Tesla Special on PBS

Halvy writes "Nicola Tesla was one of those men involved with experiments with electricity and radio waves that the goverment 'feared' so much that they still keep much of his work and ideas from the public. PBS is to broadcast a show on him this April. Goto pbs.org/tesla/ for local times and listing. It should be interesting to see what kind of tid-bits PBS came up with, considering that there is so little available about him, which just adds to his cult-like admiration in the scientific and tech fields."

Comments

Old News

[profet]

So Slashdot is going to start posting when reruns air?

This special was already shown four years ago and is simply a rerun.

his inventions

[austad]

I read something awhile back that described several of Tesla's inventions.

One of them involved a device that was able to pull and electric charge out of the air somehow for free electricity, though it didn't produce that much, it could still be useful in remote areas.

The other invention involved a power plant, and basically a step-up transformer to get millions of volts. This was then piped directly into the ground via a thick metal pole driven deeply into the ground. The other part of this was a device, possibly on the other side of the planet that would tap into the ground, pick up this high voltage, low current energy, and step it down into usable power.

There was more explanation of it in the article, and apparently there are patents on both of these devices, but they do not provide enough information on how to build your own to play around with.

The article had mentioned that the government was scared of his inventions, because some of them could potentially cause free or unregulated power to the people, and if that happened, the govt would lose control of it and also lose out on major tax money.

Whether it's true or not, Tesla still had some pretty interesting inventions.

Re:his inventions

[LWATCDR]

Tesla was both a brilliant inventor and a nut case.
His AC system is still used today.
His electric motor is still used today.
These two inventions make him the equal of Bell and or Edison. The difference is that he did not start his how company he worked for someone else. That company was called Westinghouse.

Tesla's disk turbine is extermly inefficent compaired to axial or inpulse turbins or centrifical compressors. It is pretty much usless except for some pumps.
His wireless power distribution system also does not work. But it is nice science fiction.

Wardencliffe - broadcast power

[TheOldBear]

Part of my daily commute takes me past the site of Tesla's broadcast power experiment. Today, the only visible trace is the street sign 'Tesla St' conecting NY Rt 25a and North Country road.

[about 3 miles from the LILCO/Shoreham nuke reactor site, and about 8 miles from Brookhaven National Lab]

Re:bullshit

[a whoabot]

As the post above me has pointed out: how do you know?

You seem to have automatically disregarded zero-point energy systems as "pseudo-science". That goes completely against the scientific spirit. Keep an open mind. You don't believe big oil could keep something like it secret? That's naive. They have more money than you can dream of. Yes, don't automatically assume there's a conspiracy just because there's a couple webpages made by some engineer who put some schematics up. But don't assume there can't be as well.

Re:Tesla is a magnet for kooks

[MikeMo]

And the dynamic brake, and the 3-phase motor, and the AC distribution system, and many more.

Re:Watched most of it last night....

[LastToKnow]

If Mr. Edison had worked smarter, he wouldn't have sweat so much - Nikolai Tesla