Tonight there was a new episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel titled "Mad Electricity" focusing on Tesla from the small portion I saw.
Amazing how far ahead of people that got the credit for many inventions. Idea for radar 17 years before it was invented and concepts that are used today in remote controls.
I seen the entire show. The whole show was about Tesla's creations and ideas. I found it very interesting, with a lot of things that I never knew Tesla was behind.
I wish we had people as inventive as him in today's world.
I too watched it last night. I did a research paper on Tesla, way back in highschool. An extremely facinating man indeed, if not more than a bit eccentric. Of course, many of the great minds in history are.
I already knew most of what they covered about the man already. Still, it is nice to see him getsome of the more mainstream credit that he deserves. I personally think that it's a real shame, that everyone you talk to has heard about Edison and the lightbulb, yet when you mention the name Tesla, the same people tend to look at you with blank stares. Edison did come up with some great ideas, yet many of the inventions that he takes credit for, were those of the people that worked for him and not really his own.
I agree that Tesla was a genius. Here's a man that thought a century ahead of his time, laid the ground work for many, if not nearly all, of the modern technology that we count on daily, and foresaw and warned us about many of the energy related issues that have only come to the surface recently.
It's amazing that he's not considered a hero, and it's nice to see some recognition finally occur.
Amazingly enough, he also wrote that the world was crazy to be using fossil fuels. He explored renewable energy when a short sighted world was building a foundation based on oil and coal. Now we're paying the price for such arrogance in pollution and shortages and worldwide unrest. Just think if our grandfathers and great-grandfathers had listened to him like they should have. Just think what incredible advances we would have made in the right direction by now.
I wonder what geniuses we're ignoring right now, while we're paying athletes and movie stars multi-million dollar contracts to play games and make-believe for the cameras.
Ian, I agree about Edison. Here in Ft Myers he is a god but the biggest thing he invented was the intellectual property rights contract. He had lots of ideas but actually getting the hardware designed and built fell to his employees.
Edison's genius was really in marketing.
Unless you can actually produce and sell the product yourself, the invention is worthless. Someone will steal it from you.
The part I liked the best is about the invention of the radio. Marconi has been given the credit all these years, but we know that Tesla was the true inventor. Of course it took a court to prove it.
Ps....If you saw the movie "Bucket List" this was discussed in the very first few lines.
That was the highlight of that waste of 2 hours of my life. Tesla also played a big role in that magician movie 2 years ago, I cant remmember the name, 2 rival magicians in the 1920 or 30's.
That's the one. IMDB says David Bowie played Tesla. That is hard for me to picture.
