Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla - io9 Comments

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

iamthechad — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:31:36 PST

not to be too much of a pedant, but Tesla did not invent AC power. he figured out how to make electric motors that would run on AC. the guy did do a lot of amazing things (including shutting down the entire power grid here in CO Springs), but creating AC was not one of them

iamthechad

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

mattclary — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:16:57 PST

Imagine what Tesla could accomplish with today's technology. Superconducting magnets, particle acceleartors, super-computers, the iPhone... it boggles the mind.

mattclary

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

doctor_cos — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:27:11 PST

@905: A much cooler band?
What, you've heard one song and decided this on your own?

Please borrow "Psychotic Supper" to peruse the song "Edison's Medicine"

doctor_cos

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Swami_Binkinanda — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:29:13 PST

It looks just like a Telefunken U-47. With Leather.
-Frank Zappa

Swami_Binkinanda

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

905 — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:36:25 PST

And don't you think he deserved a much, much cooler band to be named after him?

905

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

markhgn — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:51:08 PST

If you want to see the Tesla / Mark Twain connection in comic book form check out Five Fists of Science by Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders (Amazon US or Amazon UK). It features the brave duo facing off against the scheming Edison and downright evil J.P. Morgan. It is well worth reading up on Morgan's links to Edison and Tesla. As to wireless power I believe Tesla envisioned a 'world system' akin to the internet only that it would carry both power AND data... oh, what could have been.

markhgn

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

slavko — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:28:08 PST

First: The picture was a time-delay. He was photographed as seen in the pic with the machine off. He than removed himself from the area and the coil was turned on and photoed. The pics were then merged.
Second: Spoke to a guy from Hawaii in the late '80's and he had a friend that saw Tesla during the Philadelphia Experiment-after his allegated death.
I have alot of tape of Tesla places of interest in the old Yugoslavia-from 1980's. Place of birth, schools, Tesla Museum. He was quite a man. Those items where he was "wrong" are probibly so because we still have not caught up with him yet....

slavko

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

urukhaifive — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:29:42 PST

@braak: This is an amazing idea. I've been looking for some ideas for writing a short story (probably I won't finish it, and if I do, no-one will be allowed to read it, because I'll invariably think it sucks :P).

Regardless, would you terribly mind if I used it?

urukhaifive

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Spiral — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:47:06 PST

@tetracycloide: Who says that hasn't already happened? He "died" in that hotel room. That's how they're covering up the time travel.

Spiral

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

superbryant88 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:54:20 PST

@VivianDarkbloom: haha I though the same thing! that name is awesome

The prestige is a kickass movie after watching it i learned edison wasnt as great of a guy as i orignally thought....he was very paranoid with a lot of money and power (never a good combination)

superbryant88

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

E0157H7 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:23:05 PST

Tesla remains one of my favorite historical figures. He had a combination of genius, innovation and outright lunacy that made him the penultimate mad scientist. As a side note, Edison attempted to make him and his competing AC technology look bad by zapping small animals to death with it and then claiming that it was much more dangerous than DC.

E0157H7

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

braak — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:11:35 PST

@oddjob1947: Manifestly false. How are future generations living in a post-apocaylptic dystopian wasteland supposed to worship Tesla as the God of Electricity if we don't now start propagating myths regarding his capacity for achieving the impossible?

The highest credit a great man can be given is to be worshipped as a god in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future.

braak

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

AgtShadow — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:30:30 PST

@tetracycloide: Sounds like the premise for a new TV series. (I'd watch that!)

AgtShadow

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

SuzanneK — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:35:09 PST

There's a brand new novel by Samantha Hunt about Tesla that just came out a couple weeks ago, The Invention Of Everything Else. I'm in the middle of it right now. It's got all the above-mentioned stuff in there and then some: the New Yorker Hotel, the pigeons, the death ray, a jackass Thomas Edison electrocuting kitties for fun...it turns out the weirdest, most outlandish parts of the story are all true.

SuzanneK

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

oddjob1947 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:50:22 PST

I have been studying Tesla for 50 some years.
Much rot has been writ about him.
Yes. He was brilliant.
The human race has learnt much since then:
Tesla was wrong about some things,
right about others.
(Relatively common for brilliant minds.)

I gently suggest it does a Great man little credit to
assign him credit for the undoable.

(Hint:
The pic at top of page is a TRICK PHOTO, staged
by Tesla. Tesla says so in his Colorado Springs
Notes)

best

oddjob1947

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

ghost — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:20:47 PST

Oh and I love the Tesla passages in Against The Day.

ghost

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Darkweave — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:30:32 PST

Yeah the Tesla inspired forces of Nod in Red Alert 2 always have me joinin the bad guys :)

Darkweave

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

ghost — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:21:35 PST

@viviandarkbloom: I know I'm probably the least cool person in this thread right now but correct (but awkward) German would be

Ich möchte töten den Punk
Ich möchte töten den Punk
und wenn die Nacht kommt
muß ich...Telefunk!

And the "funken" part means "spark" and is pronounced 'foonken'. (god, first Marxism and now German. I'm sorry. I'm not always that uncool)

But Telefunk (rhymes with opunk) sound much cooler.

I propose this Version:

Ich werde ihn töten den Punk
Ich werde ihn töten den Punk
und wenn die Nacht hereinbricht
bin ich besessen....vom Telefunk!

ghost

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

urukhaifive — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:58:15 PST

@Bento: Watch The Prestige! You will not be disappointed!

@DanielBrenton: "fucking Edison"
Hear, hear. The older I get and the more I hear about that guy, the deeper my hatred for him goes.

@braak: "I am in favor of any book whose essential premise is, "Nikola Tesla can do anything.""
Agreed! More books need to feature a realistic (able to do anything) Tesla!

urukhaifive

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Bentos, Der Frischmacher! — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:47:54 PST

We SOOOOOOOO need a Tesla Movie!

Bentos, Der Frischmacher!

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

VivianDarkbloom — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:57:38 PST

@MarlboroTestMonkey7: It's an adjective now?

VivianDarkbloom

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

tetracycloide — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:38:04 PST

if we ever get a time machine working i think the first thing we should do is go back in time and retrieve tesla and faraday so they can team up to form a time traveling duo of ingenuity and experimentation. they can then travel throughout space time and zap the edisons of history with ray guns until they stop beng pricks.

tetracycloide

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

MarlboroTestMonkey7 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:30:33 PST

Queen bees notwithstanding, Tesla is the telefunkiest scientist of them all!

MarlboroTestMonkey7

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

DanielBrenton — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:22:35 PST

@braak: Yes -- fucking Edison.

Let this be a lesson to all of us, boys and girls. If you're a genius, get on top first, and stay there.

DanielBrenton

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

braak — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:54:36 PST

@tetracycloide: It makes me extremely depressed, as well. He was predicting television--and calling in television, in 1910. Wireless power transmission, electric cars.

Fucking EDISON!

@VivianDarkbloom: I'm down. Mix it.

braak

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Garrison Dean, King Awesome — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:47:02 PST

Just the mere thought that if Edison and his cronies weren't so focused on charging people for electricity we probably would all have free, wireless power, kills me. But wow, what a shock, a handful of people in power look out for themselves and their wallet instead of society.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:38:21 PST

Fun conspiracy theory: he died, the government seized his papers, and a few months later the Philadelphia Experiment supposedly happened. If anyone could render invisible (or teleport) a destroyer, it was Tesla.

Ed Grabianowski

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

laughingacademy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:31:16 PST

I've read that Tesla also had something of a St. Francis vibe, at least as far as pigeons were concerned - he'd feed them, and take injured ones home to nurse them back to health.

laughingacademy

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

Defendant — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:07:35 PST

@PVIII: They were destroyed.:paranoid:

Defendant

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

tetracycloide — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:03:38 PST

whenever i hear the name nikola tesla it makes me sad to think how much more advanced we would be right now if more people had been willing to listen to him while he was alive. it still amazes me that he actually failed at convincing people to use AC for power transmission for a considerable amount of time given the obvious benifits over DC transmission.

tetracycloide

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

numbersix — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:02:04 PST

@VivianDarkbloom:

Sounds like something Das Ich would do.

Tesla = awesome.

numbersix

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

VivianDarkbloom — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:52:52 PST

@braak: I was thinking it sounds kind of like a great lost Kraftwerk album. You know, and Telefunken would be the title track?

Ich möchte töten der Punk,
Ich möchte töten der Punk,
Und bei Nacht kommt,
Ich habe zu...telefunk.

(I want to kill the punk, I want to kill the punk, and when the night comes, I have to...*pause* TELEFUNK.)

VivianDarkbloom

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

braak — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:44:59 PST

@VivianDarkbloom: They sold Telefunk, which is totally a way of getting down with it at long distances.

braak

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

DanielBrenton — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:35:38 PST

@the memorexe: If you're referring to the kind of things that Al Bielek was "selling," well ... let's just say I have my doubts. Bielek supposedly is a survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment, tied Tesla and Einstein to the story, and claims that in an effort to keep his knowledge of this silent, he was age-reqressed to a one-year old, was transported from 1953 to 1927, and had his memory erased, to boot.

(You know, a bullet to the brain would probably be cheaper, unless there was too much red tape involved.)

I gotta say Bowie did a hell of job in that clip.

DanielBrenton

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

ManchuCandidate — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:32:54 PST

A wild innovative thinker who got screwed by the money guys. And in many ways the engineer's engineer because he didn't make a dime from his inventions.

ManchuCandidate

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

PVIII — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:27:26 PST

Why doesn't someone request the documents of Tesla's under the freedom of information act? There are some really good Tesla biographies out there - a pretty fascinating guy...

PVIII

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

shan6 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:20:42 PST

@VivianDarkbloom: Yes, and Yes.

shan6

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

VivianDarkbloom — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:14:06 PST

His awesomeness is underlined by the mere fact of Bowie playing him.
Is Telefunken the best company name ever?

VivianDarkbloom

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

braak — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:10:24 PST

the Prestige was also an excellent book, though I was naturally well-disposed towards it ahead of time.

I am in favor of any book whose essential premise is, "Nikola Tesla can do anything."

braak

Everything You Need to Know About the Madness of Nikola Tesla

the memorexe — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:09:58 PST

Rumor has it that he never really died, but was "regressed" into an infant body.

the memorexe