In an Unpublished and Rare Letter, Nikola Tesla Writes With Poetic Humility That He Feels Unworthy to Author Another Book

In a letter to a Miss Frost, he teases, “I have often in my life met with frost but this is my most agreeable of such meetings.”

Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 and became one of the greatest inventors in the world. In his career, he developed induction motors, harnessed the power of alternating current, and even experimented with wireless power. He had an idea of wireless lighting and electricity distribution and made experiments on the subject in New York and Colorado Springs. He understood the possibility of wireless communication, performed early X-ray imaging, and also built a radio-controlled boat in 1898. He invented, predicted or contributed to the development of hundreds of technologies of the modern world. Some of them are the remote control, computers, smartphones, and robotics.

Tesla in the 1890s had written a work on some of his scientific research, a project he evidently did not enjoy. When Fannie Frost, a devotee, wrote him to consider writing another on his work, he responded in this unpublished letter, which begins with a poetic play on her name. Tesla enjoyed writing poetry, though he did so privately.

Typed letter signed, New York, August 1, 1898, to Miss Fannie M. Frost of Elmira. “Dear Miss: I have often in my life met with frost but this is my most agreeable of such meetings.

“I have so far only committed one such offense of this kind, namely of writing a book, and were I to make another attempt, I feel sure that my text could never reach the high standard of the cover. Under the discouraging influence of this fact, I am returning your sample with my compliments on its design and my regrets for not being able to meet your wish.”

The next month, at the Electrical Exhibition in the recently completed Madison Square Garden, Tesla made a demonstration. Everyone at the exhibition expected a surprise from Tesla, but no one could imagine a radio-controlled boat. As Tesla explained: “The boat was equipped with a borrowed mind.” The crowd that was present at the exhibition couldn’t find a rational explanation for how the boat was moving. They thought of it as magic or telepathy, or perhaps t it was piloted by a trained monkey that was hidden inside.

When Tesla saw the reaction of the crowd, he decided to trick them into believing that they could control the boat by shouting commands and also encouraged the crowd to ask questions of the boat. In response to the question, “What is the cube root of 64?”, lights on the boat flashed four times. While the crowd thought that Tesla was controlling the boat with his mind, he was sending signals to the mechanism using a small box with control levers on the side. What Tesla invented in 1898 with his radio-controlled boat was the birth of robotics. His invention was far ahead of its time. The crowd that observed it at the exhibition could not imagine its practical applications.