what if nikola tesla had unlimited time
lots of us don't get enough credit for
our ideas but few go quite is
underappreciated as Nikola Tesla a
pioneer of technologies ranging from
electricity to x-rays Tesla was all too
often overlooked for the likes of
guglielmo marconi Wilhelm roentgen and
Thomas Edison but he simply never
stopped as a relentless innovator and
one-of-a-kind at Venter this is unveiled
and today we're answering the
extraordinary question what if Nikola
Tesla was given unlimited time are you a
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was born in 1856 in the Austrian Empire
in modern-day croatia according to an
old wives tale about his birth which
Tesla himself backed up but was never
conclusively proven he was actually born
at precisely midnight in the middle of a
violent electrical storm
the Midwife allegedly declared that
Tesla would be a child of the storm but
his mother said he did instead be a
child of light or so the story goes
anyway it's perhaps a little too
prophetic to actually be believable but
meteorological records from 1850s
Croatia are pretty hard to come by so
you just never know and really it's not
the only strange urban legend that
surrounds Tesla he was known to be
obsessed with pigeons and was also an
intense germaphobe reportedly living a
life controlled by a fear of dirt and
illness and even refusing to eat meals
of a fly was seen in his table
if those habits weren't difficult enough
for the workers at the various hotels he
lived in including the Waldorf Astoria
he was also notorious for racking up
enormous bills but never paying them
whether during a lightning storm or
otherwise Tesla certainly was born
showing signs of genius early on with an
eidetic memory and being able to do
advanced calculations in his head he
never completed university thanks in
part to a brief gambling habit but his
potential was finally seen while working
for the Continental Edison company in
the early 1880s with which he emigrated
from Europe to America relocating to New
York City but it wasn't meant to be for
reasons still largely unclear Tesla
the Edison Company after only six months
to branch out on his own according to a
popular story Thomas Edison had offered
Tesla $50,000 around 1.2 million dollars
today to fix various problems with
Edison's inventions Tesla solved the
issues but Edison went back on his word
and refused him the bonus prompting
Tesla to abandon the company and
establishing the historic rivalry
between the pair as with most of Tesla's
early life the exact circumstances of
the bust up are again an urban legend so
if Tesla were given unlimited time we'd
at least have a clearer picture of what
actually happened when Edison still be
as revered when Tesla's impact be more
widely known regardless the two men were
professional nemec's after some less
successful attempts at a 19th century
startup including Tesla electric light
Tesla met Alfred Brown and Charles Peck
businessmen prepared to back him and
together they form the Tesla Electric
Company
there followed the War of the currents
of the 1880s and 90s which saw Tesla via
George Westinghouse truly battle Edison
the former favoring his new method
alternating current and the latter
championing direct current the argument
over electricity raged for years
triggering various now infamous moments
including the time the Edison Company
actually filmed a circus elephant being
electrocuted in an apparent bid to prove
that AC was dangerous the public
personas of both men seemed set Tesla
was usually billed as some kind of non
conforming possibly crazy maverick while
Edison was a reliable serial inventor
and a safe pair of hands
even today Tesla is often painted as an
archetypal mad scientist had he the
luxury of unlimited time perhaps these
perceptions would have changed after all
the man was in many ways simply too far
ahead of his peers were he alive today
some of his ideas wouldn't seem quite as
outlandish that said a lot of his now
accepted ideas and products aren't
always traced back to him yes there's
the Tesla coil his most famous invention
one of the only products he put his name
to and a favorite in modern day
classrooms and museums the legitimacy of
that famous photograph of him checking
notes with an active coil in the
foreground is constantly brought into
question but it's all part of the Tesla
legend he's not so closely linked with
so many
other important technologies he
pioneered though it was actually Tesla
who first adjusted using radar to the
United States Navy before World War one
but they turned him down he also
effectively invented the radio years
before the Italian inventor guglielmo
marconi did Tesla first suggested the
existence of x-rays calling them
invisible radiation in 1894 a year
before Wilhelm roentgen officially
discovered them and he even warned about
the dangers they could pose if misused
finally Tesla invented the first ever
remote-controlled device a miniature
boat nicknamed the tella
automaton he was eventually able to
patent the remote-control technology but
was reportedly refused at first on the
basis that what he was suggesting was
impossible word Tesla gifted unlimited
time he'd at least have been around long
enough to see the massive impact his
ideas ultimately had and that's before
we even consider the things that weren't
even realized by him or anyone else in
his lifetime Tesla had much loftier
ambitions than just building an RC boat
and to some extent he was supported in
1901 with his reputation growing Tesla
got significant funding from venture
capitalists JP Morgan to build a tower
that could wirelessly transmit
electricity call the Wardenclyffe tower
it was built on top of his Long Island
lab but the project was only part
realized the aim had been to supply all
of New York with wireless power but by
1917 the tower itself was demolished
with more time or money Tesla might have
turned this venture into a reality to
ridding the world of electrical wires in
the process he even believed in the
possibility of electrifying Earth's
atmosphere keeping major cities
perpetually illuminated to make them
safer in some ways it feels like the
very definition of a waking nightmare
but no doubt Tesla would have continued
to try it out then there's the slew of
inventions which didn't even get as far
as the Wardenclyffe Tower Tesla famously
created a weapon of mass destruction
interchangeably called both a death ray
and a peace ray but officially named the
teleforce
describing this he said it would
accelerate mercury particles inside a
vacuum chamber to create a beam capable
of destroying 10,000 planes at once and
fear of the weapon would be enough to
end all wars and conflict he came up
with the concept
in the mid-1930s but the government's he
approached were skeptical and on
interest in the ideas were never
implemented and Tesla eventually
destroyed all trace of it which was
probably for the best the Cold War for
example would have posed an all new
level of threat had the teleforce been
realized
similarly there was the time that Tesla
in a bid to create yet another new means
of generating electricity accidentally
built an earthquake machine the machine
worked by vibrating at a high frequency
but when it was first turned on it was
much too powerful and Tesla allegedly
had to physically break it to get it to
stop or it would have destroyed the
entire building he was in a machine
powerful enough to create earthquakes
could clearly have had dire implications
have translated into a weapon but
vibrating power plants may well have
come to fruition in a world with an
immortal Tesla at its centre more
positively and perhaps more feasibly if
Tesla had gotten his way then even basic
traveling might now be completely
different - and not only because of the
advent of electric cars bearing his name
the man himself once had theoretical
plans to build an airship capable of
traveling faster than the speed of sound
powered wirelessly by electrical power
plants on the ground it would have made
travel faster and more efficient by
eliminating traditional fuel altogether
but the question of whether passengers
would ever feel especially safe in the
fabulous flying machine is another
matter entirely and lastly in his
lifetime Tesla came up with some bizarre
ideas to photograph people's thoughts
the theories worked on the assumption
that since thoughts have a visual aspect
to them they must appear in a person's
retina somehow and that photographing a
retina at the right moment would capture
their thoughts in action essentially
Tesla visited a mind-reading machine
even in today's world he'd likely
struggled to find an investor to back
the project but clearly it wouldn't be
the first time for his ideas to raise
eyebrows though he lived for 86 years
and probably accomplished more than any
other inventor of his generation the
planet would truly be a different place
had he been given complete freedom to
develop his ingenious designs and that's
what would happen if Nikola Tesla was
given unlimited time what do you think
is there anything we missed let us know
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