I will compose this entry as simple and comic for the benefit of my two sons Victor Paulo and Juan Miguel, so that they can digest easily as to why "Nikola Tesla is the greatest geek in the whole wide world?."
Geeks stay up all night disassembling the world so that they can put it back together with new features. They tinker and fix things that aren't broken. Geeks abandon the world around them because they're busy soldering together a new one. They obsess, and in many cases, they suffer.
Over a hundred years ago, a Serbian-American inventor by the name of Nikola Tesla started fixing things that weren't broken. In a time when the majority of the world was still lit by candle power, an electrical system known as Alternating Current was invented and to this day is what powers every home on the planet. Who do we think for this invention that ushered humanity into a second industrial revolution? NIKOLA TESLA :)
You might say; "I thought Thomas Edison was the father of the electric age." Nope. It was Tesla.
When most people think of Thomas Edison, they think of the man who invented the light bulb. (Well, that's what I thought so too) Edison did not invent the light bulb; he improved upon the ideas of 22 other men who pioneered the light bulb before him. Edison simply figured out how to sell the light bulb. Tesla actually worked for Edison earlier in his career. Edison offered to pay him the modern equivalent of a million dollars to fix the problems he was having with his DC generators and motors. Tesla fixed Edison's problems and when he asked for the money he was promised, Edison laughed him off and had this to say: "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor."
Edison is a good example of a non-geek who operated in a geek space...
He believed the value of his inventions could be gauged by how much money they made. He was neither a mathematician nor a scientist -- he believed he could just hire people to do that for him. Edison was not a geek, he was a CEO.
Tesla was known for discovering amazing things and then forgetting to write them down. Edison was known for rushing to the patent office as soon as one of his employees had something. After falling out with Edison, Tesla worked on his Alternating Current electrical system. This ignited a feud with Edison. who at that time was trying to sell the world his Direct Current system. Edison's DC system required a power plant every square mile and couldn't transmit electricity very far. AC uses thinner wires, had higher voltages and could transmit electricity over long distances.
So what did Edison do?
Families living around Edison's laboratory began to notice that their pets were disappearing. This was because Edison had been paying schoolboys twenty-five cents a head for live dogs and cats. He then puts these cats and dogs on display and publicly electrocuted them using Tesla's Alternating Current. (The goal was to publicly smear Tesla's AC and convince the public that it was dangerous for home use. ) In short, the only thing Edison truly pioneered was "Douchebaggery"
Have y'all heard of a man by the name of "Marconi?" He won a Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing radio
did you know that everything he did was based on works previously done by Tesla? After Marconi became world-famous for sending the first trans-atlantic message, this was tesla's response: "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents."
Basically, Tesla = Nicest. Inventor. EVER
Ever heard of RADAR? a.k.a. that awesome technology that lets us detect objects like cruise missiles and latte'-sipping-SUV-driving imbicles who do 85 in a 45. An English scientist by the name of Robert A. Watson-Watts was credited by the the invention of radar in 1935.
Can you guess who came up with the idea in 1917? ..18 years before Watson-Watt? Nikola Tesla ;)
He pitched it to the US Navy at the beginning of World War 1 when the world was getting its butthole forcibly imploded by German U-Boats. UNFORTUNATELY, Thomas Edison was the head of R&D for the US Navy at that time and he managed to convince them that it had no practical application in war. NICE JOB EDISON! YOU BLOATED MISGUIDED ASS. I HOPE A NAZI TORPEDO HIT YOUR GRANDCHILDREN RIGHT IN THE MOUTH.
Wilhelm Rontgen is typically credited as the discoverer of X-Rays. Can you guess the moustache-donning inventor who beat him to it and got basically ZERO credit? >Nikola Goddamn Tesla<
also, when X-Rays were initially discovered it was believed that it could cure blindness and other ailments.
Tesla warned that x-rays could be dangerous and refuse to conduct any medical experiments with it. Edison, without skipping a beat when the opportunity to be awful presented itself, got to work right away on human trials in x-ray experimentations. One of his employees; Clarence Dally, was exposed to so much radiation that his arms had to be amputated to save his life. It didn't work though, and eventually he died from mediastinal cancer. Dally is considered to be the first American to die from experimentation with radiation -- FINALLY, Edison invents something original!
In addition to killing his assistant, Edison nearly blinded himself by repeatedly firing x-rays at his own eyes. When asked about x-rays later on, this was Edison's reply;
"Don't talk to me about x-rays, I'm afraid of them." Thomas Edison 1903
Fucking Idiot.
*Ever wonder who build the first hydro electric plant at Niagara Falls and proved to the world that this type of power was a practical energy source? Nikola Tesla :)
*Who was experimenting with Cryogenic Engineering nearly half a century before its invention? Tesla :)
*Who held patents over a hundred years ago that were later used in the development of transistors? The Transistor is the device which makes the information age possible so that you can refresh your Facebook page and download donkey porn and whatnot. Tesla ;)
*Who was the first person to record radio waves from outer space? (inadvertently making himself the father of radio astronomy) Tesla :)
*Who discovered the resonant frequency of the Earth? Tesla ;)
(this is something scientist couldn't confirm until 50years later when technology had caught up to what Tesla's amazeballs brain figured out in the 1890's)
*Who built an Earthquake Machine that nearly demolished an entire neighborhood in New York City when it was turned on? Tesla :)
*Ever heard of Ball Lightning? It’s a lightning that appears in a form of a sphere and travels slowly while hovering a few feet above the ground. It’s an extremely rare phenomenon and even today, no scientists have ever successfully produced it in a laboratory. Oh, except Tesla did it back in the 1890's :)
*Ever wondered who invented Remote Control? Tesla :)
*Neon Lighting? Tesla ;)
*The modern Electric Motor? Tesla ;)
*Wireless Communications? Tesla :)
You know how when you need electricity for your home and it simply rains down from the Earth’s ionosphere and charge everything wirelessly? Oh, right that was something Tesla invented but didn't share with the world probably because he was afraid of uninspired jackasses stealing his patents.
Without question, Tesla was a genius. He spoke eight languages : Serbian, English, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian and Latin. (most of us speak one or two language (and poorly at that) He could memorize entire books and recite them at will (most of us can’t even remember our passwords) He could visualize devices entirely in his head and then built them without ever writing anything down. (most of us only spend time visualizing things like naked women and greasy sandwiches)
And even more impressive, the man lived to be 86 and was celibate all his entire life. Despite being 6'6 (200cm) tall in the 1890's and mega popular with the ladies, Tesla refuses to date as he believes it would interfere with his work. (well, I sure hope he's not gay)
So with his incredible mind and all his inventions behind him, Tesla should have been rich and famous, right? Unfortunately, no. Tesla lived in a time when the world demanded results that were practical and profitable. We didn't want radio astronomy, we wanted electric bulbs and oven toasters. Tesla's contributions were not incremental; they were revolutionary.
One of Tesla's final gift to the world was a tower near New York City that would have provided free wireless energy to the entire planet. The man who financed the construction of the tower shut it down when he realized that there won’t be no way to regulate the energy and therefore it wouldn't make money.
This acquisitiveness and greed plagued most of Tesla's career, and he spent the majority of it being broke. In addition Tesla suffered from a disorder we now commonly refer to as "being batshit insane" Tesla hallucinated and often had a hard time differentiating between reality and his imagination., which is why he spent years alone working in his laboratory day and night. (He often said that the only time he was truly happy is when he is cooped up in his lab)
Tesla died broke and alone in a NYC hotel room. he'd been living on milk and Nabisco crackers, and in one of his final interviews he revealed something of a very personal nature;
"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years. but there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere. No matter where I was, that pigeon would find me, when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her.
I loved that pigeon.
Yes, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me.
As I look at her, I knew she wanted to tell me -- she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes -- powerful beams of light."
Living on crackers and talking to an imaginary laser pigeon?! .. that was Tesla's reward for all the things he gave to humanity?!
Dear Nikola Tesla,
I'm sorry. I'm so very very sorry. YOU were a man displaced in time; an Archimedes, Steve Wozniak, Tony Stark of the 19th century. You were the greatest geek that ever lived (in a time when the human race was crappier than usual) there are not enough nouns in the English language to append to the word "douche" when describing Thomas Edison but I will try anyway:
Douchebucket. Douchebagel. Douchebuffalo. Douchemouth. Douchesplosion. Douchethunder. Doucheface. Quarterpunder with douche. Douchepickle. Mixed greens with douche vinaigrette. RaisinBallsDoucheSkull.
Next month, July 10th is Nikola Tesla Day, I will try my best to edit Wikipedia in your honor.
On behalf of those obsess, tinker and fix things that aren't broken -- consider it my way of saying:
THANK YOU! NIKOLA TESLA.
Additional notes:
If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time
There's an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla. It's corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life.
The Drunk History of Tesla is quite awesome, too.
X-rays: just to clarify, Tesla did not discover x-rays, but he was one of the early pioneers in its research.
Cryogenic engineering: I'm referring to the cryogenic engineering that has to do with using liquefied air to cool a coil and reduce its electrical resistance, not freezing people and waking them up in the future so they can fight Wesley Snipes ;)
Radio: Tesla was the nicest geek ever until he decided to sue Marconi a few years later. 8 months after Tesla died, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patents on the invention of radio. So Tesla eventually won that battle, although he was dead by then.
Tesla VS. Edison: I could write a novel on the differences between Tesla and Edison, but seeing as how this entry is already huge, I decided to leave many things out. For instance, Edison killed cats and dogs, but Tesla loved animals and had a cat as a child. Originally Tesla wanted to be a poet, but after getting zapped by static electricity from his kitty he was inspired to study the effects of electricity. One could vaguely construe that Tesla's cat was responsible for the second industrial revolution, which arguably makes it the most awesome cat who ever lived.
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.
P.S. : I did mention that Tesla was celibate for 86 years, Edison married a sixteen year old girl
P.P.S. : this is the last time I'm going to bitch about Edison, I swear
Lastly, a "big thank you" Wikipedia and Google for proofreading this blog entry for me. If you want to learn things from the most awesome librarian and search engine this side of the planet, feel free to visit them.
