7 ms·

One Story of Nikola Tesla

161 points by diwank 15y ago

ajays 15y ago
Niagara Falls, NY has a statue of Tesla: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajays/245729699/in/set-72057594081822346 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajays/245729699/in/set-72057594...
Wistar 15y ago
"Tesla," Edison replied, "you don't understand that I'm an asshole."
- shareme 15y ago
  Edison sounds like a blowhard with the initials JC :)
richworks 15y ago
Nikola Tesla is a true genius. We take many of his inventions and contributions to the world of engineering for granted. His works continue to astound us even today... Edison, on the other hand was always a scumbag.. More of a marketeer than a scientist..
prajjwal 15y ago
Sad. Growing up, Edison came across to me as a man worthy of idolizing. Edison was inferior to Tesla not only in terms of intellect, but also as a human being. Edison may have been a great businessman, but Tesla was the genius who was far ahead of his time. I'm glad to see his story told.
- wr1472 15y ago
  Yes I didn't think Edison the [business] man was so ruthless and underhand. Always viewed him as a genius inventor and all round good egg.
- acqq 15y ago
  Did you know that the electric chair "invention" was funded by Edison in the "war of currents" again Tesla: http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Chair.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Ch... Edison also organized electrocutions of animals: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3582295 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3582295
  - prajjwal 15y ago
    Yes I did, but I found this stuff out when I was 15(I'm 19 now). Before that, from what I had been taught, we used to count Edison among the greatest minds of all time. Sad. Nobody knew about/bothered to even mention the great mind that was Tesla.
- tnicola 15y ago
  I went to school in former Yugoslavia and Tesla was idolized and given duly deserved credit whereas Edison was the guy who invented the lighbulb. We even had nursery rhymes about his inventions. We were also taught that Yugoslavia was a major factor in getting Germany to capitulate in WWII where if you think about it, it was rather insignificant on the grand scheme of things. You can't really escape the spin. Some are for the better and some are for the worse, but hopefully, we can sort things out once we start learning and thinking for ourselves.
- ralfd 15y ago
  > Edison was inferior to Tesla not only in terms of intellect, but also as a human being. eyerolling Just to play devils advocate: Edison: Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons Tesla: Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon [the Death Ray] from the early 1900s until his death. Tesla tried to interest the US War Department in the device. He also offered this invention to European countries. Edison: Six children. Tesla: Tesla was a life-long bachelor. Like many of his era, he became a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. Edison: When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was in not respecting Tesla or his work. Tesla: The day after Edison died the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla.
- femto 15y ago
  I think the article is being romantic, when it sets Tesla up as a forgotten man. He might not be in the US popular imagination, but every electrical engineering student learns about Tesla when they learn about induction machines. Tesla also has an SI unit named after him.
j45 15y ago
Tesla is the real genius of our time. I'd want to meet him before Einstein, or any other thinker of the last 100 years. Edison couldn't spell Tesla, but even in those days, he who told the story best, won.
- femto 15y ago
  I'd want to meet both. Tesla is to electrical engineering, as Einstein is to physics.
  - inopinatus 15y ago
    and Gauss is to mathematics.
  - j45 15y ago
    Totally. If you had to pick one.. what then? :)
- yogrish 15y ago
  You are right. Even today "He who tells story best" wins.
racecar789 15y ago
Great PBS documentary of him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQC1lOZpsjQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQC1lOZpsjQ
borispavlovic 15y ago
There's a pretty good museum of Nikola Tesla in Belgrade. Worth visiting. http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en.htm http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en.htm
yelkhatib 15y ago
there was a fascinating podcast about Tesla 2 weeks ago in Studio360: http://www.studio360.org/2012/jan/27/ http://www.studio360.org/2012/jan/27/
hackermom 15y ago
I never liked Edison. He always came off as a simple and lucky hack; just a businessman, while Tesla was the genius and inventor the world still owes all to.
- angstrom 15y ago
  All the more reason it would be funny if every car on the road in the future carries the advances of a company named for him.
  - zotz 15y ago
    History is on infinite repeat, unless....: Tesla Plunges After Morgan Stanley Reduces Automaker’s Price Target by 37% http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/tesla-plunges-after-morgan-stanley-reduces-price-target-by-37-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/tesla-plunges-after...
    - angstrom 15y ago
      I see no electrocuted elephants. There's nothing wrong with changing expectations to match reality. I think the short term expectations might dampen, but the long term expectations are still intact. Oil refineries aren't being built to meet demand because the refiners know it's a finite resource. Prices will rise and hold and when they do it will force a switch, but the technology will be ready.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Remember how many compared Steve Jobs to Edison when he died? Maybe they weren't so wrong after all.
  - ralfd 15y ago
    Well, this (quote from Wikipedia)… > Tesla was widely known for his great showmanship, presenting his innovations and demonstrations to the public as an artform, almost like a magician. This seems to conflict with his observed reclusiveness; Tesla was a complicated figure. … seems pretty Jobsian to me. And you bet when Bill Gates is dead (hopefully far far away in the future) he will also be compared to Edison. Because, maybe, these kind of comparison just doesn't make sense. Because great men and times are most of the times not alike. Because we are just stupid with our stupid simplifications. Geeks and Nerds have certainly a hard on for Tesla, the misunderstood underdog, with all his complicated character of scientific genius and OCD/phobia/celibacy. But I wouldn't diminish the achievements of Edison. And Edison was (surprisiningly) never one of the super-rich of his time. There is a reason he needed J.P.Morgan. He only had shares in companies, but never controlled them, even if they did bear his name.
tnuc 15y ago
Lets not forget Topsy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
defen 15y ago
I hadn't realized that Tesla had anything to do with logic gates, so I looked it up and found this patent: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=613809 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=613809 However, I'll admit that the prose is too Victorian and patent-y for me to decipher where he actually describes an AND gate.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Funny how Sony references that patent for "Remote control of VCR with electronic mail".
zotz 15y ago
While Tesla was researching wireless electricity, he was being supported by JP Morgan. Morgan had an interest in what was then a monopoly on copper. That monopoly wanted their copper wires to rule the world, not free wireless power. Tesla's vision of helping humanity didn't fit into the designs of a monopoly, so Morgan made sure Tesla's research went nowhere. As Morgan said, "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?" Tesla's mistake, as brilliant as he was, was his inability or unwillingness to see how the Dogs of Money keep all the good scraps for themselves. I know many brilliant people today with the same difficulty.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  I see the same with wireless Internet. Every wifi device should be programmed to contribute to ad-hoc networks for eventual near-universal free access, but ISPs would never stand for it.
  - zotz 15y ago
    As nanotech increases in dominance, perhaps someday we can just make our own wireless ad hoc hardware as you describe. As the overall push is toward decentralized services and utilities, hardware is already starting to mirror reality, slow as it may be.
    - maxerickson 15y ago
      If you can do arbitrary manufacturing, why not just build fiber trunks that are completely open? It would probably only work if the manufacturing could be done in place, and it might get exciting if things started growing defense systems.
- ajuc 15y ago
  So where is this global wireless electricity transfer technology, after so many decades? Are copper wire producers still killing this technology, every time it shows up? Or was it only Tesla, that could invent this, and we lost this technology forever, because nobody is as brilliant, as Tesla? I accept Tesla was genius, but even he could have been wrong a few times in his life. Some of his unfinished inventions to this day sounds impossible, and we certainly have much more knowledge about physics, than he had. I don't think a few monopolies can stop progress, if the invention is really great.
geekytenny 15y ago
Be a Tesla and hire an Edison
narrator 15y ago
Has anyone read the Nikola Tesla's biography "My Inventions"? The guy makes some absolutely mind-blowing predictions. For example, in Tesla's book he predicts drone based warfare and the global electronic distribution of music almost 100 years ahead of time. In the recent book about Google, "In The Plex", the author comments that reading the biography of Tesla was a major influence on Larry Page and made him mindful that he didn't get cheated out of realizing his vision by an Edison or a Morgan.
- salemh 15y ago
  Also the "end" of war to be the utter connectedness of humanity via free communication :) Its a great book, if somewhat dry in writing (constant referalls to "I did _ and _," etc.) He had strange from-childhood debilitating migraines and white flashes blinding him, built models of his inventions in his mind (which I find fascinating, I don't think most people can think in three-dimensions), sometimes due to being debilitated. He admits toward the end of his book he was not a good "business" man but was "happy" that his patents may "eventually" cause the betternment of mankind. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910077002/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=xlracom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0910077002 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910077002/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Tesla's work on wireless power transmission [1] was particularly fascinating. Apparently he figured out that electricity could be propagated through the atmosphere in waves, and the inherent efficiency (or lack thereof) problem could be solved by amplifying it using its magnetic resonant frequency, the same way sound and physical vibrations can be amplified via application of their resonant frequency. The result would be efficient wireless electricity transmission from any spot on the planet to any other. His Wardenclyffe Tower project [2] in Long Island was an attempt to implement the idea, but was never completed due to financial problems. It overran its budget, and investors weren't willing to continue funding it. One of his primary patrons, John Jacob Astor, also died on the Titanic a few years later. I can't help but imagine what the world would look like today had Astor survived, funded Tesla, and Wardenclyffe successfully proven the concept. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
amirmansour 15y ago
As an electrical engineering student, and having Tesla as personal hero, I love seeing people talk about him in the mainstream. A movie was made about Tesla and all the crap he had to go through from his childhood to his death. Check it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079985/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079985/
kveykva 15y ago
Adjusted for inflation that $50,000 is over $1,100,000 ...
- astrodust 15y ago
  Or $0 adjusted for inflation is still $0 when you get screwed.
_k 15y ago
Just think how many inventions aren't seeing the light of day because of existing monopolies, political legislation, ...
lclaude01 15y ago
Take a look at this documentary: The eye of the storm - the inventions of Nicola Tesla. Two parts: 1) Tesla and the war effort 2) Tesla and Alien visitors

161 points by diwank 15y ago

ajays 15y ago

Niagara Falls, NY has a statue of Tesla: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajays/245729699/in/set-72057594081822346 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajays/245729699/in/set-72057594...

Wistar 15y ago

"Tesla," Edison replied, "you don't understand that I'm an asshole."

shareme 15y ago
Edison sounds like a blowhard with the initials JC :)

richworks 15y ago

Nikola Tesla is a true genius. We take many of his inventions and contributions to the world of engineering for granted. His works continue to astound us even today... Edison, on the other hand was always a scumbag.. More of a marketeer than a scientist..

prajjwal 15y ago

Sad. Growing up, Edison came across to me as a man worthy of idolizing. Edison was inferior to Tesla not only in terms of intellect, but also as a human being. Edison may have been a great businessman, but Tesla was the genius who was far ahead of his time. I'm glad to see his story told.

wr1472 15y ago
Yes I didn't think Edison the [business] man was so ruthless and underhand. Always viewed him as a genius inventor and all round good egg.
acqq 15y ago
Did you know that the electric chair "invention" was funded by Edison in the "war of currents" again Tesla: http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Chair.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Ch... Edison also organized electrocutions of animals: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3582295 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3582295
- prajjwal 15y ago
  Yes I did, but I found this stuff out when I was 15(I'm 19 now). Before that, from what I had been taught, we used to count Edison among the greatest minds of all time. Sad. Nobody knew about/bothered to even mention the great mind that was Tesla.
tnicola 15y ago
I went to school in former Yugoslavia and Tesla was idolized and given duly deserved credit whereas Edison was the guy who invented the lighbulb. We even had nursery rhymes about his inventions. We were also taught that Yugoslavia was a major factor in getting Germany to capitulate in WWII where if you think about it, it was rather insignificant on the grand scheme of things. You can't really escape the spin. Some are for the better and some are for the worse, but hopefully, we can sort things out once we start learning and thinking for ourselves.
ralfd 15y ago
> Edison was inferior to Tesla not only in terms of intellect, but also as a human being. eyerolling Just to play devils advocate: Edison: Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons Tesla: Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon [the Death Ray] from the early 1900s until his death. Tesla tried to interest the US War Department in the device. He also offered this invention to European countries. Edison: Six children. Tesla: Tesla was a life-long bachelor. Like many of his era, he became a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. Edison: When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was in not respecting Tesla or his work. Tesla: The day after Edison died the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla.
femto 15y ago
I think the article is being romantic, when it sets Tesla up as a forgotten man. He might not be in the US popular imagination, but every electrical engineering student learns about Tesla when they learn about induction machines. Tesla also has an SI unit named after him.

j45 15y ago

Tesla is the real genius of our time. I'd want to meet him before Einstein, or any other thinker of the last 100 years. Edison couldn't spell Tesla, but even in those days, he who told the story best, won.

femto 15y ago
I'd want to meet both. Tesla is to electrical engineering, as Einstein is to physics.
- inopinatus 15y ago
  and Gauss is to mathematics.
- j45 15y ago
  Totally. If you had to pick one.. what then? :)
yogrish 15y ago
You are right. Even today "He who tells story best" wins.

racecar789 15y ago

Great PBS documentary of him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQC1lOZpsjQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQC1lOZpsjQ

borispavlovic 15y ago

There's a pretty good museum of Nikola Tesla in Belgrade. Worth visiting. http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en.htm http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en.htm

yelkhatib 15y ago

there was a fascinating podcast about Tesla 2 weeks ago in Studio360: http://www.studio360.org/2012/jan/27/ http://www.studio360.org/2012/jan/27/

hackermom 15y ago

I never liked Edison. He always came off as a simple and lucky hack; just a businessman, while Tesla was the genius and inventor the world still owes all to.

angstrom 15y ago
All the more reason it would be funny if every car on the road in the future carries the advances of a company named for him.
- zotz 15y ago
  History is on infinite repeat, unless....: Tesla Plunges After Morgan Stanley Reduces Automaker’s Price Target by 37% http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/tesla-plunges-after-morgan-stanley-reduces-price-target-by-37-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/tesla-plunges-after...
  - angstrom 15y ago
    I see no electrocuted elephants. There's nothing wrong with changing expectations to match reality. I think the short term expectations might dampen, but the long term expectations are still intact. Oil refineries aren't being built to meet demand because the refiners know it's a finite resource. Prices will rise and hold and when they do it will force a switch, but the technology will be ready.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Remember how many compared Steve Jobs to Edison when he died? Maybe they weren't so wrong after all.
- ralfd 15y ago
  Well, this (quote from Wikipedia)… > Tesla was widely known for his great showmanship, presenting his innovations and demonstrations to the public as an artform, almost like a magician. This seems to conflict with his observed reclusiveness; Tesla was a complicated figure. … seems pretty Jobsian to me. And you bet when Bill Gates is dead (hopefully far far away in the future) he will also be compared to Edison. Because, maybe, these kind of comparison just doesn't make sense. Because great men and times are most of the times not alike. Because we are just stupid with our stupid simplifications. Geeks and Nerds have certainly a hard on for Tesla, the misunderstood underdog, with all his complicated character of scientific genius and OCD/phobia/celibacy. But I wouldn't diminish the achievements of Edison. And Edison was (surprisiningly) never one of the super-rich of his time. There is a reason he needed J.P.Morgan. He only had shares in companies, but never controlled them, even if they did bear his name.

tnuc 15y ago

Lets not forget Topsy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)

defen 15y ago

I hadn't realized that Tesla had anything to do with logic gates, so I looked it up and found this patent: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=613809 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=613809 However, I'll admit that the prose is too Victorian and patent-y for me to decipher where he actually describes an AND gate.

ctdonath 15y ago
Funny how Sony references that patent for "Remote control of VCR with electronic mail".

zotz 15y ago

While Tesla was researching wireless electricity, he was being supported by JP Morgan. Morgan had an interest in what was then a monopoly on copper. That monopoly wanted their copper wires to rule the world, not free wireless power. Tesla's vision of helping humanity didn't fit into the designs of a monopoly, so Morgan made sure Tesla's research went nowhere. As Morgan said, "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?" Tesla's mistake, as brilliant as he was, was his inability or unwillingness to see how the Dogs of Money keep all the good scraps for themselves. I know many brilliant people today with the same difficulty.

ctdonath 15y ago
I see the same with wireless Internet. Every wifi device should be programmed to contribute to ad-hoc networks for eventual near-universal free access, but ISPs would never stand for it.
- zotz 15y ago
  As nanotech increases in dominance, perhaps someday we can just make our own wireless ad hoc hardware as you describe. As the overall push is toward decentralized services and utilities, hardware is already starting to mirror reality, slow as it may be.
  - maxerickson 15y ago
    If you can do arbitrary manufacturing, why not just build fiber trunks that are completely open? It would probably only work if the manufacturing could be done in place, and it might get exciting if things started growing defense systems.
ajuc 15y ago
So where is this global wireless electricity transfer technology, after so many decades? Are copper wire producers still killing this technology, every time it shows up? Or was it only Tesla, that could invent this, and we lost this technology forever, because nobody is as brilliant, as Tesla? I accept Tesla was genius, but even he could have been wrong a few times in his life. Some of his unfinished inventions to this day sounds impossible, and we certainly have much more knowledge about physics, than he had. I don't think a few monopolies can stop progress, if the invention is really great.

geekytenny 15y ago

Be a Tesla and hire an Edison

narrator 15y ago

Has anyone read the Nikola Tesla's biography "My Inventions"? The guy makes some absolutely mind-blowing predictions. For example, in Tesla's book he predicts drone based warfare and the global electronic distribution of music almost 100 years ahead of time. In the recent book about Google, "In The Plex", the author comments that reading the biography of Tesla was a major influence on Larry Page and made him mindful that he didn't get cheated out of realizing his vision by an Edison or a Morgan.

salemh 15y ago
Also the "end" of war to be the utter connectedness of humanity via free communication :) Its a great book, if somewhat dry in writing (constant referalls to "I did _ and _," etc.) He had strange from-childhood debilitating migraines and white flashes blinding him, built models of his inventions in his mind (which I find fascinating, I don't think most people can think in three-dimensions), sometimes due to being debilitated. He admits toward the end of his book he was not a good "business" man but was "happy" that his patents may "eventually" cause the betternment of mankind. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910077002/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=xlracom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0910077002 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910077002/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

SkyMarshal 15y ago

Tesla's work on wireless power transmission [1] was particularly fascinating. Apparently he figured out that electricity could be propagated through the atmosphere in waves, and the inherent efficiency (or lack thereof) problem could be solved by amplifying it using its magnetic resonant frequency, the same way sound and physical vibrations can be amplified via application of their resonant frequency. The result would be efficient wireless electricity transmission from any spot on the planet to any other. His Wardenclyffe Tower project [2] in Long Island was an attempt to implement the idea, but was never completed due to financial problems. It overran its budget, and investors weren't willing to continue funding it. One of his primary patrons, John Jacob Astor, also died on the Titanic a few years later. I can't help but imagine what the world would look like today had Astor survived, funded Tesla, and Wardenclyffe successfully proven the concept. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower

amirmansour 15y ago

As an electrical engineering student, and having Tesla as personal hero, I love seeing people talk about him in the mainstream. A movie was made about Tesla and all the crap he had to go through from his childhood to his death. Check it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079985/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079985/

kveykva 15y ago

Adjusted for inflation that $50,000 is over $1,100,000 ...

astrodust 15y ago
Or $0 adjusted for inflation is still $0 when you get screwed.

_k 15y ago

Just think how many inventions aren't seeing the light of day because of existing monopolies, political legislation, ...

lclaude01 15y ago

Take a look at this documentary: The eye of the storm - the inventions of Nicola Tesla. Two parts: 1) Tesla and the war effort 2) Tesla and Alien visitors