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Roff Smith

Roff Smith is an award-winning author who has written for Time, National Geographic and Nature, among other magazines. His books include Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia and Life on the Ice: No One Goes To Antarctica Alone.

Both genius and impresario, Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla reads in his remote Colorado Springs laboratory in 1899 next to a magnifying transmitter that generates millions of volts of electricity. While far too dangerous to sit near—the image is a double exposure—his gigantic Tesla coil created the first human-made lightning.

Nikola Tesla’s Struggle to Remain Relevant

An offbeat Belgrade museum reveals the many mysteries of the prolific, late-19th-century inventor