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"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, 'Let Tesla be,' and all was light." These words, spoken by B.A. Behrend in 1917, illuminate the respect society held for Nikola Tesla early in this century. Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor and researcher who discovered the rotating magnetic field, which forms the basis of most alternating-current machinery in use today. Born in Croatia (Austria-Hungary) in 1856, Tesla's father was a Serbian Orthodox priest. His mother was unschooled but highly intelligent. It wasn't long before Tesla's parents realized that their son was gifted with unusual insight. In her book, "Tesla: Man Out of Time, " Margaret Cheney, a California science writer, offers an interesting anecdote from Tesla's childhood. "The child began when only a few years of age to make original inventions. When he was five, he built a small waterwheel quite unlike those he had seen in the countryside. It was smooth, without paddles, yet it spun evenly in the current. Years later he was to recall this fact when designing his unique bladeless turbine."