Why were we never taught about Nikola Tesla?

[raccoon]

At least, us oldsters weren’t. I had never heard of him until I was in my 50s I think.

Maybe young people are taught about him. I can only guess, since he was white and he wasn’t female, that our history books ignored him because he was a first generation immigrant. Or was there another reason?

[unblock]

1. tesla coils were a standard feature of high school physics labs and science museums when i was a kid

[Girard442]

2. Maybe it's because he had mental issues later in life.

In his younger days he was a true genius, on a par with Albert Einstein and Alan Turing.

[marylandblue]

3. Edison and Tesla hated each other, but Edison had better PR.

[zipplewrath]

4. Alot of people in that category

Tesla has enjoyed a resurgence in interest since some time in the '90s. Quite honestly, most of his work was "ahead of its time" which is why most of it didn't work. He was credited with Alternating Current (AC). But the economic collapse of the '30s really hindered him and many others. Much of your historical education was probably focused upon industry such that you were taught that "Ford invented the automobile" or about the Wright Brothers or Edison, you may even have been exposed to Westinghouse and Goodyear, but much of that is driven by corporate influences. You may even be exposed to Tesla now because of the auto company.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Partly because he was a little flaky. Also because he made some bad business decisions.

He attributed his inventive genius to supernatural causes, and also disagreed with some fairly basic ideas of modern science. He may have done some impressive engineering in his early days, but some of his thinking was just misguided. Any biography of Tesla should be read critically -- he has his unquestioning, and occasionally flaky, worshipers. One -- printed entirely in green ink -- claimed Tesla was from the planet Venus. So give credit where credit is due, but be wary.

[Pope George Ringo II]

6. He conflicts with the Edison myth, maybe?

The frank truth is that Edison's real achievement was the research lab, rather than any individual patent. But we talk about him like he invented the electric world because the Edison myth is among the most celebrated in American history.

OTOH, when you look at Tesla's achievements as an inventor, his role in AC electricity, and the electric motor, you're asking kids to keep track of two giants in the field who really didn't get along very well. If you show them both sides of the coin, you get into Westinghouse and the currency wars, the invention of the electric chair, and possibly even footage of electrocuting elephants if you're really unlucky. The conflict between the two was pretty ugly. It may be that Tesla suffers from being an immigrant, and it may be that schools are just afraid of how ugly that feud was.

Also, as mentioned earlier, Tesla was more than a little odd even at his best, and he was not particularly sane at all in his later life. His fixation with the number 3 was one thing when he was changing the world, but his love affair with the pigeon is something braver people than I would have to tell schoolchildren about. That was about the time there were lots of new inventions he came up short before inventing, and his end was quite sad.

We owe him so much, but I can understand the cowardice behind why institutions--particularly in a less enlightened past--would wimp out and just create the Edison myth, even if I can't applaud it.

[MineralMan]

7. I'm 73, and I've known about him since I was 12.

At that age, I made a fairly large Tesla coil for the science fair. The exhibit included a brief biography of Tesla, as well as the ability to make people's hair stand on end. Sadly, the school wouldn't let people demonstrate that for themselves. So, the only time anyone could observe my project in action was when I was there to demonstrate it. Maybe that was best. That was in 1957.

The school library had a good biography of Tesla, and the local public library had additional information about him, which I read. I don't remember hearing about him in school until high school physics class, during which I brought my Tesla coil in for a demonstration, which included making a cute girl's hair stand out in all directions from her head, among other wondrous things.

Thomas Edison sort of stole Tesla's thunder in the school curriculum, and still does, I suppose, but the information about him was readily available to curious students.