In Christopher Nolan’s exploration of stage magic, ‘The Prestige’, the scientist Nikola Tesla is introduced to the audience as a ambivalent opportunist, bitterly resigned to forced retirement while seizing upon the small fortune he is offered by Hugh Jackman’s Great Danton to enhance his act. He describes his work as anything but exact and speaks of results as unpredictable.

The work of author and filmmaker Mark J. Seifer in his book ‘Wizard: The Life & Times of Nikola Tesla’ paints a slightly different portrait. Supremely confident in his methods and deductions, Tesla was defiant in his continued efforts to bring the wireless world to life more than a half century before its time. Not only did he achieve the startling feats displayed in the movie, but he also boasted of intelligent robots, fuelless flying machines and death rays. He rejected the label of inventor and described his process of ‘discovery’ as follows:

“I am enabled to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of, and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete the product of my brain. Invariably my devise works as I conceived it should; in twenty years there has not been a single exception.”

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