# Why isn't Tesla a household name?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 5, 1999, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576 "1999-11-05T19:00:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@rubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rubes)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/1 "1999-11-06T06:40:00Z")
With all the innovations and patents that Tesla holds, how come he isn’t he brought up with the Edison’s and Einstein’s?
Most people that I talk to either know of Tesla the band or the Tesla Coil.
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### Author:  [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/2 "1999-11-06T06:46:00Z")
What’s Tesla?
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Cessandra
Why sex is better than religion: There are laws against forcing sex on minors who can’t think for themselves.
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### Author:  [@rubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rubes)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/3 "1999-11-06T06:51:00Z")
Nikola Tesla was an inventor in the late 1800’s through roughly the first half of this century. He is credited with inventing AC current, the radio, radar, a bladeless turbine. He had a wireless way of transmitting electricity which he wanted to give away for free (the electricity that is)
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### Author:  [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/4 "1999-11-06T06:52:00Z")
Didn’t Marconi invent the radio?
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### Author:  [@rubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rubes)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/5 "1999-11-06T06:55:00Z")
Marconi was ealier credited with inventing radio, but Tesla held the patents, and this what settled by the US Patent Courts that indeed, Marconi was using Tesla Technology
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### Author:  [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/6 "1999-11-06T06:58:00Z")
Why don’t they ever teach us stuff like that in school?
Lies, lies, lies, lies. . . – Violent Femmes
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/7 "1999-11-06T06:58:00Z")
Per **rubes** : _He is credited with inventing AC current, the radio, radar, a bladeless turbine._
Most people wouldn’t contest AC current, but his more fervent admirers tend to then go ahead and give him credit for every eletronic invention that came after that, up to and including lasers.
_He had a wireless way of transmitting electricity which he wanted to give away for free (the electricity that is)_ I would change this to “he _claimed he_ had a wireless way etc.”
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### Author:  [@metroshane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metroshane)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/8 "1999-11-05T19:00:00Z")
he wasn’t good at marketing himself. he had a lot of inventions, but waited too long to patent and people get beating him to it. i think.
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The only way to rid yourself of temptation is to yield to it–Oscar Wilde
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### Author:  [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/9 "1999-11-05T19:07:00Z")
_Love is all around you,
Love is knockin’ outside your door…_
Why is everyone talking about science and crap? Tesla ROCKS, maaaaan!
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/10 "1999-11-05T19:09:00Z")
**rubes** : _Marconi was earlier credited with inventing radio, but Tesla held the patents, and this what settled by the US Patent Courts that indeed, Marconi was using Tesla Technology_
Cite, please? The 1943 case was only about the tuning patent, a refinement of the original Marconi system, where it said Lodge, Stone and Tesla all had priority. The Supreme Court never said Tesla was the “inventor of radio”.
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### Author:  [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/11 "1999-11-05T19:11:00Z")
I also loved Tesla! Great hard rock band with few pretensions!
Warning: Shameless plug to follow:
By the way, here on CMC, we have the new band Soulmotor, whch features Tesla’s bassist Brian Wheat! Pretty rockin’ stuff! Available wherever good music is sold!
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Yer pal,
Satan
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/12 "1999-11-05T19:22:00Z")
_Many people excuse Tesla’s failures by saying he was too far ahead of his time. I doubt it. His understanding of the medium in which he worked was primitive. He refused to accept the complex nature of the atom and for years denied Einstein’s theories. His problems arose largely from the fact that he was an eccentric who was unable to work with (and consequently to learn from) other people, and the increasing unreality of his ideas shows it. Broadcast power is Exhibit A._–Cecil Adams
Unca Cece’s full musings on Tesla and his purported “broadcast power” schemes are just a click away: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3\_274.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_274.html)
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/13 "1999-11-05T19:27:00Z")
I saw on a program about Telsa that some device of his might have been responsible of the “Tunguska Event.”
I didn’t buy it, but it was still an interesting program.
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### Author:  [@Undead\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Undead_Dude)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/14 "1999-11-05T19:52:00Z")
Tesla was a notable scientist and inventor who was largely unappreciated in his time. However recently he seems to have become somewhat of a cult figure, and his significance is often exagerrated. Telsa may have been a better scientist than Edison, but Edison was a better inventor, largely due to the shear volume of his work and his marketing genius.
But now if you are going to compare Tesla to scientists, don’t even think about comparing him to Einstein. He wasn’t in the same class at all. You might be able to compare him to scientists like Faraday and Maxwell, but of course those aren’t household names either.
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### Author:  [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/15 "1999-11-05T20:02:00Z")
[http://www.concentric.net/~jwwagner/p14techrad.html](http://www.concentric.net/~jwwagner/p14techrad.html)
This is a link to a detailed comparison of the Patent to which Marconi is credited, and Tesla’s radio patent. It’s kinda technical, but the gist of it is that Marconi’s _original_ patent could not be considered a viable radio. It would be like me getting a patent for Cold Fusion…even thought I couldn’t really get it to work, and then when someone else actually invents a process that does work, claiming that I had the first patent so am entitled to the credit.
whitetho–
While I agree that Telsa was eccentric, to dismiss his impact on the modern world because of that is extreamly close-minded.
Fact: Telse improved upon Faraday’s theory of electromagnatism and made practical AC power viable.
Fact: The Westinghouse Company bought the patent rights from Tesla, and built the worlds’s first Hydro-electric power station based on AC theory.
Fact: Edison tried to dis-credit AC power by demonstrating it’s dangers in a device he constructed called an **electric chair**
Fact: The DC power system that Edison promoted was un-suited to the transmision of power over any distance.
As for his denial of Einstein’s work, it wasn’t his field. I’m sure you can find dozens of modern scientist that dis-agree on several points. Especially in physics.
And while his broadcast power idea was never proven, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just because we can’t duplicate what he did, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.
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“Love thine enemies…it really pisses them off.”
-Anon
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### Author:  [@Undead\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Undead_Dude)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/16 "1999-11-05T20:47:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> As for his denial of Einstein’s work, it wasn’t his field. – Atreal
Relativity wasn’t anybody’s field at the time, because it was new. Tesla’s area was electromagnetism, and the immediate implications of special relativity probably impacted the physics of electromagnetism more than any other area of the day. So in a sense it was his field. Tesla wasn’t alone in holding out on relativity. Experimental evidence for relativity was just starting to firm up when he died. However, his resistance to relativity makes it a little hard to place him as being way ahead of his time. He was simply on par with his time.
> [@](#):
>
> Just because we can’t duplicate what he did, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. – Atreal
Physics as it was known in the '30s is a very different animal than the physics of today. If something akin to broadcast power was invented in the future, it wouldn’t be based on the knowledge of Tesla, even if we knew all that he knew.
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### Author:  [@putrid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/putrid)
#### Post date: [November 5, 1999, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/17 "1999-11-05T21:49:00Z")
It’s partly because he was **perceived** as a fruitcake, which also ties in with his perhaps-unwise policy of yacking up his theoretical concepts before they were proven practical. His _failures_ tended to discredit all that he **did** accomplish.
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### Author:  [@MarkSerlin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarkSerlin)
#### Post date: [November 6, 1999, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-tesla-a-household-name/10576/18 "1999-11-06T05:11:00Z")
Well, basically because he was both a remarkable genius, a nut and a really, really poor businessman.
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Mark
“Think of it as Evolution in action.”