A statue of the inventor Nikola Tesla — equipped with free Wi-Fi and a time capsule to be opened in 2043 — was unveiled in Palo Alto on Dec. 7.
Resident Dorrian Porter thought the perfect symbol of the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley would be the early 1900s inventor, who is also the namesake of local electric-car company Tesla Motors.
Porter commissioned Menlo Park artist Terry Guyer to design a bronze statue of the inventor, who was credited for making huge strides in the development of alternating current and wireless electricity.
Palo Alto’s public art is often on the receiving end of scoffs and chuckles, with aesthetic sensibilities that range from eclectic to eccentric. Between a giant egg and a running girl with a car for a head, there are many examples of Palo Alto’s avant-garde artistic leanings. But the Tesla sculpture is an immensely practical piece of art being brought to the city without funding from the city’s Public Art Commission.
Porter launched a successful Kickstarter.com campaign to raise $127,000 from 722 donors in 30 days, one of whom — an anonymous family foundation — put in $20,000 at the 11th hour to push the project over its goal.
Local Palo Alto developer Harold Hohbach has provided the commercial property at 260 Sheridan Ave., where the statue is situated, Porter said.
Porter founded Northern Imagination LLC this year to enable the pursuit of creative projects, ideas and inventions. The company’s goal is to advance new ideas in any area that can impact the well being and happiness of people, especially involving film or photography and ideally related to education and poverty, according to the company website.
Northern Imagination produced a short animated video to imagine what it would be like for Tesla to pitch modern venture capitalists. The video spread rapidly on social media, particularly among the startup community, generating more than 230,000 views in a short space of time.
The inclusion of free Wi-Fi is fitting for Tesla, who some say dreamed of creating a more efficient system of wireless power for the entire planet. Tesla’s inventions are widely credited as a critical part of the foundation of modern electricity transfer and wireless data transmission, Porter noted.
“This unique project pays respect to a great inventor who never had the historical recognition he deserved. But it also is intended to inspire the entrepreneurs who come to the Silicon Valley to think big and selflessly — as Tesla did — on important opportunities like energy and wireless. The free exchange of information and affordable access to sustainable energy have the potential to solve the critical issues of poverty and education, and inspire peace,” Porter said.
Supporting Silicon Valley companies of the project include GoAnimate, Nvidia, First Republic Bank (Menlo Park), and TVU networks.
More details can be found at www.teslastatue.com.
> to think big and selflessly — as Tesla did —
Tesla was a man who was very interested in money. Thomas Edison offered him $25,000 to come up with a way to generate alternating current. Telsa had been thinking about this for a while, so was able to provide a viable scheme almost overnight. Edison would not pay him–so Tesla quit and joined George Westinghouse immediately. Westinghouse saw the value of Tesla’s designs and manufactured alternating current dynamos–which displaced Edison’s direct current generators within a decade, or so.
> Tesla’s inventions are widely credited as a critical part
> of the foundation of modern electricity transfer and wireless data
> transmission, Porter noted.
It’s true that Telsa’s designs for AC current changed the game for the electrical industry. But his interest of transfering power wirelessly never amounted to anything beyond the great lab toy–the Tesla coil. Tesla did large scale experiments with this device, but was never able to prove much except that he could blow out light bulbs at great distance.
The development of radio did not have Tesla as one of the key developers.
Telsa did think a lot about using high voltage directed power to create a death ray–which he thought might be used to end war:
A Weapon to End War:
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_wendwar.html
Death Ray:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_ray
Of course–the machine gun, and dynamite, were both devices that were supposed to end war. So, it’s very likely that Telsa ideas would have not ended war–just made it worse. Some of Tesla’s ideas might have been resurrected during the years when SDI/Starwars weapons were being considered by the US, but to date–none of Teslas ideas in this area have borne fruit, at least publicly.
While it is true that Tesla might not be thought to be as well known as he should be, he was not unknown during his life time. It was, however, George Westinghouse who was able to take Tesla’s ideas to market. Tesla never would have been able to do that.
But dragging WiFi into the picture, when Tesla’s name is far better known for other contributions seems to be some sort of misguided attempt to rewrite history, if only a little.
Will this statute be visible from the street or will it be hidden behind some anonymous office building?
Dorrian Porter THANK YOU for your inspiration. I learned about your project while on a vacation to US when I happened to came across another Tesla Book to add to my collection, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. That book inspired me to search the web once again. I was amazed to learn of your project. Dorrian, you truly understand the impact that Nikola Tesla has had on the world and what we as citizens of the Earth owe this great man. He may have been a Serbian-American, but in reality he was a citizen of Earth, to which he dedicated his whole life. His contribution to our world were the basis of so many of our present day necessities.
AC current is one of the most critical inventions of all time. The development of
Radio was credited to Tesla by the fact that his patents were used in by Marconi.
“It wasn’t until 1943—a few months after Tesla’s death— that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s radio patent number 645,576.”
Remote control was developed and demonstrated by Tesla.
I could go on and on listing what he accomplished. For those that an now learning, about Nikola Tesla, for the first time, I urge you to go on the web or go to your local book store, research what this man did for us citizens of Earth. Be inspired to spread the word to your colleagues, friends and family members. Maybe one of them will be inspired to achieve or to over come all obstacles and achieve their personal vision and goals.
Nikola Tesla may your memory live in the hearts of all whose lives your inventions have impacted. Which is truly every citizen of Earth.
Tesla rocks!
http://www.spreadshirt.com/tesla-rocks-C3376A13128235
We were taught in college that Nicolas Tesla was less a scientist than a show-off. He never really did anything useful with electricity other than to produce colorful, moneymaking stunts.
he made a great deal of money in his lifetime. But he died penniless in a flea bag hotel because he spent every penny he made on useless fluff and finery, a show-off to the bitter end.
Google his name and see.
“He never really did anything useful with electricity other than to produce colorful, moneymaking stunts.”
Did he not invent and deploy (with Westinghouse) alternating current? That’s what I was taught in college. Where did you go to college?
I went to Stanford…Class of “79. We learned that Westinghouse thought AC was safe, and to prove it to Edison, ended up electrocuting an elephant ( which ended the argument when the elephant died). Tesla had a theory about it, Westinghouse made it a reality, Edison said AC was just as unsafe as DC.
Tesla was a great showman ( see the static electric ball at the Junior Museum–that is his invention).
Uh … is this honoring of Nicola Tesla in Palo Alto, which as far as I know
is a place he had absolutely nothing to do with, more to hype the Tesla
Motors Corporation? Seems like it’s a big advertisement for buying a
Tesla car.
Funny, I went to Stanford, too, physics major, graduated in 1972. Revisionist history was the taste of the day back then; perhaps you imbibed it at a later date?
Tesla created alternating current(it was not mere theory). He and Westinghouse developed it, when Edison rejected it. Edison lost the argument, and Tesla won it. Tesla’s personal habits do not matter, IMO. After all, Kennedy promoted the race to the moon, and succeeded, even if he was a massive womanizer.
> Kennedy promoted the race to the moon, and succeeded, even if he was a massive womanizer.
Of course, the moon is a woman. 😉
“Of course, the moon is a woman. ;-)”
Really? I always thought it was the MAN in the moon. Or was it Kennedy in her, his ultimate conquest?
In Roman mythology, Apollo God of the Moon, Diana (lt. “heavenly” or “divine”) was the goddess of the hunt, the Moon and birthing.
The Moon has always been associated with femininity, the Man in the Moon notwithstanding.
Luckily Wikipedia has a list of the Moon deities and their genders … females win 38 to 32.
North and South America[edit]
female Menily (Cahuilla mythology)
female Huitaca (Chibcha mythology)
female Chia (Colombian mythology)
male Coniraya (Incan mythology)
female Mama Quilla (Incan mythology)
female Ka-Ata-Killa (Incan mythology)
male Alignak (Inuit mythology)
male Igaluk (Inuit mythology)
male Tarqiup Inua (Inuit mythology)
female Yoolgai Asdza´a´ (Diné Bahane’/Navajo)
female Pah (Pawnee mythology)
female Jaci (Tupi mythology)
Ari (Tupi mythology)
Mesoamerica[edit]
female Coyolxauhqui (Aztec mythology)
female Metztli (Aztec mythology)
male Tecciztecatl see Metztli (Aztec mythology)
female and male Awilix (K’iche’ Maya mythology)
male Ixbalanque (Maya mythology)
Maya moon goddess (Maya mythology)
Ancient Near East[edit]
male Men (Phrygian mythology)
male Ta’lab (Arabian mythology)
male Wadd (Arabian mythology)
female Nikkal (Canaanite mythology)
male Yarikh (Canaanite mythology)
male Napir (Elamite mythology)
male Kaskuh (Hittite mythology)
male Kusuh (Hurrian mythology)
male Sin (Mesopotamian mythology)
male Aglibol (Palmarene mythology)
female Selardi (Urartian mythology)
Europe[edit]
female Ilargi (Basque mythology)
female Losna (Etruscan mythology)
female Kuu (Finnish mythology)
female Achelois (Greek mythology)
female Phoebe (Greek mythology)
female Artemis / Diana (Greco-Roman mythology)
female Selene / Luna (Greco-Roman mythology)
female Hecate / Trivia (Greco-Roman mythology)
male Elatha (Irish Mythology)
male Meness (Latvian mythology)
female Ataegina (Lusitanian mythology)
male Mani (Norse mythology)
female Mano (Sami mythology)
male Jarilo (Slavic mythology)
female Bendis (Thracian mythology)
female Arianrhod (Welsh mythology)
Asia[edit]
female Chup Kamui (Ainu mythology)
female Chang’e (Chinese mythology)
male Tsukuyomi (Japanese mythology)
female Anumati (Hindu mythology)
male Chandra or ‘Indu’ (Hindu mythology)
male Soma (Hindu mythology)
female Ratih (Indonesian mythology)
female Silewe Nazarate (Indonesian mythology)
female Mayari or ‘Bulan’ (Philippine mythology)
female Dae-Soon(Korean mythology)
female Neang Vimean Chan(Cambodian mythology)
Africa[edit]
female Gleti (Dahomean mythology)
male Khonsu (Egyptian mythology)
male Iah (Egyptian mythology)
male Thoth (Egyptian mythology)
male Arebati (Mbuti mythology)
male Kalfu (Vodun mythology)
female Yemaya (Yoruba mythology)
Oceania[edit]
male Kidili (Mandjindja mythology)
Papare (Orokolo mythology)
male Avatea (Polynesian mythology)
male Fati (Polynesian mythology)
female Hina (Polynesian mythology)
female Lona (Polynesian mythology)
female Mahina (Polynesian mythology)
male Marama (Polynesian mythology)
male Ngalindi (Yolngu mythology)
“Luckily Wikipedia has a list of the Moon deities and their genders … females win 38 to 32.”
Alright, I accept that the moon is female, even if she shows her man face. Is this why Kennedy designed a program to send men up there to penetrate her surface?
Do you think that Tesla actually designed an alternating current beam that touched her first? Can you prove that he did not…since we are now talking nonsense?
WHERE will the statue be placed?
> Tesla created alternating current(it was not mere theory)
Actually, Tesla was the first to conceive of a device to generate alternating current. Current has been alternating on its own since the Big Bang.
No doubt some one else would have done it, sooner or later. It’s amazing how many of our landmark scientific inventions were being researched in multiple locations at/ab–with the first to market (or patent) getting all the credit.
This is so dumb. Rich people would rather spend this amount of money on a stupid statue than spend it to help the needy in our city or region.
“Actually, Tesla was the first to conceive of a device to generate alternating current.”
More precisely, Tesla conceived polyphase AC power and the very efficient polyphase electric motor that runs on it. AC won over DC because it is superior for long distance transmission. It can be easily transformed from the low-voltage, high-current power that generators like to output to the high-voltage, low-current form that travels more efficiently at long distances through reasonably sized wires. (Put DC into a transformer and you get a loud boom, flames, and smoke.) Those 3 wires you see on metal power transmission towers are Tesla’s greatest invention.
Since Edison had tons of his money invested in local DC power systems, he resisted Tesla/Westinghouse’s AC for financial, not technical, reasons. It was Edison who killed the elephant, BTW, to show that AC could do it (so could DC). But if Tesla’s scheme to transmit industrial quantities of power through the air had succeeded, it would probably have killed anyone who got close enough to try using it.
Did we not all agree on NO more public art? It is usually ugly, and is too subjective. Also a waste of money.
For all who are interested in learning more about Tesla’s achievements, I saw an amazing PBS documentary “The Master of Lightning” http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/
It was also shown at the UNAFF.org in Oct 2013. I met directors of this project – it took them 10 years of research, they were seriously fact checking, talking to US military who confiscated his documents after he passed away and stored them in some secret undisclosed location, family members, his autobiographer Margaret Cheney etc…
He was ahead of his time. And he needed money to fund his experiments – they were expensive. For example, he accomplished his childhood dream of producing the hydroelectricity from Niagara Falls! If you ever visit, go to the American side of the Falls, there is a huge statue of Tesla.
If it were not for Titanic’s disaster and death of Mr.Astor (one of the richest Americans at the time who was great admirer of Tesla’s work and was planning in investing in his wireless research lab in NY), Tesla would have had a greater name recognition than Edison and remembered by many.
See more in the documentary about the Nobel Prize!
The article gives the address as 260 Sheridan (also see picture of it there)
Here is an easy way to learn TESLA vs. EDISON:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
Addition to the above comic:
Edison believed that fossil fuels were the future and that there were enough resources in South America to provide for the next 50,000 years. Tesla believed that renewable energy sources like hydroelectric, solar, and wind power were the future.
This is remarkable because in the 1890s there was no such thing as “going green,” so Tesla’s ideas on conservation were very forward-thinking at the time.
What did Tesla do for Palo Alto? I can think of more worthy individuals to honor who have a Palo Alto connection. I think it is the wrong thing for a dangerous car. We don’t need to promote either.
One might argue that the purpose of art is to promote discussion and opinion. We certainly have that here.
I think it looks like he has a big bowling ball and is about to score a strike.
Read our lips: No more public art!
Mayor Scharff had his State of the City address at Tesla headquarters. It seems Tesla has substantial influence over some city officials.
Elon Musk probably thinks this is all about HIM. Or, he is trying to make it so!
TESLA CARS ARE NOT SAFE. Why are we promoting this company with this useless statue?ki
Some may ask what came first chicken or the egg. Tesla motors is like a hen in this analogy. They were formed years layer.
In this case Tesla Motors honored Nikola Tesla and the visionary that he was by selecting the name for their company.
Our daily lives are better because of Nikola Tesla. Every time you turn on a light or for matter any element that uses AC electricity was made possible by Tesla. He gave up a fortune so his visions could become a reality. Just think of all the REMOTE controls that were inspired by the first wireless remote developed by Tesla.
Food for thought for all critics. Please research and be grateful that our world was blessed to have such an inventor that who was not driven by the $$$.
Anonymous … the comparison of Edison and Tesla is not such a simple black and white stuggle of good against evil or right against wrong.
Edison tried for a long time to get electric cars working, so he was not some shill for the fossil fuel industries, and I’d have to say both men, as indeed almost all men then and today are driven by money and success.
Sorry, but these simplistic caricatures of people and history always bug me a bit.
I am currently trying to unload my Tesla S. A couple of months ago, when being rescued by a tow truck driver on Central Expwy, I asked the driver if his company towed many Tesla’s ( mine has been in the shop more than out of it, though not for any safety reasons, which is why. I want to get rid of it). He said yes, BUT, the number one cars they had to tow were BMWs of all models. Number tow were Nissan Leafs, because their range is less then advertised. Number three were Range/Land Rovers, for reliability reasons. Number four would probably be late-model Hondas, also reliability issues. Tesla’s were number five, but the driver said they had never picked up any due to fires or safety issues, just failure to start during very cold weather and other reliability problems.
Teslas have a lot of bugs to be worked out, but not safety problems.
BTW, it is proving impossible to trade one in for a car of another marque. I may have to resort to Craig’s List!
This monument has nothing to do with the “Tesla Motors” or their vehicles. So all post on that subject are irrelevant to the article at hand.
This monument is dedicated to the memory of a great inventor, Nikola Tesla who invented AC electricity and pioneered the development of so many current day essentials.
Please do not get confused by the modern day company that now bears his name.
I would welcome more comments on the true subject. Post comments that brings forward knowledge of what this great man did for us. Share comments and discuss with your acquaintances news about this man. Help to spread the word about Nikola Tesla and his work. Let us citizens help to give this great man his true place in history. The truth about Nikola Tesla and his work is being discovered.
At a party or in trivia games, stump your friends by discussing Nikola Tesla.
I was recently stumped by the Major of the city that I grew up in. He asked me, “What was Tesla’s connection to our city?” Truth be know I did not know. He told me & then I researched it. The city became to be know as the “Electric City” at the turn of the century because 5 men got together and utilized Tesla AC current to develop a power generating station and then transmitted the AC power to the city over great distances. Because of the electricity, the city enjoyed a 50% growth rate. New major corporation were developed and established in the city. An abundance of work, attracted new workers to move to the city. Tesla’s AC power made it all possible. Too bad we do not have visionaries like him today. If we did maybe our economy would thrive, like it did in Tesla’s time.
> Nikola Tesla Follower
If there is no connection to Tesla motors … what is the connection of Nicola Tesla to Palo Alto?
The fact that we all use “AC” electricity for starters.
Step 1 – look at the patents that he received in US only, that will be sufficient.
Step 2 – look at what was developed based on the patents
Step 3 – answer the question, has this man affected me personally, my life, the comforts that I enjoy or my community by his inventions.
Answer – YES on every counts.
Tesla in essence has a connection to EVERY community in the world.
Dorrian Porter truly got it. Everyone should do the research to truly find out who NIKOLA TESLA was. I urge you to read up on Dorrian Porter’s journey of discovery.
Only then will you unlock your knowledge to how remarkable and visionary this man truly was.
There should be a statue in every community in the world. Mr. Porter did what we all should do. Research, learn and then take up the cause to promote others to learn.
There are still a lot that Nikola Tesla started that needs to be understood and taken to the next level. Palo Alto claims to be the center of innovation, so what better place to encourage further research than Palo Alto.
>> If there is no connection to Tesla motors … what is the connection of Nicola Tesla to Palo Alto?
> blah blah blah
So, in other words nothing. We do have a plaque for Lee De Forest who came to San Francisco in 1910, and worked for the Federal Telegraph Company, which began developing the first global radio communications system in 1912. California Historical Landmark No. 836 is a bronze plaque at the eastern corner of Channing St. and Emerson Ave. in Palo Alto, California, which memorializes the Electronics Research Laboratory at that location and De Forest for the invention of the three-element radio vacuum tube – real milestone connected to this area by amplification and switching, albeit tubes.
Tesla really has no connection to Palo Alto, except Tesla Motors, so we might just as well put up a statue to Newton or Copernicus, or Charles Darwin … or as I heard a recording from today on PBS … Carl Sagan.
But I guess buying a new DeForest roadster or sedan does not have the same mystique as the Tesla.
> Posted by Be accurate with history, a resident of Old Palo Alto
> Tesla was a great showman ( see the static electric ball at the Junior Museum–that is his invention).
Uh, I’m shocked, did you say “static” ball … as in Van de Graaff generator … a DC device that Tesla had nothing to do with invented by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1929.
There is such a thing as a Tesla coil which is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891 which generate low current, high frequency AC electricity and can stimulate corona and spark discharges (sometimes called streamers) into the surrounding air.
It saddens me reading how luck of Tesla as discoverer patents are not thought in school as main stream subjects. The ego of others, the ignorance of jealous, sets us back, humans, 1000 years backward. Is it possible that so many people still don’t find work of this man colossal. He had brain and we enjoy benefits of his work, but where is our brain? Where is to be honest from top of the government to the single man to say: “Thank you Tesla! We apologize, we did not know better.” I shiver when start to analyzing enormity of his brain capacity. OMG!
369universe – start a religion … you can all join hands and pass an AC current through the group to commune with the infinite Tesla. Sheesh!
It is great that Tesla Finally become recognized as a the most useful humen being who ever lived on the Earth. I’m Serb from former Yugoslavia, and I do share with Tesla same birth place. Thirty years ago I did migrate to USA, and as intellectual I was interested to lern what was offered to the people in the USA on cultural level. Sadly, my discovery was that science was degraded, specialy physics, polluted with wrong theories, and this was sickening as much as theology in the churches. For example: Big Bang theory, curbed space, influence of gravitation on time, speed of light as the highest posible speed in the universe etc…this stories experimentally absolutely had no conformation, but if one will try to say no to this useless theories that would be like pocking god into eye. Also life here is designed by corporations for corporations not for people-typical for Capitalism. Example: corporation decided to sale earpiece, and corp. decision did became the law. How do You fight this? I was fine without that gadget for 20 years. Similar story goes on diferent cultural levels. Looks like somebody had no interest to offer real knowledge to people, specialy to young people in the schools. Corporations do destroy good discoveries or ideas if they can’t benefit from them. Some politicians did, and thay still do promote fake knowledge to raise their national pride. This kinda order in this society in the past did not give much room to Tesla, and to his discoveries.
Tesla had problem with accepting baseless scientifical assumptions of so called theorist because His experiments where reviling true character of the nature which did disagree with wrong theories based on assumptions. Today serious scientist know that all assumptions from the past always disagree with new experimental discoveries. There was no single letter about Tesla in the book of patents in the Smithsonian Institution even Teslas alternate el. current system is responsible for generating more of energy, many times more, than all together other energy generating systems through history on the Global scale. Experimenting and investigating el. energy Tesla did discover many natural phenomena, one of this was that el. energy is essential for life on the Earth, and for existence of the Universe, while other scientist at that time wrongly give that attribute to Gravitation, so they where steel in the Newton’s era. The most important work Tesla did in last 30 years of his life wich He kept from public, and that part is going to be reveled soon as something new, and sensational. His discoveries will change in the future life on the Earth on big positive way, and there will be more statute of Tesla all over the World.
Great, great, thank you to those responsible for erecting statute in Palo Alto to Nikola Tesla, who left presents to human beings of immeasurable value that are still coming!!!
I am the huge Tesla fan and I study Tesla’s life and work for years now. I am writing on this board, although I am not from your neighborhood, not even from USA, but from Europe, Maribor, Slovenia (near to Croatia, where Tesla was born). Tesla has been living and working in our city (his first unofficial job) for almost half of the year, in 1878 – 1879.
Dear Dorrian Porter, I was amazed to find out about this project of yours. THANK YOU a thousand times for your amazing idea, inspiration and all you did for realization of this wonderful gesture.
I see above, there are so many nice words about Tesla and his work. But also so many totally wrong conceptions and statements, which shows nothing but lack of real knowledge of Tesla. To those, which see nothing in Tesla and ask himself, why to make a statue to such man, I would like to say the following:
Dear fellows. Here in Europe and my country, we all consider your town a kind of a technological center of the world, where knowledge and inventions are daily reality. By reading some of the above, very sad statements of yours, I realize a lots of you has really no idea about things you are talking about (luckily and obviously, there are also quite a lot of people among you, which knows much better and are well educated about Tesla). I don’t blame you. It is not your fault, but PLEASE. . . We are not in the 19. century any more. You can read, you have access to internet and libraries, JUST READ AND THAN THINK WITH YOUR OWN HEAD. Therefore, I also would really like to urge all of you, including all citizens of USA, to read at least one book about Tesla (the best is to read e.g. biography of John J. O’Neill or Margaret Cheney, Mark Seifer, or books of Oliver Nichelson or Thomas Bearden (these are all and only some of your American biographers and writers who wrote about Tesla) or even auto biography by name “My inventions”). If you do that, I promise you that you are going to find out by yourself, that alternating current, AC generator, AC brushless motor, transformers, radio, wireless telegraph, remote control, HF lightening bulbs, X-rays, transmission of electricity on long distances etc., are only THE BEGINNING of work and accomplishments this man did. Alone AC generators, motors and related complete poly-phasic system of energy transmission on long distances, were enough for him to start the 2nd world industrial revolution, by himself – ALONE!! That is already enough to make him a statue or memorial in every civilized city of the planet.
But be prepared, if you decide to read about him, you are going to discover a whole, whole lot more and will remain speechless. If it would be by his choice, this world would have his wireless transmission of energy in whole planet and free energy for everyone, already 109 years ago. And there is still much, much more (dynamic theory of gravitation, flying disks, theory of ether which makes Einstein’s theory of relativity to looks like a story for children).
Tesla has 297 officially registered patents in whole world (in 26 countries) of which the most (112) in the USA!!) and about 1000 inventions. But he wasn’t only the inventor! First of all, he was the researcher, pioneer and great scientist, the biggest expert of nature and the biggest genius the planet ever have had. He is in fact much more important than Einstein, who is known all over the world, but who got recognition (pressed by politicians) he does not deserve.
So, you will find by yourself that he wasn’t only the inventor, who gave us an amazing number of practical devices, which we use in our daily life, but that he left such a big scientific heritage and knowledge, which we should and could still use today. He said himself, that he has been living not for the present, but for the future (since he was at least 150 years ahead of his time!), because he knew, that he could in not way be understood in his life time.
Now his time is coming (as he predicted). The whole world should know about Tesla and the whole population should be grateful to this unbelievable man. You are lucky to had him in in the USA, where he spent 2/3 of his life time. The thing, he was the most proud of, was (ironically) the American citizenship, although, he belong to whole humanity.
Thank YOU, Mr Perhavec, for your kind contribution!
Unfortunately, Mr Musk has actually hurt more than helped Nicola Tesla’s image in this country, because his own (Musk’s) reputation has been rather shady.
You are right, people should and easily could research Nicola Tesla for themselves, rather than confuse him with a rather dishonest and greedy businessman from South Africa.
It is my pleasure Happy Returns, to write and speak about Tesla, anywhere and anytime I can. In fact, not only in Serbia, Croatia and here in Slovenia, but in the Europe and Russia, people are starting to discover Tesla and his works again. No doubt, his revival has started and I am sure nobody and nothing can stop it. It is in fact no surprise for me, since Tesla himself has made such a prediction. Let me quote him:
“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
After years of study of Nikola Tesla life and work, I can garantee you that he never said anything without a sense. I feel like this “future” is not so distant anymore. So, don’t worry, all things will come back to their place.
Regarding Mr. Musk, it is difficult for me to comment, since I follow the work and problems of Tesla Motors rather occassionaly. I know they have had some problems with the new model. However, it is nice of Mr. Musk to donate, just a couple of days ago, 1 million USD to Tesla Science Center on Long Island, for the reconstruction of Tesla Science Center and Museum. This way, he can give at least something in return for using Tesla’s name.
Nicola Tesla invented the AC poly phase motor, which freed humans, and horses, from most of their manual labor. This alone is probably the most significant advancement of the industrial revolution after the steam engine.
He also beat Marconi to wireless communication. When Marconi sued the US Military after the WW I for infringing on his wireless patents, the Judge threw out the suit because Tesla’s patents superseded Marconi’s.
When Tesla’s lab in New York, which held many years of research notes and devices, burned to the ground, through no fault of his own (his neighbor’s business caught fire and it took out the whole building), he lost everything, and humanity lost quite a bit too.
The book “Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the race to electrify the world” by Jill Jonnes goes deep into all these accomplishments and much more; well worth the read.
Why did Edison hate AC? Because he didn’t understand it! (old EE joke).
It’s Tesla’s b-day today, and to remember him correctly, just ge his autobiography “My Inventions”
There are some false comments here 🙂
Inside the capsule is another time capsule to be opened in 2143
“Why did Edison hate AC? Because he didn’t understand it! (old EE joke).”
Nope. Money. Edison had a substantial investment in DC power generation and distribution.
Nobody really understood AC until Steinmetz demystified it.
DC is making a comeback due to solar generation and EVs. Inverter-rectifier chains are the new EE jokes, not to mention costing money and electric power.