A real look at Tesla

[shintashi]

In history, there have scarcely been men we could truly call great, in the field of scientific pioneers.

And sadly so, one of the greatest stories ever told, has been all but forgotten. There once was a great man, his name was Nikola Tesla.

 

This is his Story.

 

I remember walking through the asphalt parks of the once green landfill-turned-wallmart, perhaps it was 9 o clock PM, Pacific Time. I looked up into the distant sky, and beheld, towering in the distance, a strange looking Cellphone tower. I pointed to it like a child naming his favorite pet and said " Tesla !"

 

It wasn't too many years ago that we had not seen any such construction in our fair city, though Expo '74 might have given us a glimpse of the future. A future, which Tesla built with his bare hands --Long forgotten by all accounts. I remember watching a discovery channel episode on Tesla, it discussed "the world's first true "mad scientist" and if you, like me, remember those old black & white superman cartoons, you might remember that the Legend of Tesla was once as famous as Coca-Cola and Santa Clause. Tesla was an Archtype, - a type of personality upon which countless generations would remember mythically, ingrained into their culture, as if it had always been there.

 

Remember the "flux capacitor" from Back to the Future ? The scientist was based upon Tesla. Remember those giant flashing lightning rods you see in Frankenstien ? Those were TESLA COILS. Lex Luthor ? - Tesla. Ever heard of the caped crusader ? - He used rocket fuel for his car (invented by tesla) he was a billionare (which Tesla would have been, but settled for a Millionaire, in the 1890s. Which today is - yep, you guessed it, about the same as a billionaire). Bruce wayne was a genius, so was Tesla. Bruce Wayne was popular with the girls, Tall, striking, handsome. - So was Tesla. (infact, Tesla was once considered one of "the best dressed men in New york City" and a "catch") Tesla not only had huge resources and backers(until he nearly went bankrupt spending money on research), but he also flaunted money like candy (which he never stopped doing). The first X-ray photo of a human being was Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) taken by Tesla. Tesla wined and dined with princes and kings, LITERALLY. The first World's Fair to have Electricity in the scale it does today, was because of Tesla. Cony Island exists because of Tesla.

For japanese animation fans, you must realize thatalmost alllthe mad scientist characters from "Bubble Gum Crisis" all the way to "Happy Lesson" are based on Tesla. Scientists were always considered a little eccentric, but so were artists, politicians, royalty, and so on. The actual MAD scientist cliche'comes straight from Tesla. Tesla had a fear of pearl earings, and never wore jewelry, watches or anything of the sort (which considering the restrictions for MRI machine operators, it makes a lot of sense). He was a strict vegetarian. He believed that some day, mankind by his enginuity would latch onto the "wheel work of the universe" and accomplish tasks which placed him on par with his maker.

 

Tesla is one of the very few scientists in the history of mankind to have an actual unit of measure named after him, oddly enough, its a unit of measure for electromagnetism, so large, that you can't use it for a practical man, you have to use it for things like measuring magnetars,powerplants, military weapons,stars, pulsars, and various devices at CERN and Laurence Livermore particle accelerators.

 

"One tesla is defined as the field intensity generating one newton of force per ampere of current per meter of conductor. Equivalently, one tesla represents a magnetic flux density of one weber per square meter of area. A field of one tesla is quite strong: the strongest fields available in laboratories are about 20 teslas, and the Earth's magnetic flux density, at its surface, is about 50

[Tormod]

Welcome, shintashi. And thanks for an interesting post.

 

Tormod

[GAHD]

Ooh, Please continue! Tesla is a person I've been interested in for ages but never had the time to compile too much information on.

[Freethinker]

Back in the late '60's a freind of mine and I built a LARGE Tesla Coil. After arcing to the fuse box in the basement and blowing it up, we moved it to his back yard and arced to the transformer on the pole in his back yard and blew it up.

 

Ended testing!

 

My son and some of his friends built one last year. Not as large or powerful though.

[GAHD]

I've only wound a tesla coil strong enough to run power for a bout 6'. Never had a problem with blowing anything up; how strong a curent did you run through that thing?

[Tormod]

Originally posted by: Freethinker

Back in the late '60's a freind of mine and I built a LARGE Tesla Coil. After arcing to the fuse box in the basement and blowing it up, we moved it to his back yard and arced to the transformer on the pole in his back yard and blew it up.

 

Hm...late 60s...was this during or after your, um, "out-of-body" substance assisted experiences?

 

Tormod

[alexander]

Hey Tesla was a great man, who unfortunately died the same day as his pigeon. But his couls were not his greatest invention, by far. What i think should be consifdered his greatest invention is AC Motors and thus AC power generators. He also invented transformers which were previously not possible with DC since it does not alternate. He also had his hand in the invention of turbines, radar technology, radio frequency alternator, alternators in general and lastly, he was the man who wanted to create a world-wide radio transmitter and gave an idea of world wide wireless, which would be possible if he was to finish his radio tower, a tower that needed its own powerplant to operate... The man was indeed a genius, can't really compare him to Newton, but he was very, very smart.

[shintashi]

How smart was Tesla ?

 

many people have wondered this. Everyone has their hero, and place that hero in a golden cage aloft a tower far beyond the reach of reason and sensibility. For many there is a subconscious thought that if you somehow elevate a person far enough into obscurity, you will not be able to distinguish the idol well enough to see its chips and cracks. Such a distant observation of a character, could easily require the elucidation of the characterization on the part of the godmaker, who themselves would be seen as a Prophet.

 

Now to bring forth the Iconoclast.

 

Nikola Tesla, was, from aproximately, what years of research has taught me, one of the10 smartest men on earth. His intelligence factor fits somewhere beneath Solomon, and Jesus Christ, Roughly equivelent to Lao Tzu, and comparable to Davinci and Heraclitus (another mad genius). He was, for the western world, about as intelligent as people thought Aristotle was, and roughly fits in the seat of Science whereBuddha fits in the seat of Religion.

Was he as smart as Isaac Newton ? No. he was smarter. Was he as smart as Edison ? That's an odd question. Edison was infact a genius. Both men had very similar characteristics, but Edison's genius was focused in buisiness and capitalism (especially of other people's ideas) moreso than his actual powers of invention. Edison was brilliant, even by today's standards, and would probably be somewhere in the Hawking/Hubble range of thinking. However, Edison was the kind of man who would try exposing people to large amounts of X-rays to "cure blindness" while Tesla was the kind of man to write a lengthy article on "the dangers of X-rays", months prior.

 

Tesla had several characteristics that place his cognitive abilities in the superhuman range, similar to what you have with an idiot savant/autistic without the penalty of being an idiot or Autistic. (Tesla of course made of for it with a wide variety of neurosis).

Tesla had a mind which wouldn't quit. He could work for days straight without sleep. Both he and edison considered 2-3 hours a day to be plenty of sleep, and worked the rest. Tesla was fluent in several languages.He was alsoable to recall things beyond the point of eidetic, and straight into the realm of total recall. Tesla's mind was so powerful that he needed no blue prints to build his devices, he had them memorized, in 4 dimensions, in his mind, fully functional, down to the limit of microns, in his head. He was able to "test" and "fix" his machines in his mind before he ever actually built the first prototype, which almost invariably, worked exactly as he planned it.

Tesla was able to visualize the electromotive flow of forcefields in his mind and their encumbant reactions, much like the Earth Simulator Supercomputer in Japan. Tesla could do mathematical equations on the fly, in a literal, tangible way, even though as a child he had minimal training in the subject. Tesla could recite entire volumes by memory, apparently a gift he had attained from his mother. Tesla has one of the largest patent portfolios in the history of science, and oddly, his number of patents, actually exceeds Edisons in a way that is not immediately apparent.

Edison baught most of his ideas from other inventors who wanted the Edison name to push their inventions forward, or simply needed the money. Edison was also notarious for offering to purchase successful ideas, patent them, and then later refuse to pay up. After all, who would dare challenge the great and mighty Edison ?

Tesla did.

 

in the 1800s, people called Tesla a charlatan. That, you might have heard. But why, you might not. Tesla was called a charlatan, because he controlled aboat in a bay of water at the world's fair. He controlled it well enough to move it around, blink on command, and had plans for some other effects, but decided the world was not ready to believe what else he could make the autonomaton do. Why was he a charlatan then ? Because the people thought

[Tormod]

For those who don't read Hungarian, here is a page with details about two books on Tesla, including a list of his patents:

 

http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/new/tesla.htm

 

Tormod

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tormod

Hm...late 60s...was this during or after your, um, "out-of-body" substance assisted experiences?

It was before I had lost too many brain cells.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: GAHD

I've only wound a tesla coil strong enough to run power for a bout 6'. Never had a problem with blowing anything up; how strong a curent did you run through that thing?

 

Honestly, he did most of the work. I showed up to help carry and watch the explosions.

[FrankM]

Without the benefit of a calculator or even a slide rule, Tesla did math the old fashioned way, using

logarithms. I recall reading about Tesla several decades ago, and the book stated that Tesla had

memorized a table of logarithms to facilitate his computations.

 

I was always curious as to how Tesla adjusted to the new concept of the atom, which changed

world-wide in the early 1900s. I recall early-on he disputed the atomic model, but don't know if he

accepted this later.

 

The Europeans give Tesla a lot more respect than in America. This project certainly keeps his name alive.

 

Tesla Project

 

The following article (pdf) provides some additional history about Tesla.

 

Tesla, the greatest inventor we ever forgot

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: alexander

What i think should be consifdered his greatest invention is AC Motors and thus AC power generators. He also invented transformers which were previously not possible with DC since it does not alternate.

There are a number of interesting notes along that path. Yes Tesla invented the concept of multiphase AC. So doing made it possible for the electric network we have today. His patent was purchased by Westinghouse and it quickly took over the power delivery market. Edison's DC did not go far from the generating station and thus would require large numbers of generating stations. AC can use transformers and go alot farther without needing another full generator.

 

But Edison would not go quietly. He stated that AC was a DANGEROUS current andd DC was much safer. To prove his point, he would set up demos in which he would take a live hor4es, hook it up to his lower voltage DC and the horse was fine.

 

Then he'd wire the horse to a much higher voltage AC and literally fry the horse to death. Some would break out in flames during the demo! Thus putting a mighty scare into potential customers.

 

It was this series of events that lead to Edison inventing the electric chair as his last advertising gimic against Westinghouse's AC.

[FrankM]

If Edison had only known.

 

Freethinker -Edison's DC did not go far from the generating station and thus would require

large numbers of generating stations.

 

There comes a point when the long distance transmission of HV AC starts experiencing excessive losses.

It is actually less lossy to transmit high voltage DC over long distances than AC. There is a DC line from

Bonneville, OR to Sylmar, CA (just North of LA) about 1600 miles round trip, with +500,000 Volts on one line

and -500,000 volts on the other, a million volts, and its capacity is 3100 megawatts.

 

The original power converters were mercury arc converters (6 foot vacuum tubes), which have been

recently replaced with thyristors. It must be noted that Edison developed the vacuum tube.

 

Vacuum Tube

 

One of the nice features of DC transmission lines is that they obviate the need for AC synchronization,

which has to be done when connecting two AC lines together.

 

Tesla's inventions resulted in the wide spread availability of electricity, which was actually spurred on by

people wanting electric lights.

[TeleMad]

If anyone is interested, Nova ran a pretty good special on Tesla a few weeks ago - I would imagine that it is available for sale somewhere.

 

Came back to post a link to it...

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000051SHA/qid=1087434628/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0752796-2964959?v=glance&s=video http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000051SHA/qid=1087434628/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0752796-2964959?v=glance&s=video

[alexander]

FrankM said:

I recall reading about Tesla several decades ago, and the book stated that Tesla had memorized a table of logarithms to facilitate his computations.

True, his teachers thought he was cheating, and wanted to exspell him. But they couldn't prove that he was cheating, since as you said he memorized the logarithmic tables, so he was done much earlier than the rest of the class, yet his answeres were correct...

 

Freethinker said:

But Edison would not go quietly. He stated that AC was a DANGEROUS current andd DC was much safer. To prove his point, he would set up demos in which he would take a live hor4es, hook it up to his lower voltage DC and the horse was fine.

Yup, He went around electricuting dogs and such, but people were stupid to realize that 10000 volts AC at 200 amps and 10000 volts DC at the same 200 amps would kill pretty much any animal, and do almost the same damage...

 

By the way, DC is easier to transport with a lot less loss of current in a wire. Because of that, one of the generating plants in California generates AC voltage, steps it up, chages it to DC, runs the wires with DC, and then puts it back to AC and distributes it... almost odd isn't it?

[FrankM]

Alexander said:

By the way, DC is easier to transport with a lot less loss of current in a wire. Because of that, one of

the generating plants in California generates AC voltage, steps it up, chages it to DC, runs the wires with DC, and then puts it back to AC and

distributes it... almost odd isn't it?

 

This is the Bonneville, OR to Sylmar, CA line.

 

Tesla's Colorado experiments were related to his theory that power could be transmitted using an

atmospheric (ionosphere) path and the earth ground path. Tesla knew about old telegraphs where

they used just one wire and the earth return. I don't know how he suspected that the ionosphere was

a good conductor, nor how he knew the earth would be a good power conductor.

 

Bonneville does maintenance on its DC lines when LA doesn't need peak power. They shut down one

line and use the earth as the return line so they can do repair on the unused line. This is not a fact that

they cite on their web pages. They actually have less loss using one line as the earth return has less

losses than if they used the other line as a return. Remember, this is a 500,000 volt line using an earth

return, Bonneville to Sylmar, and it can handle just over 1500 megawatts.

 

I have never read whether Tesla actually determined what the "effective" conductivity was using earth

returns. He was interested in high power transmissions and the only applications using earth returns

were low power, telegraphs and telephones.

 

Tesla's Long Island tower was going to use ultra-violet lamps to facilitate his tower to ionosphere

conduction path. One of his major problems was to prevent the high voltage at the top of the tower

taking a shorter path to the ground around the tower. I don't know what he intended to do to prevent

this.