One thing leads to another: Nikola Tesla!

[Sequoia]

So yesterday I'm reading "Thunderstruck", by Erick Larson when I come across a page (122-123) where Telsa says in a 1900 article he wrote for The Century Magazine, "We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face." I remember reading about him before in regards to Westinghouse and how Edison cheated him out of loads of money for fixing a problem Edison couldn't figure out.

Found this interesting site: http://www.frank.germano.com/nikolatesla.htm



Tesla was born "at the stroke of midnight" with lightning striking during a summer storm. He was born in Smiljani near Gospiæ, Lika, At the moment of his birth, the midwife commented, "He'll be a child of the storm," to which his mother replied, "No, of light.

Tesla tells of the early workings of his mind in a description that we can only regard with amazement. He began seeing flashes of light that interfered with his physical vision. When a word was spoken, he would envision the object so clearly that he had trouble distinguishing between the imagined (spoken) object and the real. In later years, he would build a machine in his mind, run it to see where it was flawed, and make whatever repairs and adjustments were needed, before he ever began his construction. At night and in solitude, Tesla had an inner world of personal vision where he made journeys to distant places, studies, carried on conversations and met people that seemed as real to him as his outer world. By the time he was a teenager he spoke four languages. At about age 17, he found to his delight that he could create things in his mind, picturing them as the finished product without models, drawings or experiments. He invented such things as a low friction finless waterwheel and a motor driven by June bugs. Again from "My Inventions," we learn that Tesla engaged in reading many works, as he stated, "At that age (24), I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe's Faust."

<snip>

fter finishing the studies at the Polytechnic Institute, doing two years of study in one, working 19 hours a day and sleeping only two, he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. During the malady, he observed many phenomena, both strange and unbelievable. His vision and hearing intensified beyond any normal human capacity. He could sense objects in the dark in the same way as a bat. It was a period in which his sensitivities were so heightened that the flashes of light that he had seen from the time he was a youth now filled the air around him with tongues of living flame. Their intensity, instead of diminishing, increased with time, and seemingly attained a maximum when he was about twenty-five years old.

And, then I found this:



Wow! What a fantastic book!, November 21, 2005
Reviewer: Frank Germano I am (naturally) a Nikola Tesla fan. We created a company based on reverse-engineering Tesla's amazing bladeless disk turbine and pump. I've read quite probably every biography on Tesla. Then, here comes this absolutely, simply stunning book! This book is science fiction - yes...and more. For one of the first times ever, someone took the time to write a brillian novel, based on sound Tesla FACTS, and make it into one truly great story. Think of this as a fantasy based on all the Tesla facts you could ever imagine. Intertwined into this story, are some of Tesla's proven historical friends - Mark Twain (Clemens), Pres. Cleveland, Mr. Citzo, and a whole bevy of others. Nice job. I couldn't put the book down. In particular, the science of Tesla is woven into this book perfectly. Of particular note: Tesla Flying Machine. Again, Brilliant work! I highly recommend this book. Nice job.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0972747281?tag=teslatechnolo-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0972747281&adid=0JXQ6QSZZ2TENXWRP4F2&

[Joanne98]

1. That's really cool! K&R!

[BlueJazz]

2. I remember in College , one of my Professors .........

...told me (in private)....
"Edison was an inventor and also a Thief, Con-Man but worst of all, not unwilling
to take credit for other people's brilliancy"


Never thought much of the Dude since then....

[Sequoia]

10. His first wife for one.

I seem to remember she knew a lot of things he took credit for.

[file83]

24. That's odd, because Edison ripped off Tesla's ideas without giving credit

and Tesla let that happen because he wasn't greedy or business savvy. Don't question your college professor, question his sources. Tesla was notorious for getting his ideas ripped off.

[hippiechick]

33. "that Tesla let it happen" doesn't make it right ....

... Edison still ripped off someone else's ideas without giving them credit.

Demonstrates a lack of ethics and/or integrity on his part.

[thingfisher]

30. Edison was an inventor

and also a Thief, Con-Man but worst of all, not unwilling
to take credit for other people's brilliancy"

Gee, no wonder he has been enshrined as an example of good ole American know how!

[pnorman]

3. I've been a great admirer of Tesla since childhood,

but I had never heard of that book until now. Thanks. I just put it into the Amazon shopping cart (Used-Good $5.74)

pnorman

[trotsky]

4. *cough*

"He could sense objects in the dark in the same way as a bat."

Oh really? He could emit ultrasonic waves and detect them after they bounced off something?

[tridim]

7. Blind people can do just that using normal sound waves

No reason Tesla couldn't either.

[trotsky]

16. We *all* do that using sound waves.

Not an extraordinary skill at all.

[Casper]

5. Check out the film, The Prestige

I've been interested in Tesla since college, as well. That's one reason i was anxious to see the film, The Prestige (still showing at theaters) in which Tesla (played very well by David Bowie) plays an integral part.

I'll have to pick up this book for a holiday gift for the sweetie. Thanks.

[Sequoia]

11. David Bowie! Neat. Thanks.

[hughee99]

6. Something just struck me as a little odd, reading the quote

Telsa says in a 1900 article he wrote for The Century Magazine, "We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face."

Was this article written in another language and later translated, or is this a direct quote of Tesla's words? It struck me as odd, because I didn't believe that the term "television" was used as far back 1900, and since The Century Magazine was a NYC Publication founded in 1881, I figured the interview would have been recorded in English.

According to this link, the earliest use of the word "television" is from 1907 (though it's possible it's not accurate).
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19960812

In any case, I'm not trying to be picky here, but this just struck me as odd. Big fan of Tesla though, brilliant man.

[Sequoia]

8. That quote was in the book "Thunderstruck" so you'll have to ask Erik.

I'm sure it'd be easy to find out. But when I read about the part about living flames it reminded me of some Bible verses in the New Testament but I haven't found any direct verse, but I did find this interesting passage:

June 30, 1908
In the village of Nizhne-Karelinsk in the northwest high above the horizon, the peasants saw a body shining very brightly -(too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish white light. It moved vertically down-wards for about ten minutes. The body was in the form of a 'pipe' (i.e. cylindrical). The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon in the direction in which this glowing body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground it seemed to be pulverized and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones, or from gunfire, was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time, a forked tongue of flame broke through the cloud. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching.'


I did a search and this comes up and I hadn't even put his name in the search.

http://www.viewzone.com/tesla.tunguska.html

Too cool!

[Mabus]

15. Constantin Perskyi coined the term "television" in Aug., 1900

from the wiki:

Constantin Perskyi (Константин Дмитриевич Перский ) was a Russian scientist who is credited with coining the word television in a paper read (in French) to the 1900 Paris World Exhibition's 1st International Congress of Electricity. At the time, he was Professor of Electricity at the Artillery Academy of Saint Petersburg. His paper referred to the work of other Russian experimenters in the field, including Nipkow and Bachmetiev (Порфирий Иванович Бахметьев ) , who were attempting to use the photoelectric properties of selenium as the basis for their inventions.

It is likely, considering the relative dates of various historical documents, that German experimenters first coined the word Fernsehen, which the Russians then translated to televisija, and which Perskyi then translated from Russian into French as télévision. This was immediately reported in The Electrician magazine as television. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Perskyi

[hughee99]

25. Interesting...

I did not know this. I learn something new every day here. :-)

[Mabus]

29. LOL

I keep coming back for the same reason. I get educated everyday myself.

[EVDebs]

20. Didn't Tesla, not Marconi, first invent radio ? I remember in Man Out Of Time

book that this is so. Also, he was doing radio controlled toy boats on a lake pre-1900. And the military upon his death seized his apartment for a time. Operation HAARP in AK is supposed to be something to do with Tesla's theories.

[Jim Lane]

26. Credit for the invention of radio: informative link

presents the arguments for and against Marconi and Tesla, along with detailing the roles of other important early researchers, such as Hertz and Bose.

My impression is that there's no one person who started from scratch and came up with radio as we know it.

[EVDebs]

31. Thanks for the very neat link. The US patent office had its hands full ! nt

[Occulus]

32. One way to think of it:

Tesla was a visionary; it's very possible he was able to imagine the prefix tele- used in the same way we do today. This was a guy who, according to the OP, actually visualized whole machines in his mind, rather like an imaginary CAD system, before he ever built anything. Given that, assuming it's true, it would be safe to say he could have imagined a screen with moving pictures and sound. He very probably had no idea how to make such a thing work, but I'm thinking given the man's history that he was very capable of inventing the word 'television'. To him, after all, the joining of that prefix and that suffix would likely have been a reasonable thing to do.

Just my $.02.

[mopinko]

9. don't believe everything that tesla said.

he was a brilliant self promoter. genius, yes. but not a saint.
they did a great myth busters about his claim that he had made a machine that could demolish a building with a small motor.

[Sequoia]

12. Don't burst my bubble!

To be sure, I haven't read that about him.

[Esra Star]

13. Did they attack the Empire State Building with a ......

dentist's drill?
Theoretically it would be possible, n'est pas?

[mopinko]

14. he claimed that

he had built and tested a machine that dealt a rhythmic series of small blows, and that when he tested it, the building that he was in started shaking, and nearly collapsed. the myth was completely busted. (i love that show.)
he was a great genius. as was edison. i think all great geniuses have a little of the con men in them. at least the ones that we have heard of. i suppose many live and die in obscurity. especially those that go through the american school system.

[Sequoia]

17. What do you think of this claim:

It is not certain if Tesla ever used the death ray, or indeed if he even succeeded in building one. But the following is the often-related story of what happened one night in 1908 when Tesla tested the foreboding weapon.

At the time, Robert Peary was making his second attempt to reach the North Pole. Cryptically, Tesla had notified the expedition that he would be trying to contact them somehow. They were to report to him the details of anything unusual they might witness on the open tundra. On the evening of June 30, accompanied by his associate George Scherff atop Wardenclyffe tower, Tesla aimed his death ray across the Atlantic towards the arctic, to a spot which he calculated was west of the Peary expedition.

Tesla switched on the device. At first, it was hard to tell if it was even working. Its extremity emitted a dim light that was barely visible. Then an owl flew from its perch on the tower's pinnacle, soaring into the path of the beam. The bird disintegrated instantly.

That concluded the test. Tesla watched the newspapers and sent telegrams to Peary in hopes of confirming the death ray's effectiveness. Nothing turned up. Tesla was ready to admit failure when news came of a strange event in Siberia.

On June 30, a massive explosion had devastated Tunguska, a remote area in the Siberian wilderness. Five hundred thousand square acres of land had been instantly destroyed. Equivalent to ten to fifteen megatons of TNT, the Tunguska incident is the most powerful explosion to have occurred in human history -- not even subsequent thermonuclear detonations have surpassed it. The explosion was audible from 620 miles away. Scientists believe it was caused by either a meteorite or a fragment of a comet, although no obvious impact site or mineral remnants of such an object were ever found.

Nikola Tesla had a different explanation. It was plain that his death ray had overshot its intended target and destroyed Tunguska. He was thankful beyond measure that the explosion had -- miraculously -- killed no one. Tesla dismantled the death ray at once, deeming it too dangerous to remain in existence.

http://www.viewzone.com/tesla.ray.html

[Lasthorseman]

18. Another story about Tesla

One of Tesla'a dreams was to provide free energy anywhere on earth. By building a series of his Colorado Springs towers he envisioned generating electricity in one place and then setting up receivers to tap the energy.
As usual JP Morgan who was funding Tesla then said "That's all well and good Mr. Tesla, but where do I put my meter".

Edison wanted to use DC as the format for electricity. DC though does not travel long distances, it was Tesla who started AC power generation.

[mopinko]

21. well, it is certainly seems possible

for a comet or large meteor impact to account for it.
i think he was a showman. he seized the opportunity.
we should ask the myth busters.

[qazplm]

22. Tesla once made love to my wife in front of me...

and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!

(Or was that Bill Bratsky?) ;)

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Analysis of the site points to a body from outer space

Isotopic–geochemical investigations were carried out on peat samples from the 1908 Tunguska Cosmic Body (TCB) explosion area. We analyzed two peat columns from the Northern peat bog, sampled in 1998, and from the Raketka peat bog, sampled during the 1999 Italian expedition, both located near the epicenter of the TCB explosion area. At the depth of the “catastrophic” layer, formed in 1908, and deeper, one can observe shifts in the isotopic composition of nitrogen (up to Δ15N = +7.2‰) and carbon (up to Δ13C = +2‰) and also an increase in the nitrogen concentration compared to those in the normal, upper layers, unaffected by the Tunguska event. One possible explanation for these effects could be the presence of nitrogen and carbon from TCB material and from acid rains, following the TCB explosion, in the “catastrophic” and “precatastrophic” layers of peat. We found that the highest quantity of isotopically heavy nitrogen fell near the explosion epicenter and along the TCB trajectory. It is calculated that 200,000 tons of nitrogen fell over the area of devastated forest, i.e., only about 30% of the value calculated by Rasmussen et al. (1984). This discrepancy is probably caused by part of the nitrogen having dispersed in the Earth’s atmosphere. The isotopic effects observed in the peat agree with the results of previous investigations (Kolesnikov; Kolesnikov; Kolesnikov and Rasmussen) and also with the increased content of iridium and other platinoids found in the corresponding peat layers of other columns (Hou and Hou). These data favor the hypothesis of a cosmochemical origin of the isotopic effects.

source

[Sequoia]

28. Or the Devil....!

Back to the armchair and a small stack of Tunguska Event books all ordered over the Internet, authored by scientists or journalists keen to examine this extraordinary event. It’s interesting to contemplate how these scientists are trying to resolve the problem of the Tunguska Event and yet while searching from the armchair for something entirely different, the Tunguska Event itself is discovered as the solution. Like finding a chicken then looking for its egg instead of finding an egg then looking for the chicken. This archeologist now has both the chicken and the egg in hand while the scientists and journalists have the egg and are still looking for the chicken. The smiles and chuckles give some sensual pleasure however; the end result of this armchair adventure should hopefully result in a much larger accomplishment than embarrassing a few red-faced scientists. Browsing web sites, cups of coffee, white papers, expedition notes, abstracts, conferences, research papers. Hundreds of scientists and almost the same number of years and not one has proposed a commonly accepted explanation let alone examined it from a biblical or scriptural point of view. Have archaeologists never examined this? The result of all this armchair inquiry however, is the following very profound discovery and realization:

This extraordinarily powerful flash of lightning succeeded the movement towards the earth of a visible body. If the rationales here are to be correct then, it stands to reason the identity of the body should be Satan himself!


http://www.religioustolerance.org/wright01.htm

[Jokinomx]

19. Fasinating... thanks for the links

and the recommended reading. I haven't read much of the man and you've piqued my interest.

:toast: to Telsa

[European Socialist]

23. The concept of AC seems like it comes from a lightning strike.

[Vidar]

34. Great article. Thank you.