In addition to having a rock band named after him, Tesla’s life has also inspired two operas! The first is Tesla: Lightning in His Hand, the second is Violet Fire. Take that, Thomas Alva Edison! 
Often these days, if you see Tesla’s work being touted, it’s a marker for a kook web site. For some reason, cranks love Tesla.
http://www.freedomdomain.com/weathercontrol/scalarweapon01.html
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id266/pg1/
http://www.rense.com/general67/wmds.htm
http://www.bariumblues.com/haarp1.htm
http://www.mayanprophecy.net/
They sense a kindred spirit.
Sez you. Sheesh! Everybody with a brain knows the number is 7.4500983. I mean, c’mon! :rolleyes:
I remember reading that Tesla indulged in a rather odd ritual, before dining at DELMONICO’s (famous NYC restaurant). he would have 18 napkins delivered to his table, the polish his glass and silverware 18 times, each time with a fresh napkin. This (of course) was when Tesla was flush with cash-one wonders what the restaurant staff thought of this! I also understand that he would order the same meal, day in, day our-sort of like Howard Hughes with his steak and 13 peas on the plate. Any psychiatrists have a clue as to what was going on in Tesla’s head? i can understand wanting clean tableware-but this is a bit much!
After reading Man out of Time, I came to believe that his insanity was in part from his habit of shooting x-rays into his head so he could enjoy the warm feeling they gave him.
Two relays in series controlling a third would implement it.
What was he using a NAND gate for?
Let’s not forget that he invented the transporter.
According to The Prestige, anyway…
Didn’t he also constantly calculate the area of his remaining food too? I read Man out of time a long time ago, it made me admire Tesla quite a bit. At the very least he created a lot of discourse on the principles he researched.
He had invented a remote control boat, which is pretty impressive all by itself, but the boat had a circuit in it which would prevent someone from taking over it with another radio control. It was this anti-hijacking circuit that functioned a lot like later logic circuits and prevented those logic circuits from being patented.
Oh, and it should be pointed out that lots of tin foil hatters claim that HAARP is based on Tesla’s work with broadcast power and his supposed “death ray” weapon that he offered the government at one point.
Just wondering if the archives of the Westinghouse Electric Company contain any info on this-Tesla’s patents WERE worth BILLIONS, and signing them over to Westinghouse was an act of greta generosity.
Tesla did keep several of his patents-the speedometer paid him royalties for many years.
This is is an instance where archival research has complicated the received version of the story. In particular, Marc Seifer dug the relevant documents out of the Westinghouse Corporation Archives in Pittsburgh. These don’t resolve all the issues, but they allow a plausible reconstruction of the sums and arguments involved.
To clarify from the outset, it’s always been recognised that Westinghouse paid a substantial sum up front for use of the patents. The more delicate issue was that Westinghouse also agreed to pay a royalty on each watt of power that any system using the technology would distribute. A couple of years later that agreement was renegotiated by them; it’s at this point that Tesla is supposed to have surrendered millions for the good of humanity.
As usual, O’Neill and Prodigal Genius loom large. He has a lengthy account of Westinghouse arguing with his bankers and Tesla eventually tearing up the existing contract out of loyalty to Westinghouse and for “the benefits that will come to civilization”. Indulging in some number juggling, he comes to the conclusion that Tesla was forfeiting $12 million a year by 1905, when the patents expired. The immediate obvious problem with all this is that O’Neill himself admitted that he hadn’t been able to locate the contracts involved. The story generally is filled with purportedly exact quotes from Westinghouse and his bankers about the situation, yet it’s not obvious that O’Neill can have any sources beyond what he was told by Tesla decades afterwards. And Tesla’s hardly an unbiased source for his own magnanimity. In hindsight, we can also see that several of the key details are factually wrong.
This is the version that’s oft been repeated. For instance, for Tesla: Man out of Time (Delta, 1998) Margaret Cheney simply regugitates it with O’Neill as her sole citation. In doing so, she manages to misquote his conclusion about the amounts and pulls from nowhere the claim that Tesla would have become a billionaire.
In the archives Seifer found memos and accounts relating to the original 1888 contract and the money actually paid by Westinghouse to Tesla in the period. These reveal that the initial agreement involved Westinghouse paying out $75,000 initially, along with 200 shares in his own company. The royalty was then $2.50 per watt. But crucially there was also a provision for a minimum royalty payment - basically $15,000 a year.
When it comes to this agreement being revised, probably in 1890, Seifer points to important commercial factors that probably forced this. This was the height of the controversy over the dangers of domestic electricity and it really wasn’t obvious that AC was going to happen at all. Westinghouse’s development of the technology had stalled. In those circumstances, Tesla’s guaranteed $2.50 a watt was arguably valueless.
The documents relating to the revised agreement appear not to have survived. But Seifer notes that the cumulative amounts paid to Tesla by Westinghouse in the period 1888-97 are consistent with the hypothesis that it involved that minimum payment still being made. Even after the revision, Tesla possibly received over a hundred thousand dollars in lieu of royalties.
Of course, one can still speculate about Tesla’s motives and whether he came to feel bitter about Westinghouse over it. But it’s possible that he was taking a relatively hard-nosed business decision.
Did Tesla love crank? Could that explain his erratic behavior?
What was it supposed to do? If it was intended as a CW AM radio transmitter, then why diid Tesla need the huge copper-clad dome on top? I remember reading that J.P.Morgan financed this venture, which Telas claimed would allow trans-atlantic radio communication. So why did Tesla blow all this money? He should have been able to get by with a simple mast antenna.
And one final question: TESLA did have some very original techniques for handling high-tension current-areany of his patents in use today?
My great-grandfather and grandfather, (both were toolmakers), worked for Tesla at different times. Great grandpa had a machine shop on 59th street and went with him to Colorado Springs.
The Prodigal Genius remains the best source for understanding the man.
The “kook” factor among his fans is quite large, due no doubt to some of his truly strange ideas late in life. He not only appeared to have OCD, you have to throw a certain amount of paranoia into the mix as well.
My father, (another toolmaker, [in the military-industrial complex]), was approached by the Air Force in the 50’s to work on some version of the turbine.
My mother is the last person I know of to have met him, (she’ 80 now), and the Tesla Society is constantly sending her publications and begging for interviews. She only met him for 5 minutes max, while my father and she were courting. He ignored her speaking only to my grandfather.
IIRC, it was part of his broadcast power system that he could never quite get enough money to get working.
/still in the dark
… publicity stunt?
In part. Also a failed attempt to create a wireless power transmission system. Cecil’s review is in the second half of What’s up with “broadcast power”?