Well, in 1922 anyway.
The story doing the rounds on the internet lately is that Einstein, the year he won the Noble Prize, was asked by a reporter how it felt to be the smartest man alive. He answered "I don't know, you'd have to ask Nikola Tesla."
And I can't find any attribution for the quote, so it's probably like the literally throngs of things we make up and attribute to Einstein, but it's a nice sentiment. And Tesla was absolutely a genius. You'd be quicker naming a modern invention that wasn't somehow connected to his work(if you can find one) than naming all the ones that are. Not just AC/DC power, but neon lights and robotics and radio control and wireless communication and...
The story doing the rounds on the internet lately is that Einstein, the year he won the Noble Prize, was asked by a reporter how it felt to be the smartest man alive. He answered "I don't know, you'd have to ask Nikola Tesla."
And I can't find any attribution for the quote, so it's probably like the literally throngs of things we make up and attribute to Einstein, but it's a nice sentiment. And Tesla was absolutely a genius. You'd be quicker naming a modern invention that wasn't somehow connected to his work(if you can find one) than naming all the ones that are. Not just AC/DC power, but neon lights and robotics and radio control and wireless communication and...
Also, look at that man. Arguably he was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound sack and massively, spectacularly incapable of handling daily life, and continuously celibate. I could still just stare at him.
Hold on, I'm trying to make myself stop petting the computer screen.
Anyway, where were we? I don't know, I've lost it now. While we're off in left field, the attribution for that picture there is here (it's a CHALK DRAWING) under this license. And I'm telling you that now, in the big letters, because if you go to the original there's a link to a video that's apparently connected (I have literally no clue how, it's in French and the subtitles didn't help much) and is possibly the strangest thing I've ever seen. Seriously. It's also not really work or child safe, fyi.
Hold on, I'm trying to make myself stop petting the computer screen.
Anyway, where were we? I don't know, I've lost it now. While we're off in left field, the attribution for that picture there is here (it's a CHALK DRAWING) under this license. And I'm telling you that now, in the big letters, because if you go to the original there's a link to a video that's apparently connected (I have literally no clue how, it's in French and the subtitles didn't help much) and is possibly the strangest thing I've ever seen. Seriously. It's also not really work or child safe, fyi.
So it's sort of fitting that I'm starting this series of blog posts about sciencey stuff with Tesla, the father of the modern world. And I could ramble on here forever, about all the different ideas he had, and the strange things he said and did. The internet likes to talk about how Tesla believed in free energy and peace, but you rarely hear that he was a proponent of selective breeding eugenics, or often rude and dismissive, and incredibly picky about the appearance of the people around him.
But I'll narrow it down to three things I didn't know about him before I started writing this.
1) In middle age he was close friends with Mark Twain, and they spent lots of time together in his lab. Clearly Mark Twain was a braver soul than I. I've seen the picture of the lightning and the cat. You couldn't pay me.
2) When Tesla died in 1943 the government seized all of his things they could get their hands on, by fair means or foul. And I knew that. I did not know that they'd released 'most' of his file in 1980 under the freedom of information act. You can see it here at the FBI archive. And it's two-hundred and forty-nine pages, but the first one is the best. I really want to know who wrote that to Hoover.
3) Of bearing to literally no one but me, we share a birthday. My mother shares a birthday with Hitler. I win.
And I'm finishing with a quote, because this is starting to get long enough I need to walk away.
“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
But I'll narrow it down to three things I didn't know about him before I started writing this.
1) In middle age he was close friends with Mark Twain, and they spent lots of time together in his lab. Clearly Mark Twain was a braver soul than I. I've seen the picture of the lightning and the cat. You couldn't pay me.
2) When Tesla died in 1943 the government seized all of his things they could get their hands on, by fair means or foul. And I knew that. I did not know that they'd released 'most' of his file in 1980 under the freedom of information act. You can see it here at the FBI archive. And it's two-hundred and forty-nine pages, but the first one is the best. I really want to know who wrote that to Hoover.
3) Of bearing to literally no one but me, we share a birthday. My mother shares a birthday with Hitler. I win.
And I'm finishing with a quote, because this is starting to get long enough I need to walk away.
“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
--Nikola Tesla
I doubt he meant that figuratively. How is that not an entire novel series about him traversing The Core and discovering all its secrets with his plucky, long-suffering side-kick?
RSS Feed
