "forgotten scientist" Nikola Tesla (1856-1943).
They have called attention to Tesla's formidable, but largely forgotten, legacy by donating a bronze bust of Tesla to Columbia's Department of Electrical Engineering. The statue's unveiling, which took place in the Mudd Building on Oct. 2, provided an occasion to remember the extraordinary accomplishments of the Serb-American electrical engineer, who many would say has been shortchanged in the history books.
Representing the students at the event, Wagner described how he'd turned his personal quest to keep the flame of Tesla's memory alive into a project for his elementary school classes. Not only do his students learn about Tesla's many electrical inventions, but he has them composing letters to raise the money for donating duplicate Tesla statues to major universities.
Columbia, it turns out, is a particularly appropriate place for the students' gift to reside. In 1888, Tesla chose the University as the place to deliver a landmark lecture on his discovery of the rotating magnetic field. It was a breakthrough that ultimately led to the harnessing of the cheap water power of Niagara Falls, which in turn ushered in the "electromagnetic century."
The excitement generated by Tesla's lecture prompted the University to establish an electrical engineering department, one of the first of its kind in the world. Columbia would later become the first university to confer on Tesla an honorary doctorate, and today Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library is a major repository of the scientist's papers.
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