as seen on TheOatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
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as seen on TheOatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
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When life gives you lemons, make lemonade... then find someone whose life gave them vodka, and have a party.





indeed, while the 'American' history of technological development pays little respect to Serbian born immigrant Nikola Tesla, any serious student of history can't help but be amazed by Tesla's work. And that includes not only Tesla's work that was credited to Tesla at the time of it's introduction ( like AC - Niagara Falls hydropower ), and not only Tesla's work that was denied at the time but later properly credited to Tesla ( like finally being granted the patent for inventing radio transmission 40 years after Marconi 'cashed in' on it ), but Tesla's work that is still kept under wraps i.e. his pre-WW2 particle beam weapon, the documentation for which was reportedly siezed by the FBI / OSS the day after his death, but the plans for which he had arguably shared with a trusted friend from Serbia ( Yugoslavia at the time ) which in turn were picked up on by Soviet Russia..
Your graphic saga also leaves out a huge number of important details ... yes Tesla invented (remote) radio control, but your saga didn't mention that Tesla first publicly demonstrated it's use to control an unmanned midget submarine in a huge water tank at Madison Square Garden in 1898.
Also, Tesla's research ( and perhaps experimentation ) with beam weapons was truly so far ahead of it's time that it took the world 50 years to actually figure out what he was 'talking' about ...
(snip)"This lamp was so constructed so as to place a piece of matter such as carbon, or a diamond or a ruby, in the center, and bombard this "button" with electrical energy that would bounce off the button onto the inside of the globe and bounce back onto the button. If this were a ruby, and Tesla specifically worked with rubies, then is exactly how a ruby laser is created. Tesla refers in INVENTIONS to a "pencil-thin" line of light that was created with this device. It is my belief that Tesla not only invented the ruby laser in 1893, but he also demonstrated it and published it's results. The problem with the device was that it was set up so as to "vaporize," or destroy, the button, so that the laser effects were probably short-lived.
However, if we jump ahead to the 1918 story, which was told to me by Coleman Czito's grandson's wife, it is very possible that Tesla used the same or similar kind of apparatus to send laser pulses to the moon.
Now, to get to the particle beam weapon, this is an entirely separate invention and evolved from, all things, a pop gun that he used as a boy. The pop gun works by pumping air into the barrel and causing the cork to come barreling out. This gun could be used to shoot targets and small animals, and Tesla discusses this gun in his autobiography.
What Tesla realized was that a "ray" would not have the energy requirement to be destructive. Also, even if he had a laser, or laser-like ray, it would still disperse somewhat, over long distances. So Tesla came to the conclusion that instead of shooting a ray of light, he would shoot microscopic pellets. The stream could not disperse because, theoretically, it would be one pellet thick.
After studying the Van de Graaff electrostatic generator, which used a cardboard belt to generate the high voltages, Tesla came to utilize the same essential set-up to generate tremendous charges, but he replaced the belt with an ionized stream of air and then used this electrified stream to "repel" the small pellets which were made out of tungsten. These pellets were shot out of an open-ended vacuum tube which was shaped in the form of a cannon.
It is my belief that this device, which was presented to the International Tesla Society by the late Dr. Andrija Puharich at the 1984 Tesla Centennial Symposium (and published in that proceedings as, essentially, Tesla's 1937 top secret patent application), was designed to be as large as the tower at Wardenclyffe. The shaft, which could have been as tall as 100 feet, would contain the "belt" of ionized stream of air.
The round bulbous part of the tower would continue to circulate the ionized stream and hold the charge, and out the top of the tower there would be the long barrel of the gun. Such a machine, which Tesla tried to sell during World War II to the United States, England, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, would be able to shoot down incoming planes at distances of about 300 miles.
Proof that this device was given to the Soviets has been established by such individuals as Colonel Tom Bearden, who points out that the May 2, 1977 issue of AVIATION WEEK, displays a picture of a Soviet particle beam weapon, (along with the accompanying 7000 word article) that is almost a carbon copy of the picture in Tesla's 1937 patent application, which, as stated above has been published in the ITS 1984 proceedings.
A question remains as to whether or not Tesla actually constructed a particle beam weapon. I believe that when looks at this question from a historical standpoint, we see that he had been working on this and similar devices for over 30 years. Thus, it is my opinion that Tesla did, indeed, construct a working model. At the age of 81, at a luncheon in his honor, concerning the Death Ray, Tesla stated,
"But it is not an experiment.... I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world." (snip) from
I could go on but, then as now, few would believe ...


<3 this









... also, as alluded to in the original saga, Nikola Tesla was not the first true 'visionary inventor' to be screwed out of personal acclaim / financial benefits by big business / professional 'promoters'.
A few examples ...
Joseph Henry ... invented the electromagnet telegraph technology that was later 'cashed in' on by Samuel Morse / Western Union
obviously Tesla ... invented the radio technology that was later 'cashed in' on by Gugilelmo Marconi / RCA
Philo Farnsworth ... invented electronic image scan television that was later 'cashed in' on by Vladymir Zworikin / RCA
'Ted' Hoff ... invented microprocessor on a single chip that was later 'cashed in' on by Frederico Faggin / INTEL
These, and undoubtedly many more, examples all circle back to a couple of fundamental points. When major technological developments are involved, the patent office, the gov't, the general public etc. really don't have enough understanding of the issues to offer a meaningful opinion. It often takes 10-20-30+ years before the technology becomes so widespread, and generally understood, that 'corrections' can be made. Nonetheless, this time lag has typically resulted in zero benefit to the original inventor other than having a scientific unit named after them, or the satisfaction of the patent office admitting that they were actually the true inventor.
Another fundamental point is that, prior to the point in time where the results of a new technology ( or scientific principle ) can be clearly seen and absorbed, public opinion can be heavily swayed by big corporations and media. Morse, Edison, Marconi, etc. all the way down to Steve Jobs all managed to be portrayed by media as 'great men of science / technology'. In fact they were packagers and promoters.





^Ah, let's not forget about Alfred R. Wallace.
Coming back to Tesla. Tesla is my favorite scientist and I celebrate his birthday and all.





^^^ Indeed Alfred R. Wallace made pioneering discoveries that were arguably 'usurped' by Charles Darwin. However, because the nature of these 'discoveries' didn't lend themselves to the establishment of fundamentally new corporate 'empires' based on the 'stolen' technology, I didn't include them in my list.
To give additional credit where credit is due in the arena of corporate 'empires' based on 'stolen' technologies ...
Édouard-Léon Scott ... invented the recording phonograph that was later cashed in on by Edison
Louis LePrince ... invented the motion picture camera that was later cashed in on by Edison ( and who mysteriously 'disappeared' from a train while travelling to the UK Patent Office from France )
And finally back to Tesla ... who arguably discovered X-Rays and invented a practical means of producing focused X-rays ... which was in turn 'erroneously' credited to Wilhelm Roentgen ... but which was ultimately 'cashed in' on by Edison / GE !
If anyone has further interest in the truly incredible scope of Tesla's work, I highly recommend taking the time to read ...
... which is Margaret Cheney's 'technical biography' of Tesla.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-20-2012 at 04:54 AM.


I'm adding that biography to my kindle, thanks!
I didn't know the x-ray research attributed to Roentgen came from Tesla. Building on that research led Marie Curie to her first Nobel prize, and she was incredible in her own right. It's mind-blowing that Tesla influenced so much. But I can see the credit going to someone else being just as hard or harder on him than someone exploiting him financially.



The SW corner of Bryant Park in New York (or, the NE quadrant of the corner of 41st and 6th) is designated as Nikola Tesla Corner.
I like how the theoatmeal.com comic is honest at pointing out that Tesla did suffer from "a mental disorder we now call being batshit insane". This adds to the tragic element due to how it would make him vulnerable and leaves one wondering what if he could have taken better care of himself and his interests. Of course that also leaves us to wonder about some of his more far-out technologies that came to nothing -- can it be they really were maliciously sabotaged, or were they actually just brilliant crackpottery? Or, as it seems ever more often, were they valid BUT just truly impractical or not commercially viable in their time and who knows if someone had saved the research could they be applied now?
One thing that also worked against Tesla and others was that in the America of the 1800s and 1900s (and still to this day, see: Jobs) it was NOT the actual scientist who was considered the key to progress, it was the "inventor" in the sense of who came out and offered to the masses some great new product you could actually buy and sell. Nobody cared about who figured out the practical applications of the laws of thermodynamics, materials science, electromagnetics, fluid dynamics or cybernetics, they cared about who built a viable steamboat, telephone, lightbulb, airplane, radio, Victrola, iPhone etc. Tesla created what would become the radio and made possible X-rays, but was not the guy putting a set on your table full of tubes and wires and dials and naming a price, and that cost him.





^^^ I take your point ... which is amplified even further by the fact that the Wright Brothers ... after demonstrating a semi-practical example of a flying machine ... were never able to gain the necessary support from Wall St. money to the point where they ever became a major producer of aircraft. That was actually done by 'entrepreneurs' like former motorcycle racer Glenn Curtiss, with the 'help' of Wall St. and Washington DC.
And it's also worth noting that, hanging in the Smithsonian, is the officially acknowledged world's first aircraft capable of human flight, designed and built by one Prof. Langley and powered by a ( then revolutionary ) radial engine built by his assistant, mechanical engineer Charles Manly.
The fact that the world recognizes the Wright Brothers as the 'inventors' of human flight, and is almost totally ignorant of the pioneering efforts of Langley / Manly, is directly traceable to unfavorable media reporting of two failed early test flights of the Langley Aerodrome. The Wright Brothers, in contrast, conducted all of their test flights in secret so that similar failures were not made public. What the Wright Brothers actually did was 'delay' US commercial aircraft production by nearly 10 years due to incessant patent litigation ( which was eventually 'broken' by Curtiss' successful rebuilding and public flying of Langley's Aerodrome plus US gov't intervention i.e. a forced 'merger' 'Curtiss-Wright' to get commercial aircraft production moving for WW1 ). But ultimately it was Curtiss, along with other early 'entrepreneurs' like Martin, who 'cashed in' on aircraft.
In many ways, Tesla was in a better position than the Wright Brothers in regard to actual first discoveries, early patents, and working semi-practical examples, where many pioneering technologies were concerned. Tesla however declined to 'lawyer up' to assert his 'rights', preferring instead to simply move on to the next pioneering technological innovation !!!
Is it a matter of 'pure coincidence' that Karl Von Linde filed German patents for cryogenics ( liquification of gases ) immediately after the destruction by fire of Tesla's Houston St. lab ( which destroyed, among many other prototypes, Tesla's cryogenic equipment ) ?can it be they really were maliciously sabotaged
Last edited by Melonie; 05-29-2012 at 01:00 AM.





Fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting...
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
George Clinton
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as long as we're on a roll, probably the most 'victimized' inventor of all time was Tesla 'scientific descendant' Dr. T. Henry Moray.
Among his uncredited inventions are, arguably ...
- the first germanium transistor ( in 1927 )
- 'cold nuclear reaction' via the use of radioactive materials in the plates of vacuum tubes ( which produced much more energy output than energy input )
- a 'radiant energy detector' that can extract usable electrical energy from 'cosmic rays'
Dr. Moray's history in regard to supression / sabotage is far more extensive and blatant than Tesla's ... see You may have to scroll up a few pages to find the beginning of the Moray section 'Bullets in the Laboratory'
Last edited by Melonie; 05-30-2012 at 08:53 AM.
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