carlz said:Something that's quite disturbing though. When experimenting with AC, he tried to establish the fact that it takes much less current than DC to be fatal. In order to prove his point, he paid street boys to bring him stray dogs to test his AC experiments. All ended dead of course.
carlz said:He has the typical 'mad scientist' image with him sitting in that huge room with the gigantic tesla coil in the middle shooting arcs meters long with loud cracking noises.
Those little differences led to Edison having much more financial and inventing success than Tesla, which would be why not as many people outside of engineering know much about him.carlz said:Personally, I read quite abit about him and think he is a much better engineer than edison.
Edison is more of a experiment and try an error type of person while Nicola Tesla was a theorist who worked his stuff out first before testing the results.
If you read his biography, he has no business knowledge and was too trusting, that lead to his downfall. Edison on the other hand, knew business, thus was able to outshine Nicola Tesla. Overal, I still admire Nicola Tesla more.
Those tend to be the hardest people to work with (in my experience).Ouabache said:...he was able to formulate complete designs just in his mind without committing them to paper.
Thanks for your reply. Tesla was born in Croatia but he was a Serbian, right? I have been intereseted in his biography and career. Do you know any other famous Serbian scientists and inventors ? If so, can you share it with me?Serbian.matematika said:Every child in Europe knows about Nikola Tesla.
As long as there are Serbs on this Planet Nikola Tesla will never be forgotten!
Every Serb child is tutored to follow Nikola Tesla's footsteps.
*****My great great grandfather and Nikola Tesla were sitting in the same classroom, Yugoslavia.
Again Serbian.matematika,Serbian.matematika said:Every child in Europe knows about Nikola Tesla.
As long as there are Serbs on this Planet Nikola Tesla will never be forgotten!
Every Serb child is tutored to follow Nikola Tesla's footsteps.
*****My great great grandfather and Nikola Tesla were sitting in the same classroom, Yugoslavia.
sjezdci said:but downplayed. Glorifying businessman as scientist and downplaying genius as madman is even worse.
Leon W Zhang said:Thanks for your reply. Tesla was born in Croatia but he was a Serbian, right? I have been intereseted in his biography and career. Do you know any other famous Serbian scientists and inventors ? If so, can you share it with me?
sjezdci said:by Smithsonian for example. If you ask avarage kid in US, who was Edison he will reply, great scientist, invented light bulb. Same question with Tesla's name will remain kid puzzled. Same kid will use Tesla's inventions several time a day, every day, with misguided belief that he has to thank for those things in life to people like Edison. And sad truth is that if Edison had his way, electricity would be play toy only for those that could afford DC generator in the basement and heavy copper wires throughout the house. I could go on on importance and quantity of Tesla's inventions, but one just has to read all his patents to realize that he was giant of his time. And the best part is, if you read his biography carefully you would realize that he never did it for the money. To him money was only means to do research. He believed in giving his inventions to humanity to make it better. His ideas of death rays and other weapons were instigated by hope to make wars absolete and imposible. Only thing he was seeking in life was recognition, and he died without it. What was supposed to be his biggest achievement, to provide world with means of transporting energy without wires and obstacles, was torn down by angry mob with pitch forks, due to their belief that he is sending secrets to Germans. I guess in this world one has to steal and grab anything he can to receive recognition in society. That is shamefull part of the past, and like any other dark spots in their history, US kids are shielded from, this one too is unknown to them. Being recognized only in tight scientific and engineering community is not doing justice to Nikola Tesla.
...and that's largely the fault of crackpots and science fiction writers.Ivan Seeking said:If we go outside of the crowd of science and engineering types, I would bet that very few people could cite any of Tesla's actual contributions to science and engineering. The most common citations would be for the fictionalized version of history - anti-gravity devices and conspiracy theories.
Croatia eventually became a strong independent kingdom under king Tomislav in 925, but in 1102 the Croatians ended a decade-long dynastic struggle by agreeing to submit themselves to Hungarian authority.
By the mid-1400s, the Hungarian kingdom was gravely hurt by the Ottoman expansion as much of the mountainous country now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina fell to the Turks. At the same time, Dalmatia became mostly Venetian. Dubrovnik was a city-state that was firstly Byzantine (Roman) and Venetian, but later, unlike other Dalmatian city-states, it became independent as Republic of Dubrovnik, even if it was often under the suzerainty of neighboring powers.
The Battle of Mohács in 1526 led the Croatian Parliament to invite the Habsburgs, under Ferdinand I, to assume control over Croatia. Habsburg rule eventually did prove to be successful in thwarting the Ottomans, and by the 18th century, much of Croatia was free of Turkish control. The odd crescent shape of the Croatian lands remained as a mark, more or less, of the frontier to the Ottoman advance into Europe. Istria, Dalmatia and Dubrovnik all eventually passed to the Habsburg Monarchy between 1797 and 1815.
Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, Croatia joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which became Yugoslavia in 1929). Yugoslavia was invaded during World War II and Croatia was turned into a fascist puppet-state named the Independent State of Croatia. After the defeat of the Axis powers, Yugoslavia became a federal socialist state under the strong hand of Josip Broz Tito.
Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991,
Along the lines of what others have posted, particularly Fred Garvin - refer to a biography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_TeslaLeon W Zhang said:Nicola Tesla was undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of 20 century. His contributions to Electrical Engineering field were amazing for the entire world. But, only a handful people know his name. Although he was a profound genius, he was a forgotten person in history. Why?
from Wikipedia article.. . . in the late 1880s, Tesla and Edison became adversaries in part due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current advocated by Tesla. As a result of the "War of Currents," Edison and Westinghouse were almost bankrupt, so in 1897, Tesla released Westinghouse from contract, providing Westinghouse a break from Tesla's patent royalties.
In June 1902, Tesla's lab operations were moved to Wardenclyffe from Houston Street. The tower was finally dismantled for scrap during wartime. Newspapers of the time labeled Wardenclyffe "Tesla's million-dollar folly." In 1904, the US Patent Office reversed its decision and awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio. Tesla began his fight to re-acquire the radio patent. On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 hp (150 kW) 16,000 rpm Bladeless Turbine. During 1910-1911 at the Waterside Power Station in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100-5000 hp. Later in 1907, Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for radio. Tesla was deeply resentful. In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi attempting, unsuccessfully, to obtain a court injunction against the claims of Marconi. Around 1916, Tesla filed for bankruptcy because he owed so much in back taxes. He was living in poverty.
So in the US, the general population associates the invention of the light bulb with Edison, regardless of what others had achieved before or concurrently.The invention of the light bulb is usually attributed in Britain to Joseph Wilson Swan and in the United States to Thomas Alva Edison (who first marketed the device successfully).
I asked Astronuc to clear up what had been said about Croatia not exisiting till ten years ago, since he knows a lot of Geographical history. I don't think it's erroneous to say Tesla was born in Croatia, and it is misleading to say he was born in Austria just because Croatia was under Austro-Hungarian rule at the time. That region has been called Croatia for a very long time, not just since ten years ago.Pravoslavan said:Please Astronuc... don't post about history, we are talking about Nikola Tesla. I can post the bunch of proofs that Croatia was never independent except during the World War II when it was nazi country, allies with Germany. Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. But we can continue on some other forum if you want to... this is thread about Tesla and physics forum.
I don't think he was "ignored" in scientific circles at all. He didn't present himself as a physicist but as an engineer. My understanding is that the stuff he did publish was well recieved. People were very interested in him. He was frequently interviewed by newspaper reporters for feature articles. As a younger man he frequently gave lecture demonstrations and these were always a success. I've read three different biographies of him, as well as his own little autobiography. Tesla was on the cover of Time magazine in 1931.Pravoslavan said:I think that he was completely ignored in the scientific circles because they could not understand him.
Pravoslavan said:I think that he was completely ignored in the scientific circles
russ_watters said:...and that's largely the fault of crackpots and science fiction writers.