Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Letters of Note: Ordinary standards do not apply to Tesla:

On January 4th, 1943, Slovenian-American author Louis Adamic wrote the following heartfelt letter to ex-President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. The letter concerned the alarming treatment and general well-being of Adamic's friend, Nikola Tesla; an immeasurably important inventor whose impact on the modern world is still difficult to appreciate and who, despite his numerous groundbreaking scientific achievements, was at the time of writing severely in debt and in worryingly ill-health.

Hoover immediately forwarded the letter to the IEEE, but to no avail; just three days after it was written, Tesla passed away in the hotel room in which he had lived for the past ten years.

Transcript follows.