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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1143601 better:
Edison is notably overrated. While he does deserve some credit, his approach to R&D was infamously brute-force. Tesla noted, “If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.” He also infamously took credit for the inventions of his employees--the long and impressive list of things Edison invented is really a long and impressive list of things invented at Edison's lab.
While it's hard to argue with success, not every successful man should be a figure of unquestioned admiration. Edison was famous in his day, and remains famous today, because he had the best PR and marketing in the business.
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.