Nikola Tesla was a great scientist and engineer - how can we go about claiming him back from the woo-woos?

He had to go and start talking about death rays, didn't he.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_flux_density

There's a start...

Cheers
John

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The engineer's mantra :-
The glass is neither half full or half empty, it's twice as big as it needs to be....

Indeed - but that unit is probably not that widely known among the Great Unwashed. Stop a random person in the street and ask them what the word "Tesla" means to them and they're unlikely to start talking about that.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

Not a death ray, but a field of 1 Tesla (IIRC) is very dangerous. It attracts metal at extreme forces. So when you're doing nice balancing things with metal tools in a 1 Tesla field and you drop the tool, it will fall to the ground and start to SPEED towards the flux source. There it will slam into it, and the results will be nasty. Like quite some other units, the unit value of the Tesla is an extremely large value.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Plus he was a stone cold fine looking man! (Very threatening to the lesser cute) Here in the US there are small gestures, like 'Tesla Day'. I wrote to the Smithsonian countless emails admonishing them on their pathetic display of Dr. Teslas' spectrum of impact on society and (literally) life as we know it today.
Smithsonian minions never replied...until I sent an email to every email address I could find associated with their site.
I was then frostily told my phrasing (you suck) was inappropriate and they were the Magazine, Not the Museum, but they would pass my thoughts on to the museum schmucks.
All I got from them was an email stating they now had my name on a 'list' they keep, apparently a list reserved for those annoying peeps such as yours truly. I never heard anything back from 'they' again.
I did hear from the Tesla Society, the one in NY, they ROCK!

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

Excellent :-)

Yes, it's all awareness isn't it. Plus the wider problem of the unquestioning acceptance of such nonsense as that which I linked to in my opening post. Sadly, this is by no means confined to matters Tesla.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

I have spent many years on the internet and such researching everything I could find on Dr. Tesla, I have never found his poetry, I would dearly love to read that!
He was/is always at the top of his game(s), that's what I love about him! He spoke his mind and didn't worry! Plus, he wasn't interested in profit, he just wanted enough capital to fund his research, what a man!!!

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

I do not deny his brilliance or his contribution to the modern world. I don't see major accomplishements after his first burst of genius, which transformed (no pun intended) the world. BUT, he also had some very bizzare ideas both in science and and in other realms

He became committed to schemes for the wireless tramsmission of energy (for use at the endpoint, not for information transfer) which had no real basis for practical application, and he dabbled with death rays.

Later in life, he showed major psychiatric symptoms, particularly regarding pigeons. He belived that his mother had been reincarnated as a white pigeon which he fed, and he feed numerous other pigeons in his aparment by keeping a window open so they could fly in and out at will.

Because of these problems, he fell out of mainstream science and industry. I think it is this factor which energizes the woo woo community, which sees him as ostracized by TPTB because his great "breakthroughs" threatened their economic interests.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

When I lived in London I used to see this train from time to time: Silverlink Metro No.313 116 Nikola Tesla. Even travelled on it!

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Carolyn

"All the screens are filled with heroes and losers, but the sky's still filled with stars"
...Midnight Oil - 'Golden Age'

Can anyone recommend a good non-woowoo biography?

All biographies are somewhat limited and of course slanted with the views of the writer. A pretty good one is:

"Wizard: Man Out of Time"

It was written by his grand nephew and in the forward he debunks several of the legends of Dr. Teslas' allegedly odd mannerisms.
Plus it has a lot of pictures of that handsome rogue!
6'6" Man of lightning! It is hard to find full length photos that are closeup. (not sitting down I mean)

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_Current

Tesla's 60Hz standard actually made it into the Information Age. 60Hz is generally considered the lowest refresh frequency to which a monitor can be set and not cause painfully (literally painful, especially white screens) obvious flickering.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

I think you're confusing two diffeerent books. "Wizard" has woo woo overtomes, but does not "debunl his paychopathology:

From the Publisher's Weekly review

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...=9780806519609

Woo woo content in italics

"Man Out of Time" is by Margaret Chaney (don't recall if they are related) and is highly woo woo IMO. She recites stories of his frequent Tesla Coil demonstrations of RF-generated corona as if they were important scientific breakthroughs.

I'm not aware of any non-woo woo bios which examine his scientific work. Too bad, because it would be fascinating.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Lights work at 50Hz overhere. I can barely stand a 60Hz CRT screen myself, 75 is my minimum comfortable frequency but I prefer 100 for longer periods (which is rather logical ). I don't care about 50 Hz lightbulbs. The flickering of TL tubes at 50Hz sometimes bothers me though (bad starters or what are it sometimes play a role though, making it flicker at much less than 50 Hz), while some other claim it gives such an easy light. And they interfere with the turntable sound, hooligan lights!

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Well all books, biographies included, are written from the authors viewpoint. You will never find any biography that does not contain the imprinted opinion of the author.

The book "Wizard" has many good points and some bad. The foreward by his grandnephew is probably the closest you will ever find of a naked view of the "real" man that is Nikola Tesla.
The book itself was written by Marc J. Seifer.
If you want a broad view of what Tesla was really about you have to dig deeper than a neatly packaged book written by an individual, do some real research and you will be amazed. When I say "real research" I mean serious reading from a variety of sources, not one google search.

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

I wonder how his reputation will make out after the film THE PRESTIGE is released in theatres. The film about Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians whose rivalry escalates to murder, has a supporting role with David Bowie(?!?)as Tesla himself.

I don't know anyone familiar with the source novel by Christopher Priest, so I can't say just how Tesla is handled.

Sadly, no matter how the film does, it will still reach more of the general public's impressionable eyes than all the intelligent volumes on him published in the last 30 years.

I've been involved in a similar kind of struggle to correct miseducation about Lincoln for the last 10 years. Thanks in no small part to films, it's uphill all the way!

They are advertising a biography of Lincoln to be shown on the history channel. Sounds pretty good from the ads. Lincoln was another person that shaped the present in many ways.
Dr. Tesla's greatest achievements are yet to be known or appreciated by 'Joe Sixpack' because no one has the patience to learn about someone never mentioned in 1st through 12 grade in Americas' public school system. I learned only looked at him out of curiosity because of some comments from my brother which sparked my mind. Then I discussed Dr. Tesla with a friend of mine that installed computer hardware in stealth bombers for the Air Force. His out of character replies during our discussion drew my interest deeper.
A googol of google searches and numerous serendipitus turns knocked me head over heels for this great man.
Is there no modern device that does not owe their rudimentry beginnings to one or more of Dr. Teslas prolific creative juices? This man makes all other inventors look like striplings, he is the greatest mind that ever lent itself to the betterment of man. (besides Jesus The Christ)

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

teri tait wrote

Other than their source of power via AC generation/distribution of which Tesla is rightly considered the parent, how do you relate Tesla's work to digital computers, lasers, nuclear reactors, and transistors (just to name a few)? You might also consider a few people like Feynman, Von Neuman, Rutherford, Hahn, Meitner, Fermi, Crick, Watson, and Bohr. Try a quick Google search on these folks and their contributions to human knowledge and see if you consider them to be "striplings."

I also suggest that you NOT assume that people posting on this forum do so on the basis of a quick Google search. You are not the first person to "discover" Tesla, and there are many people who are quite aware and well versed on his accomplishments and failings.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Wow, you seriously don't have a clue do you?

(Teri rolls eyes with compassion)

Why don't you take a gander at his 2700+ registered patents and get back to me on your question if you're still unsure...start with US patents and then look at the ones he registered in other countries.
(Sigh, sooo sadly ignorant sooo in need of knowledge...)

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole