tesla is certainly the most spectacular
example of the inventor disruptive man
out of time who has the capacity to
change our world for us
electricity is all around us
we plug into it for almost everything we
do yet when we flip a switch and have
instant access to electrical charge and
light
we probably don't give much thought to
the people who made it possible
while thomas edison may be known as the
man who invented the light bulb it can
be argued that nicola tesla's the one
who turned it on
a pure scientific genius tesla is not
dead he is very much alive among us
so who is tesla
you may know the name as a world leading
car company
or a rock band an airport a processor or
the units of measurement in an mri
machine
or those illuminating tesla coils but
nope they all took their name from one
man
it was the 10th of july
1856.
lightning lit the sky and
a baby was born
his name was nicola
nicola
tesla tesla's brain worked in the most
extraordinary way you see tesla had a
photographic and encyclopedic brain he
could design run and test 3d inventions
all in his mind before building them
exactly as it imagined including the
discovery of a new way to generate
electricity tesla's innovation are that
the genius of it
was his
invention of ways to generate
alternating current and alternating
current turned out to be very good for
making machines run while you may have
direct current on big power lines
everything else is alternating correct
okay let's stop here if you're like me
and when you hear electronic terminology
your brain malfunctions and you see and
hear this i'll try to break it down for
you
direct current only flows in one
direction at short distances at one
voltage whereas alternating current
flows in multiple directions and can
reach longer distances and the voltages
can be stepped up or stepped down
and because it could travel further we
got power into more places and we needed
less of these
this invention led to tesla winning the
war on currents against thomas edison's
dc and electrifying the world tesla's
first great invention the most that
worked with alternating current
was the invention that
helped kick off the kind of ac
revolution
he did extraordinary amazing miraculous
things during his life among us
after plugging the world in tesla began
inventing a fantastical future
she was in the business of invention and
in order to be an inventor in 1890s
american
you had to be a showbit he gives a
series of spectacular amazing lectures
here's tesla on stage he's displaying
the way the future is going to be this
is going to be a future of wireless
power
before the booming tech revolution of
silicon valley tesla was one of the
original tech superstars and way before
the non-conformist culture of the 60s he
ushered in a revolutionary new age of
conscious invention he even waxed vedic
philosophies with swami and tapping into
the earth's resources of energy
frequency and vibration
and free wireless energy
he had the idea of
building a global
wireless
power network and he was going to
transmit power
to go around the world you see pictures
in popular magazines
of
futures that were clearly
tesla features
and that tesla and future included the
world's first hydroelectric power plant
at niagara falls
and an experimental station in colorado
springs where he claimed to have talked
with other planets
and while early 20th century inventors
were still experimenting with flight
tesla focused his mind on a humanitarian
death ray to end war
tesla had talked a lot about death rates
death rays are an example of an
invention
that came out of fiction
it's something that people wanted
the science fictional death ray is
something that you could just point
and zap this was at a time new forms of
radiation were discovered
he almost discovered x-ray
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but it wasn't just tesla's inventions
that electrified the world it was his
daily habits and eccentricities so how
did he recharge his own batteries
working in dark solitude except when
conducting electricity experiments with
celebrities like mark twain
walking ten miles a day
giving up coffee tea smoking and chewing
gum that's right he said chewing gum was
more fatal than rum giving up sleep
tesla rarely slept for more than two
hours a day a lifetime of celibacy
eating only two vegetarian meals a day
electrifying himself using 18 napkins
for meals
toe squishing for brain stimulation
tuning into the frequencies 3 6 and 9
holding two opposing thoughts at the
same time like repeated hand washing and
germaphobia and then counteracting that
by loving and caring for germ-riddled
pigeons
inventing requires imagination inventing
requires a kind of projection into the
future in a short matter of time tesla
was one of the most celebrated inventors
so what went wrong
nikola tesla
did not care to be paid for anything he
did for the human race
unfortunately he ran out of money i mean
all of those grand dreams really
turned to dust while there's no doubt
tesla was a genius he was not so genius
with collecting his debts and while his
inventions helped make thomas edison and
george westinghouse rich he died
penniless the tower at warden cliff torn
down to pay for his hotel build from
riches to rags i think tesla works for
us as this kind of
alluring fantasy
rather than technological reality and
while tesla fell into darkness it turns
out lightning does in fact strike twice
no the pessimists of that day never
dreamed of the marvels that would soon
follow their predictions they overlooked
one all important fact that we should
know so well that is
the internet was coming and tesla was
reborn as a techno mystic deity he has
reached cult-like status as a patron
saint to geeks engineers and
technophiles
tesla fans have raised nearly two
million dollars to buy back walden cliff
tower and turn it into a tesla museum
he's in tv movies merchandise you can
even find him in songs
and scientists and engineers all over
the world are bringing tesla's
inventions to life
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i've been working on the detroit for
about 10 years this is a dedicated to
nicola tesla wanting to finish his work
all we know is his paper plans you
really have to spend a lot of time
studying and then trying to figure out
how to convert it into a working model
he really is one of the most fascinating
prototype inventors working by himself
in the lab tesla will have a legacy for
many many hundreds of years
even though tesla's wireless future
didn't get realised in his lifetime he
still went on to change the modern world
the forgotten genius who invented our
future but the best part of his story is
that he also invented his own
his name
was nicola tesla
he died in poverty
but he was one
of the most useful and successful men
who ever lived
you