~ Nicola Tesla ~ Man Out of Time
Tesla
date & photographer unknown
Showing posts with label Nicola Tesla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicola Tesla. Show all posts
July 11, 2019
July 10, 2019
Nicola Tesla ~ Man Out of Time
~
Today is the birthday of Nikola Tesla; the overlooked scientist who originated the key tools of the age of power: the polyphase AC electric current we use every day and the system of electrical transmission, radio, RadioControl, computers, satellites, microwaves, beam weapons, nuclear fusion, etc., and the MRI (link below). Much of life as it evolved in the 20th century rested on the foundations that Tesla laid down. I have been fascinated by his story since I first heard of him at least 20 years ago.
The Margaret Cheney narrative details Tesla's childhood during the 1850s and 1860s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his 1884 arrival in New York, becoming an American citizen in 1891, his inventions and contributions to engineering, up to his death in New York at age 86 during the middle of World War II in 1943. The book is focused largely on Tesla's personality, not his inventions. There is information on his contribution to the MRI on the Viewfinder (link below).
Tesla: Man Out of Time
Margaret Cheney
Softcover
Simon & Schuster
ISBN 10: 038533382X ISBN 13: 9780385333825
Publisher: Delta, 1998
Viewfinder links:
Nikola Tesla
Net links:
Archive.org ~ Tesla Man Out Of Time (full text)
CBS News ~ Almanac: Nikola Tesla
City Kidd (aka Tesla)
Dallas Observer ~
Jeff Keith: "Management Told Us Everything About Nikola Tesla"
Smithsonian ~ The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla
Tesla Society ~ 1931 Tribute to Nikola Tesla on his 75th birthday
YouTube links:
10 Amazing Nikola Tesla Inventions and Innovations
The Current War Official Trailer
Edison Did Everything He Could To Stop Tesla Succeeding/Tesla's Death Ray
ERB (Epic Rap Battles of History) ~ Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla: Great Minds (9 min., 13 sec.)
Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney review (12 min., 49 sec.)
Nikola Tesla's Secret revealed ~ Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis
Wireless Energy For The Entire Planet ~ Wardenclyffe Tower (12 min., 48 sec.)
Nikola Tesla - 1898
Today is the birthday of Nikola Tesla; the overlooked scientist who originated the key tools of the age of power: the polyphase AC electric current we use every day and the system of electrical transmission, radio, RadioControl, computers, satellites, microwaves, beam weapons, nuclear fusion, etc., and the MRI (link below). Much of life as it evolved in the 20th century rested on the foundations that Tesla laid down. I have been fascinated by his story since I first heard of him at least 20 years ago.
To celebrate his birthday, I've elected to feature this engrossing book, Tesla: Man Out of Time, published in October, 2001, by Simon & Schuster. It chronicles the life of Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist. Once you start reading it, it's almost impossible to put down; I read it in nothing flat!
photo by Styrous®
The Margaret Cheney narrative details Tesla's childhood during the 1850s and 1860s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his 1884 arrival in New York, becoming an American citizen in 1891, his inventions and contributions to engineering, up to his death in New York at age 86 during the middle of World War II in 1943. The book is focused largely on Tesla's personality, not his inventions. There is information on his contribution to the MRI on the Viewfinder (link below).
back cover
photo by Styrous®
The airplane (top of page below) patented in the 1920's by Tesla was intended to operate much like the vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft (bottom of page below) being considered in the 1980's by the U. S. Navy as "a subsonic aircraft of the 1990's." Tesla's plane was never built.
photo by Styrous®
Tesla was born an ethnic Serb in the village Smiljan, Lika county, in the Austrian Empire (present day Croatia), on 10 July [O.S. 28 June] 1856. His father, Milutin Tesla (1819–1879), was an Eastern Orthodox
priest. Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla (née Mandić; 1822–1892), whose
father was also an Orthodox priest, had a talent for making home craft
tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence.
photo by Napoleon Sarony
As a student, Tesla displayed such remarkable
abilities to calculate mathematical problems that teachers accused him
of cheating. During his teen years, he fell seriously ill, recovering
once his father abandoned his demand that Nikola become a priest and
agreed he could attend engineering school instead. The airplane (top of page below) patented in the 1920's by Tesla was intended to operate much like the vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft (bottom of page below) being considered in the 1980's by the U. S. Navy as "a subsonic aircraft of the 1990's." Tesla's plane was never built.
Tesla's plane (top), subsonic aircraft (bottom)
detail photo by Styrous®
detail photo by Styrous®
Nikola Tesla worked with the leading scientists of his time and they were important influences on each other.
Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla & Charles Steinmetz - 1921
photographer unknown
photo by Styrous®
Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He is best known to the general public for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory.
Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla & Charles Steinmetz - 1921
photographer unknown
detail photo by Styrous®
Charles Proteus Steinmetz (born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz, April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was a German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry
in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers.
He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment including especially electric motors for use in industry.
The 187 foot (57 m) transmitting tower Wardenclyffe wireless station, located in Shoreham, New York,
was built by
Tesla from 1901 to 1904 with backing from Wall Street banker J. P. Morgan, the experimental facility was intended to be a transatlantic radiotelegraphy station and wireless power
transmitter, but was never completed. The tower was torn down in 1916
but the lab building, designed by noted New York architect Stanford White remains.
Wardenclyffe plant, Long Island - 1904
photo by Lillian McChesney
photo by Styrous®
photo by Lillian McChesney
photo by Styrous®
His inventions and ideas were astonishing. He had a concept for a "death ray" which he was terrified would be turned to the detriment of mankind so kept it secret. The government was interested in this and the papers on it mysteriously disappeared after his death (link below).
back cover detail detail photo by Styrous®
In the photo below, Tesla demonstrating wireless power transmission, in his New York
laboratory in the 1890s. The bulb is a prototype "fluorescent" light he
invented consisting of a partially evacuated glass bulb with a single
metal electrode. Nearby but not visible there is one of his Tesla coil high voltage oscillators which produces a radio frequency electric field.
The electric field ionizes the gas in the bulb, causing it to glow
similar to a neon light. Tesla invented a residential wireless lighting
system in the 1889s.
A famous photograph of Tesla in his laboratory in Colorado Springs around 1899, supposedly sitting reading the Roger Joseph Boscovich book, Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis, in front of his giant "magnifying transmitter"
high voltage generator while the machine produced huge bolts of
electricity. The photo was a promotional stunt by photographer
Dickenson V. Alley; a double exposure. First the machine's huge sparks
were photographed in the darkened room, then the photographic plate was
exposed again with the machine off and Tesla sitting in the chair. In
his Colorado Springs Notes Tesla admitted that the photo is false:
- "Of course, the discharge was not playing when the experimenter was photographed, as might be imagined!"
Tesla - ca 1888
Colorado Springs laboratory
photo by Dickenson V. Alley
photo by Styrous®
Colorado Springs laboratory
photo by Dickenson V. Alley
photo by Styrous®
Although
he was very handsome, six-foot two, suave and an impeccable dresser, Tesla was
basically a loner, socially weird and never married. He claimed that his celibacy played an important role in his creativity. Tesla held that his greatest ideas came to him in solitude. Perhaps because of his nearly fatal illness as a teenager, he feared germs and practiced very strict hygiene, likely a barrier to the development of interpersonal relationships. He also exhibited unusual phobias, such as an aversion to pearls, which led him to refuse to speak to any woman wearing them.
In his early days in New York he often gave lavish dinner parties for his guests, taking them afterwards to his laboratories on South Fifth Avenue for an evening's entertainment. There he demonstrated to his guests thrilling electrical feats of such magnitude that men literally felt their hair rising straight up on their astonished heads.
Nikola Tesl was fascinated by the afterlife and metaphysical phenomenon and had other very strange beliefs (Tesla Society link below).
In 1959 the Margaret Storm book, The Nikola Tesla Story (published by herself, printed in green ink and noting his longer than usual fingers and other physical features) was based on the assertion that Tesla was an embodiment of a superior being from the planet Venus! He once predicted that humans would "telephone the stars," and even graced the cover of Time magazine in 1931.
In 1980 a Yugoslav biographical film, The Secret of Nikola Tesla, was made which details events in the life of Tesla, and a film was made in 2017 entitled, The Current War (links below).
date & photographer unknown
In his early days in New York he often gave lavish dinner parties for his guests, taking them afterwards to his laboratories on South Fifth Avenue for an evening's entertainment. There he demonstrated to his guests thrilling electrical feats of such magnitude that men literally felt their hair rising straight up on their astonished heads.
Nikola Tesl was fascinated by the afterlife and metaphysical phenomenon and had other very strange beliefs (Tesla Society link below).
A better scientist than money manager, Tesla died virtually penniless: he was found dead in a New York City hotel room by a hotel maid on the morning of Jan. 7, 1943. He was 86 years old.
The biography, Prodigal Genius, by John J. O’Neill, science editor of the New York Herald Tribune appeared shortly after his death.
In 1959 the Margaret Storm book, The Nikola Tesla Story (published by herself, printed in green ink and noting his longer than usual fingers and other physical features) was based on the assertion that Tesla was an embodiment of a superior being from the planet Venus! He once predicted that humans would "telephone the stars," and even graced the cover of Time magazine in 1931.
Nikola Tesla, Time Magazine - July 20, 1931
In 1980 a Yugoslav biographical film, The Secret of Nikola Tesla, was made which details events in the life of Tesla, and a film was made in 2017 entitled, The Current War (links below).
Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor.
He is remembered today on Serbian money ... at the Nikola Tesla Corner in New York City ... and by the Tesla electric automobile, which uses an
induction motor of Tesla's own 1882 design (an AC motor).
The rock group, Tesla, an American rock band formed in Sacramento, California in late 1981 by bassist Brian Wheat and guitarist Frank Hannon as Earthshaker, and later City Kidd, named themselves after him (link below).
Tesla: Man Out of Time
Margaret Cheney
Softcover
Simon & Schuster
ISBN 10: 038533382X ISBN 13: 9780385333825
Publisher: Delta, 1998
Viewfinder links:
Nikola Tesla
Net links:
Archive.org ~ Tesla Man Out Of Time (full text)
CBS News ~ Almanac: Nikola Tesla
City Kidd (aka Tesla)
Dallas Observer ~
Jeff Keith: "Management Told Us Everything About Nikola Tesla"
Smithsonian ~ The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla
Tesla Society ~ 1931 Tribute to Nikola Tesla on his 75th birthday
YouTube links:
10 Amazing Nikola Tesla Inventions and Innovations
The Current War Official Trailer
Edison Did Everything He Could To Stop Tesla Succeeding/Tesla's Death Ray
ERB (Epic Rap Battles of History) ~ Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla: Great Minds (9 min., 13 sec.)
Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney review (12 min., 49 sec.)
Nikola Tesla's Secret revealed ~ Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis
Wireless Energy For The Entire Planet ~ Wardenclyffe Tower (12 min., 48 sec.)
February 11, 2019
Early phonography ~ Thomas Edison & the phonograph
~
There is a really interesting article on the manufacturing of early discs by Fred Gaisberg on Sound Of The Hound (link below), as well as a video of an Edison player on YouTube (link below).
Audio equipment
Thomas Edison
Edison, Nikola Tesla & the incandescent bulb
Pathé Records & early phonography
phonography articles/mentions
Phonograph Company ~ Berliner, Style 5
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. Below is a photograph of him with his second phonograph, in Washington, D. C..
Thomas Edison - April 1878
photo by Levin Corbin Handy
Early disc recordings were produced in a variety of speeds ranging from
60 to 130 rpm, and a variety of sizes. I have no doubt this must have caused some confusion. As early as 1894, Emile Berliner's United States Gramophone Company was selling single-sided 7-inch discs with an advertised standard speed of "about 70 rpm".
One standard audio recording handbook describes speed regulators, or governors,
as being part of a wave of improvement introduced rapidly after 1897.
Early record players were hand-cranked. The 1898 Berliner Gramophone shows a
governor. This model Berliner, Style 5, (with the optional brass horn)
became the
trademark of first the Berliner Gramophone Company, then the Victor
Talking Machine Company and later RCA Victor as a result of a painting, "His Master's Voice", by Francis Barraud which was purchased along with the
copyright by the Berliner Company.
There are great detail photos of the Berliner player on the Phonograph Company website (link below).
Berliner, Style 5 Gramophone
Circa 1897
There is a really interesting article on the manufacturing of early discs by Fred Gaisberg on Sound Of The Hound (link below), as well as a video of an Edison player on YouTube (link below).
Viewfinder links:
Audio equipment
Thomas Edison
Edison, Nikola Tesla & the incandescent bulb
Pathé Records & early phonography
phonography articles/mentions
Net links:
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