Don’t know if you guys have done a thread on Tesla ( I searched the forum, but on first glance didn’t find anything conclusive).
Did Edison steal alot of the ideas that Tesla had discovered and then subsequently try and discredit Teslas work so that he couldn’t claim otherwise?
I remember reading about this several years ago but don’t remember the details of it.
Edison “stole” (“was inspired by” would be more charitable, and perhaps more accurate) ideas from many other people, but Tesla’s main offereings to the development of modern electrical generation and distribution systems (induction motor, polyphase power, alternativing current, and so forth) are well recognized as being largely or wholly developments created by him.
Tesla worked with, or perhaps for, Edison, when he first came to the US, but the two had a falling out (as Tesla did with numerous people, perhaps not without justification). Edison did stiff him a considerable promised sum (sources differ on the amount, but it was huge for that day) to perform development and improvement on the direct current generator. Tesla went on to work for George Westerhouse, eventually championing the three phase high voltage alternating current used (in some form) in most modern electrical distribution systems, and the standard AC industrial and residential currents. Edison tried to criticize the safety of AC in favor of his direct current system (most famously by executing an elephant, and leading to electrocution as a method of capital punishment) but obviously unscuccessfully. Ironically, in 1917, while Tesla was nearly destitute, owed back taxes, and struggling for investors in his research, he won the AIEE Edison Medal.
Tesla also made considerable contributions to the development of radio transmission. However, patents, public credit, and a Nobel Prize were awarded to Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun. Tesla had a famous battle, both in the courts and the public consciousness that he ultimately lost.
In later years, Tesla showed pronounced signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and was known for championing many ideas that could charitably be called highly speculative (or more commonly, “crackpot crazy”) and challenged what are now accepted ideas in relativity and then-nascent quantum physics. He died essentially destitute, despite being responsible for developing the founding principles of a massive, multi-billion dollar industry on which the modern industrial world is dependent. He does, though, have an award (the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award), a moon crater, and an SI unit named after him. Not a bad haul.
Stranger
An “SI unit”? 
Enhance, please, Mr. Spork. 
Excellent answer!
What was the deal with his big lightning doohickys?
They thrilled all the girlies? 
One tesla is equal to one weber per square meter.
Tesla was fascinasted with high-voltage discharges (lightning); he did pioneering work in high tension electronics. just how much of this research paid off is open to question. however, Tesla did a lot of other stuff-he had hundreds of patents in the areas of turbines, pumps, switches (he invented the “NAND” gate-fundamental to the digital computer-in 1898!). he also invented the automobile speedometer, and did research in metal refining. However, he was prone to extravagant claims, and was a loner-so a lot of his work was re-invented. He did invent most of the modern polyphase AC power distribution system, and put the mathematical analysis of AC circuits on a sound basis. No less an autjority as Dr. Charles Steinmetz gave him credit for this. Sadly, Tesla died alone and forgotten, in a NYC hotel room.
Here is the Wikipedia article on Tesla. The man led an interesting life, to say the least.
SI is Système International d’Unités, the set of units of measurement used throughout the civilized world. Basically what Americans think of as the “metric system.”
Other SI units include the gram, second, meter, liter, volt, watt, joule, ampere, ohm, coulombs, and newtons. The “tesla” is among these.
Calling it the “metric” system is like calling a car a “transportation system”. Yes, it is, but so is a bike, a train, and a horse. As CurtC notes, the rest of the world refers to it as the International System of Units or somesuch.
The tesla is a unit of magnetic flux density; essentialy, the intensity of the magnetic field.
Stranger
Actually, Tesla won the court case, but it was after the patents (and Tesla, IIRC) had expired, so it was a moot point.
Every now and then, someone digs up one of Tesla’s ideas that’s been laying around on a shelf and puts it to work. A few years ago, a university developed a nanopump using a one way valve originally designed by Tesla.
This needs some context.
Tesla showed increasing eccentricities as he aged. He appears to have had what we would now call OCD and possibly also any of a range of mental illnesses. He could not work with others, nor could his pronouncements be verified or even understood.
He did spend his last decade in hotel rooms living on a small Yugoslavian pension. This was partially, perhaps mostly, because he pushed all others away. However, his funeral was attended by over 750 people and he was given great acclaim for his work.
I just finished re-reading a bio on Tesla. My impression is that his reputation was seriously damaged by his habit of taking an idea to investors for funding and then never following through with the development to provide the profits he promised the investors.
The most blatant case of this was getting money from J.P. Morgan to develop flourescent lighting (among other things) and then never completing the work. Instead, he spent the money on his lavious lifestlye (a suite at the Waldorf Astoria) and in developing the big lightening mushroom on Long Island.
As a result, Morgan refused to release him from the contract and free up some of his patents to allow Tesla to pursue other investors.
So… one kettle grill = one tesla?
A pretty thorough and amusing bio of Tesla can be found at the Tales of Future Past website.
A tesla (unit) is uncommon in magnets encountered in day-to-day living. MRI scanners are rated in teslas (3T = 3 tesla).
No, teslas measure the areal density of kettle grills: kettle grills per square meter.
One of the mosre interesting aspects of Tesla’s life was how he released Westinghouse from royalties on his AC motor. Tesla was very much an idealist and Westinghouse sold it as the only way to save the company at to make AC and Tesla’s motor successful. Tesla was more interested in seeing his ideas win the day than monetary reward. This cost him millions of dollars, but I don’t think he ever complained. Sadly, when he was struggling for money, Westinghouse didn’t return the favor.
I think it would be wrong to say Edison stole Tesla’s ideas, although he certainly did borow from others.
He was obsessed with the number 3. He would walk around the block 3 times before going in a bldg. What a loon. Everybody knows the number is 5.
It’s worth expanding on the - thin - available evidence about this since it’s the primary (only?) occasion I’m aware of where Tesla claimed that Edison had specifically wronged him.
Otherwise, their later public comments about each other were commonly very personal, but they tended to be more general. Claims that one or the other’s style was impractical or inefficient. The tone could even be pure childishness, with Tesla for example accusing Edison of bad personal hygene. (A plausible suggestion it has to be said, but not on a par with accusing him of stealing your work.)
As far as I can tell, there are two documents in which Tesla told his version of the break with Edison. Neither dates from the time.
The earlier is in his 1919 article My Inventions:
From the context, it’s pretty clear that the machines being refered to are DC dynamos.
In a 1938 letter, he added a bit of colour:
(As quoted in Marc Seifer’s 1996 Tesla biography Wizard.)
A variant on quote is given by John O’Neill in his Prodigal Genius: “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” The rest of his version of the story doesn’t really add anything factual to the two brief ones directly from Tesla, but it’s rather more fleshed out as explicitly saying that Edison conned him. As usual, O’Neill may have been drawing on one of his conversations with the elderly Tesla, but it’d still be impossible to tell what emphasis is O’Neill and what Tesla. Equally usually, it’s O’Neill’s version of the story that most later Tesla biographers and enthusiasts have uncritically relied on.
Edison biographers have, on the other hand, almost invariably ignored Tesla’s claim. (Paul Israel’s major biography of Edison actually never even mentions Tesla at all.) If pressed, I suspect they would all dismiss that as deriving from a prejudiced source long after the fact. What they usually turn to when discussing the rupture in 1885 is Alfred O. Tate’s 1938 book Edison’s Open Door. He was not quite yet employed as Edison’s secretary at the time, but he later heard that Tesla had asked Harry Livor to approach Charles Batchelor with the request that Tesla’s salary be increased from $18 to $25 a week. Bachelor rudely dismisses the suggestion and then Tesla resigns.
Of course, Tate is also writing well after the fact.
So, we basically have two different explanations for why Tesla left. And it looks unlikely that there are any more contemporary sources to shed better light. For Tesla really wasn’t all that important enough at the time for anyone to bother recording his departure. The sort of talented, highly promising hotshot newcomer who might well have felt undervalued in the company, but still a couple of years away from anyone realising exactly how much he could deliver. At least for that relatively brief period when he did deliver.