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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technologies with tex Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff what Com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to an

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Speaker 1: electrifying episode tech Stuff. You're sure to get a charge

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Speaker 1: out of that's right. I'm Jonathan Strickland, one of the

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Speaker 1: two hosts, and I'm Lauren Vocal on the other house,

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Speaker 1: and I and Jonathan I think that we should really

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Speaker 1: ground ourselves here. Oh that's very good. I'm glad you're

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Speaker 1: staying up with current events. Do you really want to

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Speaker 1: go down this road line at all? Grab my decision.

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Speaker 1: You don't like puns? No, I don't. Chris Palette instilled

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Speaker 1: in me a love of puns that runs deep. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: you may have already guessed we're gonna be talking a

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Speaker 1: little bit about electricity in this episode, and that's because

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Speaker 1: we are focusing finally, after many, many, many people have

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Speaker 1: asked us to do a full episode about Nicola Tesla,

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Speaker 1: the Internet legend, the man placed on a virtual had

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Speaker 1: us still on the Internet, that is gleaming and beauteous

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Speaker 1: and will zap you if you ever dare say anything

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Speaker 1: against him. He's he's staring at us from the walls

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Speaker 1: of the podcast room right now. Yes he is. Yes,

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Speaker 1: judging us. Now, the question of whether or not he'll

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Speaker 1: be staring at us in our news studio remains to

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Speaker 1: be answered. Uh, we'll probably end up propping him up

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Speaker 1: on a mic stand or something, so he's still judging

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Speaker 1: us constantly. But yeah, we want to talk about Tesla,

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Speaker 1: kind of talk about his his contributions to technology and

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Speaker 1: also maybe take a critical look at some of the

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Speaker 1: some of the claims about Tesla and some of the

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Speaker 1: misconceptions people have about his contributions. He's he's a mythological figure,

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Speaker 1: really a mythological nerd figure, which is which is fabulous.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's really terrific, and it's it's it's understandable

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Speaker 1: why because he he by the end of his life,

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Speaker 1: was so downtrodden. And there's nothing that people and geeks

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Speaker 1: especially love more than than an anti hero. Yeah. Here,

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Speaker 1: here's a guy who has been beaten down. He's he's

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Speaker 1: uh seen his fortunes dwindle away. He's he's made some

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Speaker 1: bad choices. Uh, he has all the earmarks of a

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Speaker 1: classic geek. Geeks love this underdog kind of story. And

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Speaker 1: and when you get into things like sort of the

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Speaker 1: the demonification of other people. Edison in particular. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: even people like JP Morgan and Mustinghouse. Then it seems

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Speaker 1: like the whole world had turned against him. And and

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Speaker 1: depending on how you look at his story, it can

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Speaker 1: definitely come across that way. But that's doing a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a disservice to the entire tale. And Uh,

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Speaker 1: the reason why I'm talking about in this way is

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Speaker 1: because there is what we thought some people referred to

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Speaker 1: as the cult of Tesla, right, this idea of elevating

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Speaker 1: him beyond what his contributions were. Uh, there was a

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Speaker 1: cartoon that I think a lot of you guys out

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Speaker 1: there saw because he posted about it on our Facebook

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Speaker 1: page that The Oatmeal did all about Tesla and his

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Speaker 1: his um contributions and his rivalry with Edison and kind

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Speaker 1: of comparing him favorably against Edison in every single category

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Speaker 1: and saying that there should be a Tesla museum. And

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Speaker 1: so we wanted to talk about what Tesla actually did

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Speaker 1: and what he did not do, and uh, and whether

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Speaker 1: or not he deserves all those acoms. Yeah. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: and just just before anyone who is a rabid fan

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Speaker 1: of the oat Mail gets honest, because I don't I

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Speaker 1: do not want to incite your anger. Uh, it's we

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Speaker 1: realize that it's a comic and that that although uh

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Speaker 1: many of the statements are factual. The writer whose name

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Speaker 1: I'm completely forgetting right now, has come out and said that, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is a comic. I'm I'm a comic artist. And

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Speaker 1: some of this was hyper Bowl, sob no, I like

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Speaker 1: it's hyper Bowl. It's way better than that Super One.

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Speaker 1: I like the hyper Bowl a lot more. I am

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Speaker 1: never gonna let you live that down, and we are

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Speaker 1: not re recording it. Let's move on. So yeah, Tesla

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Speaker 1: born on July tenth, eighteen fifty six, in what is

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Speaker 1: now Croatia now eighteen fifty six by the Gregorian calendar.

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Speaker 1: If you have looked up at Tesla's birth and you

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Speaker 1: saw that it was actually in June June, that's because

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Speaker 1: at the time they were keeping time with the Julian calendar.

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Speaker 1: And it's only when you account for that, when you

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Speaker 1: match those up, that you realize that, Okay, well, if

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Speaker 1: you're using a real calendar like I do, the one

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Speaker 1: that's on my smartphone, and that's the only way I

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Speaker 1: know what day it is, it was July t so

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty six. July t and born in in Uh

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Speaker 1: part of Austria, Hungary which is now Croatia UM And

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Speaker 1: as a boy, he went to what we would think

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Speaker 1: of in the United States is elementary school or primary

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Speaker 1: school and studied German arithmetic and religion because his dad

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Speaker 1: was a pastor and his mom's father was a pastor,

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Speaker 1: both both in the Orthodox Church. Actually, so yeah, so

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Speaker 1: he he definitely had a religious upbring uh and his

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Speaker 1: father really wanted him to be a priest, by the way, Yes,

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Speaker 1: he did a lot. In fact, he was not so

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Speaker 1: thrilled about Tesla going into engineering. UM. When he was

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Speaker 1: a young boy, Tesla's Tesla's older brother named Dane, died

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Speaker 1: in a tragic accident. He actually fell off a horse

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Speaker 1: and died. There were some stories that Tesla or Nicola

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Speaker 1: Tesla was playing around and spooked the horse that caused Yes,

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Speaker 1: so actually I've heard I'm sorry, I meant to I

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Speaker 1: meant to insert this earlier. But but the very first

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Speaker 1: terrific tall tale that I heard about Tesla was that

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Speaker 1: he was born on a dark and stormy night to lightning.

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Speaker 1: Right right, He was born on the stroke of midnight

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Speaker 1: as lightning crashed in the sky and that one person

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Speaker 1: said he would be a boy of storms, and his

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Speaker 1: mother said, no, he shall be a man of the light.

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Speaker 1: I might be inserting some of my hyper bowl in there, goodness,

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Speaker 1: my gracious. So yeah, and as a child they moved

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Speaker 1: around quite a bit as his father was finding a

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Speaker 1: church to be pastor in and in eighteen seventy, so

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Speaker 1: I remember he's born in eighteen fifty six. By eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy he moves in with his aunt and starts to

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Speaker 1: attend a school that we're a teacher named Martin skul Chick,

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Speaker 1: sorry Skolich, Sokolich. Uh So, Martin so Coolich is teaching there,

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Speaker 1: and he's teaching math and physics, and Tesla finds both

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Speaker 1: the professor and the subject matter fascinating, and he becomes

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Speaker 1: really focused on math and physics. And in fact, he's

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Speaker 1: so focused he graduates a year early. So he was

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Speaker 1: certainly a man of genius. He possessed a genius and

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Speaker 1: an affinity for physics, for math, for engineering that far

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Speaker 1: outstripped most of his contemporaries. Yeah, definitely, But then again,

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Speaker 1: this is also the era where we start seeing these

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Speaker 1: technologies form and uh and so it was an exciting

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Speaker 1: time if you were interested in physics, because this is

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Speaker 1: when we're making lots of big discovered reas, things that

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Speaker 1: some people say are um low hanging fruit, you know,

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Speaker 1: in retrospect, the idea that there were all these discoveries

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Speaker 1: to make. But it's hard to see how we're going

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Speaker 1: to advance from this point forward because all the quote

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Speaker 1: unquote easy things have been discovered. Not that any of

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Speaker 1: these things were easy, it's just that now you are

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Speaker 1: have to become increasingly specialized in whatever scientific field you're

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Speaker 1: in to clearly understand it. But while doing this, researcher

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Speaker 1: kind of blew my mind. I actually don't have a

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Speaker 1: strong history in in electronic background, and and it blew

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Speaker 1: my mind that it wasn't until eighteen seventy three that

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Speaker 1: that James Clerk Maxwell proved that light is electromagnetic energy. Yeah, yes,

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Speaker 1: this is He's he's growing up at a time when uh,

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Speaker 1: these discoveries are being made and that would impact his

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Speaker 1: own work and in fact drive him to achieve great things. Also,

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, that was the year he contracted cholera. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was due to the cholera that he kind

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Speaker 1: of shaped the rest of his life. Yeah, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: quite a few things. Yeah, because if you if you've

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Speaker 1: heard about Tesla, you know that he uh, he reportedly

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Speaker 1: had a bit of obsessive compulsive disorder, that he was

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Speaker 1: a germophobe, that he was a clean he was obsessed

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Speaker 1: with being clean and having cleaned things around him. He

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Speaker 1: reported in his own biography that he had a severe

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Speaker 1: aversion to touching other people's hair, that he had to

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Speaker 1: do things if if they require repetition, in the repetition

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Speaker 1: of threes, and if he did not, then he had

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Speaker 1: to stop and restart. Yeah, so he he may have

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Speaker 1: developed some of these peculiarities. At this time. He was

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Speaker 1: in bed for about nine months, nearly died a few times.

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Speaker 1: So I would imagine that was definitely something that would

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Speaker 1: shape you whether or not that. I'm sure there were

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Speaker 1: other issues that are beyond just getting sick. There were

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Speaker 1: probably some things that were psychologically part of his being

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Speaker 1: from the point where he was born, but we don't

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Speaker 1: know to what extent obviously, and um, and you know

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Speaker 1: what's odd to me, I might as well talk about

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Speaker 1: this for right now. So neat freak, if you want

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Speaker 1: to put it that way, germophobe, doesn't like touching people.

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Speaker 1: Loved pigeons, loved them rats with wings, that's what they are. Well,

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Speaker 1: that that was, that was also towards the end of

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Speaker 1: his life that he became obsessed with him became incredibly

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Speaker 1: obsessed with pigeons. Yeah, it just makes me think of

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Speaker 1: that great scene in the documentary The Producers, Boydes filthy

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Speaker 1: rotten Boydes. I appreciate that that your your Yiddish accent

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Speaker 1: there is is better than mine. That's excellent. I should

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Speaker 1: also point out that that that's the nineteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: version of the documentary The Producer is not the musical

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Speaker 1: version starring Nathan Lane. Matthew Broderick actually has zero mostell

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Speaker 1: Gene Wilder. I'm getting off track anyway. Um so yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he's he's definitely got some interesting personality quirks eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy four. He starts to move around a little bit,

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Speaker 1: mostly hiding out from the army because in that part

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Speaker 1: of the world, in Austro Austrio, Austro Hungary. Look, I

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Speaker 1: can't say that. Uh yes we do, thank thank goodness.

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Speaker 1: We don't speak into a microphone for a living right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But back in that time. In that part of the world,

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Speaker 1: army service was required of all young men. There was

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Speaker 1: three years mandatory service, and Tesla was not too keen

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Speaker 1: on doing that, so he kind of, um, he was

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Speaker 1: a little bit he was dodging, that's the best way

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Speaker 1: of putting it. The next year he starts to attend

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Speaker 1: the Austrian Polytechnic School and he starts off really strong.

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Speaker 1: He's doing really well in his classes. He understands the concepts,

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Speaker 1: and unlike some other some other visionaries like say Stephen Hawking,

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Speaker 1: he was very good in school. Yep, yep. Also, you know,

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Speaker 1: not not like Einstein or some of the other famous

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Speaker 1: folks who seemed to have trouble in class. Now that

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Speaker 1: that was true for about a year, and then about

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Speaker 1: that second year things began to take a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a dip because he began to point out shortcomings

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Speaker 1: or what he thought of as shortcomings in his professor's

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Speaker 1: understanding of things like electrical engineering and saying things like,

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Speaker 1: you know, you could build a device that does the

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Speaker 1: same thing without this one component that you are claiming

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Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary for it to work. It furthermore, puts

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Speaker 1: off gigantic electrical shocks that are actually pretty dangerous, like

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Speaker 1: you could do it this way and then uh, if

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Speaker 1: you mouth off to your professors often enough, you might

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Speaker 1: find yourself in some academic trouble. And that's kind of

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Speaker 1: what Tesla did. He he began to get disillusioned about

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Speaker 1: pursuing studies in an academic setting, and after about a

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Speaker 1: little over three years, he actually dropped out of the

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Speaker 1: polytechnic school. So he moved to Slovenia in to work

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Speaker 1: as a draftsman for an engineering firm. But by eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine, the next year, some some police officials show

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Speaker 1: up and asked to see his residents papers, which he

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Speaker 1: did not have, so then he was escorted back to

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Speaker 1: his family's home because he didn't have a residence permit

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Speaker 1: for Slovenia. And that same year his father passes away

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Speaker 1: ah and Tesla starts to a new career as a

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Speaker 1: teacher in the same school that he attended as a boy,

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Speaker 1: but realizes very quickly that's not for him. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to do that. Um. So then the next year,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eight, he moved to Prague. He tries to attend

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Speaker 1: Carl Ferdinand University, but he's unable to understand Greek or check,

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Speaker 1: both of which were prerequisites to attend as a student,

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Speaker 1: so instead he audits classes uh, and he begins to

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Speaker 1: work for the Budapest Telephone Exchange and also the Central

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Speaker 1: Telegram Office. Eighteen eighty by the way, it was the

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Speaker 1: year that that Thomas Edison unveiled his electric incandescent lamp

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Speaker 1: to the public for the first time. Yep, so that's

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Speaker 1: a good thing to to keep in mind. There are

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Speaker 1: some big things happening at the same time that Tesla's

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Speaker 1: kind of uh, you know, he hasn't really made a

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Speaker 1: name for himself yet. He's been a very uh enthusiastic

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Speaker 1: student at times of his life, and he is certainly

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Speaker 1: interested in electronics or really we should say electricity from

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Speaker 1: electronics electronics too early, but electricity and its applications. Um.

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Speaker 1: So he does that for a couple of years. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two, he joins the Continental Edison Company and

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Speaker 1: begins to work on things like dynamos, which are well,

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Speaker 1: you've heard us talk about dynamos and our episodes about

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Speaker 1: electromagnets and motors and uh, induction in the reverse of that,

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Speaker 1: so we I won't go into it. But anyway, he

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Speaker 1: starts to work on that. Now this means that he

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Speaker 1: becomes an employee, although you know, indirectly and way down

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Speaker 1: the line of Edison. So yeah, he's sitting there working

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Speaker 1: for the company of the man who would one day

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Speaker 1: become his greatest rival. According to my nemesis, they have

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Speaker 1: dragon Ball style fights in the sky. Yeah, they also

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Speaker 1: would occasionally catch Pokemon, but it was only the one

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Speaker 1: that shoots the electricity. I don't I don't know which one. Oh,

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Speaker 1: come on, it's Pikachu. I was just I was trying

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Speaker 1: to bait Lauren to see if I could get it.

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Speaker 1: I actually know that. Dang, you win this time, vogel Baum.

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Speaker 1: So at this time, he also gets the idea for

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Speaker 1: the a C induction motor, although Asterisk not necessarily the

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Speaker 1: first person to think about that. Supposedly in a vision, well,

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Speaker 1: supposedly he had these visions. Supposedly he was was very

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Speaker 1: light and audio sensitive, and occasionally, upon looking at one

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Speaker 1: object or having a certain idea, would would get an

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Speaker 1: extremely strong visual perception of of something that he had

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Speaker 1: already seen, or or of nothing nothing imaginary unless it

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Speaker 1: was a new invention. But yeah, occasionally he would get

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Speaker 1: these flashes that that kind of disturbed him a lot,

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Speaker 1: according to his autobiography. Yeah, so essentially what would happen

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Speaker 1: is he would be walking through a park and look

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Speaker 1: at a beautiful scene, and then suddenly an idea would form,

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Speaker 1: fully formed in his head, like not not something he

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Speaker 1: had been puzzling about necessarily. It might just be hey, boom,

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Speaker 1: here are all the pieces and the puzzle is completely

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Speaker 1: put together. You know, we opened up the box and

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Speaker 1: the puzzles there, as opposed to you've been trying to

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Speaker 1: fix this problem for years, and oh, here's the inspiration.

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Speaker 1: And so Yeah. Supposedly he was walking through the city

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Speaker 1: park in Budapest with a friend and saw a beautiful

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Speaker 1: sunset and quoted some poetry and then had an idea

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Speaker 1: for for the induction motor. Yeah, and just drew it

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Speaker 1: in the sand and then kept walking. Yeah. Whether or

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Speaker 1: not that's true, it's hard to say, because Tesla, as

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Speaker 1: it turns out, was something of a showman, a little

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Speaker 1: bit of an unreliable narrator. I would say unreliable narrator

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Speaker 1: is a very kind way of putting it. The same

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Speaker 1: sort of thing is true of all the big names

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Speaker 1: at this time, because they were the rock stars of

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Speaker 1: that of that era. So Edison, same sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: Edison was a master at at PR, you know, beyond

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Speaker 1: beyond being the head of a very successful research and

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Speaker 1: development firm, he was very good at presenting his ideas

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Speaker 1: to a public and explaining why they were the best ideas,

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Speaker 1: even if they weren't the best ideas. Tesla was. He

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Speaker 1: was no slouch in that department either. There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who will paint Tesla as being the

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Speaker 1: the dedicated genius who is working for the betterment of

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Speaker 1: all mankind but doesn't ever look to get gain glory

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Speaker 1: in the process. That's not entirely accurate. Now, that's that's

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Speaker 1: not If you've ever seen any of the photographs that

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Speaker 1: that he took around his equipment, I would say that

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Speaker 1: those are not the mark of someone who is not

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Speaker 1: a showman. I saw this one photograph. He looked just

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Speaker 1: like David Bowie. Um. I might be mixing that up

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Speaker 1: with a documentary though, So then the the in in

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Speaker 1: uh in a T two. This whole time where he's

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Speaker 1: making he's working for Edison. He's got this idea for

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Speaker 1: the a C induction motor. He also is reportedly not

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Speaker 1: paid some money for the work he's doing for Edison Company,

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Speaker 1: at least not not all of it. Like there's money

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Speaker 1: due to him that's not being paid. And this this

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Speaker 1: is partly what lays the groundwork for this whole idea

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Speaker 1: of the heated rivalry between Edison and Tesla. A lot

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Speaker 1: of it is money that's withheld from Tesla that was

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Speaker 1: promised to him. I mean, and and this this is

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Speaker 1: when he was very he was what twenty six at

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Speaker 1: the time, and and in Paris, and so he was

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Speaker 1: he was really distantly connected from to Edison at the time,

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Speaker 1: but apparently started right you use this, If you use

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Speaker 1: this and just say like this is indicative of how

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Speaker 1: Edison treats people. Uh, it would apparently become company policy

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Speaker 1: not to pay people for their work. That's what That's

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Speaker 1: what's jested of this. It also becomes you know, a

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Speaker 1: common thread in Tesla's life of getting getting cheated out

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Speaker 1: of things that were owed him, which makes you wonder,

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Speaker 1: if it happened so frequently, why is that Is it

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Speaker 1: all due to Was it just that he only worked

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Speaker 1: with corrupt individuals and companies, or was it that there

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Speaker 1: was something else going on here besides that part of

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Speaker 1: the story. I have no doubt that Tesla was really

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Speaker 1: cheated out of many of the things he deserved. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure that he was cheated out of everything that

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Speaker 1: is attributed as being something he deserved. Um, but then

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Speaker 1: we'll get into that again. Four, he makes the big

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Speaker 1: move from Europe to America. He he had basically no

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Speaker 1: money at the time. From what I understand, well, he

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Speaker 1: definitely had no money by the time he got there. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it took a little longer for him to get there

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Speaker 1: than he had anticipated. According to one timeline I read

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Speaker 1: the ship he was on. This is just Tesla's luck, right.

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Speaker 1: The ship he was on had a mutiny aboard the

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Speaker 1: ships and supposedly Tesla himself was nearly thrown overboard, probably

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Speaker 1: for being a witch. That that last part is just

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Speaker 1: me guessing. I didn't have any reason. I didn't have.

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Speaker 1: There was no reason given as to why Tesla would

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Speaker 1: have been thrown overboard, so I'm just inventing one. But no,

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Speaker 1: Apparently the shippy was on had a mutiny aboard it.

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Speaker 1: He ended up getting to New York way later than

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Speaker 1: when he expected, and according to some reports, had four

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Speaker 1: cents in his pocket. Now Also, depending upon whom you ask,

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Speaker 1: he either immediately went to work for Edison, as in

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Speaker 1: got off the boat, filed and went into the office,

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Speaker 1: or he started the next day. That seems to be

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Speaker 1: the two stories. Either way, I think that's pretty remarkable.

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Speaker 1: Um and uh. And he works for Edison and he's

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Speaker 1: helping them with their systems. Uh. Supposedly again, he started

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Speaker 1: to suggest Edison that they which to an alternating current

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Speaker 1: model as opposed to direct current, and Ederson was very

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Speaker 1: much against that idea. So then in eighteen eighty five,

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Speaker 1: Tesla forms the Tesla Electric Light Company. An investor group

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Speaker 1: actually asks him if he will work on an arc

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Speaker 1: lighting system, and he agrees to do it and then

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Speaker 1: is later forced out of his own company when nothing

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Speaker 1: to show for it. Was it was that all I mean,

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Speaker 1: because he started the company because he had been he

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Speaker 1: had quit Edison's correct. Yeah. Essentially, that same year he

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Speaker 1: resigns from the Edison company, And some say the reason

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Speaker 1: he did that was because again here's another story of

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Speaker 1: Tesla getting cheated. That Edison had promised Tesla a princely

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Speaker 1: sum of fifty thousand dollars for a particular project, and

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Speaker 1: when Tesla completed the project against supposedly with flying colors

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Speaker 1: and beyond all expectations. Edison then said, ha, ha, you

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Speaker 1: don't understand American humor. I'm not giving you any money,

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Speaker 1: and then Tesla resigns, even though Edison supposedly at that

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Speaker 1: point offered an enormous raise to keep Tesla there. This

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Speaker 1: makes Edison look like the biggest jerk on the face

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Speaker 1: of the planet. I mean, I can't imagine my boss

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Speaker 1: coming up to me and saying, hey, you know when

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Speaker 1: I told you you were going to make fifty dollars

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Speaker 1: if you did this thing, and then you did that thing,

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Speaker 1: you did it really well, Well you're not gonna get

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Speaker 1: any money. Oh you want to leave, I'll raise your salary.

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Speaker 1: That just like what kind of crazy person does that? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't sound I mean, you know it could.

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Speaker 1: I never met Edison, didn't Did you meet him? You're

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Speaker 1: very old, yuh. Tesla then claimed that he spent the

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Speaker 1: next year making money by digging ditches. So again, a great,

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Speaker 1: great story. If you're looking at his life in the

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Speaker 1: terms of like a tragic tale, you know, here you

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Speaker 1: have this genius, incredible, super genius, the man who will

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Speaker 1: one day light up the United States with his alternating

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Speaker 1: current power grid, making money scraping by by digging ditches. Yeah. Um, again,

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Speaker 1: a lot of this comes from Tesla himself, and whether

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Speaker 1: or not all of it is true, it remains part

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Speaker 1: of myth. You know, I don't doubt that. I don't

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Speaker 1: doubt there were some bad business dealings. I'm sure that

387
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Speaker 1: was the case, and I don't doubt he had some

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Speaker 1: hard times and maybe he did make his living for

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Speaker 1: a full year being you know, digging ditches and that

390
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Speaker 1: was the only thing he could do. But it sounds more,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like melodrama. But sometimes works like that. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: that's sometimes that's the truth stranger things. But anyway, then

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Speaker 1: by by e eighties seven, so you know, eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: digging ditches, we don't need to go into that's it. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, meanwhile, in eighteen eighties six, actually it's interesting,

396
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Speaker 1: Westinghouse Electric had developed a transformer for commercial use. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So that's another thing we should mention is that, Uh,

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons Tesla was really pushing for this

399
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Speaker 1: alternating current thing with Edison is that back in Europe

400
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,920
Speaker 1: that's what they were using. A C was that's that's

401
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Speaker 1: the route they took. They didn't they didn't go down

402
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Speaker 1: the direct current route at all. They went with alternating current.

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Speaker 1: And that becomes important when we start talking about the

404
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,880
Speaker 1: myths of of Tesla as well. In a little bit, right, Yeah,

405
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: the the U s so embroiled in d C current.

406
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:09,160
Speaker 1: The name the Brooklyn Dodgers actually comes because they were

407
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Speaker 1: using direct current power lines that were kind of haphazardly

408
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 1: strung across the city, and and Brooklyn Knights had to

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Speaker 1: dodge these lines so often that their team was thus

410
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Speaker 1: named the Brooklyn Dodge, whereas the New York Giants were

411
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Speaker 1: called that because they came from a race of mythical

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Speaker 1: creatures that lived up Giant. Okay, now, I just wanted

413
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: to show off that I knew something too, but I

414
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: don't really know anything. After the ditch digging has finished,

415
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: Tesla begins to work with investors again, and he establishes

416
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Speaker 1: a lab at eighty nine Liberty Street in New York

417
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Speaker 1: and then just a few blocks away from Medicine's. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: And the next year he starts to talk about a

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Speaker 1: C motors and transformers for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

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Speaker 1: Now known as the I Triple E, or as I

421
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Speaker 1: always prefer to call them. I ye that once for

422
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: all you engineers out there. Uh. And he also agrees

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Speaker 1: to start selling patents to George Westinghouse. So even though

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Speaker 1: you know, Lauren, like Lauren was saying in eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: you already had Westinghouse working on transformers and alternating current,

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Speaker 1: that was before Tesla had even started to work for Westingham. Uh.

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00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: That that's something to keep in mind as well. So

428
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine he establishes a new lab on Grand

429
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: Street in New York. There's a lot of labs. He

430
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: had a lot of labs spread out throughout New York.

431
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: He also lived in hotels mostly did he even then? Yeah,

432
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,119
Speaker 1: mostly towards the end of his life, but yeah, early

433
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:34,719
Speaker 1: on he was living in a lot of hotels as well.

434
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 1: I think he also joked about about how is his hours,

435
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: especially when he was working in Edison's lab. We're from

436
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: like ten in the morning until five thirty am the

437
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 1: next day, and and so that a lot of his

438
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: sleeping A wasn't really sleeping, and B was probably under

439
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: his desk, right right, I can identify with that. Uh.

440
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: In ninety he begins to experiment with wireless power in

441
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: florest and neon lighting, as well as X rays, although

442
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: at the time he isn't sure exactly what they are.

443
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: He shadow pictures. Yeah, this was before Wilhelm Laurentin had

444
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: really established what X rays were and what they could do.

445
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:12,159
Speaker 1: So Tesla was one of the people who was observing

446
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,879
Speaker 1: the phenomena of X rays early early on. Yeah, there

447
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:17,239
Speaker 1: are a few other people at the time who were

448
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 1: working with them, but yeah, yeah, yeah, in fact, that'll

449
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: go into the myths as well. But then he becomes

450
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: an American citizen. Also I believe patented the Tesla coil.

451
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: There you go an interesting thing in his mother passes away.

452
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: That same year, he becomes the vice president of the

453
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: AI Triple E, which is even it's a I E.

454
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: I guess that is how I would say that. And

455
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: he becomes famous worldwide for his lectures on alternating current

456
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: So at this point he's on the lecture circuit. I mean,

457
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: he's he's going from city to city, you know, he

458
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: stopped in places like Chicago and New York, London, Paris.

459
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: So he becomes a again, like I said, like a

460
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: rock star. He's known for these lectures, and it sounds

461
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: weird for us to say that that he's like a

462
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: rock star, But this was an era where these these

463
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: thinkers were really pushing the development of technology to a

464
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: point where everyone was sure that, you know, okay, we're

465
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 1: five years away from the incredible future. And in many

466
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: ways they were right. It's just that their view of

467
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: what the incredible future would be ended up being a

468
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: lot different from what it really was. But it was

469
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: an era of rapid development, so these guys were considered

470
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: to be the people pushing that rapid development is really

471
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: exciting and think things like when the Chicago World Fair

472
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: was that was that? Oh? Yeah? That was that was

473
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: famous because there was the whole Edison Tesla story there

474
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: about who is going to provide power? Right, and it

475
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: was really Edison versus h Westinghouse. Yeah but I mean

476
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: Westinghouse backed by Tesla. Sure, sure, yeah, west Westinghouse was

477
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: using technology that Tesla had patented and and systems that

478
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: Tesla worked on, but it was not truly Tesla versus Edison.

479
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of how I think. Even in a

480
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: previous episode of Tech Stuff, we sort of talked about

481
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: it in those terms because that's sort of the romantic

482
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: way of doing it, right, is the idea of these

483
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: two geniuses facing off against each other and who will

484
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,199
Speaker 1: win and alternating current one out in that one. So

485
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: it's really Westinghouse that one, al right, right. Yeah. The

486
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 1: story goes that there was a there was a business

487
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: deal the government was looking to contract either either Westinghouses

488
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: Company or Edison's Company to power the World's Fair and

489
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: and Westinghouse one out because it was cheaper. Yeah, and

490
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: then and when and yeah, and when they threw when

491
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: President Grover Cleveland, I think it was through that switch

492
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: and which like a hundred hundred thousand bulbs lit up

493
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: all at the same time, and people were like, oh, oh,

494
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: this is a thing trivia for you folks out there

495
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 1: who don't know your history. Grover Cleveland was the only

496
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: president to serve two non consecutive terms as president. He

497
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: was president, then he wasn't president, and he was in again. Yes,

498
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:06,719
Speaker 1: he also liked the song Funky Cold Medina eighteen nine five.

499
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: So then one of the buildings that housed one of

500
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: Tesla's labs caught fire in eighteen and his lab burned

501
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: down and the fire destroyed what was estimated to be

502
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment and information, and

503
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: he had no insurance. Yeah, and fifty thous that's it's

504
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: a lot of money today, it was a huge amount

505
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: of money in eight um. And and at the time

506
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: he was experimenting with with radio signal. Yeah, and and supposedly,

507
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: according to him, was ready to transmit a signal fifty

508
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: miles out to West Point, New York. Yeah. So that

509
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: this is during if you've listened to the Old Tech

510
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: Stuff episode about who invented the radio, there's a lot

511
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: about Tesla and Marconi. And there there's a whole story

512
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: there too about how Marconi, like Tesla, got a patent

513
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: for for the radio. Then Marconi applied for a patent,

514
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: then the patent office overturned and Tesla's patent gave Marconi

515
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: the patent, and then later on overturned it again and

516
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: gave it back to Tesla. Later on is in the nineties,

517
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: after Tesla was dead. Um. Yeah, there's that whole story,

518
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: and and there's there's arguments there too, because again, the

519
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: invention of any sort of technology requires that you talk

520
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: about so many different people who who contributed to the

521
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: discoveries that led to the possibility of something existing. That

522
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: it's impossible to actually point at one person and say

523
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: this person invented radio, but both Marconi and Tesla were

524
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: working on it, and uh, and there's argument over who

525
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: should have real credit there. Uh, but go listen to

526
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: our episode about who invented the radio if you want

527
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: to hear more about that, because I think that that

528
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: that that argument is so long and detailed that it's

529
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: hard to sum up in an episode just about Tesla. Yeah. Yeah,

530
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: though it's yeah, certainly another another one of those points

531
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: that people like to bring up in terms of he

532
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: was so downtrodden. Yeah, it's a good another point, and

533
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: and that's a more firm one that Yeah, he absolutely

534
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: lost that fight and lost probably a lot of money

535
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: in fame. I think, Uh Marconi won the New Belt Prize. Yeah,

536
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: All was not happy about that excited. Uh. In he

537
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: demonstrated a wirelessly controlled model boat, so essentially a an

538
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: r C boat at the Electrical Exposition in Madison Square Garden,

539
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: where years later, Highlanders would fight it out to determine

540
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,479
Speaker 1: who would win the prize, and Queen would sing Princess

541
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: of the Universe in the background. I didn't I didn't

542
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: really like that documentary. WHOA, Okay, you know what, We're

543
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: gonna take a little break here. Let's let's take a

544
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: take a moment to thank our sponsor, and now back

545
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: to our show. Alright, getting back into Tesla's life. In

546
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: eight he moves to Colorado to perform some experiments with

547
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: wireless power. And this is where one of the big

548
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: myths about Tesla comes up. This idea that he wanted

549
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: to build this huge tower that would tap into the

550
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: this this resonant frequency that exists around the world, and

551
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: that you could transmit power wirelessly across miles of space. Um.

552
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: He claimed that he had another one of those visions

553
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: that let him understand the geoelectrical phenomenon he called terrestrial

554
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: stationary waves, an idea about tapping into the Earth itself

555
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: as a conductor. Okay, sounds interesting. Yeah, And it's not that, uh,

556
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: it's not that everything was that he said was crazy

557
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: or it was just that to be able to actually

558
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: use this in a way that would allow you to

559
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: transmit power reliably safely without losing power over distance or

560
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: zapping and killing everybody, uh, is something we haven't solved. Yet,

561
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of people who say that

562
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: all of his work would have proven if if it

563
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: still existed. We'll get into more about more destruction of

564
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: his work and where it all went went to. But

565
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: then if it still existed, it would prove that this

566
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: sort of thing is possible. And it's only the energy

567
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: company that are keeping it down because they stand to

568
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: lose so much if this If this information got out,

569
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to agree to anything like that because it

570
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: suggests that no one but Tesla could have ever come

571
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: up with this, and therefore the idea is lost forever.

572
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: When I would argue, we have people who are far

573
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: more informed about electrical engineering than Tesla was, even though

574
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: he was a brilliant man. And lets you know, perhaps

575
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 1: the people these days are not a visionary the way

576
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: that he was. But yeah, maybe maybe that's it. Maybe

577
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: they just need to take a walk in the park

578
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: and look at the sunset, think about some poetry that

579
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: would help. I guess, you know, hey, far be it

580
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: from me to downplay the importance of poetry in the world.

581
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: I certainly think it's important. Being English lit major uh

582
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: in nineteen o one, Well, all right, so so he

583
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: starts to think really about wireless power and the phenomena

584
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: that it would be, Like what what would go into

585
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: making this and how it would change the world, And

586
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: he really was thinking it was an interesting idea. So

587
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: a nineteen o one, with funding from various sources, including

588
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: people like JP Morgan, he starts to build the Warden

589
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: Cliff Tower. This is at a long island sound and uh,

590
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: this is um this thing is supposed to be a

591
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: wireless power transmitting station essentially, and with the nineteen o

592
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: three starts to test it, even though the tower itself

593
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: is not completed at that point. And this this was

594
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: this was a tower that that again reached deep into

595
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: the ground to kind of tap into this this terrestrial

596
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: uh wave stationary wave. Actually have a really great quote

597
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: from Tesla. If I had made out excellent in the

598
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: system that I've invented, it is necessary for the machine

599
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: to get a grip on the earth, otherwise it cannot

600
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: shake the earth. It has to have a grip so

601
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 1: that the whole of this globe can quiver. Yeah, if

602
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: you also remember the story about Tesla putting an oscillating

603
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: motor onto a building and then nearly shaking it to

604
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: its foundation that kind of dates from the same sort

605
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: of concept. Um, the Earth is still here, by the way,

606
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a spoiler alert to how this

607
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: story plays out. Midbuster's actually actually cracked that one and

608
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: the episode back in A two six things they showed.

609
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: They showed that it could like a small repetitive motion

610
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: could cause a bridge to start to shake a little

611
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: enough to notice a couple of couple dred feet away, right,

612
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 1: but not necessarily enough to to make it crumble into pieces. Um,

613
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 1: but anyway, we all earthquake Warrncliff Tower becomes an important

614
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: part of Tesla's life. He it was one of these

615
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,240
Speaker 1: things that he really thought that that the terrestrial stationary

616
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: waves was the uh discovery of his life. That was

617
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: the most important out of everything that he had worked

618
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: with with alternating current, with transformers, with all these other technologies,

619
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: those paled in comparison to this one. And so Warncliffe

620
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:52,240
Speaker 1: Tower was very important to him. Unfortunately, uh, there weren't.

621
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: He didn't have a whole lot to show for it.

622
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: And also he was running up the electric bill yeah yeah,

623
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: and Morgan was getting pretty sick of it. Meanwhile, across

624
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: the ocean, um Marconi had signaled the letter asked across

625
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, and that didn't make Tesla happy. And and

626
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 1: I mean and and you know Marconi was just such

627
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: a such a newspaper Darling. Yeah he was again and

628
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: yet another person who was very good at catering to

629
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: the media to get a message across. So, uh, you know,

630
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: not unusual at this time. So in nineteen o four,

631
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: the Colorado Lab is torn down due to excessive use

632
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 1: of electricity and the building materials are sold for scrap

633
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: to pay for the cost couch. And in nineteen o six,

634
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 1: like you said, JP Morgan, who had been an investor

635
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: withdraws and Tesla has to end up laying off a

636
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: lot of employees over at Warncliff Tower. Uh, We're gonna

637
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: skip ahead a few years because this is essentially where

638
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: he's working on this Warncliff Tower experiment, which ends up

639
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: draining a lot of his energy literally and resources and

640
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: without a lot to show for it. Um. The next day,

641
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: I have his nineteen eleven when he started working with

642
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: steam turbines and electricity production. Uh, he was this was

643
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: a big development. It was very important in the whole

644
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: uh part of generating electricity for a growing need in

645
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 1: America because at this point you're starting to see communities

646
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 1: get wired for electricity and beyond just the narrow band

647
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 1: in the Northeast that had it, so it was important

648
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: to find different ways of generating it, beyond firing from

649
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: coal plants. She wanted to find something that was sustainable

650
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: even at that time, and in nineteen twelve, Tesla's suffered

651
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: another setback, although not one nearly as large as Lady Astor.

652
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: John Jacob Astar, who was one of Tesla's most wealthy

653
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: and enthusiastic investors, stopped investing in Tesla's work because he

654
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: stopped breathing. He was aboard a little boat called the Titanic. Oh,

655
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: I've heard of that one. I think I saw a

656
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: documentary about it once. Yeah, his heart will go on,

657
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: but his investment payments stopped. Yeah, he um. He went

658
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: down on with the boat. He did get Lady Astor

659
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: on a lifeboat, so he made sure his wife was

660
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: safe and he stayed behind to wait for his turn

661
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: to get on a lifeboat, but tragically was not able

662
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: to do that and he did die. And with that,

663
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: Tesla lost one of his most significant sources of investment money.

664
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: So it was another financial setback for Tesla. Um. I

665
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: don't think he could blame that one on Edison. Maybe

666
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Mark Coney because we're talking about the use of radios

667
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,719
Speaker 1: on the Titanic, But then that was more of a

668
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: personnel thing than a technology thing. A nineteen fifteen, Tesla

669
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: and Edison are both listed as being uh considered for

670
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize and that they would be co recipients

671
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: of the Nobel Prize. When the Nobel Prizes are announced,

672
00:37:55,600 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: the prize goes to two people. That would be William

673
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: Henry Bragg and his son. Now, the Nobel Committee admitted

674
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: that Edison and Tesla were under consideration for the Nobel Prize,

675
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: but they did not say any more than that. What

676
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: has come up since then as the rumor that which

677
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: is gospel in some corners of the Internet, that the

678
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: reason why Tesla and Edison did not receive the Nobel

679
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: Prize together is because they'd rather be caught dead than

680
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: to share a prize with the other man. That's a

681
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: good myth. Yeah, that the rivalry was so great that

682
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: they would both refuse a Nobel prize rather than have

683
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: to share it with the other That's pretty amazing. And

684
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: it may be true that when I say rumor, I

685
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:41,720
Speaker 1: don't mean that it's fake or false or a lie.

686
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,919
Speaker 1: I just mean that we don't know for sure. Other

687
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: people probably do, but I don't. Nineteen sixteen, Tesla declares bankruptcy.

688
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: He did not pasco or collect two hundred dollars. It

689
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: was just not a good year for him. Uh. In

690
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen he ended up proposed using what would Depending

691
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: upon whom you ask, Okay people, some people will say

692
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, Tesla predicted radar radar. Yeah, that he

693
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: was the guy who came up with radar, but the

694
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: government turned him down. The Navy board said that they

695
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 1: would not invest in such a technology. By the way,

696
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 1: the person from private industry who was on the Navy board,

697
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:28,439
Speaker 1: well he was from from what I understand about the story,

698
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: U Tesla had proposed this, this way of finding ships underwater. Yeah,

699
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: that's the problem. Right. So the more you look into it,

700
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 1: the more you realize it's not radar he's talking about,

701
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 1: not in the sense that we use it today. Well,

702
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: he he was talking about radar, but it was not

703
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: really the best system for finding ships underwater. And so therefore,

704
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 1: when the government from the Navy didn't didn't really give

705
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: him the go ahead. It wasn't because radar is dumb

706
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: or the Tesla's down. It was because it wasn't the

707
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: right technology for the application. What Tesla did not take

708
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: into account was he he wanted to use us tightly

709
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: controlled electric beams of energy to zap them into the

710
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: water to reflect off the surfaces of submarines, detect that

711
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: those reflections and the information would be displayed back in

712
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: a fluorescent display, which sounds great, except for the problem

713
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: is that these beams would attenuate underwater, and so you

714
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: would not get accurate representations of what you were looking at.

715
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: You wouldn't you couldn't be sure that you know, you

716
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: could be pointing it directly at a submarine and miss

717
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: it because of this attenuation problem. And so it just

718
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: isn't practical for the use that Tesla was suggesting it.

719
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: And uh and so that shows that Tesla had a

720
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 1: misunderstanding either of the physics of water or the technology itself.

721
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: Either way, it wasn't truly radar. It's not exactly the

722
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,839
Speaker 1: same thing that radar is, and it was not being

723
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: used in the way that radar ultimately would be used.

724
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: So while some people claimed that he invented radar, that's

725
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:59,359
Speaker 1: being a little generous. Nineteenth we just busted a myth,

726
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 1: and I hadn't I apologize because I haven't gotten to

727
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: that section yet. But that's okay, that's one less for

728
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: us to worry about when we get there. UH in

729
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, actually, if we can, if we can

730
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: step back, just to short, let's please in In nineteen nineteen,

731
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: he published an autobiography called My Inventions UH that was

732
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: published in six parts in the Electrical Experiment or magazine.

733
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: And this is important because it is one of the

734
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,959
Speaker 1: main sources of information about Tesla's life, which is why

735
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: you have to take everything with a grain of salt,

736
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: because he was a bit of a self promoter. So

737
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: there's not I'm not saying that Tesla was lying in

738
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 1: his autobiography. What I'm saying is you just have to

739
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: take into consideration the possibility that he may have exaggerated

740
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: some facts, not that he was purposefully trying to mislead people,

741
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: but that when you become a self promoter, that that

742
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,839
Speaker 1: can happen. Even if you don't mean it to happen,

743
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: it can happen, which is kind of crazy that you're

744
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 1: just you know, in your mind, you're like, this is

745
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: totally how it happened, and then anyone else is like, dude,

746
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 1: I was there, and that totally is not how it happened. Um, Jonathan,

747
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: You've never beheaded anyone in the cold blood of a fight.

748
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: In the cold blood of a fight, and The New

749
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: York Times publish as an article about Tesla's death ray beam,

750
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: Yeah this was. Tesla said that he had come up

751
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: with an idea that would allow governments to build a

752
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: device capable of emitting a beam of energy that could

753
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: bring down a fleet of ten thousand enemy planes at

754
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 1: a distance of two hundred fifty miles, and that his

755
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: idea was that by outfitting pretty much everybody with one

756
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: of these, you would have that mutually assured destruction that

757
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: makes peace possible, all right. He actually called it a

758
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 1: piece beam from what I understand, Yeah, I said that

759
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: would really end war, because how could you have war

760
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 1: If you can't fly over another country without worrying about

761
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: your entire fleet being destroyed, then obviously war is off

762
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: the table. That was kind of his his somewhat naive plan,

763
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: And whether or not this thing would ever work is

764
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 1: another interesting question, or if there ever was anything beyond

765
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: just this idea that hey, maybe one day I could

766
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: build something that does this. Uh, that's another you know,

767
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: it's another one of those things. It's a myth, right seven. Uh.

768
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:19,839
Speaker 1: He decided to go feed the pigeons in the park,

769
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: which was a bad decision to make that particular day.

770
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: As as he was crossing the street, he was struck

771
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: by a cab. Then, depending upon which report you read,

772
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 1: he flew thirty five to forty ft in the air

773
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: and landed and was perfectly unharmed except a little bruised

774
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 1: or he had broken several ribs. It all depends on

775
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: which person you're asking. Tesla said, damn, I'm all right.

776
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: Other people like, dude, he was messed up. He was

777
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: crying about his pigeons. It was ugly. He he had

778
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: he had at this point become a little bit destitute. Um.

779
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: He due to all of these various financial troubles over

780
00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:00,359
Speaker 1: the years and and basic misspending. I think head I didn't. Yeah,

781
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: there were a lot of hotels that were suing him

782
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: because he had lived inside the hotel for years and

783
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: years and owed them thousands of dollars, and then he

784
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: would relocate to a different hotel and you think, like,

785
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: why would another hotel even trust him? He was Tesla Again,

786
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: this is a rock star guy, and it elevates the

787
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: status of your hotel that he's staying there. But you

788
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 1: can only have Lindsay Lohan in your hotel for so

789
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 1: long before you're like, seriously, could you please stop making

790
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 1: holes in the laws throwing TVs out the window? Guys,

791
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: I am sitting across from the from the person who

792
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: had just compared Nicola Tesla to Lindsay Lohan. I think

793
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 1: it's an apt comparison. Look, Lindsay Lohan hasn't reached the

794
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: age Tesla was at when he started to really uh

795
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: contribute to humanity, So I think we owe her a

796
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: year or two. I'm just saying that if anyone actually

797
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: figures out Tesla's parkle beam and aims at at the

798
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 1: HW offices and just just just just let me know,

799
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: I am perfectly willing to give you Jonathan's g A

800
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: syncretis coordinates. Please keep in mind that stuff you missed

801
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 1: in history class and stuff mom never told you sit

802
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 1: really near me. So if you love those shows, keep

803
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: your being particle pointed somewhere else. That's not cool. Uh.

804
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: January seven three was a bad day for Tesla because

805
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 1: that's the day he passed on. He was eighty six

806
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: years old. Uh. And two days later, all of his

807
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: papers and a state was seized by the government. Well

808
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: some some stories say that his nephew showed up the

809
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: morning after he passed away, and that his body had

810
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: already been removed, and that the nephew noticed that it

811
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: seemed like some of his papers were missing. Yeah, this

812
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: is where one of those stories pops up. In fact,

813
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: now that we've had Tesla shuffle off the mortal and

814
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,839
Speaker 1: Tesla coil, thank you, I've been waiting to use that one. Uh,

815
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about this this idea.

816
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of rumors out there. One

817
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:53,399
Speaker 1: of the big rumors is that the FBI seized all

818
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: of Tesla's papers and did so in an effort to

819
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: to use them for arious nefarious purposes for the United

820
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:07,399
Speaker 1: States government. Now keep in mind, this is World War

821
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: two is a thing, and so there is a genuine

822
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: concern that information that has scientific significance could fall into

823
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: the hands of other nations and give give other other

824
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 1: nations a lot of advantages over the United States, and

825
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: so it was very important to guard whatever advantages you

826
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: had against that absolutely. And also I mean remember that

827
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: that Tesla was a Serbian American as as such, the

828
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: from from from what we can discern of fact, it

829
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 1: was actually the Department of Justice Alien Property Custodian Office

830
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 1: that temporarily seized his papers, right, so it was not

831
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: the FBI. It was a Department of Justice. And the

832
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: FBI still they've got like a like a top ten

833
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: myths on on the internet. Number ten. Number ten is

834
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: is that we took Tesla's papers, like guys, Like, guys,

835
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: we didn't. We did it for real, Zo, we didn't

836
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: grab those and actually I looked into it and it

837
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: wouldn't be until you know, if you read most of

838
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 1: the stories, it's like the FBI took the papers and

839
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: they never released them, and we want, we demand that

840
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: these papers be released. Guys. It was the Department of

841
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: Justice number one and number two. In nineteen fifty two

842
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: they sent the papers to uh to Kasanovitch, his nephew,

843
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: and that is that is nine years later, Yeah, alright,

844
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 1: granted nine years Like we're also talking about time during

845
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: not just the World War Two, with the Red Scare

846
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: as well, So so I mean not that that justifies

847
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 1: suppressing information. Also, you're talking about the government, so it

848
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: may very well be that there wasn't any intentional um

849
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 1: slowness on the part of the government. That's just the

850
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: way the government works. But I don't know, I honestly

851
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: don't know. What I do know is they did release

852
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,279
Speaker 1: the estate and the papers to Yugoslavia to to his

853
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: nephew that they wound up in a in a museum.

854
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: So if you wanted, if you're one of the people

855
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: demanding that there's a Tesla museum, good news there is.

856
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: You just have to go to Europe to see it. Also,

857
00:47:57,840 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 1: supposedly after World War two was there were copies of

858
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 1: his papers um were sent out to one of the

859
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: Air Force spaces and Project Nick was a thing that

860
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: was heavily funded, and then the papers have disappeared, never

861
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: to be seen again. Yeah, there a love of conspiracy

862
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 1: theories here there. There was one one person posted on

863
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:14,840
Speaker 1: Facebook when I mentioned that we were going to be

864
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: covering Tesla today, so are you going to talk about

865
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: how they used a lot of his work in the

866
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: developments of stuff in Area fifty one. And the answer

867
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 1: to that is no, because there's no real documentation of that.

868
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: There's actually quite a bit of information about what went

869
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: on at Area fifty one. It's stuff that was top

870
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: secret at the time. But um, we'll have to do

871
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,320
Speaker 1: an episode all about Area fifty one sometime in the future,

872
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: just because it's a fascinating topic. But it's all about

873
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: you know, developing things like stealth technology and various kinds

874
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: of test uh prototypes for the Air Force or for

875
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:49,239
Speaker 1: the army. But but nothing like the Tesla death ray,

876
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: at least nothing that shows up in any real record.

877
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: And I would argue that the reason why it doesn't

878
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: show up on a real record is probably because it

879
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: didn't exist. Um that my second choice would be it

880
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: didn't work and so there was no point in more valut.

881
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 1: I don't think we would still be debating whether or

882
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: not exists if it actually did exist, because someone would

883
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: have come forward by now, or I would have zapped somebody.

884
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 1: Although there there is stuffinitely don't want you to know.

885
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: Did I did an episode a couple of years ago

886
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 1: on this, You can go check that out on YouTube.

887
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 1: That's true. Oh, Bolan. Uh. Then also there here's some

888
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: other myths that Tesla invented alternating current. He did not.

889
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: He did not. He alternating current was already a thing

890
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 1: in Europe by the time Tesla was born. It wasn't widespread,

891
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: It wasn't like there was a huge power grid in Europe,

892
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 1: but there were people working on alternating current and even

893
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: working on things like induction motors and transformers at that time.

894
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: And so Tesla even studied alternating current when he was

895
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 1: in school. So it's not something that he invented. He did, however,

896
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: take the knowledge that was being generated around alternating current

897
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 1: and applied it and furthered it. So it's not it's

898
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: not that he just copied someone else's work. He really

899
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 1: did make legitimate contributions. Oh sure, And it was it

900
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 1: was his patents in his his work with Westinghouse that

901
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 1: led to alternating current becoming the thing that the US

902
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: uses and and the thing that is capable of going

903
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: across long distances, And both of those are extremely extremely important.

904
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 1: We can't downplay either of those exactly. Yes, but but

905
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: he did not invent it. He didn't invent it. He's

906
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: not the reason why it's what's being used in Europe. Uh,

907
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: so that's one thing we can kind of put to bed.

908
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 1: And in fact, the first work with alternating current dates

909
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 1: back to five, which was, you know, twenty years before

910
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 1: Tesla was born. So unless he also invented time travel,

911
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: and don't write me and tell me he did, that's

912
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,879
Speaker 1: not that's not the case. Um, like I would believe

913
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 1: anything after watching the Prestige. Yeah again another documentary right. Uh.

914
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,320
Speaker 1: Beyond that, a Westinghouse, like we pointed out, was working

915
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: on uh, distribution grids designs for A C power and

916
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: transformers before Tesla had even started to work for the company. Now,

917
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: granted again, Tesla's patents and the information that he was

918
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 1: able to provide to Westingholse ended up making those much

919
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,919
Speaker 1: more robust and it made it possible to actually act

920
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: on that. But again it shows that he's not the

921
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: only one working on this at the time. Um. He's

922
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,959
Speaker 1: also not the guy who invented transformers. Those were first

923
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 1: being used in Budapest in the eighteen seventies. Uh, and

924
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,240
Speaker 1: the very first modern transformer was built by William Stanley

925
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 1: in eighty five. He did not invent the fluorescent lamp.

926
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: Alexandra Beccarell was the first guy to to observe fluorescence,

927
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: and he did so in eighteen fifty seven when Tesla

928
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 1: was one. So again, unless Tesla was also observing fluorescence

929
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:52,279
Speaker 1: at one year old, and maybe he was. I mean

930
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: he was born in a storm after all. Thor was

931
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: his buddy. Um, you can't say that he invented that

932
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: he did not discover or X rays. Uh, as we

933
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 1: covered before. Yeah, Ivan Pului, I have no idea how

934
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: to say his last name. I know I just butchered it.

935
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:11,760
Speaker 1: But but Ivan, my buddy Ivan, he he had actually

936
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: observed the phenomena of X rays before Tesla had. But

937
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 1: just like Tesla, he wasn't really sure what it was

938
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: he was looking at. He thought it was interesting, but

939
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,720
Speaker 1: he wasn't really sure about, you know, what this stuff

940
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: actually is. It wouldn't be until Wilhelm Ronin really looked

941
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: into it and began to make theories and hypotheses and

942
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: test things about them. That's that's when we started to

943
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 1: know that what they were. But other other scientists had

944
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 1: been observing it, they just didn't understand it. Again, we

945
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: talked about the radar thing, and we talked about FBI,

946
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: so those are the big myths. Other myths are you know,

947
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,280
Speaker 1: the whole Tesla versus Edison thing. Uh, it was really

948
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 1: more Edison companies versus Westinghouse companies and not so much

949
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: a personality thing. Well, it does sound like the two

950
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 1: of them clashed. There are a whole bunch of reports

951
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: about how I mean, right from the get go they

952
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: didn't really like each other, right, um and and it's

953
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,240
Speaker 1: easy to see, you know, they were both very strong personalities,

954
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 1: um and very big showman and it didn't it doesn't

955
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: sound like either of them really liked not that anyone

956
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 1: likes it, but but to be made a fool of.

957
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 1: And both of them were in the business of, in fact,

958
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: trying to make a full of the other person. So yeah,

959
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,239
Speaker 1: there was some of that. There was some showmanship, There

960
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,319
Speaker 1: was some There was some and and I mean there

961
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: was clearly some sort of legitimate beef between us and Tesla,

962
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: at least as far as you know, Tesla getting the

963
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: credit that he wanted and Tesla, you know, a lot

964
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: of his fortunes switched, mainly because he made some really

965
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: bad business deals. He sold patents off at a pittance

966
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 1: at times because the company would come to him and say, uh,

967
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, there's this massive economic downturn coming. We need

968
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,760
Speaker 1: this these patents, but if we paid you what they're worth,

969
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 1: then we're going to go under. And Tesla's I'll cut

970
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: you deal. Yeah. They were basically kind of like, can

971
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:04,759
Speaker 1: we give you a tenth of the fee that we're

972
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 1: going to promise you and then give you some stock

973
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: right before a terrible economic downturn. And Tesla was like, yes,

974
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 1: is good, give me that, and and and and and

975
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:17,480
Speaker 1: the famous Westinghouse deal where um uh, even even even

976
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: though a Westinghouse won the so called War of the Currents,

977
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: the company was not doing well and and wound up

978
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: after they had built the generator at Niagara, I think,

979
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:30,879
Speaker 1: started to go under and there were some issues with

980
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: mostly it was just again just just poor decisions on

981
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,760
Speaker 1: Tesla's part. Um Testa let him out of the contract,

982
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 1: just said said like, oh no, you don't have to

983
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: pay me the rest. That's fine. You save your company. Yeah,

984
00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: which is which is great. I mean, it's lovely, it's

985
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: a nice, it's a terrific I mean, but you know

986
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: it's it's when you when you end up having no

987
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: friends other than pigeons, and owing every hotel in New

988
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: York money. Maybe that's why. Yeah, yeah, that could that

989
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: could be one of the factors. Um he's certainly and

990
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: I know that people are probably listening to the episode

991
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: and thinking that I'm I think Tesla was a worthless

992
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:06,719
Speaker 1: lay about that. Nothing could be further from the truth.

993
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: I think he really did make incredible contributions to UH,

994
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: to the success of the United States in general, and

995
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 1: to several technologies around the world in particular. But it's

996
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:23,279
Speaker 1: also important not to overstate his contributions and to understand,

997
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: especially at the expense of other very important inventors and

998
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:30,400
Speaker 1: minds and works, it's a disservice to everyone else who

999
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 1: worked on these same things and helped make them a

1000
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: possible a reality really in our lives. And and you know,

1001
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: you've got to also pay attention to some of the

1002
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 1: crazier ideas like the death ray the death raying, Yeah,

1003
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,680
Speaker 1: or being able to move the entire Earth with putting

1004
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 1: essentially a wire around it and tapping into the frequency

1005
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 1: that it generates, which hey, maybe that is possible, it's

1006
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: just not practical, right, Yeah, that's and I think that

1007
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: that's a problem with a lot of his latter theories

1008
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: is they were not particularly practical. Yeah, yeah, so he

1009
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: was also, I mean, there there's stories about him having

1010
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: a couple of nervous breakdowns at various times in his life.

1011
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: I think that he was probably not necessarily mentally well

1012
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,720
Speaker 1: for a great deal of his existence. I agree, I agree.

1013
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: I think he probably had quite a few uh issues

1014
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: to work through, and that, I mean, you know, can

1015
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 1: considering how well we treat those kinds of people today,

1016
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: it is easy to see how at the turn of

1017
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,400
Speaker 1: the century he was not particularly given the chances that

1018
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 1: he needed. Oh no, man, Lindsey Lohan, she's not treated

1019
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: that well. You know, I'm just saying in our next

1020
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:38,240
Speaker 1: episode about Lindsay Lohan. Yeah, I'm just glad TMZ didn't

1021
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: exist back when Tesla was at Oh my goodness, that

1022
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 1: is Yes, that is the best thing on the planet. Yeah,

1023
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: all right, so we're gonna we're gonna wrap this up.

1024
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's our episode about Tesla. We really do

1025
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:50,080
Speaker 1: think he was a remarkable person. It's just important to

1026
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 1: really turn a critical eye and make sure that you

1027
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 1: don't elevate someone beyond their what their actual contributions were.

1028
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 1: I think, Um, but I'm sure a lot of you

1029
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,240
Speaker 1: have things you want to say to me now, So

1030
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: if you would like to say something to me, pray,

1031
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 1: do it in a way that is civil, uh, and

1032
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: and send it to me. Our address is tech stuff

1033
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com or let's know on Facebook or Twitter,

1034
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: also be civil, but in shorter form. Our handle at

1035
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 1: both of those locations is text stuff H. S. W

1036
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,479
Speaker 1: and Lauren and I will talk to you again really soon.

1037
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,360
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

1038
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com