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The Nikola Tesla Thread

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Tesla's "Death Ray"

Below is a link to a document which contains half of the FBI declassified files on Nikola Tesla, which is mostly addressing requests from learned fellows trying to get hold of his research after he kicked the bucket, only to get the stock answer "That's not out department."
Anyway, there are some interesting news clippings and articles contained therein (it's about 4-5 Meg) one of which sounded a bit like Bush's missile shield and recent news items on airbourne lasers, a death ray claiming to be able "melt" incoming enemy planes (Page 4-ish, from the NY Times) and provide an impregnable air defence shield. I believe the UK government took him seriously enough to chat before WWII, though never took it any further.
So, was Tesla a fruitcake in his latter years or what? If not, I would have thought we'd have felt the ramifications by now....

http://www.setec.org/~izaac/tesla1.pdf
 
Re: Tesla's "Death Ray"

Dark Detective said:
So, was Tesla a fruitcake in his latter years or what? If not, I would have thought we'd have felt the ramifications by now....[/B]
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Well, there's a chapter devoted to him in The Big Book of Weirdos. According to the author, after he sold his stake in Westinghouse he became a germophobe and wouldn't shake hands, he was frightened of women who wore pearl earrings, he polished each of his meal's silverware with 18 clean napkins and calculated the exact amount of each morsel of food before eating it.

I know as recently as a few years back, there were companies selling blueprints of his earthquake machines. One would presume we'd have heard something about this is it were legit. Maybe the genius fizzled.
 
The "rational" explanation of Tesla has usually been that he
went off the deep end having lost out in the mucky commercial
world of electricity. In his declining years, he became a good
source of silly season stories for bored journalists. He needed
to be more and more sensational to gain attention but paid
for it in credibility.

The "conspiracy" version has it that his plans to use the Earth as
a giant battery, supplying nearly-free and clean power were
scuppered by Capitalism. US Government agents are said to have
appropriated all his papers - including the Death Ray - when he
died. Well, if they did, they seem to shown unusual restraint in
its use! Unless of course . . .

There is plenty of material on Tesla. The problem is that the average
reader can't really sift through scientific papers and say what was
mad and what was just ahead of its time. The non-specialist should
however be well able to see that some of Tesla's notions were of
the grandiose and Messianic kind.

I guess the truth is that Tesla was someone who thought outside the
box. Our stereotypical Mad Professor in the movies owes a great deal
to the publicity shots he had made of himself reading a newspaper by
the light of his arcs of electricity. They were fake shots, though, with
Tesla superimposed.

And yet . . . and yet . . The whole Tesla mythos appears to have some
larger political dimension. This was the American Dream and nightmare
writ large. And not all the weird Tesla tales come from his declining
years. The "signals from space" episode was 1898, if I remember rightly!
:eek:
 
Genius and madness are not uncommon bedfellows. Other genii (if that is the correct plural ;) ) have been known to suffer from various odd behaviours and beliefs.

Godel (there should be an umlaut in there), for example, spent a lot of his life believing that he had a weak constitution and could, if afflicted by a cold or flu, die of a heart attack at any moment. This paranoia led him to wrap up in a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves even during the height of summer. His death was probably self inflicted in that (IIRC) during a spell in hospital he believed that the staff were trying to poison him. His refusal to eat couldn't have improved his condition.

Note that it does not work the other way. If you're mad it *doesn't* mean that you're more likely to be a genius. ;)
 
Note that it does not work the other way. If you're mad it *doesn't* mean that you're more likely to be a genius.
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Actually there are certain types of "madness" that are prone to producing Genii. Bi-polar disorder is the premier instance. Bi-polar aka manic depression is generally associated with bouts of extreme creativity at the bottom of the manic curve, famous bi-polar include Spike Milligan (whose grave stone inscription was reported as being "I told you I was ill") and Vincent Van Gough. There are a large number of celebrities who exhibit bi-polar behaviour, but it is so difficult to separate PR from actual individual excesses.

So if you have bi-polar you actually are more likely to be a genius than if you are a run of the mill Joe. There is an evolutionary explanation as to why the bi-polar gene continues with such prevalence in our society when it is a really debilitating illness. If you were a genius, say Plato (there is no evidence to suppose that Plat was bi-polar) the society would look after you when you were too ill to look after yourself, as everyone benefited when you were well.
 
True, about bi-polar disorder. My rather sweeping comment was aimed at the "Well they all laughed at Galileo!" crowd. ;) ("They also laughed at Zippy the clown, but I wouldn't trust him to come up with a Theory of Everything." ;) )
 
Back to Tesla

I've long wondered whether Tesla was the victim of an active discreditation campaign, thus curtailing his freedom to conduct research and development on his own terms. As he was a driven man, passionate about his work and the possible benefits thereof, this could have driven him to accept the sponsorship of anyone: a government, for example, who would merely demand first refusal on any such intellectual property that was born thereof. I remember seeing it proposed that Stalin had approached Tesla: however, he distrusted Communism, and beaureaucrats, with a vengeance: (quoted from here, a good general source on Tesla).

Peter II Karadjordjevic (King of Yugoslavia)
In his diaries (A King's Heritage), under date July 8, 1942, the young Peter II writes: "I visited Dr. Nicola Tesla, the world-famous Yugoslav-American scientist, in his apartment in the Hotel New Yorker. After I had greeted him the aged scientist said: `It is my greatest honor. I am glad you are in your youth, and I am content that you will be a great ruler. I believe I will live until you come back to a free Yugoslavia. From your father you have received his last words: `Guard Yugoslavia.' I am proud to be a Serbian and a Yugoslav. Our people cannot perish. Preserve the unity of all Yugoslavs - the Serbs, the Croats, and Slovenes.'"

Adopted from "Tesla: man out of time", by Margaret Cheney, 1981
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As it was, his pride and independence over-rode such offers of patronage, believing (probably correctly) that it would all be directed toward military applications: thus he remained his own man: perhaps hence his apparent decline into wild eccentricity. This could also go some way to explain the US Govt's somewhat swift action upon his death. Hard to believe this eagerness to see the goodies was only extended post-mortem.

Stu

PS: A good links page here.
 
I've read "Tesla, man out of time" and reccomend it to anyone that wants a good background on the man's life.

Has anyone figured out who was the culprit that burned down his lab twice??
 
I have a very special pile of Tesla papers. In it is included his Autobiography where he speaks of his childhood.

He was very aware of how special he was as a child and indeed when he grew up and looked back all he saw was confimation of his genius. He knew that he was special. He knew that his mind was perfectly built to deal with physical principles without putting pen to paper. He was able to work his way out of situations that caused him trouble.

As a kid, he went swimming with his pals. He jumped or was pushed into the river/pond and he swam underneath the jetty thing. He quickly calculated that he could hide underwater and under the jetty so as to scare his friends. This he did and within seconds he became disorientated and begane to panic. He quickly worked out that the panic would raise his heart beat and his brain would require more oxygen. He tried to remain calm.
Next he worked out how long he had before he drowned.
He quickly worked out how long he had if he stayed calm AND how long he would have if he continued to panic. While under the water he now realised that most kids would be dead. He swam back and forth under the wooden boardwalk trying to re-orient himself, to no avail. He knew he would have to open his eyes.
On opening his eyes underwater, he began to look for a hole in the board walk. He found one and began to utilise its life giving oxygen. He now, amazingly decided to continue his prank and after he got enough air he swam back out with his eyes open and scared his friends who actually did think that their friend had drowned.

He prided himself with this tale, his whole life and used it to re-assure himself of his genius.

He was also offered the joint Nobel prize with Edison. He refused.
Why? I think he knew that the award was his and his alone.
Edison probably felt the same way.

Tesla invented the glowing filiment.
Edison put glass around it and filled it with gas.

Tesla created the light while edison merely made it glow more.
 
Some words on Tesla

The part i want to read i cannot open/find,it is (((Tesla's theory of Energy Extraction))) if you can come up with this AND the
Tesla papers then you can be of great help.
They have been deleted from all the sites i have looked at(((question:by whom)))and why?
PS:Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia 1856/1943

Nikola Tesla
The Forgotten Father of Technology
One of America's forgotten geniuses who helped launch George Westinghouse's Pittsburgh-based industrial empire finally has been honored here because of an obscure chauffeur. A simple 30-foot obelisk belltower in Monroeville memorializes Nikola Tesla, father of radio and holder of 700 patents.
While Marconi generally is thought of as the father of radio, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1943 nullified Marconi's patents on radio transmission, declaring Tesla's patents predated those of the Italian inventor.

Tesla's invention of the alternating-current motor blocked General Electric from taking control of the budding electrical industry in the 1890s. In those days Thomas Edison endorsed direct current (DC), but lost the "battle of the currents" to Tesla's AC concept.

Tesla died at 86 in 1943 in reclusive research. He was among the last of the turn-of-the-century inventive geniuses who midwifed America into the technological age. Although he once worked for Edison, Tesla outlived the "Genius of Menlo Park" and was to be awarded an Edison Medal which cites:

"Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. So far-reaching is (his) work it has become the warp and woof of industry."

Tesla's AC inventions harnessed Niagara Falls. Westinghouse, who invented train air brakes, latched onto the immigrant's brainchild and turned it into today's electric world. Tesla became the darling of the scientific elite and numbered among his friends Mark Twain, J.P. Morgan, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, Paderewski and naturalist John Muir. Yet he faded into oblivion except for annual birthday press interviews and died almost penniless while others made fortunes on his inventions. He is heralded today only by a few scientists and engineers. The Belgian block tower at Monroeville's historic Old Stone Church, on Northern Pike, stands as the only local public remembrance, with a plaque dedicated to Westinghouse alongside.

The tribute is due directly to the "pack-rat" collecting habit of Milan Drakulic, 58, of Old Ramsey Road, Monroeville. Drakulic, who drives Westinghouse executives in company limousines, had salvaged a 2,800-pound bell from a crumbling church. Just about that entire end of the county had heard Drakulic peal the bell every New Year's eve and other festive occasions. It was coveted by the town's Bicentennial Committee. Drakulic, like Tesla, is of Serbian extraction. "Tesla worked here with Westinghouse. He is responsible for much of the city's industrial strength. I felt it a shame that he did not have a rightful place in our history," said the chauffeur. Drakulic's father knew and revered the inventor as did many other Serbian immigrants in the Tri-State area. The chauffeur struck a bargain: "You can have my bell if it is dedicated to Tesla." "I was surprised how quickly Westinghouse subsidiaries and other industries pitched in to support the project," said Drakulic. The obelisk was dedicated last July Fourth, with the chauffeur ringing the clapper. Three weeks later, an imposing nine-foot granite statue of Tesla was unveiled at Niagara Falls as a gift from the Yugoslav government.

As a youth in his native Yugoslav village, Tesla bragged that one day he would control the mighty Niagara which he had never seen. Yet the modest tribute to the immigrant son of a Serbian Orthodox priest, sitting in a Presbyterian churchyard and initiated by a common man, is perhaps more kindred to the inventor. Tesla declined the Nobel Prize. A writer in the 1930s described: "People have always called him crazy —for a time . . . " Tesla was a loner after his Pittsburgh liaison (1887-90) with Westinghouse. He isolated himself in research at his own laboratories in Colorado, New York and Washington until going broke.

He had no business acumen. He lived a monastic bachelor's life and dreamed of space communications (1933), space travel and other exotic inventions. He even liked having as dinner guest Pittsburgh's ex-welterweight champion Fritzie Zivic.

Prior to his death as World War II was peaking, Tesla claimed to have perfected a death ray (forerunner of the laser beam?). It was designed solely as a defensive weapon to melt engines on planes or ships approaching America's shores. Nothing ever came of the invention, some declaring the inventor withdrew it because of its destructive powers. Although he was a naturalized citizen, the U.S. government mysteriously turned over his scant papers to Tesla's native land.

One of his most revolutionary discoveries, how to transmit electrical power without wiring, may be lost forever since he kept most ideas in his head. Tesla's one big professional goof was to pooh-pooh atomic scientists: "(They) build a mathematical structure which has no relation to reality. They are metaphysicians rather than scientists." It may have been his way of obscuring their research for the destructive power that brought about Hiroshima just as he had masked his own "death ray."
 
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Tesla certainly hasn't been forgotten. Not only is there a lot of specualtion (particularly of the wilder kind ;) ) about the nature of some of his inventions/discoveries, he has also had an S.I. unit named after him.
 
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Bit of Tesla related stuff on Newscientist.com's Letters Page Here

Tesla and Tunguska

There is another possible - if wildly improbable - cause of the mysterious event at Tunguska in 1908 (7 September, p 14). One of Nikola Tesla's great projects was the wireless transformation of energy over large distances. He believed that this could be harnessed in war to destroy incoming attacks from over 300 kilometres away.

Tesla built his "death ray" at Wardencliffe on Long Island, and it is a possible that he tested it one night in 1908. The story goes something like this. At the time, Robert Peary was trekking to the North Pole and Tesla asked him to look out for unusual activity. On the evening of 30 June 1908, Tesla aimed his death ray towards the Arctic and turned it on. Tesla then watched the newspapers and sent telegrams to Peary, but heard about nothing unusual in the Arctic.

However, he did hear about the unexplainable event in Tunguska, and was thankful no one was killed, as it was clear to him that his death ray had overshot. He then dismantled his machine, as he felt it was too dangerous to keep it. See http://www.parascope.com/en/1096/tesdeth.htm for the full story.

Andrew Talbot
Tunbridge Wells, Kent


To a lifetime Command and Conquer Red Alert fan this is good news....maybe someone will finally build this then i can take over the world mwa-ha-haaaaaa.....ahem, excuse me.

--kiel--
 
I have been fascinated by this man since I was a tiny bairn.

His complex and revolutionary inventions reflect an equally complicated and unusual brain. His social grace and intellect was frequently marred by a sheer lack of social skills and intolerance of people unlike himself.....which was most people.

He had a bizzare and dangerous childhood and his life was in peril on several occasions. Including a few drownings and a stabbing. He suffered premonitions that even he tried to explain away as auto-suggestion and co-incidence. His writings on the matter do, however, show a certain self-doubt in his own theory.

He had prejudices akin to the rest of his class at the time. (his class and position will be spoken of soon) He would advise people to avoid jews like his peers did. He had other discriminations though......

He was disgusted by fat people and earings. He would fire his receptionist one day when, on kneeling, he viewed her chubby knees on the floor. He would be turned off at the sight of an earing even if it was on certain famous actresses and other ladies of distinction, class and beauty.

He did however create some of the worlds most important technology and his inventions surround us all right now. When one studies the so-called inventive qualities of edison and marconi, it becomes abundantly clear that they stole Teslas patents in order to create technologies that Tesla had designed on paper and in his mind but shared with the other two inventors. He became very possessive of his patents after these times.

He spoke numerous languages and mastered English. His proudest day, he claimed, was when he was legally recognised as a citizen of the USA. In particular, New York. He became the best dressed man in the great city. At least, he though so. He quickly worked his way up the social ladder and became one of the most prospective people of new york. Adored by royals, dukes and general nobility of the world. His work was sought by numerous countries but he remained quite patriotic to the states.

His habits were bizzare. he liked numbers that were divisible by three and would try to make his address and contact information conform to this vice. He would walk round his block three times before entering his hotel room where he eventually lived. He could not enjoy his meals unless he had accurately calculated the cubic litres of each fork or spoon full. If he failed....he did not enjoy his food. He did not like to be touched and it is an irony that the only person ever to actaully touch him as an adult was a woman. Ironic because the scientific community became eager to see him wed and with child and yet he constantly resisted the pressure...even from beautiful women. Myself? I am all too aware that his first love was the wife of his friend and he chose celibacy over betrayal. He is rumoured to have kept a special hotel room for his "special friends and aquantances"

Could have been prostitutes but could equally have been loansharks and favour doers and go-fors.

If psychologists were to hyper-analyse him today (not something I approve of conclusively) they would conclude that he was schizophrenic, obssessive compulsive and possibly brain damaged. He possibly suffered a rare form of migraine. He saw violent flashes in his eyes and suffered strange visions that would remain in his field of vision for prolonged periods. He later exposed himself to dangerous levels of radiation that resulted in festering lesions, warmth underneath the skin and skull and black patches on his body.

Women were potty about him. They would fall all over him and rooms would be instantly distracted when he arrived for a lecture or dinner.

Hopefully this will go on and on like the Templar thread, and we can eventually speak of his marvelous inventions rather than the flawed character of the man. I wanted to start with his psyche as it is seldom used to sell the man. No wonder...... but I thought it would make a change.

On being asked about Marconi's latest invention (which parallelled his own) he replied:

"Marconi is a good man. Let him continue with his invention."
Click to expand...


After a slight pause, he continued....

"...he is using seventeen of my patents!"
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Tesla is officially the father of radio although most encyclopaedias and journals still dont seem to be aware of this "legal" fact.

P.S Tesla always knew, even from youth, that he was special and I have always thought that a little more modesty would have suited him better.
 
Tesla was a fascinating man - I recently picked up a book in a charity shop called "the tesla papers" - a collection of his own writings alongside articles by other scientists and fans and even his (censored) FBI file.

We are whirling through endless space, with an inconceivable speed, all around us everything is spinning, everything is moving, everywhere there is energy - Nikola Tesla
 
he was a man born in the wrong

time. They'll never be an end to the "stories about his inventions" and hard to sort out (unless you got the time) what might be true or blown out of porportion.
 
Which is why I started the thread by studying his psychology and not the inventions. Agreed, the inventions can wait a while as they have had quite a bit of lime light of late.
 
I read a story a while ago about Tesla, an apartment block and an earthquake, this is all I can remember other than that it was a fascinating story. Anybody know?
 
JMcKeith said:
I read a story a while ago about Tesla, an apartment block and an earthquake, this is all I can remember other than that it was a fascinating story. Anybody know?
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In one experiment in 1896, Tesla accidentally triggered an earthquake across a dozen New York city blocks. This, Tesla later said, was caused “by a little piece of apparatus you could slip in your pocket.” As local police stormed his lab, the wily inventor lifted a sledge-hammer and smashed the oscillator to pieces, bringing an end to the pandemonium
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From this article
 
Yes, he created a small device that could vibrate the very molecular structure of entire blocks and he did indeed experiment with it many times.

He also created an area of terrain that became electrified to the point that horses within the huge radius went berserk.

He also claimed to have designed and possibly constructed a device that could split the world in two.

He could control the weather and unfortunately invented weapons of mass destruction though he later regreted their existance and indeed felt that they were like the doomsday device that was later seen in Dr Strangelove. A weapon of devestation that would prevent any country from attacking.

But.........one needs only think of the outcome of Dr Strangelove to realise that this is idealist nonsense and that a psychopath with his finger on the button would not think about the possible repercussions of such a concept.
 
He's also thought by some people to have caused the Tunguska explosion with his death ray....or so I read once in a book who's name I cant seem to remember right now
 
I was wondering..

did he invent most of this weird stuff before you could plug your cord into the wall socket( or at least some of it anyway?? and who invented that?? with out it nothing would work.
 
He did invent alternating current and he did use socket outlets. But he was able to re-design and customise those outlets to suit him and he was employed to construct them for others. He did help create what we use today. He wanted us to primarily harness water and any other free non-fossil and not coal, oil or atomic fuel.

The latter he did not believe in as a possibility.

His hayday was at the turn of the century but he was still working in the early forties when he died...although some of his ideas were more cookier than ever.
 
I have some experience in such things..

after I left the Navy I worked at "Technicolor" in california for a few years, I was nick named "The Jumper" because I would get shocked often..and knocked off my feet or other uncofortable things. Because I would forget to unplug the equipment or projectors and such before tickering with them.:cross eye
 
1. How would the "death ray" have worked, theoretically?

2. Is that one of the many papers that the government stole from his work right after his death? I wonder if anybody has looked for these now that we have the Freedom of Information Act.

3. I've always heard of his idea for free electricity broadcast in the air. Has anybody read how this would work in the surviving papers?
 
Which is something Tesla did regularly. He quite often did it deliberately though. Are you all right or are you in shock....hehehe
 
His unsolved papers would have revealed how he could harness hydro-electricity and then transmit it through the air over great distances. Is haarp not for beaming useful amounts of electricity to crafts in the sky so that they would never have to land or re-fuel? Is haarp something else? If it is used for that then....it is Teslas!
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
2. Is that one of the many papers that the government stole from his work right after his death? I wonder if anybody has looked for these now that we have the Freedom of Information Act.
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If you take a look at the FBI files you'll see that they have always denied having possesion of any of Tesla's files. Even under the FOIA they have not released anything.
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
3. I've always heard of his idea for free electricity broadcast in the air. Has anybody read how this would work in the surviving papers?
Click to expand...
I've sometimes wondered if this was just microwave transmission of energy. This is someting that has been discussed for a long time now. (Japan even came up with the idea of building a huge space based solar panel that would then beam the energy, in the form of microwaves, to receivers on the ground. The power levels talked about made it more like a space based weapon, though. ;) )

If you think about it, we have been broadcasting electrical energy ever since radio was invented. This is, after all, the way that a crystal radio works. It has no internal power source, and relies on the power from the radio signal itself to operate.
 
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