Speaker 1: Get in touch with technologies with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff what Com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to an
Speaker 1: electrifying episode tech Stuff. You're sure to get a charge
Speaker 1: out of that's right. I'm Jonathan Strickland, one of the
Speaker 1: two hosts, and I'm Lauren Vocal on the other house,
Speaker 1: and I and Jonathan I think that we should really
Speaker 1: ground ourselves here. Oh that's very good. I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: staying up with current events. Do you really want to
Speaker 1: go down this road line at all? Grab my decision.
Speaker 1: You don't like puns? No, I don't. Chris Palette instilled
Speaker 1: in me a love of puns that runs deep. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you may have already guessed we're gonna be talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about electricity in this episode, and that's because
Speaker 1: we are focusing finally, after many, many, many people have
Speaker 1: asked us to do a full episode about Nicola Tesla,
Speaker 1: the Internet legend, the man placed on a virtual had
Speaker 1: us still on the Internet, that is gleaming and beauteous
Speaker 1: and will zap you if you ever dare say anything
Speaker 1: against him. He's he's staring at us from the walls
Speaker 1: of the podcast room right now. Yes he is. Yes,
Speaker 1: judging us. Now, the question of whether or not he'll
Speaker 1: be staring at us in our news studio remains to
Speaker 1: be answered. Uh, we'll probably end up propping him up
Speaker 1: on a mic stand or something, so he's still judging
Speaker 1: us constantly. But yeah, we want to talk about Tesla,
Speaker 1: kind of talk about his his contributions to technology and
Speaker 1: also maybe take a critical look at some of the
Speaker 1: some of the claims about Tesla and some of the
Speaker 1: misconceptions people have about his contributions. He's he's a mythological figure,
Speaker 1: really a mythological nerd figure, which is which is fabulous.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really terrific, and it's it's it's understandable
Speaker 1: why because he he by the end of his life,
Speaker 1: was so downtrodden. And there's nothing that people and geeks
Speaker 1: especially love more than than an anti hero. Yeah. Here,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who has been beaten down. He's he's
Speaker 1: uh seen his fortunes dwindle away. He's he's made some
Speaker 1: bad choices. Uh, he has all the earmarks of a
Speaker 1: classic geek. Geeks love this underdog kind of story. And
Speaker 1: and when you get into things like sort of the
Speaker 1: the demonification of other people. Edison in particular. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: even people like JP Morgan and Mustinghouse. Then it seems
Speaker 1: like the whole world had turned against him. And and
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at his story, it can
Speaker 1: definitely come across that way. But that's doing a little
Speaker 1: bit of a disservice to the entire tale. And Uh,
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm talking about in this way is
Speaker 1: because there is what we thought some people referred to
Speaker 1: as the cult of Tesla, right, this idea of elevating
Speaker 1: him beyond what his contributions were. Uh, there was a
Speaker 1: cartoon that I think a lot of you guys out
Speaker 1: there saw because he posted about it on our Facebook
Speaker 1: page that The Oatmeal did all about Tesla and his
Speaker 1: his um contributions and his rivalry with Edison and kind
Speaker 1: of comparing him favorably against Edison in every single category
Speaker 1: and saying that there should be a Tesla museum. And
Speaker 1: so we wanted to talk about what Tesla actually did
Speaker 1: and what he did not do, and uh, and whether
Speaker 1: or not he deserves all those acoms. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and just just before anyone who is a rabid fan
Speaker 1: of the oat Mail gets honest, because I don't I
Speaker 1: do not want to incite your anger. Uh, it's we
Speaker 1: realize that it's a comic and that that although uh
Speaker 1: many of the statements are factual. The writer whose name
Speaker 1: I'm completely forgetting right now, has come out and said that, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a comic. I'm I'm a comic artist. And
Speaker 1: some of this was hyper Bowl, sob no, I like
Speaker 1: it's hyper Bowl. It's way better than that Super One.
Speaker 1: I like the hyper Bowl a lot more. I am
Speaker 1: never gonna let you live that down, and we are
Speaker 1: not re recording it. Let's move on. So yeah, Tesla
Speaker 1: born on July tenth, eighteen fifty six, in what is
Speaker 1: now Croatia now eighteen fifty six by the Gregorian calendar.
Speaker 1: If you have looked up at Tesla's birth and you
Speaker 1: saw that it was actually in June June, that's because
Speaker 1: at the time they were keeping time with the Julian calendar.
Speaker 1: And it's only when you account for that, when you
Speaker 1: match those up, that you realize that, Okay, well, if
Speaker 1: you're using a real calendar like I do, the one
Speaker 1: that's on my smartphone, and that's the only way I
Speaker 1: know what day it is, it was July t so
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty six. July t and born in in Uh
Speaker 1: part of Austria, Hungary which is now Croatia UM And
Speaker 1: as a boy, he went to what we would think
Speaker 1: of in the United States is elementary school or primary
Speaker 1: school and studied German arithmetic and religion because his dad
Speaker 1: was a pastor and his mom's father was a pastor,
Speaker 1: both both in the Orthodox Church. Actually, so yeah, so
Speaker 1: he he definitely had a religious upbring uh and his
Speaker 1: father really wanted him to be a priest, by the way, Yes,
Speaker 1: he did a lot. In fact, he was not so
Speaker 1: thrilled about Tesla going into engineering. UM. When he was
Speaker 1: a young boy, Tesla's Tesla's older brother named Dane, died
Speaker 1: in a tragic accident. He actually fell off a horse
Speaker 1: and died. There were some stories that Tesla or Nicola
Speaker 1: Tesla was playing around and spooked the horse that caused Yes,
Speaker 1: so actually I've heard I'm sorry, I meant to I
Speaker 1: meant to insert this earlier. But but the very first
Speaker 1: terrific tall tale that I heard about Tesla was that
Speaker 1: he was born on a dark and stormy night to lightning.
Speaker 1: Right right, He was born on the stroke of midnight
Speaker 1: as lightning crashed in the sky and that one person
Speaker 1: said he would be a boy of storms, and his
Speaker 1: mother said, no, he shall be a man of the light.
Speaker 1: I might be inserting some of my hyper bowl in there, goodness,
Speaker 1: my gracious. So yeah, and as a child they moved
Speaker 1: around quite a bit as his father was finding a
Speaker 1: church to be pastor in and in eighteen seventy, so
Speaker 1: I remember he's born in eighteen fifty six. By eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy he moves in with his aunt and starts to
Speaker 1: attend a school that we're a teacher named Martin skul Chick,
Speaker 1: sorry Skolich, Sokolich. Uh So, Martin so Coolich is teaching there,
Speaker 1: and he's teaching math and physics, and Tesla finds both
Speaker 1: the professor and the subject matter fascinating, and he becomes
Speaker 1: really focused on math and physics. And in fact, he's
Speaker 1: so focused he graduates a year early. So he was
Speaker 1: certainly a man of genius. He possessed a genius and
Speaker 1: an affinity for physics, for math, for engineering that far
Speaker 1: outstripped most of his contemporaries. Yeah, definitely, But then again,
Speaker 1: this is also the era where we start seeing these
Speaker 1: technologies form and uh and so it was an exciting
Speaker 1: time if you were interested in physics, because this is
Speaker 1: when we're making lots of big discovered reas, things that
Speaker 1: some people say are um low hanging fruit, you know,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, the idea that there were all these discoveries
Speaker 1: to make. But it's hard to see how we're going
Speaker 1: to advance from this point forward because all the quote
Speaker 1: unquote easy things have been discovered. Not that any of
Speaker 1: these things were easy, it's just that now you are
Speaker 1: have to become increasingly specialized in whatever scientific field you're
Speaker 1: in to clearly understand it. But while doing this, researcher
Speaker 1: kind of blew my mind. I actually don't have a
Speaker 1: strong history in in electronic background, and and it blew
Speaker 1: my mind that it wasn't until eighteen seventy three that
Speaker 1: that James Clerk Maxwell proved that light is electromagnetic energy. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: this is He's he's growing up at a time when uh,
Speaker 1: these discoveries are being made and that would impact his
Speaker 1: own work and in fact drive him to achieve great things. Also,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, that was the year he contracted cholera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was due to the cholera that he kind
Speaker 1: of shaped the rest of his life. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: quite a few things. Yeah, because if you if you've
Speaker 1: heard about Tesla, you know that he uh, he reportedly
Speaker 1: had a bit of obsessive compulsive disorder, that he was
Speaker 1: a germophobe, that he was a clean he was obsessed
Speaker 1: with being clean and having cleaned things around him. He
Speaker 1: reported in his own biography that he had a severe
Speaker 1: aversion to touching other people's hair, that he had to
Speaker 1: do things if if they require repetition, in the repetition
Speaker 1: of threes, and if he did not, then he had
Speaker 1: to stop and restart. Yeah, so he he may have
Speaker 1: developed some of these peculiarities. At this time. He was
Speaker 1: in bed for about nine months, nearly died a few times.
Speaker 1: So I would imagine that was definitely something that would
Speaker 1: shape you whether or not that. I'm sure there were
Speaker 1: other issues that are beyond just getting sick. There were
Speaker 1: probably some things that were psychologically part of his being
Speaker 1: from the point where he was born, but we don't
Speaker 1: know to what extent obviously, and um, and you know
Speaker 1: what's odd to me, I might as well talk about
Speaker 1: this for right now. So neat freak, if you want
Speaker 1: to put it that way, germophobe, doesn't like touching people.
Speaker 1: Loved pigeons, loved them rats with wings, that's what they are. Well,
Speaker 1: that that was, that was also towards the end of
Speaker 1: his life that he became obsessed with him became incredibly
Speaker 1: obsessed with pigeons. Yeah, it just makes me think of
Speaker 1: that great scene in the documentary The Producers, Boydes filthy
Speaker 1: rotten Boydes. I appreciate that that your your Yiddish accent
Speaker 1: there is is better than mine. That's excellent. I should
Speaker 1: also point out that that that's the nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: version of the documentary The Producer is not the musical
Speaker 1: version starring Nathan Lane. Matthew Broderick actually has zero mostell
Speaker 1: Gene Wilder. I'm getting off track anyway. Um so yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's he's definitely got some interesting personality quirks eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. He starts to move around a little bit,
Speaker 1: mostly hiding out from the army because in that part
Speaker 1: of the world, in Austro Austrio, Austro Hungary. Look, I
Speaker 1: can't say that. Uh yes we do, thank thank goodness.
Speaker 1: We don't speak into a microphone for a living right. Uh.
Speaker 1: But back in that time. In that part of the world,
Speaker 1: army service was required of all young men. There was
Speaker 1: three years mandatory service, and Tesla was not too keen
Speaker 1: on doing that, so he kind of, um, he was
Speaker 1: a little bit he was dodging, that's the best way
Speaker 1: of putting it. The next year he starts to attend
Speaker 1: the Austrian Polytechnic School and he starts off really strong.
Speaker 1: He's doing really well in his classes. He understands the concepts,
Speaker 1: and unlike some other some other visionaries like say Stephen Hawking,
Speaker 1: he was very good in school. Yep, yep. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: not not like Einstein or some of the other famous
Speaker 1: folks who seemed to have trouble in class. Now that
Speaker 1: that was true for about a year, and then about
Speaker 1: that second year things began to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of a dip because he began to point out shortcomings
Speaker 1: or what he thought of as shortcomings in his professor's
Speaker 1: understanding of things like electrical engineering and saying things like,
Speaker 1: you know, you could build a device that does the
Speaker 1: same thing without this one component that you are claiming
Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary for it to work. It furthermore, puts
Speaker 1: off gigantic electrical shocks that are actually pretty dangerous, like
Speaker 1: you could do it this way and then uh, if
Speaker 1: you mouth off to your professors often enough, you might
Speaker 1: find yourself in some academic trouble. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what Tesla did. He he began to get disillusioned about
Speaker 1: pursuing studies in an academic setting, and after about a
Speaker 1: little over three years, he actually dropped out of the
Speaker 1: polytechnic school. So he moved to Slovenia in to work
Speaker 1: as a draftsman for an engineering firm. But by eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, the next year, some some police officials show
Speaker 1: up and asked to see his residents papers, which he
Speaker 1: did not have, so then he was escorted back to
Speaker 1: his family's home because he didn't have a residence permit
Speaker 1: for Slovenia. And that same year his father passes away
Speaker 1: ah and Tesla starts to a new career as a
Speaker 1: teacher in the same school that he attended as a boy,
Speaker 1: but realizes very quickly that's not for him. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do that. Um. So then the next year,
Speaker 1: eighteen eight, he moved to Prague. He tries to attend
Speaker 1: Carl Ferdinand University, but he's unable to understand Greek or check,
Speaker 1: both of which were prerequisites to attend as a student,
Speaker 1: so instead he audits classes uh, and he begins to
Speaker 1: work for the Budapest Telephone Exchange and also the Central
Speaker 1: Telegram Office. Eighteen eighty by the way, it was the
Speaker 1: year that that Thomas Edison unveiled his electric incandescent lamp
Speaker 1: to the public for the first time. Yep, so that's
Speaker 1: a good thing to to keep in mind. There are
Speaker 1: some big things happening at the same time that Tesla's
Speaker 1: kind of uh, you know, he hasn't really made a
Speaker 1: name for himself yet. He's been a very uh enthusiastic
Speaker 1: student at times of his life, and he is certainly
Speaker 1: interested in electronics or really we should say electricity from
Speaker 1: electronics electronics too early, but electricity and its applications. Um.
Speaker 1: So he does that for a couple of years. In
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two, he joins the Continental Edison Company and
Speaker 1: begins to work on things like dynamos, which are well,
Speaker 1: you've heard us talk about dynamos and our episodes about
Speaker 1: electromagnets and motors and uh, induction in the reverse of that,
Speaker 1: so we I won't go into it. But anyway, he
Speaker 1: starts to work on that. Now this means that he
Speaker 1: becomes an employee, although you know, indirectly and way down
Speaker 1: the line of Edison. So yeah, he's sitting there working
Speaker 1: for the company of the man who would one day
Speaker 1: become his greatest rival. According to my nemesis, they have
Speaker 1: dragon Ball style fights in the sky. Yeah, they also
Speaker 1: would occasionally catch Pokemon, but it was only the one
Speaker 1: that shoots the electricity. I don't I don't know which one. Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, it's Pikachu. I was just I was trying
Speaker 1: to bait Lauren to see if I could get it.
Speaker 1: I actually know that. Dang, you win this time, vogel Baum.
Speaker 1: So at this time, he also gets the idea for
Speaker 1: the a C induction motor, although Asterisk not necessarily the
Speaker 1: first person to think about that. Supposedly in a vision, well,
Speaker 1: supposedly he had these visions. Supposedly he was was very
Speaker 1: light and audio sensitive, and occasionally, upon looking at one
Speaker 1: object or having a certain idea, would would get an
Speaker 1: extremely strong visual perception of of something that he had
Speaker 1: already seen, or or of nothing nothing imaginary unless it
Speaker 1: was a new invention. But yeah, occasionally he would get
Speaker 1: these flashes that that kind of disturbed him a lot,
Speaker 1: according to his autobiography. Yeah, so essentially what would happen
Speaker 1: is he would be walking through a park and look
Speaker 1: at a beautiful scene, and then suddenly an idea would form,
Speaker 1: fully formed in his head, like not not something he
Speaker 1: had been puzzling about necessarily. It might just be hey, boom,
Speaker 1: here are all the pieces and the puzzle is completely
Speaker 1: put together. You know, we opened up the box and
Speaker 1: the puzzles there, as opposed to you've been trying to
Speaker 1: fix this problem for years, and oh, here's the inspiration.
Speaker 1: And so Yeah. Supposedly he was walking through the city
Speaker 1: park in Budapest with a friend and saw a beautiful
Speaker 1: sunset and quoted some poetry and then had an idea
Speaker 1: for for the induction motor. Yeah, and just drew it
Speaker 1: in the sand and then kept walking. Yeah. Whether or
Speaker 1: not that's true, it's hard to say, because Tesla, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, was something of a showman, a little
Speaker 1: bit of an unreliable narrator. I would say unreliable narrator
Speaker 1: is a very kind way of putting it. The same
Speaker 1: sort of thing is true of all the big names
Speaker 1: at this time, because they were the rock stars of
Speaker 1: that of that era. So Edison, same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Edison was a master at at PR, you know, beyond
Speaker 1: beyond being the head of a very successful research and
Speaker 1: development firm, he was very good at presenting his ideas
Speaker 1: to a public and explaining why they were the best ideas,
Speaker 1: even if they weren't the best ideas. Tesla was. He
Speaker 1: was no slouch in that department either. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who will paint Tesla as being the
Speaker 1: the dedicated genius who is working for the betterment of
Speaker 1: all mankind but doesn't ever look to get gain glory
Speaker 1: in the process. That's not entirely accurate. Now, that's that's
Speaker 1: not If you've ever seen any of the photographs that
Speaker 1: that he took around his equipment, I would say that
Speaker 1: those are not the mark of someone who is not
Speaker 1: a showman. I saw this one photograph. He looked just
Speaker 1: like David Bowie. Um. I might be mixing that up
Speaker 1: with a documentary though, So then the the in in
Speaker 1: uh in a T two. This whole time where he's
Speaker 1: making he's working for Edison. He's got this idea for
Speaker 1: the a C induction motor. He also is reportedly not
Speaker 1: paid some money for the work he's doing for Edison Company,
Speaker 1: at least not not all of it. Like there's money
Speaker 1: due to him that's not being paid. And this this
Speaker 1: is partly what lays the groundwork for this whole idea
Speaker 1: of the heated rivalry between Edison and Tesla. A lot
Speaker 1: of it is money that's withheld from Tesla that was
Speaker 1: promised to him. I mean, and and this this is
Speaker 1: when he was very he was what twenty six at
Speaker 1: the time, and and in Paris, and so he was
Speaker 1: he was really distantly connected from to Edison at the time,
Speaker 1: but apparently started right you use this, If you use
Speaker 1: this and just say like this is indicative of how
Speaker 1: Edison treats people. Uh, it would apparently become company policy
Speaker 1: not to pay people for their work. That's what That's
Speaker 1: what's jested of this. It also becomes you know, a
Speaker 1: common thread in Tesla's life of getting getting cheated out
Speaker 1: of things that were owed him, which makes you wonder,
Speaker 1: if it happened so frequently, why is that Is it
Speaker 1: all due to Was it just that he only worked
Speaker 1: with corrupt individuals and companies, or was it that there
Speaker 1: was something else going on here besides that part of
Speaker 1: the story. I have no doubt that Tesla was really
Speaker 1: cheated out of many of the things he deserved. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that he was cheated out of everything that
Speaker 1: is attributed as being something he deserved. Um, but then
Speaker 1: we'll get into that again. Four, he makes the big
Speaker 1: move from Europe to America. He he had basically no
Speaker 1: money at the time. From what I understand, well, he
Speaker 1: definitely had no money by the time he got there. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it took a little longer for him to get there
Speaker 1: than he had anticipated. According to one timeline I read
Speaker 1: the ship he was on. This is just Tesla's luck, right.
Speaker 1: The ship he was on had a mutiny aboard the
Speaker 1: ships and supposedly Tesla himself was nearly thrown overboard, probably
Speaker 1: for being a witch. That that last part is just
Speaker 1: me guessing. I didn't have any reason. I didn't have.
Speaker 1: There was no reason given as to why Tesla would
Speaker 1: have been thrown overboard, so I'm just inventing one. But no,
Speaker 1: Apparently the shippy was on had a mutiny aboard it.
Speaker 1: He ended up getting to New York way later than
Speaker 1: when he expected, and according to some reports, had four
Speaker 1: cents in his pocket. Now Also, depending upon whom you ask,
Speaker 1: he either immediately went to work for Edison, as in
Speaker 1: got off the boat, filed and went into the office,
Speaker 1: or he started the next day. That seems to be
Speaker 1: the two stories. Either way, I think that's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And he works for Edison and he's
Speaker 1: helping them with their systems. Uh. Supposedly again, he started
Speaker 1: to suggest Edison that they which to an alternating current
Speaker 1: model as opposed to direct current, and Ederson was very
Speaker 1: much against that idea. So then in eighteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: Tesla forms the Tesla Electric Light Company. An investor group
Speaker 1: actually asks him if he will work on an arc
Speaker 1: lighting system, and he agrees to do it and then
Speaker 1: is later forced out of his own company when nothing
Speaker 1: to show for it. Was it was that all I mean,
Speaker 1: because he started the company because he had been he
Speaker 1: had quit Edison's correct. Yeah. Essentially, that same year he
Speaker 1: resigns from the Edison company, And some say the reason
Speaker 1: he did that was because again here's another story of
Speaker 1: Tesla getting cheated. That Edison had promised Tesla a princely
Speaker 1: sum of fifty thousand dollars for a particular project, and
Speaker 1: when Tesla completed the project against supposedly with flying colors
Speaker 1: and beyond all expectations. Edison then said, ha, ha, you
Speaker 1: don't understand American humor. I'm not giving you any money,
Speaker 1: and then Tesla resigns, even though Edison supposedly at that
Speaker 1: point offered an enormous raise to keep Tesla there. This
Speaker 1: makes Edison look like the biggest jerk on the face
Speaker 1: of the planet. I mean, I can't imagine my boss
Speaker 1: coming up to me and saying, hey, you know when
Speaker 1: I told you you were going to make fifty dollars
Speaker 1: if you did this thing, and then you did that thing,
Speaker 1: you did it really well, Well you're not gonna get
Speaker 1: any money. Oh you want to leave, I'll raise your salary.
Speaker 1: That just like what kind of crazy person does that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't sound I mean, you know it could.
Speaker 1: I never met Edison, didn't Did you meet him? You're
Speaker 1: very old, yuh. Tesla then claimed that he spent the
Speaker 1: next year making money by digging ditches. So again, a great,
Speaker 1: great story. If you're looking at his life in the
Speaker 1: terms of like a tragic tale, you know, here you
Speaker 1: have this genius, incredible, super genius, the man who will
Speaker 1: one day light up the United States with his alternating
Speaker 1: current power grid, making money scraping by by digging ditches. Yeah. Um, again,
Speaker 1: a lot of this comes from Tesla himself, and whether
Speaker 1: or not all of it is true, it remains part
Speaker 1: of myth. You know, I don't doubt that. I don't
Speaker 1: doubt there were some bad business dealings. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: was the case, and I don't doubt he had some
Speaker 1: hard times and maybe he did make his living for
Speaker 1: a full year being you know, digging ditches and that
Speaker 1: was the only thing he could do. But it sounds more,
Speaker 1: it sounds like melodrama. But sometimes works like that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that's sometimes that's the truth stranger things. But anyway, then
Speaker 1: by by e eighties seven, so you know, eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: digging ditches, we don't need to go into that's it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, meanwhile, in eighteen eighties six, actually it's interesting,
Speaker 1: Westinghouse Electric had developed a transformer for commercial use. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's another thing we should mention is that, Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons Tesla was really pushing for this
Speaker 1: alternating current thing with Edison is that back in Europe
Speaker 1: that's what they were using. A C was that's that's
Speaker 1: the route they took. They didn't they didn't go down
Speaker 1: the direct current route at all. They went with alternating current.
Speaker 1: And that becomes important when we start talking about the
Speaker 1: myths of of Tesla as well. In a little bit, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the U s so embroiled in d C current.
Speaker 1: The name the Brooklyn Dodgers actually comes because they were
Speaker 1: using direct current power lines that were kind of haphazardly
Speaker 1: strung across the city, and and Brooklyn Knights had to
Speaker 1: dodge these lines so often that their team was thus
Speaker 1: named the Brooklyn Dodge, whereas the New York Giants were
Speaker 1: called that because they came from a race of mythical
Speaker 1: creatures that lived up Giant. Okay, now, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to show off that I knew something too, but I
Speaker 1: don't really know anything. After the ditch digging has finished,
Speaker 1: Tesla begins to work with investors again, and he establishes
Speaker 1: a lab at eighty nine Liberty Street in New York
Speaker 1: and then just a few blocks away from Medicine's. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And the next year he starts to talk about a
Speaker 1: C motors and transformers for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Speaker 1: Now known as the I Triple E, or as I
Speaker 1: always prefer to call them. I ye that once for
Speaker 1: all you engineers out there. Uh. And he also agrees
Speaker 1: to start selling patents to George Westinghouse. So even though
Speaker 1: you know, Lauren, like Lauren was saying in eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: you already had Westinghouse working on transformers and alternating current,
Speaker 1: that was before Tesla had even started to work for Westingham. Uh.
Speaker 1: That that's something to keep in mind as well. So
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine he establishes a new lab on Grand
Speaker 1: Street in New York. There's a lot of labs. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of labs spread out throughout New York.
Speaker 1: He also lived in hotels mostly did he even then? Yeah,
Speaker 1: mostly towards the end of his life, but yeah, early
Speaker 1: on he was living in a lot of hotels as well.
Speaker 1: I think he also joked about about how is his hours,
Speaker 1: especially when he was working in Edison's lab. We're from
Speaker 1: like ten in the morning until five thirty am the
Speaker 1: next day, and and so that a lot of his
Speaker 1: sleeping A wasn't really sleeping, and B was probably under
Speaker 1: his desk, right right, I can identify with that. Uh.
Speaker 1: In ninety he begins to experiment with wireless power in
Speaker 1: florest and neon lighting, as well as X rays, although
Speaker 1: at the time he isn't sure exactly what they are.
Speaker 1: He shadow pictures. Yeah, this was before Wilhelm Laurentin had
Speaker 1: really established what X rays were and what they could do.
Speaker 1: So Tesla was one of the people who was observing
Speaker 1: the phenomena of X rays early early on. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a few other people at the time who were
Speaker 1: working with them, but yeah, yeah, yeah, in fact, that'll
Speaker 1: go into the myths as well. But then he becomes
Speaker 1: an American citizen. Also I believe patented the Tesla coil.
Speaker 1: There you go an interesting thing in his mother passes away.
Speaker 1: That same year, he becomes the vice president of the
Speaker 1: AI Triple E, which is even it's a I E.
Speaker 1: I guess that is how I would say that. And
Speaker 1: he becomes famous worldwide for his lectures on alternating current
Speaker 1: So at this point he's on the lecture circuit. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's going from city to city, you know, he
Speaker 1: stopped in places like Chicago and New York, London, Paris.
Speaker 1: So he becomes a again, like I said, like a
Speaker 1: rock star. He's known for these lectures, and it sounds
Speaker 1: weird for us to say that that he's like a
Speaker 1: rock star, But this was an era where these these
Speaker 1: thinkers were really pushing the development of technology to a
Speaker 1: point where everyone was sure that, you know, okay, we're
Speaker 1: five years away from the incredible future. And in many
Speaker 1: ways they were right. It's just that their view of
Speaker 1: what the incredible future would be ended up being a
Speaker 1: lot different from what it really was. But it was
Speaker 1: an era of rapid development, so these guys were considered
Speaker 1: to be the people pushing that rapid development is really
Speaker 1: exciting and think things like when the Chicago World Fair
Speaker 1: was that was that? Oh? Yeah? That was that was
Speaker 1: famous because there was the whole Edison Tesla story there
Speaker 1: about who is going to provide power? Right, and it
Speaker 1: was really Edison versus h Westinghouse. Yeah but I mean
Speaker 1: Westinghouse backed by Tesla. Sure, sure, yeah, west Westinghouse was
Speaker 1: using technology that Tesla had patented and and systems that
Speaker 1: Tesla worked on, but it was not truly Tesla versus Edison.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of how I think. Even in a
Speaker 1: previous episode of Tech Stuff, we sort of talked about
Speaker 1: it in those terms because that's sort of the romantic
Speaker 1: way of doing it, right, is the idea of these
Speaker 1: two geniuses facing off against each other and who will
Speaker 1: win and alternating current one out in that one. So
Speaker 1: it's really Westinghouse that one, al right, right. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: story goes that there was a there was a business
Speaker 1: deal the government was looking to contract either either Westinghouses
Speaker 1: Company or Edison's Company to power the World's Fair and
Speaker 1: and Westinghouse one out because it was cheaper. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then and when and yeah, and when they threw when
Speaker 1: President Grover Cleveland, I think it was through that switch
Speaker 1: and which like a hundred hundred thousand bulbs lit up
Speaker 1: all at the same time, and people were like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a thing trivia for you folks out there
Speaker 1: who don't know your history. Grover Cleveland was the only
Speaker 1: president to serve two non consecutive terms as president. He
Speaker 1: was president, then he wasn't president, and he was in again. Yes,
Speaker 1: he also liked the song Funky Cold Medina eighteen nine five.
Speaker 1: So then one of the buildings that housed one of
Speaker 1: Tesla's labs caught fire in eighteen and his lab burned
Speaker 1: down and the fire destroyed what was estimated to be
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment and information, and
Speaker 1: he had no insurance. Yeah, and fifty thous that's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of money today, it was a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money in eight um. And and at the time
Speaker 1: he was experimenting with with radio signal. Yeah, and and supposedly,
Speaker 1: according to him, was ready to transmit a signal fifty
Speaker 1: miles out to West Point, New York. Yeah. So that
Speaker 1: this is during if you've listened to the Old Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff episode about who invented the radio, there's a lot
Speaker 1: about Tesla and Marconi. And there there's a whole story
Speaker 1: there too about how Marconi, like Tesla, got a patent
Speaker 1: for for the radio. Then Marconi applied for a patent,
Speaker 1: then the patent office overturned and Tesla's patent gave Marconi
Speaker 1: the patent, and then later on overturned it again and
Speaker 1: gave it back to Tesla. Later on is in the nineties,
Speaker 1: after Tesla was dead. Um. Yeah, there's that whole story,
Speaker 1: and and there's there's arguments there too, because again, the
Speaker 1: invention of any sort of technology requires that you talk
Speaker 1: about so many different people who who contributed to the
Speaker 1: discoveries that led to the possibility of something existing. That
Speaker 1: it's impossible to actually point at one person and say
Speaker 1: this person invented radio, but both Marconi and Tesla were
Speaker 1: working on it, and uh, and there's argument over who
Speaker 1: should have real credit there. Uh, but go listen to
Speaker 1: our episode about who invented the radio if you want
Speaker 1: to hear more about that, because I think that that
Speaker 1: that that argument is so long and detailed that it's
Speaker 1: hard to sum up in an episode just about Tesla. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: though it's yeah, certainly another another one of those points
Speaker 1: that people like to bring up in terms of he
Speaker 1: was so downtrodden. Yeah, it's a good another point, and
Speaker 1: and that's a more firm one that Yeah, he absolutely
Speaker 1: lost that fight and lost probably a lot of money
Speaker 1: in fame. I think, Uh Marconi won the New Belt Prize. Yeah,
Speaker 1: All was not happy about that excited. Uh. In he
Speaker 1: demonstrated a wirelessly controlled model boat, so essentially a an
Speaker 1: r C boat at the Electrical Exposition in Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 1: where years later, Highlanders would fight it out to determine
Speaker 1: who would win the prize, and Queen would sing Princess
Speaker 1: of the Universe in the background. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: really like that documentary. WHOA, Okay, you know what, We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a little break here. Let's let's take a
Speaker 1: take a moment to thank our sponsor, and now back
Speaker 1: to our show. Alright, getting back into Tesla's life. In
Speaker 1: eight he moves to Colorado to perform some experiments with
Speaker 1: wireless power. And this is where one of the big
Speaker 1: myths about Tesla comes up. This idea that he wanted
Speaker 1: to build this huge tower that would tap into the
Speaker 1: this this resonant frequency that exists around the world, and
Speaker 1: that you could transmit power wirelessly across miles of space. Um.
Speaker 1: He claimed that he had another one of those visions
Speaker 1: that let him understand the geoelectrical phenomenon he called terrestrial
Speaker 1: stationary waves, an idea about tapping into the Earth itself
Speaker 1: as a conductor. Okay, sounds interesting. Yeah, And it's not that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not that everything was that he said was crazy
Speaker 1: or it was just that to be able to actually
Speaker 1: use this in a way that would allow you to
Speaker 1: transmit power reliably safely without losing power over distance or
Speaker 1: zapping and killing everybody, uh, is something we haven't solved. Yet,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of people who say that
Speaker 1: all of his work would have proven if if it
Speaker 1: still existed. We'll get into more about more destruction of
Speaker 1: his work and where it all went went to. But
Speaker 1: then if it still existed, it would prove that this
Speaker 1: sort of thing is possible. And it's only the energy
Speaker 1: company that are keeping it down because they stand to
Speaker 1: lose so much if this If this information got out,
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to agree to anything like that because it
Speaker 1: suggests that no one but Tesla could have ever come
Speaker 1: up with this, and therefore the idea is lost forever.
Speaker 1: When I would argue, we have people who are far
Speaker 1: more informed about electrical engineering than Tesla was, even though
Speaker 1: he was a brilliant man. And lets you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: the people these days are not a visionary the way
Speaker 1: that he was. But yeah, maybe maybe that's it. Maybe
Speaker 1: they just need to take a walk in the park
Speaker 1: and look at the sunset, think about some poetry that
Speaker 1: would help. I guess, you know, hey, far be it
Speaker 1: from me to downplay the importance of poetry in the world.
Speaker 1: I certainly think it's important. Being English lit major uh
Speaker 1: in nineteen o one, Well, all right, so so he
Speaker 1: starts to think really about wireless power and the phenomena
Speaker 1: that it would be, Like what what would go into
Speaker 1: making this and how it would change the world, And
Speaker 1: he really was thinking it was an interesting idea. So
Speaker 1: a nineteen o one, with funding from various sources, including
Speaker 1: people like JP Morgan, he starts to build the Warden
Speaker 1: Cliff Tower. This is at a long island sound and uh,
Speaker 1: this is um this thing is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: wireless power transmitting station essentially, and with the nineteen o
Speaker 1: three starts to test it, even though the tower itself
Speaker 1: is not completed at that point. And this this was
Speaker 1: this was a tower that that again reached deep into
Speaker 1: the ground to kind of tap into this this terrestrial
Speaker 1: uh wave stationary wave. Actually have a really great quote
Speaker 1: from Tesla. If I had made out excellent in the
Speaker 1: system that I've invented, it is necessary for the machine
Speaker 1: to get a grip on the earth, otherwise it cannot
Speaker 1: shake the earth. It has to have a grip so
Speaker 1: that the whole of this globe can quiver. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you also remember the story about Tesla putting an oscillating
Speaker 1: motor onto a building and then nearly shaking it to
Speaker 1: its foundation that kind of dates from the same sort
Speaker 1: of concept. Um, the Earth is still here, by the way,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a spoiler alert to how this
Speaker 1: story plays out. Midbuster's actually actually cracked that one and
Speaker 1: the episode back in A two six things they showed.
Speaker 1: They showed that it could like a small repetitive motion
Speaker 1: could cause a bridge to start to shake a little
Speaker 1: enough to notice a couple of couple dred feet away, right,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily enough to to make it crumble into pieces. Um,
Speaker 1: but anyway, we all earthquake Warrncliff Tower becomes an important
Speaker 1: part of Tesla's life. He it was one of these
Speaker 1: things that he really thought that that the terrestrial stationary
Speaker 1: waves was the uh discovery of his life. That was
Speaker 1: the most important out of everything that he had worked
Speaker 1: with with alternating current, with transformers, with all these other technologies,
Speaker 1: those paled in comparison to this one. And so Warncliffe
Speaker 1: Tower was very important to him. Unfortunately, uh, there weren't.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a whole lot to show for it.
Speaker 1: And also he was running up the electric bill yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and Morgan was getting pretty sick of it. Meanwhile, across
Speaker 1: the ocean, um Marconi had signaled the letter asked across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, and that didn't make Tesla happy. And and
Speaker 1: I mean and and you know Marconi was just such
Speaker 1: a such a newspaper Darling. Yeah he was again and
Speaker 1: yet another person who was very good at catering to
Speaker 1: the media to get a message across. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not unusual at this time. So in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: the Colorado Lab is torn down due to excessive use
Speaker 1: of electricity and the building materials are sold for scrap
Speaker 1: to pay for the cost couch. And in nineteen o six,
Speaker 1: like you said, JP Morgan, who had been an investor
Speaker 1: withdraws and Tesla has to end up laying off a
Speaker 1: lot of employees over at Warncliff Tower. Uh, We're gonna
Speaker 1: skip ahead a few years because this is essentially where
Speaker 1: he's working on this Warncliff Tower experiment, which ends up
Speaker 1: draining a lot of his energy literally and resources and
Speaker 1: without a lot to show for it. Um. The next day,
Speaker 1: I have his nineteen eleven when he started working with
Speaker 1: steam turbines and electricity production. Uh, he was this was
Speaker 1: a big development. It was very important in the whole
Speaker 1: uh part of generating electricity for a growing need in
Speaker 1: America because at this point you're starting to see communities
Speaker 1: get wired for electricity and beyond just the narrow band
Speaker 1: in the Northeast that had it, so it was important
Speaker 1: to find different ways of generating it, beyond firing from
Speaker 1: coal plants. She wanted to find something that was sustainable
Speaker 1: even at that time, and in nineteen twelve, Tesla's suffered
Speaker 1: another setback, although not one nearly as large as Lady Astor.
Speaker 1: John Jacob Astar, who was one of Tesla's most wealthy
Speaker 1: and enthusiastic investors, stopped investing in Tesla's work because he
Speaker 1: stopped breathing. He was aboard a little boat called the Titanic. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've heard of that one. I think I saw a
Speaker 1: documentary about it once. Yeah, his heart will go on,
Speaker 1: but his investment payments stopped. Yeah, he um. He went
Speaker 1: down on with the boat. He did get Lady Astor
Speaker 1: on a lifeboat, so he made sure his wife was
Speaker 1: safe and he stayed behind to wait for his turn
Speaker 1: to get on a lifeboat, but tragically was not able
Speaker 1: to do that and he did die. And with that,
Speaker 1: Tesla lost one of his most significant sources of investment money.
Speaker 1: So it was another financial setback for Tesla. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't think he could blame that one on Edison. Maybe
Speaker 1: Mark Coney because we're talking about the use of radios
Speaker 1: on the Titanic, But then that was more of a
Speaker 1: personnel thing than a technology thing. A nineteen fifteen, Tesla
Speaker 1: and Edison are both listed as being uh considered for
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize and that they would be co recipients
Speaker 1: of the Nobel Prize. When the Nobel Prizes are announced,
Speaker 1: the prize goes to two people. That would be William
Speaker 1: Henry Bragg and his son. Now, the Nobel Committee admitted
Speaker 1: that Edison and Tesla were under consideration for the Nobel Prize,
Speaker 1: but they did not say any more than that. What
Speaker 1: has come up since then as the rumor that which
Speaker 1: is gospel in some corners of the Internet, that the
Speaker 1: reason why Tesla and Edison did not receive the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize together is because they'd rather be caught dead than
Speaker 1: to share a prize with the other man. That's a
Speaker 1: good myth. Yeah, that the rivalry was so great that
Speaker 1: they would both refuse a Nobel prize rather than have
Speaker 1: to share it with the other That's pretty amazing. And
Speaker 1: it may be true that when I say rumor, I
Speaker 1: don't mean that it's fake or false or a lie.
Speaker 1: I just mean that we don't know for sure. Other
Speaker 1: people probably do, but I don't. Nineteen sixteen, Tesla declares bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: He did not pasco or collect two hundred dollars. It
Speaker 1: was just not a good year for him. Uh. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen he ended up proposed using what would Depending
Speaker 1: upon whom you ask, Okay people, some people will say
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, Tesla predicted radar radar. Yeah, that he
Speaker 1: was the guy who came up with radar, but the
Speaker 1: government turned him down. The Navy board said that they
Speaker 1: would not invest in such a technology. By the way,
Speaker 1: the person from private industry who was on the Navy board,
Speaker 1: well he was from from what I understand about the story,
Speaker 1: U Tesla had proposed this, this way of finding ships underwater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the problem. Right. So the more you look into it,
Speaker 1: the more you realize it's not radar he's talking about,
Speaker 1: not in the sense that we use it today. Well,
Speaker 1: he he was talking about radar, but it was not
Speaker 1: really the best system for finding ships underwater. And so therefore,
Speaker 1: when the government from the Navy didn't didn't really give
Speaker 1: him the go ahead. It wasn't because radar is dumb
Speaker 1: or the Tesla's down. It was because it wasn't the
Speaker 1: right technology for the application. What Tesla did not take
Speaker 1: into account was he he wanted to use us tightly
Speaker 1: controlled electric beams of energy to zap them into the
Speaker 1: water to reflect off the surfaces of submarines, detect that
Speaker 1: those reflections and the information would be displayed back in
Speaker 1: a fluorescent display, which sounds great, except for the problem
Speaker 1: is that these beams would attenuate underwater, and so you
Speaker 1: would not get accurate representations of what you were looking at.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't you couldn't be sure that you know, you
Speaker 1: could be pointing it directly at a submarine and miss
Speaker 1: it because of this attenuation problem. And so it just
Speaker 1: isn't practical for the use that Tesla was suggesting it.
Speaker 1: And uh and so that shows that Tesla had a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding either of the physics of water or the technology itself.
Speaker 1: Either way, it wasn't truly radar. It's not exactly the
Speaker 1: same thing that radar is, and it was not being
Speaker 1: used in the way that radar ultimately would be used.
Speaker 1: So while some people claimed that he invented radar, that's
Speaker 1: being a little generous. Nineteenth we just busted a myth,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't I apologize because I haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: that section yet. But that's okay, that's one less for
Speaker 1: us to worry about when we get there. UH in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, actually, if we can, if we can
Speaker 1: step back, just to short, let's please in In nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: he published an autobiography called My Inventions UH that was
Speaker 1: published in six parts in the Electrical Experiment or magazine.
Speaker 1: And this is important because it is one of the
Speaker 1: main sources of information about Tesla's life, which is why
Speaker 1: you have to take everything with a grain of salt,
Speaker 1: because he was a bit of a self promoter. So
Speaker 1: there's not I'm not saying that Tesla was lying in
Speaker 1: his autobiography. What I'm saying is you just have to
Speaker 1: take into consideration the possibility that he may have exaggerated
Speaker 1: some facts, not that he was purposefully trying to mislead people,
Speaker 1: but that when you become a self promoter, that that
Speaker 1: can happen. Even if you don't mean it to happen,
Speaker 1: it can happen, which is kind of crazy that you're
Speaker 1: just you know, in your mind, you're like, this is
Speaker 1: totally how it happened, and then anyone else is like, dude,
Speaker 1: I was there, and that totally is not how it happened. Um, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: You've never beheaded anyone in the cold blood of a fight.
Speaker 1: In the cold blood of a fight, and The New
Speaker 1: York Times publish as an article about Tesla's death ray beam,
Speaker 1: Yeah this was. Tesla said that he had come up
Speaker 1: with an idea that would allow governments to build a
Speaker 1: device capable of emitting a beam of energy that could
Speaker 1: bring down a fleet of ten thousand enemy planes at
Speaker 1: a distance of two hundred fifty miles, and that his
Speaker 1: idea was that by outfitting pretty much everybody with one
Speaker 1: of these, you would have that mutually assured destruction that
Speaker 1: makes peace possible, all right. He actually called it a
Speaker 1: piece beam from what I understand, Yeah, I said that
Speaker 1: would really end war, because how could you have war
Speaker 1: If you can't fly over another country without worrying about
Speaker 1: your entire fleet being destroyed, then obviously war is off
Speaker 1: the table. That was kind of his his somewhat naive plan,
Speaker 1: And whether or not this thing would ever work is
Speaker 1: another interesting question, or if there ever was anything beyond
Speaker 1: just this idea that hey, maybe one day I could
Speaker 1: build something that does this. Uh, that's another you know,
Speaker 1: it's another one of those things. It's a myth, right seven. Uh.
Speaker 1: He decided to go feed the pigeons in the park,
Speaker 1: which was a bad decision to make that particular day.
Speaker 1: As as he was crossing the street, he was struck
Speaker 1: by a cab. Then, depending upon which report you read,
Speaker 1: he flew thirty five to forty ft in the air
Speaker 1: and landed and was perfectly unharmed except a little bruised
Speaker 1: or he had broken several ribs. It all depends on
Speaker 1: which person you're asking. Tesla said, damn, I'm all right.
Speaker 1: Other people like, dude, he was messed up. He was
Speaker 1: crying about his pigeons. It was ugly. He he had
Speaker 1: he had at this point become a little bit destitute. Um.
Speaker 1: He due to all of these various financial troubles over
Speaker 1: the years and and basic misspending. I think head I didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of hotels that were suing him
Speaker 1: because he had lived inside the hotel for years and
Speaker 1: years and owed them thousands of dollars, and then he
Speaker 1: would relocate to a different hotel and you think, like,
Speaker 1: why would another hotel even trust him? He was Tesla Again,
Speaker 1: this is a rock star guy, and it elevates the
Speaker 1: status of your hotel that he's staying there. But you
Speaker 1: can only have Lindsay Lohan in your hotel for so
Speaker 1: long before you're like, seriously, could you please stop making
Speaker 1: holes in the laws throwing TVs out the window? Guys,
Speaker 1: I am sitting across from the from the person who
Speaker 1: had just compared Nicola Tesla to Lindsay Lohan. I think
Speaker 1: it's an apt comparison. Look, Lindsay Lohan hasn't reached the
Speaker 1: age Tesla was at when he started to really uh
Speaker 1: contribute to humanity, So I think we owe her a
Speaker 1: year or two. I'm just saying that if anyone actually
Speaker 1: figures out Tesla's parkle beam and aims at at the
Speaker 1: HW offices and just just just just let me know,
Speaker 1: I am perfectly willing to give you Jonathan's g A
Speaker 1: syncretis coordinates. Please keep in mind that stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class and stuff mom never told you sit
Speaker 1: really near me. So if you love those shows, keep
Speaker 1: your being particle pointed somewhere else. That's not cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: January seven three was a bad day for Tesla because
Speaker 1: that's the day he passed on. He was eighty six
Speaker 1: years old. Uh. And two days later, all of his
Speaker 1: papers and a state was seized by the government. Well
Speaker 1: some some stories say that his nephew showed up the
Speaker 1: morning after he passed away, and that his body had
Speaker 1: already been removed, and that the nephew noticed that it
Speaker 1: seemed like some of his papers were missing. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is where one of those stories pops up. In fact,
Speaker 1: now that we've had Tesla shuffle off the mortal and
Speaker 1: Tesla coil, thank you, I've been waiting to use that one. Uh,
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about this this idea.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of rumors out there. One
Speaker 1: of the big rumors is that the FBI seized all
Speaker 1: of Tesla's papers and did so in an effort to
Speaker 1: to use them for arious nefarious purposes for the United
Speaker 1: States government. Now keep in mind, this is World War
Speaker 1: two is a thing, and so there is a genuine
Speaker 1: concern that information that has scientific significance could fall into
Speaker 1: the hands of other nations and give give other other
Speaker 1: nations a lot of advantages over the United States, and
Speaker 1: so it was very important to guard whatever advantages you
Speaker 1: had against that absolutely. And also I mean remember that
Speaker 1: that Tesla was a Serbian American as as such, the
Speaker 1: from from from what we can discern of fact, it
Speaker 1: was actually the Department of Justice Alien Property Custodian Office
Speaker 1: that temporarily seized his papers, right, so it was not
Speaker 1: the FBI. It was a Department of Justice. And the
Speaker 1: FBI still they've got like a like a top ten
Speaker 1: myths on on the internet. Number ten. Number ten is
Speaker 1: is that we took Tesla's papers, like guys, Like, guys,
Speaker 1: we didn't. We did it for real, Zo, we didn't
Speaker 1: grab those and actually I looked into it and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be until you know, if you read most of
Speaker 1: the stories, it's like the FBI took the papers and
Speaker 1: they never released them, and we want, we demand that
Speaker 1: these papers be released. Guys. It was the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice number one and number two. In nineteen fifty two
Speaker 1: they sent the papers to uh to Kasanovitch, his nephew,
Speaker 1: and that is that is nine years later, Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: granted nine years Like we're also talking about time during
Speaker 1: not just the World War Two, with the Red Scare
Speaker 1: as well, So so I mean not that that justifies
Speaker 1: suppressing information. Also, you're talking about the government, so it
Speaker 1: may very well be that there wasn't any intentional um
Speaker 1: slowness on the part of the government. That's just the
Speaker 1: way the government works. But I don't know, I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. What I do know is they did release
Speaker 1: the estate and the papers to Yugoslavia to to his
Speaker 1: nephew that they wound up in a in a museum.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted, if you're one of the people
Speaker 1: demanding that there's a Tesla museum, good news there is.
Speaker 1: You just have to go to Europe to see it. Also,
Speaker 1: supposedly after World War two was there were copies of
Speaker 1: his papers um were sent out to one of the
Speaker 1: Air Force spaces and Project Nick was a thing that
Speaker 1: was heavily funded, and then the papers have disappeared, never
Speaker 1: to be seen again. Yeah, there a love of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories here there. There was one one person posted on
Speaker 1: Facebook when I mentioned that we were going to be
Speaker 1: covering Tesla today, so are you going to talk about
Speaker 1: how they used a lot of his work in the
Speaker 1: developments of stuff in Area fifty one. And the answer
Speaker 1: to that is no, because there's no real documentation of that.
Speaker 1: There's actually quite a bit of information about what went
Speaker 1: on at Area fifty one. It's stuff that was top
Speaker 1: secret at the time. But um, we'll have to do
Speaker 1: an episode all about Area fifty one sometime in the future,
Speaker 1: just because it's a fascinating topic. But it's all about
Speaker 1: you know, developing things like stealth technology and various kinds
Speaker 1: of test uh prototypes for the Air Force or for
Speaker 1: the army. But but nothing like the Tesla death ray,
Speaker 1: at least nothing that shows up in any real record.
Speaker 1: And I would argue that the reason why it doesn't
Speaker 1: show up on a real record is probably because it
Speaker 1: didn't exist. Um that my second choice would be it
Speaker 1: didn't work and so there was no point in more valut.
Speaker 1: I don't think we would still be debating whether or
Speaker 1: not exists if it actually did exist, because someone would
Speaker 1: have come forward by now, or I would have zapped somebody.
Speaker 1: Although there there is stuffinitely don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Did I did an episode a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: on this, You can go check that out on YouTube.
Speaker 1: That's true. Oh, Bolan. Uh. Then also there here's some
Speaker 1: other myths that Tesla invented alternating current. He did not.
Speaker 1: He did not. He alternating current was already a thing
Speaker 1: in Europe by the time Tesla was born. It wasn't widespread,
Speaker 1: It wasn't like there was a huge power grid in Europe,
Speaker 1: but there were people working on alternating current and even
Speaker 1: working on things like induction motors and transformers at that time.
Speaker 1: And so Tesla even studied alternating current when he was
Speaker 1: in school. So it's not something that he invented. He did, however,
Speaker 1: take the knowledge that was being generated around alternating current
Speaker 1: and applied it and furthered it. So it's not it's
Speaker 1: not that he just copied someone else's work. He really
Speaker 1: did make legitimate contributions. Oh sure, And it was it
Speaker 1: was his patents in his his work with Westinghouse that
Speaker 1: led to alternating current becoming the thing that the US
Speaker 1: uses and and the thing that is capable of going
Speaker 1: across long distances, And both of those are extremely extremely important.
Speaker 1: We can't downplay either of those exactly. Yes, but but
Speaker 1: he did not invent it. He didn't invent it. He's
Speaker 1: not the reason why it's what's being used in Europe. Uh,
Speaker 1: so that's one thing we can kind of put to bed.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the first work with alternating current dates
Speaker 1: back to five, which was, you know, twenty years before
Speaker 1: Tesla was born. So unless he also invented time travel,
Speaker 1: and don't write me and tell me he did, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not the case. Um, like I would believe
Speaker 1: anything after watching the Prestige. Yeah again another documentary right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, a Westinghouse, like we pointed out, was working
Speaker 1: on uh, distribution grids designs for A C power and
Speaker 1: transformers before Tesla had even started to work for the company. Now,
Speaker 1: granted again, Tesla's patents and the information that he was
Speaker 1: able to provide to Westingholse ended up making those much
Speaker 1: more robust and it made it possible to actually act
Speaker 1: on that. But again it shows that he's not the
Speaker 1: only one working on this at the time. Um. He's
Speaker 1: also not the guy who invented transformers. Those were first
Speaker 1: being used in Budapest in the eighteen seventies. Uh, and
Speaker 1: the very first modern transformer was built by William Stanley
Speaker 1: in eighty five. He did not invent the fluorescent lamp.
Speaker 1: Alexandra Beccarell was the first guy to to observe fluorescence,
Speaker 1: and he did so in eighteen fifty seven when Tesla
Speaker 1: was one. So again, unless Tesla was also observing fluorescence
Speaker 1: at one year old, and maybe he was. I mean
Speaker 1: he was born in a storm after all. Thor was
Speaker 1: his buddy. Um, you can't say that he invented that
Speaker 1: he did not discover or X rays. Uh, as we
Speaker 1: covered before. Yeah, Ivan Pului, I have no idea how
Speaker 1: to say his last name. I know I just butchered it.
Speaker 1: But but Ivan, my buddy Ivan, he he had actually
Speaker 1: observed the phenomena of X rays before Tesla had. But
Speaker 1: just like Tesla, he wasn't really sure what it was
Speaker 1: he was looking at. He thought it was interesting, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't really sure about, you know, what this stuff
Speaker 1: actually is. It wouldn't be until Wilhelm Ronin really looked
Speaker 1: into it and began to make theories and hypotheses and
Speaker 1: test things about them. That's that's when we started to
Speaker 1: know that what they were. But other other scientists had
Speaker 1: been observing it, they just didn't understand it. Again, we
Speaker 1: talked about the radar thing, and we talked about FBI,
Speaker 1: so those are the big myths. Other myths are you know,
Speaker 1: the whole Tesla versus Edison thing. Uh, it was really
Speaker 1: more Edison companies versus Westinghouse companies and not so much
Speaker 1: a personality thing. Well, it does sound like the two
Speaker 1: of them clashed. There are a whole bunch of reports
Speaker 1: about how I mean, right from the get go they
Speaker 1: didn't really like each other, right, um and and it's
Speaker 1: easy to see, you know, they were both very strong personalities,
Speaker 1: um and very big showman and it didn't it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like either of them really liked not that anyone
Speaker 1: likes it, but but to be made a fool of.
Speaker 1: And both of them were in the business of, in fact,
Speaker 1: trying to make a full of the other person. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some of that. There was some showmanship, There
Speaker 1: was some There was some and and I mean there
Speaker 1: was clearly some sort of legitimate beef between us and Tesla,
Speaker 1: at least as far as you know, Tesla getting the
Speaker 1: credit that he wanted and Tesla, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of his fortunes switched, mainly because he made some really
Speaker 1: bad business deals. He sold patents off at a pittance
Speaker 1: at times because the company would come to him and say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this massive economic downturn coming. We need
Speaker 1: this these patents, but if we paid you what they're worth,
Speaker 1: then we're going to go under. And Tesla's I'll cut
Speaker 1: you deal. Yeah. They were basically kind of like, can
Speaker 1: we give you a tenth of the fee that we're
Speaker 1: going to promise you and then give you some stock
Speaker 1: right before a terrible economic downturn. And Tesla was like, yes,
Speaker 1: is good, give me that, and and and and and
Speaker 1: the famous Westinghouse deal where um uh, even even even
Speaker 1: though a Westinghouse won the so called War of the Currents,
Speaker 1: the company was not doing well and and wound up
Speaker 1: after they had built the generator at Niagara, I think,
Speaker 1: started to go under and there were some issues with
Speaker 1: mostly it was just again just just poor decisions on
Speaker 1: Tesla's part. Um Testa let him out of the contract,
Speaker 1: just said said like, oh no, you don't have to
Speaker 1: pay me the rest. That's fine. You save your company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is which is great. I mean, it's lovely, it's
Speaker 1: a nice, it's a terrific I mean, but you know
Speaker 1: it's it's when you when you end up having no
Speaker 1: friends other than pigeons, and owing every hotel in New
Speaker 1: York money. Maybe that's why. Yeah, yeah, that could that
Speaker 1: could be one of the factors. Um he's certainly and
Speaker 1: I know that people are probably listening to the episode
Speaker 1: and thinking that I'm I think Tesla was a worthless
Speaker 1: lay about that. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: I think he really did make incredible contributions to UH,
Speaker 1: to the success of the United States in general, and
Speaker 1: to several technologies around the world in particular. But it's
Speaker 1: also important not to overstate his contributions and to understand,
Speaker 1: especially at the expense of other very important inventors and
Speaker 1: minds and works, it's a disservice to everyone else who
Speaker 1: worked on these same things and helped make them a
Speaker 1: possible a reality really in our lives. And and you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to also pay attention to some of the
Speaker 1: crazier ideas like the death ray the death raying, Yeah,
Speaker 1: or being able to move the entire Earth with putting
Speaker 1: essentially a wire around it and tapping into the frequency
Speaker 1: that it generates, which hey, maybe that is possible, it's
Speaker 1: just not practical, right, Yeah, that's and I think that
Speaker 1: that's a problem with a lot of his latter theories
Speaker 1: is they were not particularly practical. Yeah, yeah, so he
Speaker 1: was also, I mean, there there's stories about him having
Speaker 1: a couple of nervous breakdowns at various times in his life.
Speaker 1: I think that he was probably not necessarily mentally well
Speaker 1: for a great deal of his existence. I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think he probably had quite a few uh issues
Speaker 1: to work through, and that, I mean, you know, can
Speaker 1: considering how well we treat those kinds of people today,
Speaker 1: it is easy to see how at the turn of
Speaker 1: the century he was not particularly given the chances that
Speaker 1: he needed. Oh no, man, Lindsey Lohan, she's not treated
Speaker 1: that well. You know, I'm just saying in our next
Speaker 1: episode about Lindsay Lohan. Yeah, I'm just glad TMZ didn't
Speaker 1: exist back when Tesla was at Oh my goodness, that
Speaker 1: is Yes, that is the best thing on the planet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so we're gonna we're gonna wrap this up.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's our episode about Tesla. We really do
Speaker 1: think he was a remarkable person. It's just important to
Speaker 1: really turn a critical eye and make sure that you
Speaker 1: don't elevate someone beyond their what their actual contributions were.
Speaker 1: I think, Um, but I'm sure a lot of you
Speaker 1: have things you want to say to me now, So
Speaker 1: if you would like to say something to me, pray,
Speaker 1: do it in a way that is civil, uh, and
Speaker 1: and send it to me. Our address is tech stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com or let's know on Facebook or Twitter,
Speaker 1: also be civil, but in shorter form. Our handle at
Speaker 1: both of those locations is text stuff H. S. W
Speaker 1: and Lauren and I will talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com