Nikola Tesla

Hello Veeky Forums. I normally post on /k/ but I thought this question maybe belonged here.

I've always been fascinated by this guy. Does this board have an opinion?

Also he claimed at one point he could harness electricity directly from the Earth. Is that even possible?

>Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower),
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I'm gonna watch this thread too

>Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor
But that's Mikołaj Teslowski polish inventor of winged hussars and pope

Tesla was based and got jewed over hard by Edison.

Stealing cars and history i see, his name was actually Niklas Teslaström, swedish inventor of Swedish Deluge and Falu red

OP, lurking.

First you guys steal our vikings, and now this?
Don't be fooled OP, his name is actually Nikolaj Teslensen, and he is the Danish inventor of Lego and The Little Mermaid

For a long time, Nikola Tesla was overshadowed in the public eye by Thomas Edison as the "father of electricity". Thomas Edison was seen as THE electricity guy, single-handedly inventing the light bulb and ushering in a new age and an energy revolution.

Now, however, with the rise of the internet and changes in popular culture, Edison is scorned as a greedy businessman, all of whose inventions are ripoffs of Tesla's, while Tesla is an omniscient genius with a perfect memory that can harness the power of lightning as if he were Thor.

As is often the case when it comes to history, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes of public perception.

Edison may have competed fiercely with Tesla (and others) over the electricity market (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents) but he was also a legitimate inventor and held a number of useful patents in the field of electric and electromechanical engineering. He was not simply a greedy businessman, although he WAS the owner of the company that would grow to become General Electric, and invested in a great many projects which would later boost his wealth.

A perfect example of how he was both a scientist AND a businessman is his research related to rubber:

>Edison became concerned with America's reliance on foreign supply of rubber and was determined to find a native supply of rubber. He partnered with Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford (all three contributing $25,000 each) to create the Edison Botanic Research Corp.
Ah, so he just ponied up the money while the scientists did the real work! Typical-

>Edison did the majority of the research and planting, sending results and sample rubber residues to his West Orange Lab. Edison employed a two-part Acid-base extraction, to derive latex from the plant material after it was dried and crushed to a powder. After testing 17,000 plant samples, he eventually found an adequate source in the Goldenrod plant.
o-oh...

On Tesla: He was a very brilliant and gifted individual, that much is clear. He did invent or contribute to the invention of numerous important things that allow our current energy grid to exist. Such basic things as alternating current, remote radio controlled machines, and geothermal power were pioneered to some degree by Tesla.

However, he is often credited with inventions he did not create. Searching for what Tesla actually DID invent is often a minefield of conspiracy garbage, nationalistic showboating, and urban legends. Tesla did NOT single-handedly invent AC, or the transformer, or the induction coil, nor did he invent the loudspeaker or RADAR.

Furthermore, he was not without his faults. He was notoriously bad at managing money, and as money is required to fund any kind of research, it's a wonder he got anything done at all. He famously was given a loan by J.P. Morgan to construct a wireless power transmission tower (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower), and blew through the money very quickly. He then went back to Morgan and asked for more money, to which Morgan asked in return where the original money had gone. Tesla proceeded to blame J.P. Morgan for playing a part in the Panic of 1901 (in effect biting the hand that fed him), then asked him again for more money. Needless to say, Tesla never got that cash - and the tower never became operational.

The "Tesla vs. Edison" story that most people understand the War of Currents through nowadays is a very nice, easy, entertaining story to digest. It has an poor underdog hero, it has a big bad villain with lots of money, and it breaks down very complex decade-long processes involving numerous minor actors into a simple-minded puppet show that doesn't require a lot of effort to understand.

And that's fine for most. The current war is basically trivia at this point. But for those who want to know what really happened, you need to research, and understand that history is complicated.

Reminder that the only thing Serbs can feel proud about regarding Tesla is having such a shitty country their own great scientist ditched it as soon as he could.