Tesla

[MorganScorpion]

I watched "The Prestige" last night and just like the first time I saw it I was mesmerised by the sight of David Bowie as the great inventor emerging from the bolts of lightning.

It was an amazing image. I was so inspired that I Googled him. He's even more impressive. And even more interesting. I had no idea he had invented so much, or made such a difference in the world. If he hadn't been sabotaged by Edison and his own OCD we would have had radio, television and the internet decades earlier than we did.

According to Wikipedia he appears in comics, novels and movies as a fictionalised character more often than almost any other RL character. However, there does not seem to be any books about him in Borders or the other big bookshop I went to today.

[Spotbowserfido2]

Our own Aetherwing gets a charge out of Mr. Tesla. ;)

[Russell Nash]

Tesla, which is a unit of magnetic flux density, was named after Nikola Tesla. For example:

Earth's magnetic Flux, is 0.00005 Tesla;
Within a sunspot, is 0.15 Tesla;
Surface of a neutron star, 100,000,000 Tesla

These numbers may not mean anything to you. However, it is being teach in Electromagnetism, for Engineering, Physics, Astronomy, and so forth.

One aspect of Tesla's personality, which may look irrelevant to some, is whether he was gay or not. While I'm writing this comment I remember that the same was said about Isaac Newton. On Tesla's case, and as far as I know, there is no conclusive evidence for or against that. There were a lot of rumors that he was gay, but no proof. It was said that he was "highly attractive" to women of his day, but he always ignored them. Others simply say he was asexual rather than gay.

If true, this unimportant detail may explain why other men didn't like him.

You may be surprised by other geniuses as well. Very few scientists are mentioned by people in everyday conversations. Gauss, Herschel, Penrose, and many more. The history of science is so cruel at times with certain names.

[Soukesian]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that HPL's 'Nyarlathotep' was partly inspired by friends accounts of seeing a lecture tour by Tesla.

[njhorror]

I saw a segment of a show over the weekend that featured Tesla and some of his theories, inventions, problems, etc., and I was fascinated with the man.

He believed that human beings were some sort of "self propelled robots" and that was only the beginning. He had a lot of far out theories that seemed to contribute to his lack of acceptance in the serious scientific community. He also alienated financial backers when it was revealed that he wanted to supply mankind with energy - for free! Needless to say that this didn't go over well with his backers and he faded into semi obscurity.

Does anyone know of a good biography of Tesla that includes his supernatural theories, as well as his scientific achievements?

[Mr.Plores]

I have not read any biographies of Tesla but I saw the (fairly long) documentary called "Tesla: Master of Lightning" it was really good. I also remember reading a story in some Lovecraft inspired anthology about The Elder Gods sending means of financing for Tesla to finish a machine. I do not remember what it was called but it was really good!

[njhorror]

Tesla thought that we could telepathically communicate with each other and inhabitants of other planets if we could access a certain frame of mind. He believed that he was receiving messages from outer space telepathically. I love this guy!

[orwell84]

Nicola Tesla did all the work that Thomas Edison receives praise for everyday. The guy was talking about cell phones about 100 years ago.