Cover of the Winter 2022 issue of Carnegie Magazine

Winter 2022

Cover Story
A Weighty Conversation
The 58th Carnegie International explores the unvarnished histories of social movements.
The Tesla Coil

Big Picture

The Tesla coil is a favorite among visitors to Carnegie Science Center’s Works Theater. Named after famed inventor Nikola Tesla, who built the first such high-voltage transformer in 1891, the 10-foot-tall Tesla coil at the Science Center is one of the country’s largest and oldest amateur-made Tesla coils still in operation today. Pittsburgh teenager George Kaufman built it in 1911 in the attic of his family’s Ben Avon home. He donated it to Buhl Planetarium in 1950.