Nicola Tesla, Genius? Crackpot? Both?

oneofakind32

Tesla mad many valuable contributions to physics during the early part of his career. He invented the AC electric motor and hence AC became the preferred current for transporting power across countries. He is credited with inventing the radio. The SI electro-magnetic flux (B) the Tesla was named in his honor.
Later in his career he stated that there was no reason why man could not transport matter as well as pictures and sounds via radio waves. He also proposed a device which he called a "thought photography" machine which would show pictures from a subjects mind on a screen.
There is also many myths and legends surrounding him. He was supposedly born on the stroke of midnight july 10th 1856, during a heavy electrical storm. He claimed that he saw flashes of lightning when he closed his eyes and this was the driving force behind his work
Tesla was ultimately ostracized by the scientific community, and regarded as a mad scientist.

So what do people think of Tesla? Was he on to something with these unbelievable claims? Lets not for get that in the late 1900s claims of transporting pictures invisibly over the air would have seemed just as outlandish as transporting matter or the idea of "thought photography"

Professor_Fink

oneofakind32 wrote: »

Later in his career he stated that there was no reason why man could not transport matter as well as pictures and sounds via radio waves. He also proposed a device which he called a "thought photography" machine which would show pictures from a subjects mind on a screen.

...

So what do people think of Tesla? Was he on to something with these unbelievable claims? Lets not for get that in the late 1900s claims of transporting pictures invisibly over the air would have seemed just as outlandish as transporting matter or the idea of "thought photography"

Well, clearly he made some valuable contributions. It is quite possible to do good work before you start loosing touch with reality. In fact, it's not even particularly uncommon, as you can see today with certain nobel lauriates.

Neither of the two things you mention are necessarily impossible on the face of it (although 'transporting matter' would require substantially higher energies than radio generally use), but for Tesla to believe he could achieve them was very Naive. Actually, I can think of ways in which both could be achieved, but the necessary technology is at least many decades away. The 'thought photography' is obviously the closer of the two, as we can already measure brain activity using MRI and other means. Learning how to interpret the signal is much harder, but some really cool (and scary) progress has been made in that direction. Transporting matter over radiowaves is theoretically quite simple: you encode the state of matter (i.e. the quantum state and the type of atom, molecule, etc.) into a photon state. The reciever would then decode the message using the energy transmitted in the beam to synthesis the matter via a scattering decay. The actual implementation, on the other hand is unbelievable far beyond our current technology.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Well to quote Bruce Feirstein: "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success."

Although admittedly he wrote it into the script of Tomorrow Never Dies. There's a lot of truth to it though.

Mahatma coat

I remember readin a bit about Tesla on the Web

apparently he was convinced that we could harness cosmic rays in much the same way as we use solar power, the article I read claimed that he had succesfully built something to do this in NY, but it was torn down by the army during WW2 cos they needed the steel for weapons

DublinWriter

oneofakind32 wrote: »

Tesla was ultimately ostracized by the scientific community, and regarded as a mad scientist.

So what do people think of Tesla? Was he on to something with these unbelievable claims? Lets not for get that in the late 1900s claims of transporting pictures invisibly over the air would have seemed just as outlandish as transporting matter or the idea of "thought photography"

Tesla was a genius of Newton and Einstein proportions.

It was only since the 1970's that the scientific community and people at large began to recognise his contributions. Certainly Marconi and Edison were better businessmen and self-publicists.

Don't forget that Edison himself briefly experimented building a machine to 'talk to the dead' during the latter part of his career, this makes Tesla's more outlandish ideas seem positively sane.

Professor_Fink

DublinWriter wrote: »

Tesla was a genius of Newton and Einstein proportions.

I definitely wouldn't go that far. He was essentially an engineer. Don't get me wrong, I'd say exactly the same thing about Marconi and Edison.

Creature

Any man portrayed on the big screen by David Bowie is a genius in my books.:pac:

Anyway yeah genius. He may have been a bit eccentric but didn't exactly have an easy life.

Pgibson

Creature wrote: »

Anyway yeah genius. He may have been a bit eccentric.

Towering Genius and Crazy.......both.

The SI Unit of "Magnetic Flux Density" is named after him.
See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)

A fitting tribute indeed.

.

Pgibson

Corrected Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)

Belfast

Does it matter if he is a Crackpot or a Genius?

What matters is did his work contribute to the understanding of science or did his inventions work or can they be made to work.

Anyone doing new work is going to make some mistakes. Anyone who has not made a mistake has not tried to do anything new.

The same charge could be made about Einstein. Einstein rejected quantum theory.

Belfast

Pgibson wrote: »

Corrected Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)

this one works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)

Red Hand

Remember that there was a culture of showmanship in the late 19th/early 20the centuary, and that's how I'd interpret many of his wilder claims. Competition between his laboratories and Edison's was fierce, and so, HEADLINES were needed.

Pgibson

Tesla does not have the stature in "popular culture" as Edison because Edison was an "All American Boy" whereas Tesla was a "Johnny Foreigner" who spoke funny..

(In fact today,if even one in a hundred Americans even heard of Tesla I would be surprised.).

.

Capt'n Midnight

Pgibson wrote: »

Tesla does not have the stature in "popular culture" as Edison because Edison was an "All American Boy" whereas Tesla was a "Johnny Foreigner" who spoke funny...

not to mention all the stuff that Edison didn't invent but claimed to or that was invented by employees but claimed by Edison, though in fairness Edison did get the electric chair going and tested

Tesla could have had great fun today with the RF spectrum

Pgibson

I think both of them were a bit mad.

Read this :

http://www.uh.edu/admin/engines/epi179.htm

You couldn't make it up.
Faulty Towers move over.

.

jessconr

Tesla was a pure genius who was exploited by edison, Morgan & Westinghouse. Edison hired Tesla to improve the efficency of his DC which he did but never paid him for his efforts. Westinghouse recieved most of Tesla AC power patents after the company nearly went bankrupt. Morgan stopped funding tesla when heard romours that tesla was building the Wardenclyffe Tower facility to provide the nation with free energy.

Currenty (no pun intended!) John Hutchison, the canadian scientist, uses Tesla's theories & apparatus to conduct (no pun intended!) very strange & intriguing experiments on anti gravity now known as the Hutchison effect.

have a look for yourself

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hutchison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70yWuORORt8&feature=related

Pgibson

jessconr wrote: »

John Hutchison, the canadian scientist, uses Tesla's theories & apparatus to conduct (no pun intended!) very strange & intriguing experiments on anti gravity

Ha Ha Ha.

Some mother's still do 'ave 'em!

Remember "Steorn"..the Dublin company who claimed to have defeated the Second Law of Thermodynamics ?

Free energy for everyone forever!

See: http://www.steorn.com/news/releases/

They have disappeared down the plughole of history.

.