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

bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is not keeping anything invented by Tesla secret.

I suppose next you are going to tell me that some guy in the midwest invented a 100 mpg drip-feed carburetor and was kidnapped by oil companies, and that Texas A&M bought Nazi technology for making synthetic gasoline from grass after WWII and has it locked up somewhere gaurded by the Corp.

These kinds of stupid psuedo-science mythologies are bad because they allow people to sit around and blame others instead of getting to work solving problems. They also obscur and distract from the real techno-conspiracies out there, such as chips in ink carts, region encoding, the Clipper Chip, a variety of schemes involving RFIDs, etc.

Re:bullshit

[cpu_fusion]

These kinds of stupid psuedo-science mythologies are bad [..] distract from the real techno-conspiracies out there, [..] the Clipper Chip, [..]

Yeah but have you heard about the Clippy Chip? Word is that Bill Gates has millions of them stashed away in his Mt. Reinier bunker, just waiting for the first commerical human-brain interfaces...

Clippy Chip: "I see your trying to go Offtopic. Would you like a corrective jolt? A distracting thought? A mental image of Natalie Portman?"

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.

Watched most of it last night....

[Aquatic-TN]

...and it was informative, to say the least. For instance, Tesla had the first patent for Radio, not Marconi. I was stunned by this information. Sadly, Tesla didn't receive as much compensation as he should have for the radio patent or his AC (alternating current) related patents, all of which were worth *trillions* of dollars. Interestingly, Tesla became *really* driven after Edison screwed him. Edison promised Tesla $50K if he solved a particular problem. Tesla managed to solve the problem, and then Edison refused to pay up. I highly recommend watching the show - it's a great history lesson regarding the technology we all are using to view /. right now (electricity and it's economical transmission/use).

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

[Hee Hee Hee]

I saw a quote of Tesla's regarding Edison. I'm paraphrasing here - "He could have saved himself a whole bunch of time with a few calculations."

Edison said "Invention is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Yeah, maybe if you ignore basic science.

Edison got a lot of credit for ideas that he bulldozed into practicality. He had the ultimate work-ethic. Sweat your ass off - don't take too much time to think.

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.

Re:"...which just adds

[rot26]

Face it. The first place I encountered books about Tesla was on the remainder tables at the bookstore

Aha!!! Absolute proof that the man was a quack!! You're a genius, man.

You obviously don't know a thing about the history of electrical distribution in the US.