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Nikola Tesla was a genius. PERIOD. That is it. He didn't have magical powers, he couldn't disobey natural laws and he wasn't close to inventing a revolutionary

Nikola Tesla was a genius. PERIOD. That is it. He didn't have magical powers, he couldn't disobey natural laws and he wasn't close to inventing a revolutionary way to transmit electric energy or a ray of death. He died crazy and broken. We have to honor his legacy, but people talking about him like he was in the brisk of changing the world (again) are ignoring significant facts.

isk517 4y ago
Nikola Tesla is one of those people that is either under appreciated or over appreciated but never simply appreciated.
- michaelrhansen 4y ago
  Well said
iasay 4y ago
I think they’re mostly leveraging the fact that their audience doesn’t understand those facts. Which is exactly how Tesla himself operated with the odd success here and there.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  He was often right, and often wrong. Most people work on not often being wrong. We need both.
dsego 4y ago
There's a good yt video debunking all the myths that surround him. Tesla Fact vs. Fiction: Why the Public Perception is Wrong https://youtu.be/6331JXvOUGY https://youtu.be/6331JXvOUGY
- zafka 4y ago
  I think Debunk is a bit of an overstatment. That is like saying James Watt should get no credit for the steam engine because they had spinning toys powered by steam in ancient egypt. What amazes me is that along with the electrical stuff Tesla also did fluid dynamics: See Tesla valve, Tesla turbine.
  - doh 4y ago
    Well, electricity moves similarly to a fluid (not really but the simplified version allows one to reason about both the same way). It hit me in school that these are very similar and once you understand one you can apply many of the learnings, but especially the high level logic on the other.
- Maursault 4y ago
  Nice short, informative video. But on the point of free electricity, Kathy completely misses the point. Granted, Tesla never spoke about free electricity, but wireless electricity, if developed, would necessarily be free because there would be no way to meter it, which would be a good reason for Edison, Morgan and Westinghouse to ignore it. If, on the other hand, for some reason, they did want to provide free electricity to the world, wireless electricity very well may have been developed on a large scale. The reason wireless electricity wasn't developed wasn't that it couldn't work, but that it couldn't turn a profit because it is impossible to meter. Pointing out that Tesla never spoke of it misses the forest for the trees, because this is irrelevant. What is relevant about wireless electricity is that it can't be metered, thus it can't be a profitable service to base a corporate empire upon.
zafka 4y ago
I think the fact that he was in love with a pigeon near the end of his life is extremly touching. As for his character, the fact that he was pals with Mark Twain (Clemens) says it all for me.
aeternum 4y ago
He also wasn't quite as open-minded and forward thinking as some believe: “I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.”
- krsrhe 4y ago
  Relativity doesn’t say space has to be curved; that’s just an interpretation. You could interpret relativity only as curved paths in flat space due to gravity, instead of flat paths in curved space. The math is much uglier, though, so in a metaphysical sense, Tesla was wrong. Einstein famously said “god does not play dice” regarding quantum mechanics, and “not more open-minded than Einstein” isn’t much of an insult.

isk517 4y ago

Nikola Tesla is one of those people that is either under appreciated or over appreciated but never simply appreciated.

michaelrhansen 4y ago
Well said

iasay 4y ago

I think they’re mostly leveraging the fact that their audience doesn’t understand those facts. Which is exactly how Tesla himself operated with the odd success here and there.

ncmncm 4y ago
He was often right, and often wrong. Most people work on not often being wrong. We need both.

dsego 4y ago

There's a good yt video debunking all the myths that surround him. Tesla Fact vs. Fiction: Why the Public Perception is Wrong https://youtu.be/6331JXvOUGY https://youtu.be/6331JXvOUGY

zafka 4y ago
I think Debunk is a bit of an overstatment. That is like saying James Watt should get no credit for the steam engine because they had spinning toys powered by steam in ancient egypt. What amazes me is that along with the electrical stuff Tesla also did fluid dynamics: See Tesla valve, Tesla turbine.
- doh 4y ago
  Well, electricity moves similarly to a fluid (not really but the simplified version allows one to reason about both the same way). It hit me in school that these are very similar and once you understand one you can apply many of the learnings, but especially the high level logic on the other.
Maursault 4y ago
Nice short, informative video. But on the point of free electricity, Kathy completely misses the point. Granted, Tesla never spoke about free electricity, but wireless electricity, if developed, would necessarily be free because there would be no way to meter it, which would be a good reason for Edison, Morgan and Westinghouse to ignore it. If, on the other hand, for some reason, they did want to provide free electricity to the world, wireless electricity very well may have been developed on a large scale. The reason wireless electricity wasn't developed wasn't that it couldn't work, but that it couldn't turn a profit because it is impossible to meter. Pointing out that Tesla never spoke of it misses the forest for the trees, because this is irrelevant. What is relevant about wireless electricity is that it can't be metered, thus it can't be a profitable service to base a corporate empire upon.

zafka 4y ago

I think the fact that he was in love with a pigeon near the end of his life is extremly touching. As for his character, the fact that he was pals with Mark Twain (Clemens) says it all for me.

aeternum 4y ago

He also wasn't quite as open-minded and forward thinking as some believe: “I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.”

krsrhe 4y ago
Relativity doesn’t say space has to be curved; that’s just an interpretation. You could interpret relativity only as curved paths in flat space due to gravity, instead of flat paths in curved space. The math is much uglier, though, so in a metaphysical sense, Tesla was wrong. Einstein famously said “god does not play dice” regarding quantum mechanics, and “not more open-minded than Einstein” isn’t much of an insult.