Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived.

Yes, I've fired up my spark coil and we have on our party hats! Should be a really good shindig.

Where is that dirty rat Tommy Edison? I've got a bone to pick with him!

Nikola

Huzza!

Here here

My grandmother was born in the village next to his Smiljane

here's Memorial center with Tesla's birth home
[link to www.panoramio.com]

[link to www.youtube.com]

Edison was the same kind of bastard as Salieri was to Mozart.




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My older son seems like him. He is always taking things apart that aren't broken. He wants to see how it was built and then he puts it back together.

He never played with toys, he would look at them for a minitue, and then drop it and go look for something that wasn't a toy, it was far more interesting!

He has been using real tools since he was 2, so he could take things apart.

He figures things out that some adults can't even figure out.

I took him to science world, and there was this weird puzzle type thing that you had to figure out. No one could do it, not even the adults. He took one look at it and did it in about 5 seconds!

I have a smarty pants on my hands! :)

Bravo! You might be able to encourage your son to learn and grow by providing him science kits. I do not know what they have now but back in the day there were electronic kits with 101 projects to build, chemistry sets etc.

Enjoy your children, they grow up very quickly.

I still consider Tesla the smartest human to have ever lived in recorded history.

disinfo, tesla could pull it from the verse.

does anybody know which whisky exactly tesla was drinking ?


Just one special whisky i think i small glass a day

we still dont know hom smart he really was, because we do not understand him

Thread: Nikola Tesla and His Two-Cognitive Mode of Consciousness

There was another and still more important reason for my late awakening. In my boyhood I
suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong
flashes of light, which marred the sight of real objects and interfered with my thought and action.
They were pictures of things and scenes which I had really seen, never of those I imagined.
When a word was spoken to me the image of the object it designated would present itself vividly
to my vision and sometimes I was quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or
not. This caused me great discomfort and anxiety. None of the students of psychology or
physiology whom I have consulted could ever explain satisfactorily these phenomena. They
seem to have been unique altho I was probably predisposed as I know that my brother
experienced a similar trouble. The theory I have formulated is that the images were the result of
a reflex action from the brain on the retina under great excitation. They certainly were not
hallucinations such as are produced in diseased and anguished minds, for in other respects I was
normal and composed. To give an idea of my distress, suppose that I had witnest a funeral or
some such nerve-racking spectacle. Then, inevitably, in the stillness of night, a vivid picture of
the scene would thrust itself before my eyes and persist despite all my efforts to banish it.
Sometimes it would even remain fixt in space tho I pushed my hand thru it. If my explanation is
correct, it should be able to project on a screen the image of any object one conceives and make
it visible. Such an advance would revolutionize all human relations. I am convinced that this
wonder can and will be accomplished in time to come; I may add that I have devoted much
thought to the solution of the problem.
To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something
else I had seen, and in this way I would of ten obtain temporary relief; but in order to get it I had to
conjure continuously new images. It was not long before I found that I had exhausted all of those
at my command; my "reel" had run out, as it were, because I had seen little of the world—only
objects in my home and the immediate surroundings. As I performed these mental operations for
the second or third time, in order to chase the appearances from my vision, the remedy gradually
lost all its force. Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the
small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes. These were at first very blurred
and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but by and
by I succeeded in fixing them; they gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the
concreteness of real things. I soon discovered that my best comfort was attained if I simply went
on in my vision farther and farther, getting new impressions all the time, and so I began to
travel—of course, in my mind. Every night (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would
start on my journeys—see new places, cities and countries—live there, meet people and make
friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear
to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations.
This I did constantly until I was about seventeen when my thoughts turned seriously to invention.
Then I observed to my delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models,
drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led
unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and
ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much
more expeditious and efficient. The moment one constructs a device to carry into practise a
crude idea he finds himself unavoidably engrost with the details and defects of the apparatus. As
he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight
of the great underlying principle. Results may be obtained but always at the sacrifice of quality.

[link to www.tfcbooks.com]

THE TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRIC ENERGY WITHOUT WIRES: Nikola Tesla, 1904-03-05




Towards the close of 1898 a systematic research, carried on for a number of years with the object of perfecting a method of transmission of electrical energy through the natural medium, led me to recognize three important necessities; First, to develop a transmitter of great power; second, to perfect means for individualizing and isolating the energy transmitted; and, third, to ascertain the laws of propagation of currents through the earth and the atmosphere. Various reasons, not the least of which was the help proffered by my friend Leonard E. Curtis and the Colorado Springs Electric Company, determined me to select for my experimental investigations the large plateau, two thousand meters above sea-level, in the vicinity of that delightful resort, which I reached late in May, 1899. I had not been there but a few days when I congratulated myself on the happy choice and I began the task, for which I had long trained myself, with a grateful sense and full of inspiring hope. The perfect purity of the air, the unequaled beauty of the sky, the imposing sight of a high mountain range, the quiet and restfulness of the place — all around contributed to make the conditions, for scientific observation ideal. To this was added the exhilarating influence of a glorious climate and a singular sharpening of the senses. In those regions the organs undergo perceptible physical changes. The eyes assume an extraordinary limpidity, improving vision; the ears dry out and become more susceptible to sound. Objects can be clearly distinguished there at distances such that I prefer to have them told by someone else, and I have heard — this I can venture to vouch for — the claps of thunder seven and eight hundred kilometers away. I might have done better still, had it not been tedious to wait for the sounds to arrive, in definite intervals, as heralded precisely by an electrical indicating apparatus — nearly an hour before.

In the middle of June, while preparations for other work were going on, I arranged one of my receiving transformers with the view of determining in a novel manner, experimentally, the electric potential of the globe and studying its periodic and casual fluctuations. This formed part of a plan carefully mapped out in advance. A highly sensitive, selfrestorative device, controlling a recording instrument, was included in the secondary circuit, while the primary was connected to the ground and an elevated terminal of adjustable capacity. The variations of potential gave rise to electric surgings in the primary; these generated secondary currents, which in turn affected the sensitive device and recorder in proportion to their intensity. The earth was found to be, literally, alive with electrical vibrations, and soon I was deeply absorbed in this interesting investigation. No better opportunities for such observations as I intended to make could be found anywhere. Colorado is a country famous for the natural displays of electric force. In that dry and rarefied atmosphere the sun's rays beat the objects with fierce intensity. I raised steam, to a dangerous pressure, in barrels filled with concentrated salt solution, and the tin-foil coatings of some of my elevated terminals shriveled up in the fiery blaze. An experimental high-tension transformer, carelessly exposed to the rays of the setting sun, had m'Dst of its insulating compound melted out and was rendered useless. Aided by the dryness and rarefaction of the air, the water evaporates as in a boiler, and static electricity is develcped in abundance. Lightning discharges are, accordingly, very frequent and sometimes of inconceivable violence. On one occasion approximately twelve thousand discharges occurred in two hours, and all in a radius of certainly less than fifty kilometers from the laboratory. Many of them resembled gigantic trees of fire with the trunks up or down. I never saw fire balls, but as a compensation for my disappointment I succeeded later in determining the mode of their formation and producing them artificially.

In the latter part of the same month I noticed. several times that my instruments were affected stronger by discharges taking place at great distances than by those near by. This puzzled me very much. What was the cause? A number of observations proved that it could not be due to the differences in the intensity of the individual discharges, and I readily ascertained that the phenomenon was not the result of a varying relation between the periods of my receiving circuits and those of the terrestrial disturbances. One night, as I was walking home with an assistant, meditating over these experiences, I was suddenly staggered by a thought. Years ago, when I wrote a chapter of my lecture before the Franklin Institute and the National Electric Light Association, it had presented itself to me, but I had dismissed it as absurd and impossible. I banished it again. Nevertheless, my instinct was aroused and somehow I felt that I was nearing a great revelation.

It was on the third of July — the date I shall never forget — when I obtained the first decisive experimental evidence of a truth of overwhelming importance for the advancement of humanity. A dense mass of strongly charged clouds gathered in the west and towards the evening a violent storm broke loose which, after spending much of its fury in the mountains, was driven away with great velocity over the plains. Heavy and long persisting arcs formed almost in regular time intervals. My observations were now greatly facilitated and rendered more accurate by the experiences already gained. I was able to handle my instruments quickly and I was prepared. The recording apparatus being properly adjusted, its indications became fainter and fainter with the increasing distance of the storm, until they ceased altogether. I was watching in eager expectation. Surely enough, in a little while the indications again began, grew stronger and stronger and, after passing through a maximum, gradually decreased and ceased once more. Many times, in regularly recurring intervals, the same actions were repeated until the storm which, as evident from simple computations, was moving with nearly constant speed, had retreated to a distance of about three hundred kilometers. Nor did these strange actions stop then, but continued to manifest themselves with undiminished force. Subsequently, similar observations were also made by my assistant, Mr. Fritz Lowenstein, and shortly afterward several admirable opportunities presented themselves which brought out, still more forcibly, and unmistakably, the true nature of the wonderful phenomenon: No doubt whatever remained: I was observing stationary waves.

As the source of disturbances moved away the receiving circuit came successively upon their nodes and loops. Impossible as it seemed, this planet, despite its vast extent, behaved like a conductor of limited dimensions. The tremendous significance of this fact in the transmission of energy by my system had already become quite clear to me. Not only was it practicable to send telegraphic messages to any distance without wires, as I recognized long ago, but also to impress upon the entire globe the faint modulations of the human voice, far more still, to transmit power, in unlimited amounts, to any terrestrial distance and almost without any loss.

With these stupendous possibilities in sight, with the experimental evidence before me that their realization was henceforth merely a question of expert knowledge, patience and skill, I attacked vigorously the development of my magnifying transmitter, now, however, not so much with the original intention of producing one of great power, as with the object of learning how to construct the best one. This is, essentially, a circuit of very high self-induction and small resistance which in its arrangement; mode of excitation and action, may be said to be the diametrical opposite of a transmitting circuit typical of telegraphy by Hertzian or electromagnetic radiations. It is difficult to form t:!,n adequate idea of the marvelous power of this unique appliance, by the aid of which the globe will be transformed. The electromagnetic radiations being reduced to an insignificant quantity, and proper conditions of resonance maintained, the circuit acts like an immense pendulum, storing indefinitely the energy of the primary exciting impulses and impressions upon the earth and its conducting atmosphere uniform harmonic oscillations of intensities which, as actual tests have shown, may be pushed so far as to surpass those attained in the natural displays of static electricity.

Simultaneously with these endeavors, the means of individualization and isolation were gradually improved. Great importance was attached to this, for it was found that simple tuning was not sufficient to meet the vigorous practical requirements. The fundamental idea of employing a number of distinctive elements, co-operatively associated, for the purpose of isolating energy transmitted, I trace directly to my perusal of Spencer's clear "and suggestive exposition of the human nerve mechanism. The influence of this principle on the transmission of intelligence, and electrical energy in general, cannot as yet be estimated, for the art is still in the embryonic stage; but many thousands of simultaneous telegraphic and telephonic messages, through one single conducting channel, natural or artificial, and without serious mutual interference, are certainly practicable, while millions are possible. On the other hand, any desired degree of individualization may be secured by the use of a great number of co-operative elements and arbitrary variation of their distinctive features and order of succession. For obvious reasons, the principle will also be valuable in the extension of the distance of transmission.

Progress though of necessity slow was steady and sure, for the objects aimed at were in a direction of my constant study and exercise. It is, therefore, not astonishing that before the end of 1899 I completed the task undertaken and reached the results which I have announced in my article in the Century Magazine of June, 1900, every word of which was carefully weighed.

Much has already been done towards making my system commercially available, in the transmission of energy in small amounts for specific purposes, as well as on an industrial scale. The results attained by me have made my scheme of intelligence transmission, for which the name of "World Telegraphy" has been suggested, easily realizable. It constitutes, I believe, in its principle of operation, means employed and capacities of application, a radical and fruitful departure from what has been done heretofore. I have no doubt that it will prove very efficient in enlightening the masses, particularly in still uncivilized countries and less accessible regions, and that it will add materially to general safety, comfort and convenience, and maintenance of peaceful relations. It involves the employment of a number of plants, all of which are capable of transmitting individualized signals to the uttermost confines of the earth. Each of them will be preferably located near some important center of civilization and the news it receives through any channel will be flashed to all points of the globe. A cheap and simple device, which might be carried in one's pocket, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, and it will record the world's news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hundred horse-power can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity, and it must needs immensely facilitate and cheapen the transmission of intelligence.

The first of these central plants would have been already completed had it not been for unforeseen delays which, fortunately, have nothing to do with its purely technical features. But this loss of time, while vexatious, may, after all, prove to be a blessing in disguise. The best design of which I knew has been adopted, and the transmitter will emit a wave complex of a total maximum activity of ten million horse-power, one per cent. of which is amply sufficient to "girdle the globe": This enormous rate of energy delivery, approximately twice that of the combined falls of Niagara, is obtainable only by the use of certain artifices, which I shall make known in due course.
For a large part of the work which I have done so far I am indebted to the noble generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, which was all the more welcome and stimulating, as it was extended at a time when those, who have since promised most, were the greatest of doubters. I have also to thank my friend, Stanford White, for much unselfish and valuable assistance. This work is now far advanced, and though the results may be tardy, they are sure to come.

Meanwhile, the transmission of energy on an industrial scale is not being neglected. The Canadian Niagara Power Company have offered me a splendid inducement, and next to achieving success for the sake of the art, it will give me the greatest satisfaction to make their concession financially profitable to them. In this first power plant, which I have been designing for a long time, I propose to distribute ten thousand horse-power under a tension of one hundred million volts, which I am now able to produce and handle with safety.

This energy will be collected all over the globe preferably in small amounts, ranging from a fraction of one to a few horse-power. One of its chief uses will be the illumination of isolated homes. It takes very little power to light a dwelling with vacuum tubes operated by high-frequency currents and in each instance a terminal a little above the roof will be sufficient. Another valuable application will be the driving of clocks and other such apparatus. These clocks will be exceedingly simple, will require absolutely no attention and will indicate rigorously correct time. The idea of impressing upon the earth American time is fascinating and very likely to become popular. There are innumerable devices of all kinds which are either now employed or can be supplied, and by operating them in this manner I may be able to offer a great convenience to the whole world with a plant of no more than ten thousand horse-power. The introduction of this system will give opportunities for invention and manufacture such as have never presented themselves before.

Knowing the far-reaching importance of this first attempt and its effect upon future development, I shall proceed slowly and carefully. Experience has taught me not to assign a term to enterprises the consummation of which is not wholly dependent on my own abilities and exertions. But I am hopeful that these great realizations are not far off, and I know that when this first work is completed they will follow with mathematical certitude.

When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually' no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere — on sea, or land, or high in the air — humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!

dont know to much about NT ,but i herd once he had tunning fork gizmo that could create an earthquake.very cool shit if it was true.

Don't know if this has been brought up before or not (not gonna read the entire thread), and don't know a whole lot about Tesla really.

But I remember a radio show and the host mentioned that Tesla would put a pen and a piece of paper on his nightstand and when he woke up the information was written down. He also said that Tesla thought it came from aliens. And when he was in school his grades were far from being spectacular.

Anyway, it could be complete bunk, I have no idea. Just thought I'd mention it.

Read the article I posted, and you can begin to understand how this could be possible, it was at Colorada Springs where Tesla did artificially create earthquakes, amound other amazing things.

Ahhh no he did not create earthquakes in Colorado

Quite correct

No mention of free energy anywhere there is there?

He was talking about building centralized generation and transmitting the power by wireless means.

He did stumble over the solar panel by experimenting with receivers for his transmission of power as he was calling his transmission rays and thought them the same as "cosmic rays" which were just being named and mapped out at the time and which at that time included "solar rays"