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Tesla: Erased at the Smithsonian
Jenny Stevens writes "A group of courageous third graders and their science teacher have decided to try to correct "errors" by the mighty Smithsonian Institution. They are trying to give proper credit to Nikola Tesla (he is my favorite scientist of all time) and his inventions. They have started a campaign and have mailed hundreds of executives of major American corporations asking for donations to their campaign. They have even received a donation from the CEO of Sony Corp. in Japan. To read more, check their Web page. For an intro to Tesla and his contributions check this page."
Tesla isn't the only one that this has happened to. If you like digging into conspiracy theories, you might want to also check out Tucker ( who thought that seat-belts, disk-brakes and safety padding would be good on cars ) and Farnsworth ( who made Television into a workable technology during the 1930-1940's and who then went on to do ground breaking work in nuclear-fusion ).
In all of these cases, they have been effectively expunged from history because they came up with ideas and inventions that threatened the priveledge and power of the wealthy.
Tesla was *not* American! He came to the US when he was 28. He was born in Yugoslavia and had a *European* education (the good kind of education) and then he went to the States.
Well, this is old news for those not having gone through the US education system. There is a large tendency to re-write history in the US "in the public interest" if the facts are not in favour of the US.
I remember quite well from my studies that I had to learn e.g. two names for the higher elements of the periodic system. The ones given to this elements by the original researchers, and the ones claimed by some US guys. I remember quite well the fuzz about the SI unit "Siemens". Since Siemens was not an american hero, the brain-dead "Mho" is used in the US.
Then there is the stretch about the invention of the telephone (Bell vs. Reis), the stretch about the first plane (Wrights vs. Lilienthal), the wrong claim that Edison invented the light bulb (he just improved it). Even the names of some mathematical proofs have been "highjacked" by US "history" writers (after years I still love my copy of the translation of Bronstein/Semendjajew, for giving proper credit).
The only remaining questions no one could answe me are: How low must the self-esteem of a nation be that it needs to re-write history in such a way? How bad must an educational system be to promote such lies? And finally, if the system messes with facts in the technical area, how do they mess with facts in politics, history, science? Evolution, any one?
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, specifically its Division of Information Technology and Society, is responsible for exhibits on the history of electricity. While digging around their web site, I found this new exhibit (web-only AFAIK):
e ring/
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/csr/pow
It includes a section on "Powering the Past" which provides much more balanced coverage of Tesla vs Edison and their respective inventions.
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that the main physical and web exhibits are 100% Edison-centric -- the only hits on "Tesla" from the site's search engine were for the one new exhibit above. While I don't necessarily agree with the idea of recruiting one's third grade classes to forward a private agenda, Mr. Wagner does have a point.
Uh I dont think its possible to have a web page that old. The HTML standard wasn't even invented until the 1990's. If that was a gopher link I might agree with you on that it might just be the oldest news discovered but its quite a bit more recent than that..
Rivest, um... Shamir? and... yeah, I'd have to look it up too.
Anyhow, they're big names in the field, and it's impressive stuff. I took enough number theory, and learned the basics of public key cryptography. At least, enough to know that I'd rather be coding than doing math proofs.
I say, let them use the system. I don't like it, and I don't think it should be legal, because if the math is published and you can use it, then the code should be equivalent. But the USA doesn't agree with me, so let them have their patent if they want it. Once speech == math == code, (like so) then it'll be all good, baby, and you can contest patents like that on legal grounds.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Although I think Tesla is one of the great unsung heroes, I really wonder what the point is for this teacher to have drafted the class into crusading over a bunch of issues they probably don't understand.
They need to be spending more time learning, and less time lecturing other people about what they've been told.
Is anyone else creeped out about this?
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Anyone (non-Brazilian) here knows who was Santos Dumont?
The goal of learning is understanding. To understand something, you must know both sides of the issue. Getting fixed on only one perspective as the ultimate while ignoring others is being brainwashed.
It's too easy to bring naive people (and third graders are gullible) on your side if that's all they get told. If you want to teach them, you'll educate them so they can decide on their own, that's what a teacher should be doing. Only discussing one side and making them follow you there blindly is brainwashing.
Personally, I don't think schools are supposed to educate people so they can decide on their own and think critically, it's more like forcing them to conform and adapt to the current social rules. All healthy children are inquisitive and curious, until they go to school, then they often start to hate it.
-- Eavy (: Linux Is Not UniX
I couldn't have put it better myself.
By the way, before anyone tries to nail me on the RSA patent fiasco: yes, that too is an abuse of the patent system. Yes, it's a patent on a specific device, and not on public-key encryption in general. It's a different kind of abuse.
And just a word of warning: I'm about to rant big time here.
When R, S, and A (I can't remember their full names at the moment) first discovered their algorithm, they published it far and wide. Even now, you'll find the algorithm in any decent textbook on discrete mathematics and number theory (believe me, I have several). They in essence created their own "prior art." Most countries recognized this, which is why RSA isn't patented in most places. But when they applied for it several years later, some idiot in the US who probably never took a day of number theory in his (her?) life decided to grant them the patent anyway, even though they'd already put the thing out so widely that the patent was pointless (I thought you couldn't make patents retroactive like that anyway). That was seventeen years ago this September (when the patent finally expires). Seventeen years during which effective crypto couldn't be widely adopted in the US because of these restrictions. And if it can't be adopted in the US, it can't be adopted anywhere on the Net, simply because the US is such a large part of it that you can't reasonably exclude it. In other words, seventeen years that R, S, and A have set back Net security, all in the pursuit of The Almighty Buck.
And this is why I think R, S, and A are the scum of the computing universe, ten times worse than Bill Gates and M$ if not more. Had they set aside those concerns seventeen years ago, I'd consider it likely that crypto (with 17 years of an effective, patent-free algorithm) would already be too ubiquitous for anyone to stop it. The current restrictions never went into effect until RSA had been patented, so crypto would have beaten governments to the punch. Big Brother would have become truly pointless. We would have had the privacy that is dying now, because we would have had our crypto long before governments could have done a thing to stop it. These three people are very talented; I can't argue that. But they have so much to answer for that I don't think they'll ever be able to justify it.
Most Slashdotters aren't against patents in general, per se. Patents are, generally speaking, Good Things, when applied correctly.
Consider the case of Stradivarius, the violin-maker. There were no patents at the time, so in order to be able to work as a violin-maker, he had no choice but to keep his methods secret. Alas, he took those secrets to the grave with him. To this day, in fact, even with all our modern technology, no one has ever made the equal of a Stradivarius violin, because no one knows how he did it. This is why you can still get them, but each one costs millions.
But there's a problem when you try and patent software. You see, Tesla didn't try and patent AC itself. If he had, then Slashdotters probably would have had problems. What Tesla patented was specific devices that use AC. Nothing wrong with that. But software patents take a different tack, They don't patent the device (the code, in this case); they try to patent the concepts behind it.
Consider the Imatec case. This might not be the best example, because the courts found that they didn't own the patents they claimed, but it still fits somewhat. Imatec sued Apple over ColorSync, claiming it violated Imatec's patents. What was the patent Imatec claimed to own? Not a patent on a specific color-matching system, but on the concept of color-matching in general.
This is supposed to be illegal by the regulations on patents, but thanks to the fact that software makers have obscene amounts of money to bribe out representatives with, they've gotten the patents upheld. Patents weren't meant for ideas, they were meant for implementations of those ideas.
Take Eli Whitney's cotton gin, for example. Had he used the same logic as most software manufacturers today, he would have instead tried to patent the concept of getting seeds out of raw cotton before processing it. Then he could have sued every plantation owner in the nation for using "his" process, even if they had never heard of the cotton gin, because they used other means of doing this. Granted, those "other means" were typically slaves, and far be it from me to say slavery is a Good Thing, but that hardly makes the situation I've stated here any better.
So give Slashdotters here a little credit. We're not against patents. We're against their misapplication and abuse, as software manufacturers do. I'd imagine most of us wouldn't have been against Amazon had they patented their system of one-click ordering, but instead they patented the very concept on one-click ordering, and that's where the patent runs afoul of us. Certainly a patent on an AC generator wouldn't.
Your science reporting stinks guys. You definely have an affinity for crank science. Events like the NEAR encounter with Eros don't merit a comment.
Ohh yah and did anyone notice that most of the claims made by the third graders rested on filings in the U.S. Patent office.
Other things we learn at the U.S Patent office
* Amazon came up with the idea of ordering with a moust click
*Microsoft Invented sale of digital media over the internet
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
And yes just to head off the argument. It might help them in the long run or help farmers elsewhere but that isn't relevent to the point.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
In response to this post and the post before it.
My claim was not the rainforest is not worth protecting because it hurts farmers.
It does in fact hurt farmers...they can't grow crops in the area they slashed and burned. Does their desire to slash and burn in order to make money gain food etc... outweigh the danger of hurting the rain forest. Probably not.
However, it does demonstrate the issue is not cut and dried. There are other factors that should be weighed in our decision even if we eventually find them not to be compeling.
My point was encouraging this sort of political activism by students in the classroom doesn't encourage this sort of thought. It doesn't encourage education but partisan rhetoric.
I also felt that publishing/giving credence to these arguments *because* they are made by a childrens class is ridiculous and should have no place in our politics.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Little pisses me off more then seeing kids brainwashed into political activism. These are THIRD GRADERS do you think they can make a fair and honest judgement about the matter apart from what their teacher says? Political activism by a classroom tells us that the teacher is failing because the children probably aren't being fairly fed both sides of the argument.
Does anyone think that third graders (even bright third graders) would really get worked up and campaign on an issue if it was presented in an unbiased factual manner?
It only makes it worse that people pay attention to these sort of attention getting schemes conducted by teachers at the expense of students.
When I was in high school I had a biology teacher which offered us extra credit if we wrote to our congressmen lobbying them to prevent destruction of the rain forest. Now of course all those students weren't (and probably still haven't) thought that while rain forest is good protecting it necesserily involves hurting farmers. Perhaps the government has other (more important) uses for its time and money. To her credit when pressed about the issue she offered to give the credit to writing about the other side of the issue. But most of those students left the class with the impresion that the enviornment was something that *must* be protected and not an issue to be thought about or weighed against other needs.
Did this teacher ever think that perhaps Tesla isn't honored because he was lacking in other respects? I have heard that Tesla was extremly lacking in theory and proposed many crackpot notions about electricity. Does it cause doubt in anyone's mind that all the pro Tesla sites are littered with ridiculous and incorrect psuedo-science?
For instance as mentioned above the site that claimed Tesla's transformer increased power output. Interesting that...power=energy/time so Tesla learned how to make energy from nothing?
Maybe *gasp* the Smithsonian with legions of experts might know more about this issue than a bunch of third graders?
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Many posters have pointed to the influence of the Edison boosters in downplaying Tesla's contributions. But don't forget that at one time, Tesla had both George Westinghouse and J.P.Morgan in his corner. Westinghouse died, and Morgan became disenchanted with Tesla's increasingly impractical and costly experiments; experiments which he refused to explain or submit to peer review. Nobody could deny that Tesla was a genius of the first rank. But he cut himself off from other researchers, and, in consequence, his later work is a sordidly mixed bag of "results" that are not much use to anybody.
You want a real hero, then check out Charles Proteus Steinmetz. There's the man who made AC distribution possible. Don't know what the Smithsonian has to say about him, tho (he *did* work for Edison).
For those of you not familiar, a Violet Wand is an old qucak medical device in which a Tesla coil charges a semi-vaccumed argon-filled glass tube (usually - there are other "extensions"). The electricity is transferred to the skin through the glass. They generally run about 30,000 to 40,000 volts. The one I have runs at 22 watts (though they can range from 8 to upwards of 60 watts!).
Thank you, Mr. Tesla.
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Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
what's up with the attack on liberals in the pages? he never shows how non-liberals would be better, or why liberals would dislike tesla. ditto for the politically correct comments.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I wrote the fellow what I thought was a reasoned and polite letter. My response was curt - A response to the effect that my mail was deleted - apparently because I didn't fully agree with him.
I happen to have read a rather complete biography of Tesla when I was a kid, I'm an EE, and a ham radio operator too. Edison, Tesla, Marconi, etc are heroes of mine, and I have a fair idea of the accurate story. I happen to know that at least in EE school, Tesla isn't given short-shrift as to what he invented.
The guy has an agenda of his own that doesn't allow him to discuss it in a reasoned manner.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
>Gauss and Newton both get used quite a bit,
Well, I've never used a Newton, but a pair of Gauss rifles aimed at the enemy's legs are pretty useful.
Oh. Sorry, just played MW3 all day yesterday, and I'm still trying to work it out of my system...
Oh, please -- Edison did a lot of inventing too. Edison's major failing was that he failed to see that Tesla's AC was the wave of the future, despite being dangerous (and AC *is* dangerous, but we as a society have decided that the benefits outweigh a few people being electrocuted each year).
Additionally, while Tesla made many important contributions to science and engineering, there is a reason why Tesla is the patron saint of crackpots -- he rather had a crackpot side to him himself -- broadcast electricity, anyone?
No. The danger of AC is that once you pick up a live wire, you just *can't* let go (That's why electricians are careful to touch potentially live AC wires only with the backs of their hands -- at worst you get a shock and your hand jerks backwards, rather than gripping the wire). This doesn't happen with DC, plain and simple. But DC is hard to transmit over long distances, so it lost out.
Perhaps some of Tesla's more wacky inventions don't really merit the term "crackpot", but how about Tesla's ghost detector? Surely even you agree *that* is a crackpot invention, yes?
Certainly Woz doesn't believe in ghosts.
Depends on the point of view: there were people there who knew that "America" existed :-)
There's also the vikings, who might have come to America much before Columbus.
And no, Columbus did not "discover" that the Earth was not flat.
He did set foot on the mainland (1502). And again, there's the issue that he didn't really knew this was not Asia but a "new" continent. In that sense, he did not discover America.
I tried the site's search engine to see how they handle the DeForest vs. Armstrong thing. No hits for either one, not even for the other Armstrongs (All-American Boy Jack, and Neal or Neil, of first on moon fame), no hits for vacuum tube, no hits for vacuum, no hits for radio. Reckon it's busted?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
LinuxGeek dun said:
Yes, spark gap transmissions existed; hell, Maxwell proved how spark gap transmissions could work. :) The trick is using them for information--Morse code, or voice, or whatnot.
(BTW--even if we limit it to "information transmission by radio", it is entirely likely that neither Marconi nor Tesla invented radio. There is a considerable amount of evidence that radio may have been independently invented by both Loomis (whom is actually credited with the invention of radio in some books) and voice communication by Nathan Stubblefield (probably longwave or ground-wave communications; known to be an early AM system, possibly the first; Murray, KY still has signs up claiming it is the "Home of Radio"). I think the best we can say there is that radio was probably invented independently by at least three, possibly more, individuals...which is the exact same situation as exists with television (no less than three people independently invented it, though we mostly use the Zworykin process for TV much as we use the Tesla method for radio).)
What Tesla definitely deserves credit for is making high-frequency transmission possible. Before the invention of methods for high-frequency transmission by Tesla, the highest frequencies possible were in the longwave bands (we're talking around fifty or sixty KHz--AM or "medium-wave" bands were still considered HF in those days). Pretty much Tesla made transmissions outside of longwave possible, not to mention FM radio (it can be said that Tesla did in fact invent FM transmissions).
Oh, and as a wee bit of radio trivia--the first "officially recognised" transmitter WAS a spark-gap transmitter! :) One of the old Marconi stations actually celebrated its 100th anniversary and was fired up for a day for DX purposes...
CW is actually considered intelligence, too; you're still transmitting info, just in binary mode. :) It IS pretty much impossible to do much besides CW on a spark-gap transmitter, though. :) (This is why Tesla's system beat out Marconi's, by the way--you could do voice and tune frequencies. Hell, Tesla probably wasn't the first to do voice; if Nathan Stubblefield hadn't been so bloody paranoid about patents [he was convinced someone else would steal his ideas-- of course, between the modern patent mess and seeing what happened to poor Tesla, he just might've had a point...] he might well have been credited.)
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
Glgraca dun said:
According to Brazil, that is. :)
People in Murray, Kentucky would give serious argument to both that claim AND the claims of Marconi and Tesla (they claim AM transmission was invented by Nathan B. Stubblefield).
People in West Virginia would give arguments to all that, and claim that Loomis invented radio (there was a demonstration in West Virginia in 1866; this is specifically mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records as possibly the first radio broadcast).
People in England and in Italy argue that Marconi did it.
People in Serbia and in a fair section of the US would argue Tesla did it.
If I remember right (basing this from a half-remembering of an old article in Soviet Life over fifteen years ago, when I actually was sent a copy from Radio Moscow in responce to a QSL request...what with all the QSL requests I made as a kid, I expect I will never be able to get government employment anywhere :), the Russians claim one of their OWN invented radio. :)
The truth of the matter is, radio was probably simultaneously invented by many people and one method (namely, Tesla's) ended up becoming dominant.
Same thing happened with TV, by the way--the Russians give credit to Zworykin (who invented the iconoscope); the Americans give credit to him + a fella in Indiana who worked out the technical details; the Brits give credit to Laird (who invented a mechanical TV system using 30 lines that worked suprisingly well), the Germans (who had some of the first high-definition broadcasts) claim yet ANOTHER guy, the French claim Nipkow, and so on and so forth. What happened there was more of a case of several people simultaneously inventing TV, and the system what worked best winning out.
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
Tesla made the wealthy people of his day ( JP Morgan, Westinghouse, etc...) even wealthier with his selling of patents. His rounds with Edison even culminated in General Electric ( Edison Electric Co. + Thomson-Houston Co.) bidding on the Niagra *AC* power plant contracts. GE got the low bid on the distribution system and thus got to build the AC power lines. Westinghouse and Tesla got the bid for the power generatoring station.
This was before the Chicago Worlds fair of 1893 and his Colorado Springs experiments. About a third of the people living in the US at that time visited Chicago to see Tesla and his wonders. He was far from obscure at that time. The erasure from history seems to have come later.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Three times this morning, I had to kill netscape when it loaded that banner. I finally had to turn java off and no more lockups. Thanks for killing the browser of the Linux faithful with a java banner. This is stock RH6.1 installed communicator.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Although the fellow was a bit harsh, I think he was trying to make a point. Something of this nature:
Tesla is recognized because he has a SI unit named after him == You recognizing all of your mothers accomplishments by saying she really knew how to butter toast well.
It is an insult to them both. I'm positive they both deserve much, much more.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I didn't say just wireless. Spark gap devices preceeded Teslas work too. Tesla invented wireless broadcast of intelligence with resonance being used to segregate channels. If wireless is the only criteria, then lets throw speech into the possibilities. ;o)
Spark gap transmissions are broad spectrum emmisions. Transmission of intelligence requires modulation of the carrier to represent voice or data. Spark gap tranmissions require interruption of the entire signal to represent information and are basically limited to morese type communication. That definition is what I remember from my novice and tech class ham exams 12 years ago. It may be slightly off.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Tesla's technique for nitrogen extraction was basically a by-product of his wireless communication/power transmission method. Meaning almost free.
It is also nice to see that you speak for everyone 'educated' in physics. Well, not everyone. I know several people that have strong to very strong backgrounds in physics (minors and majors in college thru masters degrees). Some think he is a genius with some very eccentric behaviours thrown in. Some have said that they honestly can't understand some of the principles he clearly understood and demonstrated in public on many occasions. Personnally, I don't pretend to be Tesla junior, but I do think his contributions have been used without being acknowledged by much of the scientific community for last 75 years.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
A very interesting coincidence: I'm just finishing an excellent biography calles "TESLA Man Out Of Time" by Margaret Cheney. I would certainly recommend this book to those interested in Tesla's lifes work.
He invented and patented this short list and much more:
-Single, 2 and 3 phase AC generators, motors and distributions systems.
-Fluorescent lights
-Electron microscope ( his carbon-button lamp)
-Atom smasher (carbon-button lamp also)
-Electron accelerator ( melecular bombardment lamp)
-wireless communication of intelligence
-wireless power distrobution
He also mapped the EMF spectrum into 'octaves', found out how to control rainfall and extract nitrogen out of the air. Where is this knowledge being used today?
He invented radio, remote controll and spread spectrum coded communication all in a single device ( robot boats, which the navy rejected).
I have a book called "Giants of Invention" that I was given as a child. Tesla isn't even listed, but George Westinghousem who bought all of Tesla's AC patents is listed for having invented railroad air brakes. Now your opinion may be very different, but I think Tesla has been left out on the doorstep concerning historical credit for his inventions. I think that Edison and Marconi pale greatly in comparison to Tesla, but you may not agree.
BTW, "TESLA: Man Out Of Time", Margaret Cheney, ISBN 0-88029-419-1
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Well, since it's called America instead of Colombia, at least someone must have remembered Amerigo Vespucci...
I'm not sure about now, but 2 years ago when I had an account with Concentric, they were running SunOS/Solaris on their boxes. They also have more bandwidth than god, so I don't think they'll fill up any time soon.
The interesting thing about Tesla, Edison, Bell, Marconi etc is how similar the world in which they worked was to today's software world: the technologies they worked with RF, inductance, etc, were reasonably open and understood, and easy and cheap(ish) to develop for. Consequently thousands of their peers were developing the same things muchly simultaneously.
However it was the patent-holders (and Edison was particularly assiduous at collecting these) that won through and got written into the history books. And especially US patent holders, given the way that world trade developed over the 20th century.
Perhaps in 100 years Slashdotters will be trying to get the guy who *really* invented one-click ordering into the Smithsonian.
-- need more time?
After all, everyone knows that Edison invented the light bulb, electricity, etc...
Actually he didn't even invent the light bulb. He just improved it.
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Seems to be doing about 150 hits/minute or so right now.
/. had linked it, they wouldn't need to sell shirts anymore... ;)
If they'd put up banner ads. before
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You can patent a mouse trap.
You should not be able to patent trapping mice.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I quote from the people who gave him the Edison medal: "Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. So far-reaching is (his) work it has become the warp and woof of industry"
Sadly, Telsa has wandered away and was feeding pigeons during this speech.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The other 10% is actually commited by people with extreme tans, or against people covered in white paint.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Note: This was a joke.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Blatantly false! The honour belongs to Clément Ader's Éole , which flew as far back as 1890, in France.
The fact is that the Wright Brothers would not give the Smithsonian their (still) historic Flyer unless the Smithsonian claimed it was the FIRST "heavier-than-air" aircraft.
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" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
I feel it is becoming more and more difficult for an european to understand the american way of thinking...
;)
Don't worry, we Americans don't actually think.
Seriously though, I thought it was pretty standard knowledge that Tesla pioneered AC power transmission, the electric motor (Faraday was the dynamo, right?), as well as other stuff. At least my high school physics book contained that info. I think his most interesting idea was to have electricity flowing throught the Earth all the time, so that you just had to stick a metal rod in the ground to get power. Well that and the death rays.
In my opinion what is more interesting is that Tesla was the stereotypical eccentric engineer/inventor who didn't care about financial interests or publicity. He worked with Westinghouse was never very reliable. Edison was a glory/money hound. Look who history had more recognition for (at least in the US in the past).
It is a lesson for current techies to speak up and be proactive about intellectual property, lest Al Gore & Bill Gates be recognized as the creators of the Internet.
One other lesson to get from Tesla is that he was celibate all his life. That's right folks, even the great Mr. Tesla couldn't invent a Get Laid Ray.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
S'funny. I've been drawing that parallel also. When I mention him and people ask me who Tesla was, I often say "Well, let's use an analogy... When we look back at developing electrical generation and distribution, Edison was the Bill Gates and Tesla was the Linus Tolvalds."
Bite the hand.
The author Jared Diamond makes a convincing case (Guns, Germs, and Steel) that the economics just weren't there to sustain Viking colonies, even if the climate hadn't changed. There were never any long-term permanent residences on the continent, and the difference in resources and available technologies was too great. On the other hand, when Southern Europeans arrived in the West Indies, they were much more technologically and economically prepared to take advantage.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The word "discover" is certainly politically loaded, but I don't think you can deny that Columbus was the first significant European expedition to arrive here, and that began one of the most significant migrations in human history.
Somebody was bound to do it eventually. The populations here didn't have the technology or the economy (for easily demonstrable geographic and historical reasons) to compete with the Europeans.
It's simply a matter of perspective. Instead of denying the obvious, suggest a better name than "discovery".
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
In his Colorado Springs lab in 1899, he sent waves of energy all the way through the Earth, causing them to bounce back to the source (providing the theory for today's accurate earthquake seismic stations). When the waves came back, he added more electricity to it.
The result? The largest man-made lightning bolt ever recorded - 130 feet! - a world's record still unbroken!
The accompanying thunder was heard 22 miles away. The entire meadow surrounding his lab had a strange blue glow, similar to that of St. Elmo's Fire.
This sounds like the earlier discussion of blue lightning. With a wide path of electromagnetic waves resulting in a large lightning bolt, wouldn't that support the "burning silicon" theory? What do you guys think?
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I'm sure most of you have seen the sequel to the original "Absent minded professor" in which the professor moves from Flubber to "Flubber Gas".
The reason I bring this up is that I saw a couple things in this discussion that make me think that that movie was a tribute to Tesla.
He also mapped the EMF spectrum into 'octaves', found out how to control rainfall and extract nitrogen out of the air. Where is this knowledge being used today?
In the movie, the prof discovers how to create his own rain. When he tried to do it on a large scale, he accidentally shattered all the glass in a several block radius. Accoring to another post here, Tesla also did an experiment in which he shattered many windows in the vicinity, using a steam engine oscillator of some sort. And, in the end of the movie when the prof is in court for his damages to the windows, a farmer comes in showing the positive side effect of huge vegetables created when NITROGEN precipitated into the ground during the experiment.
Am I going crazy?
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grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
From http://www.concentric.net/~Jwwagner/p6oi.html :
;-)
We charged our original price of $18 [for Tesla T-shirts] from 1989 until recently...
So this news is, in fact, 11 years old.
A new Slashdot record!
Gerv
This is the same organization who gave credit to the Wright Brothers for inventing the aeroplace. In reality, a guy named Gustav Whitehead flew in Bridgeport, Connecticut at least two years earlier.
Check out: http://airsports.fai.org/jun98/jun9805.html
Now, if they'd give credit to the Wrights for cash or political reasons, why wouldn't they do the same to raise Edison and sink Tesla into obscurity?
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
There was a man named Mahlon Loomis who in 1866 sent a message between two mountaintops in West Virginia. For antennas he used kites, and the receiver was a galvanometer.
Tesla's confiscated papers (at least the ones they admit to ...) are available at the "freedom of information act reading room" http://foia.fbi.gov/tesla.htm
In fact, AC was well known when Tesla studied in Prague, as was it's advantage over DC - that it could be transformed to a higher voltage. Higher voltages can be more efficiently transported over long distance, but are too dangereous and inconvenient for most everyday use.
Converting DC to higher voltages would incurr such inefficiencies that the whole system would be untenable.
What the AC camp lacked, however, was a workable motor. The only motors that worked ran on DC. Again, converting AC to DC was not cost-efficient.
Tesla designed an AC motor, something considered theoretically impossible up until that time.
Also, Tesla did not "design the world's first hydroelectric plant" - Edison ran several small plants years before. What he did design, was the worlds first big AC hydroelectric plant.
None of that, of course, detracts from Tesla's real genius, just setting the record straight.
If you ever get the chance to visit the technical museum in Zagreb, Croatia, ask them to show you the Tesla exhibit.
Most of the famous Tesla experiments have been recreated for a movie made about Tesla's life about 20 years ago, and while the exhibit has been somewhat neglected in the last few years, the machines still work, and they are awesome.
I visited it about a year ago, and as I was the only visitor, the guy in charge demonstrated all the devices to me (and on me).
Very, very impressive.
Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
Richard Stallman would probably organize a boycott against AC current, and would encourage everyone to tear down the AC power lines. "No more AC! DC is the way to go!"
It would be everything Y2k was supposed to be!
*shudder*
I can't remember where I found this but it is an interesting read.
(2) What is the big deal about Tesla? Have you ever actually read a biography about him? The man was a crackpot. He was convinced there was life on Mars and that he was going to be the guy to communicate with it. He was likewise convinced that he could send vast amounts of energy around the earth in a way that would obsolete power cables.
That doesn't make him a crackpot. Have a look at the history of science... Bell was called a crackpot for inventing the phone. The Wright-Brothers were called crackpots. The guy who invented the grammophone was called a crackpot. The guy who talked about flying to the moon in the 1930's was called, guess what, a crackpot. I could continue forever...
Without all those "crackpots" we would still live in the stoneage...
He made zero contribution to physics and belittled the contribution of those mathematicians and scientists who worked to improve our understanding.
The invention of the AC Motor ( considered impossible at this time ) is surely "zero contribution to physics". This is ridiculous.
He died poor and unhappy not because he was hard done-by by society, but because he squandered the wealth he made in his youth and threated all those around him badly, under the impression that he was royalty and superior to them.
Have *you* ever actually read a biography about Tesla?
Bottomline: Either you are a troll or an ignorant sucker.
Note, that the 3rd graders didn't send email, they wrote mail, and posted them. If half of slashdot community can do this regarding issues that bother us, imagine what we can accomplish.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
There are scientists, and then there are geniuses. Tesla was a genius, but his lack of marketing skill (and pressure from Edison) left him poor and obscure by the end of his life. However, we owe most of this century's greatest inventions (radar, radio, x-ray, wireless communications, etc, etc, etc) to this man.
Edison gets credited with inventing a lot of things he didn't invent, because of amercian refusal to accept the true inventors overseas. Most notably of this is the light bulb, which was actually invented by Englishman Joesph Swan.
Actually, no. There not similar. He reminds me of Bill Jolitz, who created 386BSD. Still, that's a bit far stretched. He replaced the AT&T code from Net/2 to create an OS, and then seemed to lose interest. One hypothesis for this is that the lawsuit was raging and if he kept active, he could have been sued. So, he declined to keep the project going, which was why a patch kit was created. The only member of that group I know of is JKH, although probably some other big names were there two. From 386BSD came NetBSD, and a few months later FreeBSD.
386BSD is no where to be found, nor is Bill and his wife. I'd be interested in knowing whatever happened to him. However, Linus is no way near Tesla, as he had only ego driving him, which he has stated before. Other big names have agreed, and said fame among hackers is why they do any of it.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
hi - i'm the one who typed in tesla's autobiography that is available at a number of different sites on the web. all of them are sourced from the one i typed in, but that was a couple of years ago. then, i listed my email address as: genie.geis.com but that is obsolete now. my new email address is:
T esla.pdf
johnrpenner@earthlink.net
the original link from where all the other copies are coming from starts at my home page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Downloads/
please note the new email address if you have any questions or suggestions.
thank you,
john penner.
why pay to see someone's ads that you don't want to see? Install some filtering software.
Great Windows SFTP Server!
Didn't this have something to do with Langley?
I believe the the Smithsonian funded Langley and his experiments with flight over the Potomac - on the one manned flight test, the plane was caught in a cable on the launch platform and nosedived into the river. Futher funding was rejected.
It has been sugested (though I haven't seen anything to back this up) that had the cable not caught, the plane would have flown (not sure on how it was controlled or what). I do know that smaller scale models made by Langley prior to the full scale test flew perfectly (and some of these models were pretty big!)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
If you read the patents, you will find that what he was actually trying to harness was the difference in potential between the upper atmosphere and ground. Many of his other patents deal with using a similar system as an antenna for both radio transmission and power distribution (think of it as a VERY tall Wardenclyff tower).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This is true!
Tesla researched and studied many different forms of resonance, both electrical (the most famous form being a "Tesla" coil) and mechanical. Basically, all he did was create a mechanical oscillator tuned to the resonant frequency of the building. Just like when an opera singer shatters a wineglass by singing at the resonant frequency of the glass, a building can be toppled as well by the same method.
Tesla made the statement a few times that he could break the earth with properly timed explosions placed over the globe (whether this could really be done is unknown, but in theory, it could).
You speak of him holding globes of electricity - I believe you may be thinking of some of the old woodcuts of him in his lab, maybe with some spectators. If you look into his researches and patents, you will find that he invented glass globes which glowed, brightly - these were really similar to neon/flourescent lights. He basically set up large steel plates on either side of the room, and passed high frequency/high voltage AC through them. The globes were probably filled with argon or something similar, which glowed in the presence of the electrical field.
It is said he did something similar with a room - made it glow from within with no apparent source. Many famous scientists and experimenters from the day commented on these demostrations in their writings - these demos weren't fakeries!
What is most amusing is one of the light bulbs that Tesla created - he basically had an evacuated lamp, with a small wire run up in the center through a glass tube, with a small copper sphere on the end (all inside the evactuated bulb). The inside of the bulb was coated with a material that would flouresce in the presence of high frequency AC. He would hook that wire up to one of his coils, and the lamp would glow brilliantly - with only one terminal.
Basically the terminal inside the lamp was an antenna, the RF generated by the HF source would excite the flourescent material, causing it to glow. Because there was no arcing or such, the lamp would last a LONG time, but it never caught on...
Fast forward 100 years...
In the late 1980's-early 1990's, a company (I can't remember the company name) came out with a lightbulb EXACTLY like Tesla's, with the exception that the RF source was built into the base. Basically, the lamp could screw into a normal lamp socket, and be switched on. The bulb was being marketed as being able to last over 20 YEARS befor needing replacement. Supposedly, the bulb cost $50.00 or so, but for a 20 year bulb, it would be worth it.
Needless to say, I haven't seen this bulb at the grocery store.
The closest thing I have seen, is a brand of flourescent light bulbs that are very bright (a 30 watt flourescent bulb looks like a 100 watt incandescent bulb), and not too expensive (around 30 bucks). They supposedly last 5-6 years, which is pretty good for the money, given what you save on electricity.
I doubt we will ever see the RF bulb, though. If people bought only those bulbs, that didn't burn out - why, the rich CEOs of light bulb companies would go poor!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I didn't think that the bulb would last forever, but it did last a LONG time - much greater than that of flourescent tubes, which tend to burn out around the electrodes.
Regarding the RF, was this amount of RF any greater than that which is emitted from a monitor? Especially considering how close you sit to one?
I can imagine that if it was very great, it might be a tough sell - but I think what really killed it was probably a combo of the extreme cost (I remember these things were going to be rather costly), as well as probably something (call me a conspiracy theorist) of GE and other bulb companies worrying that such a device could take off, and they axed it in some way. Really I think the cost is what did them in, as well as poor marketing (think about the number of things we use everyday which are bad for our health, but the marketing never mentions any of that).
BTW - who was the company that was making these things - I would like to look up the patents to compare to Tesla's...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I'm a physics grad student. We respect Tesla, too.
their own version of history was its refusal to
display the Wright brothers' airplane, which
sat in the Science Museum of London until the
Smithsonian finally apologized -- in 1948!
see http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,571
More recently the smithsonian has attempted
revisionist history with the Enola Gay;
see http://www.afa.org/enolagay/home.html
And because of all the failed attempts before them, it was years after their first flight before the world recognized that the age of the airplane was upon us.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The Thomas Edison foundation (or whatever it is called) is a large contributor to the Smithsonian?
Just my $.02.
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
I had chat a few year back with a retired phsyicist who worked at the University of Sydney during WW2. He did a lot of reading on Tesla, and claimed that many of Tesla's inventions were promptly snapped up by the US government and classified. Plasma weapons, HERF guns, redio jamming devices and such. Perhaps the memory of Tesla is being aritificially supressed to stop people looking too closely at his work?
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
It's really sad how conciousless and amnesiac humanity as a whole is (well, maybe just Americans). Good old Edison was the king of electricity (not that dirty Eastern European), Native Americans peacably let us have this continent and have been our friends for centuries, which we celebrate by "Thanks" Giving (not brutally slaughtered and persecuted up to modern times in a "manifest destiny" that still lingers today), and black slaves were our happy-go-lucky companions grateful for being "civilized" by us, and fortunate to be able to drink from the same fountains and use the same restrooms (not robbed from cradles, herded with wooden yokes, and stuffed like cattle into a ship so they could slaves, then indentured servants, then lesser citizens, then prime targets for hate crimes).
I wonder who we'll "rediscover" 104 years from now.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
FYI, Mr. Wagner, the third grade teacher, has been teaching about Nikola Tesla for probably a good twenty years now, at least since before I was in third grade 16 years ago. I know, because I went to the elementary school where he has been teaching, and my younger sister was in his class. He has had a positive impact on practically all of his students.
;)
I've read a few of the comments posted, and several people seem to think what he's doing is wrong. Do you think the school board would let him continue this for 20 years if it was harmful to his students? Yes, he is very passionate about it, and he's a very energetic teacher in general, something that so many teachers and professors these days lack.
Also, I saw a post from someone talking about Tesla the rock band. If I remember right, they did a concert in the school gymnasium many years ago.
There is a large tendency to rewrite history in every collection of humans larger than zero.
This is not a special failing of the US educational system, but a general feature of the human condition. It is a credit to our culture (meaning the Western tradition, not the US in particular) that is is considered a failure, that truth is considered more important than the social benefits of a history full of heroes.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
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We apologize for the inconvenience.
Edison was obsessive, both with his "experimental method" and with his desire to prevent anyone, especially his former employee Nicolai Tesla, from usurping his domination of the nascent electrical power industry. He conducted a campaign of terror against AC power, performing horrific acts of cruelty to "prove" how dangerous AC was. He failed to show that DC, similarly, could fry your ass, counting on the layman's ignorance of electricity to cover the truth behind his scare tactics.
Comparing Bill Gates to Edison makes Edison seem less despicable than he really was. He embodied all the best of Gates but also of Scrooge and De Sade. He had no genius at all, and that is why he had to try literally everything he could lay his hands on when "experimenting". His technic reminds me of the medieval alchemists, vainly searching for the Philosopher's Stone, without the slightest benefit of understanding of chemistry or physics.
Tesla, by contrast, was a true genius. He seemed to intuit AC phenomena so clearly that he could design the "impossible" AC motor, and then continue to improve it over and over again. What he lacked was Edison's (and Gates') ability to promote mediocrity over better technology. Selling his patents for AC motors and generators (the basis of our current electrical power grid) to George Westinghouse was a desperate move to financially stay afloat; friendships aside, he gave Westinghouse the keys to the castle. Imagine owning a patent for wall current.
Edison's inventing was done by his sweatshop labs, and while his firm created lots of technology, like Microsoft, the bulk of it was created by uncredited minons and not Edison himself (he vainfully took full credit for anything his labs generated -- sound familar?). Tesla did have some extreme theories ... broadcast energy would work, but it would make broadcast radio very diffcult to implement (besides, with current high voltage power lines runing hundreds of miles across the continent, in the end we implemented a form of broadcast electricity!).
Today's analog of Tesla is probably Wozniak, a man who single-handedly invented the personal computer: microprocessor based, with a bus, in a beige box, with a built-in keyboard, external storage logic, BIOS with "high level language", and video display. Consider that he's considered a "crackpot" by today's standards for not obsessively chasing more wealth, instead choosing to spend his time and talents helping children. That's a man we should all hold up as the Tesla of our time.
(With apologies to The Woz for using the c****pot word).
The two most common things in the Universe are dark matter and stupidity.
There are still old maps that show Vineland. It's quite possible that Cristoforo Colombe saw or heard of these maps before making his expedition - he was, after all, pretty confident he would reach land before he ran out of food and water.
All of which have actually, and recently, stated things in their webspace when their corporate masters, would have probably prefered that they remain silent.
Consider that most (all) of these events would have been reported elsewhere sooner or later. If a story is going to come out, it is probably best for the company's own outlet to get the story first. No additional harm, and the outlet gets slightly more trustworthy to those of us who even consider who owns them. High-level corporate types are intelligent. They know that simple fear of consequences will keep their people's reporting in check for the most part, and the occasional negative story will keep public suspicion down. If they ever have something they really need covered up, they'll use whatever pressure they need to.
Intolerant people should be shot.
CRACKPOT? How about a guy (Edison) who makes repeated attempts to build an electrical device to communicate with "the spirit world"?
I know this is a joke (gram and meter are Greek, second is Babylonian, I believe), but lots of the scientists with units named after them *are* well known. Gauss and Newton both get used quite a bit, and most people know what Newton did, and have heard of Gauss. Tesla, while arguably the one who enabled the entire information revolution, does not get recognized in favor of Edison. It's sad when heroes like Edison and Tesla don't get equal and substantial recognition in our society. Why don't we put his picture on a dollar bill? ;)
Walt
Tesla did not invent AC power. He just proved that it was a better solution than DC power. This caused a rift between Edison and Tesla.
Edison believed that AC power was to dangerous for practical everyday use.
Tesla believed that DC power was to IMPRACTICAL for everyday use. Edison was never able to come up with a solution for the problem of added resistance in longer lines, preventing the flow of electrons.
Tesla new that in AC current, an almost unlimited length of line could be used because each individual electron in the conductor did not actually move through great distances, it was just shoved around through the same general area.
When Tesla, through the help of Westinghouse began making AC power available to the public, Edison did everything within his considerable power and popularity to discredit AC power and Tesla as being to dangerous. He is rumered to have used scare tactics to have achieved this, however I'm not so sure how true this is.
At a DC power demonstration Edison is rumored to have electricuted a small animal (I can't remember but I think it was a cat) with AC power as a demonstration as to how violant AC power is.
Tesla was always a bit of a recluse, and Edison was always in the lime-light. He overshadowed Tesla so much that by the time Edison was faced with the decision to either jump on the AC bandwagon or go out of buisness, Tesla was mostly forgoten about by the public.
It was Edisons poplarity that caused the public to credit him as the so called "Father of Electricity" even though it was Tesla who made most of the technology practical.
I don't remember ever being taught the that America won the War of 1812. In fact it was more of a draw. Each side suffered heavy losses in almost all battles fought. The slaughter finally got to a point when the US finally sued for peace by calling for a truce after the major spanking in Washington (the tactics used by the English in that battle were brilliant). If we had won the war then we would probably own a large portion of the Canadian countryside.
I don't remember ever being taught the that America won the War of 1812. In fact it was more of a draw. Each side suffered heavy losses in almost all battles fought. The slaughter finally got to a point when the US finally sued for peace by calling for a truce after the major spanking in Washington (the tactics used by the English in that battle were brilliant). If we had won the war then we would probably own a large portion of the Canadian countryside.
Teaching kids that they can make changes is great. Using them as a medium to spread your own political beliefs is an abuse of authority
Edison and Marconi, on the other hand, do not have a unit named after them
Yeah, but Marconi has that pasta named after him, you can't get much more recognition than being the CHEESIEST! >:)
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Not wanting to step on anybodies toes but how about the Native Americans, peoples of South America who have been on the North American continent according to archaeological evidence for at least 7,000 years some outlandish theories even suggest up to 12,000 years
There is overwhelming evidence that they crossed the Bering Sea at the end of the last Ice Age making their way from Siberia and possibly Northern China. The Eskimoes are a reminant of these people. How about all the crazy statues you see in Mexico with depictions of Aryan looking people or even black people and these sites are fucking ancient. I have pictures for anyone who is interested. (CHECK THE FOSSIL RECORD on HOMINID FINDS IN NORTH AMERICA as well)
How fucking conceited is it of us that only a bloody white man can discover anything. Shit the Phoenicians where master sailors when the Ancient Greeks where not even thought about having vessels that could easily go around the world eg. bear the weight and stress of ocean-going voyages.......
BLACK ATHENA BABY BLACK ATHENA
Besides the continent has been on the planet for at least 2.5 billion years so wouldn't some strange extinct animal have discovered North America. How do you discover something that is always there anyway that is my problem with calling anything a brand new discovery.
Check out maps such as the PIRAEUS MAP studied by the US Navy and the correct positioning of all the continents on it, it even shows Antartica correctly without the bloody icecap what a freakout!! This is at least 600 years old....
Now this isn't some ERIK VON DANIKEN (bloody fraud) theory this is current "mainstream" debates in Archaeology and Paleo-archaeology.
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
"Try to open your mind a little! Until you can PROVE that spiritualism doesn't exist, you don't have a case."
This statement completely disregards the scientific method. You are taking something for an absolute then asking someone else to prove it is false. This is obviously not a logical decision.
Science is based on evidence. Scientists are also rightly skeptical about new ideas. However they are also open to new ideas. Your statement that we must prove spiritualism does not exist is dogma with little proof.
I can understand that you want to explain everything around you. I think you are probably skeptical about spirituality. I just think that you are not looking at the fact that the original poster does not take ideas with absolutely no proof whatsoever without a grain of salt.
Having an open mind to formulate new ideas and extend thought is healthy. Making statements that we must prove often unskeptical information taken by many people as an absolute is not.
Gives him justice by not even mentioning his name, but attributing an AC motor built by him (with his patent number stamped onto it) to Edison? That's a sick sense of justice...
Reading the complete story on Nikola Tesla, it is clear to me now that he was a time traveler. There simply is no other explanation! This guy knew everything in advance.
Nobodies that smart...hu?
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
I visited the museum a few years back. It had some very interesting stuff, including a pretty good introductory film and a number of nifty gadgets like tesla coils, viscosity pumps, etc. Unfortunately, the staff was not very technically knowledgable and made a large number of mistakes while trying to describe the physics behind the toys. The one who led my tour was completely lacking in fluid dynamics or gas dynamics theory, while being very well versed in the conspiracy theories. I found myself bored and annoyed while standing 15 feet from a 20,000 volt ball of lightning, which isn't an easy task.
The museum also has a large selection of books and papers available, including the usual selection of books involving ufo's, cold fusion and 200 mpg cars (build your own! plans only $15.99!), not to mention "reactionless rocket engines" which were going to revolutionize space travel. This particular authors technique was actually laughable. I spent a pretty good sum of money there, and every 'technical paper' which claimed to expose frauds perpetuated by modern science turned out to be either a complete misapplication of the relevant theory or the result of a generally negligible assumption that the author's high school level phyics course neglected to include, but which was large in the particular case he examined. All in all very disappointing, because many of the people are obviously intelligent and motivated to advance science; they just aren't educated enough to be taken seriously. Their sensationalist material looks very much like exciting science when taken at face value, but unfortunately is factually incorrect in every case I've seen.
I had a lot of fun there, though, despite the low quality of some of the exhibitors. It was cheap if you didn't buy souvenirs, the exhibits themselves were excellent, and the publications were at the very least interesting. A good way to spend half a weekend, if you are so inclined. Just don't assume the authors have discoved an unknown, fundamental secret of nature, especially if a more general theory will explain their experimental results. Remember, written down != true.
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Look people, freedom of the press applies only to the man who owns one. If you don't like/trust
www.eFax.com are spammers
Ok, this is nuts talking about the "farmer vs. rainforest" like this.
Truth about slash-n-burn is that they take a chunk of rainforest, burn it, and convert it into short-term farmland. The soil it very fertile because it is pristine/untouched and has a lot of biological decomposition invested in it over the millenia.
Humans come along and strip it of its nutrients. That's right, not merely converting it to farmland but they utilize very poor land stewardship to strip the soil of its fertility. Similar to paving it over with a parking lot.
This causes a nasty side-effect: The farmland becomes poor so in order to keep up productivity they need to move on to a new patch of ground.
So, the whole "We shouldn't protect the rainforest because it hurts farmers" isn't really valid. Its similar to wanting to take away someone's rights because you're "protecting the children."
The real thing that needs to be done is education. On all sides.
-Vel
"Only when all the rivers are poison, only when all the land is barren, only when all birds and deer are gone....only then, will man realize that money cannot be eaten." -Native American teaching
Do not forget about the Skraelings (native people) who allegedly drove them back to their longboats.
I have a Norwegian family and I know what mood *I* get into when they've outdid their stay.
>;)
-Vel
I agree... whether Tesla was a great guy is besides the point. You basically have a man who goads his third grade class into furthering his own agendas, by employing "cute" tactics.
My mother teaches third grade, and at that age, students believe whatever is taught to them. There is nothing wrong with trying to inform them about a great man often overlooked, but to employ them for your own personal crusades!? I think it it is despicable.
This is similar to the world of microelectronics (and hence computers). Everybody knows Bill Gates, for supposedly revolutionizing the field, but one rarely ever sees mention of Bardeen and Shockley and the third guy whose name escapes me right now, for inventing the solid-state transistor which made this all possible, 50 some-odd years ago.
make world, not war
Don't underestimate Edison, it wasn't just dogs he electrocuted. All sorts of animals were killed. I just saw a documentary about some guy that developed alot of the execution apparatus in American prison systems, and during the movie they showed footage of Edison and others electrocuting an elephant. This is the stuff they don't teach you in elementary schools.
make world, not war
Before Gates it was Edison, Before him Franklin....*sigh* If you can't beat 'em .... write the history books.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Moderate this down (-1, Who Cares)
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
That sounds like an ion-generator power supply. They can't generate enough continuous current to be harmful, but once the capacitors are charged up they can give you enough of a pulse during the discharge to knock you over. It's like the difference between a trickle from a faucet, and a cup filled from the trickle.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
There's plenty of energy available from natural effects on Earth, but that isn't one of them. Serious investigators look for things like geothermal or ocean-thermal power instead. These effects are real, measurable and even usable.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If you truly need ad revenue from my activities to run Slashdot, you're going to have to do it without consorting with privacy-invaders.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Tesla was a genius. He was not a magician. There is a difference.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I doubt that any of the fruitcake ideas are cynically promoted. In my position as a person whose technological and scientific literacy is way above the norm, I have seen just how ignorant (clueless) the average person is. Remember, these are the same people who believe in UFO abductions and the like. They hold passionate beliefs for which they have no evidence whatsoever, and see no contradiction in this. Among this mass of scientific illiterates, there are some like Joseph Newman who believe that someone (perhaps they themselves) have The Secret to unlimited energy, and it's being covered up by unnamed "vested interests". Others with a will to believe follow the Newmans and Velikovskys etc. like sheep.
I don't know why they do it. Perhaps it's so much easier for them to believe that some human agency stands in the way of utopia rather than nature, because they cannot accept that the universe could thwart their wish-fulfillment fantasies. At the limit it's a witch-hunt mentality; if they aren't getting what they want, someone's responsible and their head should roll! I have encountered this mentality all over the place, and I can't believe that any significant fraction of these people are paid fruitcakes. I think that the combination of general dumbth and credulity, combined with lousy public education, is quite enough to explain the observations. "Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity."
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Edison tried to kill AC by having legislatures sanction its use for executions; this is how we got the electric chair. Ironically, DC would have been much more humane; just run enough current to cause the heart to clamp tight and stay that way, and unconsciousness would follow within seconds without burning. Instead we have convicts bursting into flame; burning at the stake with all the modern improvments.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Tesla rocks the house man! That teacher must be pretty cool. My favorite album is their first one, Mechanical Resonance!!!
Allright, I'm sorry, but somebody had to make the joke. *ducks*
A whole bunch of info on Tesla is also available at www.amasci.com
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
You can find Tesla on an old Yugoslavian 500 dinar bill and maybe couple or more FRY bills. At an inflation rate of more than 1000% (one thousand) I lost count. Although born in Croatia Tesla is serbian and as far as I know he is not featured on any fascist money bills.
That counter at the top of the page lets you see the /. effect in action ... I reloaded the page after a second or two and there were about 15 new hits on the page. I'd like too see the look on all of those third graders faces when they find out how many hits their page received overnight.
Bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh, bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh!
Bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh, bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh!
7th Design
Al Gore the father of the internet, enshrined within the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian.
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There is a current example of this which can be read here : http://www.abcnews. go.com/sections/tech/CNET/cnet_prop000208.html Basically this company is suing computer manufacturers (Compaq,Dell,Gateway,etc.) because they patented the IDEA of combining voice video and data, thus a computer with a netmeeting package or possibly web browser, a sound card, and a modem is in violation of their patent. This is the kind of patent that is really stupid, they don't have an actual device, or even an idea for a device in the patent, but when somebody combines existing devices in a way that realizes their idea they think they have a right to share in the profits.
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Nikola Tesla is also my favourite scientist/inventor. It's ridiculas, when you learn about AC in physics, they don't tell you who invented it. When I learnt about the radio in primary school, I was told marconi invented it - no mention what soever of Tesla.
Tesla has been erased from history, while lesser scientists like Edison get god like status (most probably cause they're American and not Serbian).
It's amazing how people are so unwilling (even teachers) to know anything about Tesla.
If anyone is interested in Tesla coils btw, you can have a look around the tesla coil webring
Uh, open up a college physics text book, does it say who the unit "Tesla" was named after? No.
He's just as credited as Dr. Kilogram, Dr. Metre and Dr. Second.
This seems to be working for me.
Andover folks: I only do this for ad sites that use stuff like <SCRIPT> tags to bypass my "originating server" cookie settings, as link4ads.com does. I make no attempt to block the normal (adfu?) ads, and I do click through those sometimes. But if you want to send a third-party tracking cookie with the ads, sorry, I refuse.
-Peter
Otherwise, I've found that Netscape will request weird URL's of my local httpd. In most cases this just means broken images, but in some cases the page refuses to load when the "ad" SRC sends a 404 error or somesuch.
-Peter
It was put up in appreciation of his work on getting hydroelectric power plants up and running.
Park rangers like to tell the story that Tesla's lap is all shiny from kids climbing up onto the statue to have their pictures taken!
A links for some info on Tesla and NF:
http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/niagara .htm
Call me a fanaticle Moron (sucker punch) but this guy reminds me of Linus Torvalds alot! Diff situation but similar goals...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Includes a link to the Nikolia Tesla Museum, also check out AK Press, stockists of many wonderful and not so mainstream books. Do a search on their web site for Tesla, a friend of mine bought me "The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla" (ISBN 0 932813 19 4 Price: $16.95). It's great- lots of images and reproductions as well as texts on everything from the immensly practical (why we should have been taught about this man at school in science lessons) to the out there flying saucer stuff (probably the reason they prefer not to teach us about this man at school!). Definitely check out about the Wardenclyffe Tower.
I was at the Smithsonian over the holidays (I live just outside DC), and I saw the Edison exhibit. I was amazed at the inaccuracy - Edison getting credit for Tesla's work, no mention of Tesla, Edison being credited with inventing the light bulb when he only improved it, and on and on. I'm glad someone is bringing attention to this misrepresentation of history by one of our most respected institutions.
On the other hand, I found this guy's web site to be overly aggressive. I don't think he is setting a good example for his students in how to influence the powers that be. And children are exposed to enough cynicism through the media without being taught it by their teachers.
No sig? Sigh...
> Wire up cables, sure you can charge everyone,
> put free power in the air? nooooo, cant do that,
> no money in that even tho its probably better.
As much as I like tesla, and think he had some
neat inventions (I notice noone has mentioned
his lesser known inventions, and as much as I
sympathise with your anti-capitalist sentiment
(I am anti-capitalist myself), I have to say
Broadcasting power is just not a good idea.
A) It would make radio transmission nearly
worthless. It tends to truely foul things up.
B) Tesla Coils are funny...they actually use
the ground itself as 1 plate in a huge capacitor.
Its a neat concept...really cool...but...
big ones (like what are needed for broadcasting
power) do weird things.
They tend to pump enough electrical energy into
the earth that "ground" is no longer zero
potential.
This doesn't even take into acount the strange
properties of high frequency energy...which would
probably make computers that we know and love
almost impossible.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Also, and on the other hand, I have heard that the Law of Conservation of Energy in Physics was proposed by a non-physicist and just accepted because it seemed to fit the evidence, not on the basis of any rigorous experiments designed specifically to test the theory.
I'm not too sure about who proposed it, but it's not really a law - more of a hypothesis AFAIK. And yes it certainly is violated at the quantum scale as described by the energy-time uncertainty relation - delta E * delta t > h-bar, where E is the amount of energy 'borrowed', t is the time it is 'borrowed' for a h-bar is Planck's constant over 2*pi. However this energy is always paid back and only manifests itself in virtual particles which have only a fleeting existance, although they cause some very profound effects on reality.
For free energy try tapping the zero-point energy of the vacuum. The vacuum state of the universe (that is empty space-time itself) is not actually zero, but some fairly large energy. If we could tap into this (and I have read of some schemes involving the Casimir effect IIRC) we would have access to essentially unlimited energy. Of course we'd probably all drown in the amount of heat we would produce, but you can't have everything can you?
The zero point is the lowest energy state in evidence. To "tap" it would require finding a lower state, and then you aren't really do anything special.
Okay, you could be right, but here's my rebuttal for what it's worth :) The vacuum contains a constant flux of virtual particles of varying energies and hence wave functions of differering wavelengths. The Casimir effect involves placing two flat plates very close to each other in empty space. Since between the two plates only certain wavefunctions are possible (those which have nodes at each plate) this means that only virtual particles with energies corresponding to these wavelengths can form between the plates. Hence the energy density between the plates is less than it is outside of the plates and there is a pressure forcing the plates together. The effect is minimal but it is there and does deliver a way of tapping the vacuum energy.
Of course this is not exactly the answer to any of the world's energy problems at the moment, but it does provide proof that it is feasible to extract some kind of energy from the vacuum.
Yellow and red text on black ? That certainly lights up my kook filter. OTOH, he's still basically right. Tesla is under-credited generally, and the Smithsonian is particularly bad at this. I don't particularly like the "Tesla the great American" spin though.
As we all know (A Brit writes) the lightbulb was invented by Swan anyway 8-)
partial agreement. the one-sided political brainwashing of children is certainly unfair; i questioned and disliked my teachers who tried it. (incidentally, that it will probably happen from parents if not outside sources is also a given. we shouldn't be so quick to point out schools and tvs as the sole culprits, but recognize many parents' lack of attention to this, as well.)
/.'s typical fare, i am surprised you did not mention this.
back to the point--i think you are confusing issues.
the tesla activism is hardly a political campaign on level with blinded letter-writing like the 'save the rainforest' one you mentioned. the tesla issue is not an existing multimillion $ campaign but rather one started at the classroom level. taken ad nauseam, one might argue that pen pal programs are despicable because they force children into writing letters without properly explaining the potential grief of unanswered letters, false joy in respondents, and broken friendships. clearly there is a distinction between extremes and, in my opinion, the tesla campaign falls within reason.
why? getting back to your point regarding failing to present both sides of the issue--i'm curious. what makes you certain that this teacher hasn't? after reading his pages, he seems to have followed a reasonable path over at least 10 years. furthermore, it seems this level of dispute with the smithsonian is a more recent development. his students (hopefully still not the same 3rd grade class as 1989, hehe) were probably not subjected to a fierce pro-tesla campaign from the start, but rather started with a class lesson on tesla and grew with the teacher through a logical course of events. i *am* concerned the younger students will miss out on the progression that led up to this point, seeing only the one side now presented. but i think that the persistence, the respect for history, and the desire to see fair recognition for a man's accomplishments (quite obviously not being done) are all very worthy causes for this campaign.
and, even if i am wrong, the intelligent students in the class will, like you and i did with our teachers, take more away from this than the teacher put in.
and, finally, a bit of sarcasm (because it wouldn't be a post without it)...
keep in mind that a possible reason for keeping tesla out, besides "lacking in theory", is because there are no giant electric, sponsorship-offering, companies bearing his name. given
after all, wagner does point out that the smithsonian did refuse to credit the wright brothers until after both of their deaths. why? allegedly because the head of the smithsonian had failed in his own attempt to build a flying contraption.
maybe *gasp* the faculties of yale, princeton, mit and harvard might know more than a couple of biased secretaries at the smithsonian?
Take a look at this link at the straight dope. I think that Telsa is romanticized by many people who want another unsung hero.
Also, if I understand correctly, it screws up any sort of wireless data transmission, including radio/tv/cell phone/cordless phone.
/.'ers love cheap space travel. How about instead of wasting all that money on environmentally unfriendly rocket fuel, just grab one of those sattelite cables, and start climbing!
Implementing GPS would require a really long cable dangling from the sattelite. Grab onto it, and plug it into your unit. (of course you would have to grab three of them)
But maybe that would be good.
Not to mention, it's probably less efficient.
'Why has he got a patent on alternating current - it's not like he invented electrons, he's just moving them back and forwards. Anyone could have thought of that.'
Actually, no textbook I've ever read here in the States has claimed that the US won the war of 1812. They usually claim a draw, since neither side won concessions from the other, and all borders returned to their previous locations. The Canadians sent us packing when we tried to invade, but in the biggest battle of the war, major British butt was kicked. Which is worse, rewriting history, or claiming revision where there isn't any? -Goliath
[nb-i am posting this w.o. reading the link. sorry]
... are very important tools in the reprogramming of our youth today. if you want to change the public's perception of a figure such as tesla, either edit, or create textbooks with appropriate content.
are too slow. why on earth is there now a Java® powered banner ad that takes more load time than the actual page (on my ol' 56k-er). please, can we agree upon animated gifs until cable modems are the rule, not the exception?
yes, moderator, this is a bit off-topic.. but it is relevent. if you don't agree, just leave me to my old lonesome
AC current is like saying "car door door" AC is alternating current. Tesla was grosly overlooked and it shocks (sorry) me to see that the Smithsonian of all places doesn't acknowledge his acomplishments. Or those of the band.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Just to clarify things a bit, britannica.com says that Telsa was born in Smiljan, Croatia; and that he ``was from a family of Serbian origin''. Britannica calls him a ``Serbian-American''.
I had a history of film class where my instructor made a lot of claims against Thomas Edison.. in fact he regarded Edison as 'The Evil One.' I trust the guy, but i still wonder how much of what he said was true.... so here are a few things that he said:
Thomas Edison did NOT invent almost any of the things he got credit for. He merely owned the patent. Apparently he ambitiously recruited talented, brilliant engineers out of college and they were the ones who invented most of the things he got credit for.
When edison made his nickelodeon and the movie camera (his was the black mahria[sp?], a huge mammoth of a machine) he didn't want movies to work like they do today. He wanted everyone who wanted to watch movies pay their nickel and look in the nickelodeon in order to watch it. One at a time. He didn't want a crowd of people to be able to watch a movie all at once, after all, you couldn't necessarily make them all pay. Along came the lumieres. There camera was small and portable. It was a brilliant machine that could be used as a camera, a projector, and duplicator for film. According to my instructor, when a lumiere camera showed up in america edison (if i remeber correctly) sent his pinkerton boys out to ruff up the guys with the camera and to more or less steal it claiming patent on the device. A couple of brothers from the south figured out how to make movies that were longer than 50' (film used to break after that length, they made a system that would allow them to film as long as they liked.) Anyway, they patented their camera and moved up to new york to make and show movies. Edison, since he couldn't patent the camera, then patented the projector with their method and bullied the brothers with his pinkerton boys. So, they took off to california (hollywood!) to get as far away as possible from Edison. Apparently that's why Hollywood is the movie capitol of the world.
Anyway, I doubt i recounted much of what i got in the film history class perfectly but that is more or less the picture I got from it. I just want to know if anyone else has learned the same thing and where they learned it because i wanted to read into it more. -WG
"America, I smoke marijuana every chance I get."
"yeah but DC is just as dangerous, and if it were to replace alternating current it would be even more dangerous tha AC."
No. Aside from the hand-clamping effect of DC, AC is more dangerous, especially at around 50 Hz, because it interferes with the operation of the heart more easily.
-- Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality.
For a while I had a poster from a hard drive company (Priam) near my desk at work.
The Wright brothers were not the first people to fly. They were the first people not to crash.
(followed by a bit of small print explaining POWERED flight, followed by their slogan "Just the right distance from the leading edge")
Well if you're going to credit Liebniz, what about Descarte?
All of this argument goes to show that in human history things are invented, often simultaneously or only months apart, seperately by more than one person. Our society is like a an ant colony in that together we build on the work that came before us to make the hill bigger and better. Things are invented when the time is right.
This does not mean to say that I believe we shouldn't try to credit those who really came first or actually did invent something. And why should Edison be our national hero if he went around electrocuting cats and dogs? Stupid jerk.
What I can't believe is that the Smithsonian could be at once both so obtuse and weird about the whole thing. Maybe the curator thinks he would get fired if people saw how ignorant he's been. I'd fire him, anyway.
And who put you in charge of deciding what is meaningful and what isn't, Mr. Coward? Fact is, with the SI unit, Tesla's name is practically guaranteed to be remembered; he's in the company of a lot of the most renowned physicists, and anyone who gets curious won't have a hard time finding truthful information about him.
Edison and Marconi, on the other hand, do not have a unit named after them.
and get a fucking CLUE.
And I suggest that you get yourself some manners, Mr. Coward...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Won't they? Really? I think not. You have to look pretty damn hard to find any reference of him--and who's going to be curious enough to look up someone they don't know exists? Did you ever go look up the name Pound in an encyclopedia to try and find the inventor of the pound? Speculate perhaps about the possible scientific career of Ezra Pound? No, of course not.
Wrong. I suppose most people have considerably less curiosity than I have, but I recently did look up "Watt", and it never crossed my mind to assume that it was not named after an inventor or physicist.
As for "having to look damn hard", Just type in "tesla" at Yahoo. He even has his own category there...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
How much more "credited" can a physicist get than by having an SI unit named after him? Or do you Americans have your own units even for magnetic flux density?
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
I've got a friend that's obsessed with building a tesla coil. He actually convinced his former science teacher to let him bring it to class if he did!
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
There was a pretty interesting documentary about Tesla many years back; it basically portrayed him as falling into obscurity after losing a pretty dirty fight with Thomas Edison over AC electricity vs. DC...anyone know more about it?
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
The Edison/Tesla episode is covered in first or second year of High School in England - what on earth is wrong with the Smithsonian?
TESLIX!
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
Telsa is probably the most important man to live in the last century. I would like to point out that I have posted that link at least 5 times on /. but I am still glad to see that it hit the front page here. I have seen some comments here about how the teacher is using the third graders, and how wrong it is. That's a pretty lame reaction, because I am sure that the point was to TEACH the children that they CAN make a difference, and that they CAN right wrongs. Anyone who has children and doesn't want their children to learn that, doesn't deserve their children. Its definitely a GOOD THING(tm) that the teacher is trying to do. Do not let the flames posted here cloud your mind. Maybe these kids will grow up to make a difference if we teach them that they CAN make one. Someone should send 'em all Linux boxes:)
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
I'm not disputing that Tesla may have gotten less than a fair shake. But in just a half-hour of reading the comments and the sites they link to, I've read three different (contradictory) accounts of the Tesla-caused-an-earthquake incident. None of the sites or comments offers any evidence that any of what they claim is true; they only assure you "what I say is the truth, because what you believe now isn't."
In short, it smells very urban-legendy. It's dismayingly similar, in fact, to the 'water-powered engine' UL... "It's true! They invented an auto engine that would run on ordinary tap water, no need for gasoline at all. But that of course upset the oil cartel, who arranged to have it all shushed up..." This is a classic memetic strategy for conspiracy theories: 'The truth is being surpressed by powerful forces; the absence of evidence is actually proof of this surpression and therefore of the truth of the original claim.' Here, there are actually two entities getting credit for this surpression: Edison, because Tesla was a competitor; and the U.S. government, because Tesla's inventions were too dangerous.
Meanwhile, it doesn't help the credibility of the case that so many of those promoting Tesla's genius are clearly enamored of the 'morals of the story' -- which folklore experts will recognize as a common symptom of the UL. 'The American people are nationalistic idiots.' 'The American government surpresses the truth.' 'Traditional American icons like Thomas Edison have feet of clay.' 'There's lot of stuff out there that would fill us with wonder even today, but it's been deliberately hidden from us.'
Note what I am not saying: that any specific claim about Tesla's achievements, or about any campaign to surpress them, is true or false. But if I was trying to convince someone that the version of things they believed was actually mistaken, and that I had a more accurate version of events... I'd do my utmost to provide supporting evidence. The fact that I've seen none makes me wonder.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Go and search for 'tesla'. It told me I got 11 hits, but it would not display any of them. Is anyone else having this problem?
:-)
Try the smithsonians history of electricity . No mention of Tesla here either.
As for those of you who claim Tesla was never mentioned in your textbooks, well, my serway physics text names Tesla as the inventor of AC polyphase, the approach to transmitting electricity that 'won out'.
I think my electrical circuits text also covers Tesla; certianly all my EE instructors named him.
As for those of you who claim your education did not include him, well, I was taught about Tesla in both my physics and EE classes. I guess that is what I get for going to a community college.
Inventions are funnelled through great minds. Without those who have gone before you will probably struggle to discover fire or the wheel. Humean inventiveness is more like Darwinian evolution than Larmakian.
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
None of these organizations has, to my knowledge, become biased. The point I was trying to make was that we believe, as a people, that it is expected, if not acceptable, for them to become biased. There are organizations I could have put Slashdot with if they had, in fact, become puppets of "Da Man".
By the way, for those who missed it, there was a similar reason for choosing Columbus. He wasn't the first one here, so the current claim is that he opened the way for everyone else. That, of course, is the reason why the continent is named after him. Oops. It isn't, is it...
-----
No Zen is good zen
Yes, the smithsonian is not a bastion of truth. Personally I find it humorous that a teacher is complaining about that, especially after years of being told Columbus discovered America (and the numerous detentions I got for questioning and later arguing inane comments like that).
rant two
Lessons learned by the third graders so far:
rant three Having read the article, he complains that we have the right to demand the smithsonian to do what we want because we pay our taxes and their money comes from our taxes. He then complains that Orkin is unfair in donating a half million dollars (which might have come our of our taxes otherwise) in order to get their man in. Hmmmm... should have spent more money. Perhaps if he had given the donations to the smithsonian and asked them to correct the problem...
rant four
How does any of this surprise us? After all, we've been hearing people wonder about the integrity of Slashdot since the Andover and VA Linux acquisitions. If a news group is owned by a larger company (as is the case with Time, MSNBC, Webmonkey and Slashdot) we no longer truth that news group as much as we used to, as we believe they must, at times, answer to their corporate masters. Likewise, if an charity can receive donations, we believe that charity has an obligation to give something in return for those donations. That's how the game is played.
All that being said, Tesla was, and will forever be one of my heros. He will always be remembered, even if he is never mentioned. Much like Bucky Fuller after him, his legacy lives on.
-----
No Zen is good zen
Tesla was indeed a great inventor, but he's been adopted as a cult hero by the UFO/Area 51/free energy crowd, which hypes him to the point of silliness. Remember him for AC power, and forget the junk science of his later life.
For more information on maybe the most undervalued scientist of all time check the following links:
How does a Tesla Coil work
A short bio
The Tesla Coil webring
The Nikola Tesla Museum
Huge ftp archive with Tesla pcitures
Tesla's Autobiography
Very thorough plan on how to build your own Tesla Coil
This guy already made his own Tesla Coil
- -------------------------
Enjoy,
Arno
-------------------------------------------------
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
http://www.picturez.net/ - All the people all the pictures
Yeah, this does seem pretty vehement...
The funny thing is, ever since grade school I've been hearing this "Tesla-is-a-genius-and-there's-some-big-spooky-co
No, really. The man gave us A/C power, or something. If this is supposed to be some canonical example of how the NWO rewrites history, it's pretty lame. Everybody knows Tesla isn't getting the credit he deserves, and it doesn't seem to have much impact on the textbooks, and beyond that it really doesn't matter that much--especially not compared to the multitude of other historical inaccuracies that have been, are being, and undoubtedly will in the future be perpetrated on us all (and by some of us, too, most likely).
It's pretty far off what I'd want my kids' 3rd-grade teacher to do with his time and my tax dollars.
Urgh. Go ahead, flame me. It's just more fuel for a fire that doesn't really light my way, these days.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Well, to round off this off-topic discussion about bill notes: here in France, two of the four different bill notes currently in use have (among others) Gustave Eiffel and Pierre and Marie Curie on them, so engineering and science are actually honored. And since Blaise Pascal used to be on the notes, the French administration seems to agree with programming language designers...
Do I make sense? Please report if not.
My expression must have been unclear, because what you write is precisely what I meant, that the French administration and the Pascal programming language designers agreed on the merits of 17th century philospher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. By the way, he also designed and implemented, as a young man, a mechanical computing device to help with his father's accounting office.
Do I make sense? Please report if not.
To give him credit where credit is due, he did invent/discover the principle of the rotating magnetic field, on which most AC electric motors are based.
But it was George Westinghouse who "invented" AC electricity, in the sense that it was he who developed working AC equipment.
Tesla spend all he got from selling his patents to Westinghoue trying a hare-brained system for power distribution, using his "Tesla coil".
I think the best way to describe Nikola Tesla in one sentence is in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"He was a godsend to reporters who sought sensational copy, but a problem to editors who were uncertain how seriously his futuristic prophecies should be regarded"
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
His possessions at the time of his death were held by a US government agency, the "Custodian of Alien Property", as long as the war lasted. After the war, all his papers were delivered to his family in Europe.
That's why you can't get anything released under the freedom of information act: Tesla's papers haven't been in the US government's possession for more than fifty years.
What you mention as "inked out pages", are what the US government deemed adequate to publish during the war, at the time of his death.
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
They did not confiscate his papers, they impounded them as long as WW2 lasted.
When Tesla died in January 7, 1943, his papers became legally owned by his nephew, who lived in a Nazi Germany dominated country. The US government held the papers in custody as long as the war lasted. After the country which was named "Yugoslavia" at the time was liberated from the nazis, Tesla's papers were delivered to their rightful owner.
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and, AFAIK, never in his life left the territory of the USA.
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
What Tesla did invent was the AC induction motor, a somewhat cheaper to build mechanism that worked only on AC current. To claim that Tesla invented the whole AC power system is as false as to claim that the US government "confiscated" his papers after his death.
There's too much attributed to this guy; he was certainly a genius, but he had just one single great idea in his whole life (OTOH, it's certainly more than most people have).
Let's give him credit for what he justly deserves, and not more than that. I think the Smithsonian gives him justice.
troll, ...They lived in mountains, sometimes stole human maidens, and could transform themselves and prophesy...
This teacher has has introduced these grade school kids to the Western European hegemony and taught them to question their textbooks. In the 21st century, conformist United States, yes, I guess that does make him eccentric. Hope it's contagious.
Edison hated Tesla and used to go around electocuting dogs and cats in an attempt to show how dangerous Tesla's AC electricity could be.
kwsNI
heroes like Edison
As far as I can tell, Edison was as much a man of Science as Bill Gates was a pioneer of intuitive Graphical user interfaces.
Why don't we put his picture on a dollar bill?;)
Smiley noted, so sorry to be a bore, but banknotes only seem to feature national heroes. I wonder if Croatia uses his picture on their notes. (Interestingly, the Bank of England felt Michael Faraday had earned the honour of being on a £20 note. Tesla made about as great a contribution to science after all).
I'd have said Tesla was the Steve Wozniak. Or maybe someone else who Billbo Gates pinched ideas from.
Not that I have anything against pinching ideas, but pinching them then claiming you invented them is just wrong.
A coincedence perhaps but today Disinfo.com put this online:
i kola+Tesla%3A+Man+Out+Of+Time
http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=folder&title=N
The token unit of measurement offered in Tesla's name is meaningless.
And who put you in charge of deciding what is meaningful and what isn't, Mr. Coward? Fact is, with the SI unit, Tesla's name is practically guaranteed to be remembered;
Is it? Is it really? I've got a friend who's last name is Foot (well, Foote, actually, but let's ignor that). I'm sure HIS name will be remembered too, won't it? Well...no, actually, because he doesn't have any connection to the unit of distance. The name of a unit of magnetic flux is becoming the same as most other names of units--devoid of any connection to an inventor. Like it or not, Nicola Tesla != a tesla for most people, any more than my friend Peter Foote = a foot. We shouldn't care about the second--my friend didn't invent the foot. OTOH, Nicola Tesla DID invent the eponymous unit, and his name should be remembered.
he's in the company of a lot of the most renowned physicists, and anyone who gets curious won't have a hard time finding truthful information about him.
Won't they? Really? I think not. You have to look pretty damn hard to find any reference of him--and who's going to be curious enough to look up someone they don't know exists? Did you ever go look up the name Pound in an encyclopedia to try and find the inventor of the pound? Speculate perhaps about the possible scientific career of Ezra Pound? No, of course not.
Edison and Marconi, on the other hand, do not have a unit named after them.
Nor do they need one--after all, every schoolchild learns their names. Who knows or cares about UNITS, for Dog's sake? All we know or care about, in general, is the nice little fairy tales which fit so nicely into a textbook. Everyone knows Newtons name too, do they not? But not because of the newton--because they will have heard that silly story about the apple.
I'm all for Tesla, but does this teacher strike anyone else as being a couple of cans short of a sixpack? It's all very well to teach kids both sides of the story, but it seems to me that he's being just as biased as the educational system he's complaining about.
And don't get me started on the British empire declaring australia 'Terra Incognita' so that murdering most of the population wasn't murder, as legally they were only a figment of the murderer's imagination.
TomV
I found that phrase pretty odd too. As everyone here I agree Telsa deserves more credit, recognition, etc, but I wouldn't want this guy teaching my kids.
"something witty here" -- mikewood
This is surely offtopic, but I would like to see a slashbox with a webcam on the poor sites server...
.sig, therefore I am.
Or better yet a cam on concentric's IT people as they watch the smoke rise from the machine. The counter on the page is increasing exponetially, although loading of the page has yet to slow to a crawl. Must be running BSD.
I have a
Along with the world's largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator, the museum's Theatre of Electricity puts on a great show.
Michael J.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
I read the complete story on the web site and in the middle of the thing he makes the statement that they wouldn't hear him out because of their 'social and liberal agenda'. It really stuck out with me because Edison and the history books are defined (by his own story) in terms of Big Business. So I wrote a letter asking about that phrase and giving him Kudos for bringing some serious attention to the lack of Tesla there. In response, he flames me for having an agenda of my own. *blink* Here is a copy of the email I got from him. I just thought it incredibly odd. Buy a T-shirt and I will gladly take time to explain it. Otherwise, I do not have time to waste for no gain. I believe you are more interested in your political agenda than you are in Tesla anyway. *shrug*
yeah but DC is just as dangerous, and if it were to replace alternating current it would be even more dangerous tha AC.
but if you were to run the same amount of DC through the wires as we run AC, not only would you have to have many more gnerators (i think i read somewhere that NYC would require one on every block) but forget interfering with the operation of the heart, it would probably just blow it out of your chest
I still remember building a Tesla coil as a kid, probably 40 years ago. It was amazing to an 8 year old kid!
It's nice to see the guys name getting some recognition and credit.
While I see what a Tesla is, I have never hear of an Edison (Maybe the Edison is the unit of FUD?)
However, it could have been a nice thing to draw attention to Tesla in united states, but the pages linked to are mainly talking about patents, supreme court and other legal stuff. I feel it is becoming more and more difficult for an european to understand the american way of thinking...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
a little story from that time: edison came up with the idea of pushing the angle that ac is dangerous, and to make his point, gave his invention, the electric chair (a pretty barbaric way to kill), to prisons across america, under the condition that they referred to the process as "westinghousing" a prisoner.
incredible, huh?
Fortunately or unfortunately, we seem to honor political and religious heroes far more than we do men of science.
Not that the politicals and religious heroes don't deserve the credit they get.
It just seems a bit out of proportion though, IMHO.
"Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that true in the place you come from?" - Agia
What would be really interesting to see would be a book discussing Telsa's patents from a technical and technology impact point of view, and say with a companion volume that has copies of all said patents. Here is the URL of a page at Yale which deals with the Tesla issue.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
last year at the public library I found a reprint of a ~13th century map of viking trade routes which shows the middle east, greenland, and vinland down to about new york (they didn't sail to the middle east, they hiked across europe). Also note that Colombus was in norway studying something a few years prior to his expedition circa 1488. Also note that if you examine the routes of his four voyages, you will note that the only time he landed on the contenent was during the third voyage when he hit the Yucatan. And speaking of historical inaccuracies: the only war I can remember being fought over slavery was the battle of the alamo-- texas succeeded from mexico to compete with the south-- mexico had outlawed slavery. Lincoln didn't free only the northern slaves until the fourth year of the war despite his abolitionist leanings. The civil war was about the states right to succeed from the union, a right they gained when states agreed to ratify the constitution and abandon the underpowered articles of confederacy (after 8 years and 8 "presidents of the united states" starting with John Hanson). The holocaust didn't start in this century, remember the US Army sending blankets with smallpox to the native tribes. And if you dont believe we could do this, read the journals of some of the early 16th century spanish explorers. One pair traveled from mexico to florida and never saw a day where they didn't walk into a village. Under current law, George Washingto would be serving a maniditory minimum sentence for owning a hemp plantation. Although, he'd get grandfather rights, since it wasn't made illegal until prohibition. And always remember that history is written by the winners. No matter how horrific the Nazi Holocaust was, they did execute people for a crime (having the wrong religion). It is now illegal to do alot of things (DMCA vs DeCSS; victimless crimes; ). And until Custer is brought up post-humously for war crimes, history remains written by the winner. America is #1! (not for human rights-- we're way down on that list); we keep the highest percentage of our population in prison of any nation on the planet, and over half of them our in there for crime without a victim other than 'society in general'.
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We just want to know what Jeff, Frank, Tommy and the rest are doing these days!!!
Which is exactly why the generator Tesla was building for this project was never completed. When his funder (I think Westinghouse) found out that he was planning on giving the stuff away for free, all funding for the project was stopped. Result? Tesla tests the generator and blows away a chunk of Russia. I forget the name of the area, but it began w/ a "T". Anyone know?
Uh, I didn't see any smiley after your last sentence and wanted to point out that Pascal was /named/ after BP, not designed by him. He was a mathematician, though; so that field has been honored by France.
Great Book, Great Tune by the group that bore the mans name too. Nikola Tesla is one of my childhood heros, and still is to this day.
Descartes already has plenty of credit to his name, a little of it undeserved. The famous cartesian plane (named for Descartes) was actually thought of by Fermat earlier. I believe that Descartes came up with this independently but I think I remember there being evidence of him stealing some discovery. Still, fermatian plane doesn't sound as good.