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$900,000 Raised For Buying Tesla's Lab
icebraining writes "As Slashdot reported earlier, The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman launched a funding campaign to help the Tesla Science Center, a 503(c) non-profit, buy the place of Tesla's final laboratory, the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York.
Well, thanks to 21511 contributors, it has already raised $912,080, well above the original $850,000 goal. But it's not too late to help: any money raised above the goal will be used by the organization to build a museum dedicated to Tesla."
I would expect this endeavor to generate some electricity and buzz.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
I totally love the idea of preserving this site.
Think they'll sell working copies of those nifty steampunk stun guns in the gift shop?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
A small error, but the original goal was $850,000 - which is slightly important, as it was the required goal to attain matched funding from local government.
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While I'm aware that'll probably be the last of their worries, it would complete the location and make it more 'monumental'.
It's probably more than I could easily justify but I figured it was for a good cause and I really wanted one of the limited signed comic books :-)
Why not use the extra money to fund some actual research in electrical engineering? I don't think there's a better way to "honor the memory" of a great scientist/engineer.
From this article "The fundraiser goal was reached in six days, put over the top by $33,333 from an anonymous donor." ... I wonder who this anonymous donor may be.
Unfortunately, due to a mysterious "bank routing error", all $900,000 was deposited into the accounts of the estate of Thomas Edison.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Tesla was a crazy genius, in that regard I think it would be more fitting to have (at least part) of the museum have live/interactive and interesting things to do and try, rather than just gazing at collectibles and ooh-and-aah-ing at antiquities (how very awesome those still might be). Perhaps a MAKER lab or something or making a bulb glow with wireless electricity, have a Tesla coil play a song on your $MP3_PLAYER. If you read The Oatmeal's Tesla cartoon, you'd already have quite some nice ideas.
Posting anon due to mod points used in this thread.
I remember it Vividly. They had a massive Tesla coil, and would fire it up with us inside the room. Then they gave us fluorescent striplights to hold, which would light up in our hands, without any wires! To this day I remember the event as the defining moment when I thought Science was awesome! My dad took me there when I was something like 9-10 years old. Loads of his old papers, demonstrations of his experiments, etc... totally awesome. There was also a room where his ashes were kept, but we were not allowed near the urn itself.
I hope that a corresponding Museum in the US would do for your kids as my visit all those years ago inspired me. Hopefully your insurance companies and health&safety people will not shut this idea down.
- Ogi_Unixnut
That's nice, but it reflects Tesla's work in his "dumb RF" period. Tesla's AC work was great, but his concept of RF was bogus. He thought the ionosphere was a conductive layer. What the Wardencliffe tower was supposed to do was use UV lamps to ionize a path up to the ionosphere so a high voltage could be pushed up to it, like a lightning bolt in reverse. Then, having energized the conductive layer, a receiver in another location far away could pick up the signal, or maybe even power. Tesla wrote this up; there's no mystery about this.
It would have been spectacular to watch, but useless as a communications system. The ionosphere isn't a big conductive plate in the sky. Also, the way to make radio work is to make better receivers, not more powerful transmitters. When Marconi first sent signals across the Atlantic, his transmit RF power was about 10KW. Tesla was planning to use megawatts on the transmit side, but didn't have anything new on the receive side.
In my view, building a museum to Tesla is important, so the actual genius, vision and true importance for humankind (Tesla) is highlighted, versus the treachery and deviousness that gets you riches (Edison).
The way I see it, this museum is not only going to educate people about what Tesla did for us all, how he enabled the modern society of the West, how he made life easier, what kind of thinker and innovator he was. No, for me this museum will also be a big "Fuck you Edison".
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Right, because government never spent money on a museum before.
Government does spend money on efforts to increase tourism, which brings money to the local economy. A Tesla museum in theory would bring more visitors to spend money (if nothing else, on food, gas, hotel, shopping, etc). There's nothing new here. Requiring the $850k to be raised is a test to confirm this is something people would want to come see.
Extend the list by replying!
The Statue of Liberty wouldn't have been built unless Americans paid for and built it's pedastel/ base. That was a huge amount of money at the time, all paid for by private citizens, many of them schoolchildren donating saved pennies. http://www.statueofliberty.org/Statue_History.html I think the Tesla Museum will be great! Here is thee BBC news story link.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19343855
And it was built on public land and has been maintained and renovated with public money. The really big difference between 1886 and today is that corporations and their executives felt an obligation to society (even the robber barons) so actually contributed to the effort. Good luck financing anything like that today, as modern business ethics classes teach that if it doesn't increase shareholder value then the executive class is pretty much forbidden to do it. This is what we get for letting a bunch of MBAs and lawyers who have never done an honest day's work run our society.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/08/22/gop_convention_held_in_stadium_built_with_public_funds.html
Perhaps the RNC should change their slogan to "Someone else built this with mostly government money".
Why is Snark Required?
Not abandoned so much as mothballed, there is a guard shack, and presumably some care-taker at least part time.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Their promotional video includes pictures of the interior. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.