Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios.
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech and
Speaker 1: um looking at the calendar, it looks like it's a Friday.
Speaker 1: That means it's time for another classic episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: This episode we're about to listen to originally published back
Speaker 1: in February two thirteen, and it's all about Nicola Tesla.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you guys are at least familiar with
Speaker 1: the name. Tesla has been the featured player in many
Speaker 1: an Internet meme over the past several years, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of stories about him. Some of them
Speaker 1: are true, and some of them are probably exaggerated, and
Speaker 1: some of them might just be completely off basse. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to develop a full episode about Tesla and
Speaker 1: talk about him his good points, is bad points, everything
Speaker 1: in between, and that's what we're going to listen to.
Speaker 1: So let's sit back and hear this classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. We are focusing finally, after many, many, many
Speaker 1: people have asked us to do a full episode about
Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla. The Internet legend the the man placed on
Speaker 1: a virtual pedestal on the Internet that is gleaming and
Speaker 1: beauteous and will zap you if you ever dare say
Speaker 1: anything against him. He is, he's staring at us from
Speaker 1: the walls of the podcast room right now. Yes, he is. Now.
Speaker 1: The question of whether or not he'll be staring at
Speaker 1: us in our news studio it remains to be answered. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll probably end up propping him up on a mic
Speaker 1: stand or something, so he's still judging us constantly. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to talk about Tesla, kind of talk about
Speaker 1: his his contributions to technology and also maybe take a
Speaker 1: critical look at some of the some of the claims
Speaker 1: about slaw and some of the misconceptions people have about
Speaker 1: his contributions. Yeah, he's he's a mythological figure, really a
Speaker 1: mythological nerd figure, which is which is fabulous. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really terrific, and it's it's it's understandable why because
Speaker 1: he he by the end of his life, was so downtrodden.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing that people and geeks especially love more
Speaker 1: than than an anti hero. Yeah. Here, here's a guy
Speaker 1: who has been beaten down. He's he's Uh, seen his
Speaker 1: fortunes dwindle away. He's he's made some bad choices. Uh.
Speaker 1: He has all the earmarks of a classic geek. Geeks
Speaker 1: love this underdog kind of story. And when you get
Speaker 1: into things like sort of the the demonification of other people,
Speaker 1: Edison in particular, Yeah, but even people like JP Morgan
Speaker 1: and Lustinghouse, then it seems like the whole world had
Speaker 1: turned against him. And and depending on how you look
Speaker 1: at his story, it can definitely come across that way.
Speaker 1: But that's doing a little bit of a disservice to
Speaker 1: the entire tale. And Uh, the reason why I'm talking
Speaker 1: about in this way is because there is what we
Speaker 1: thought some people referred to as the cult of Tesla, right,
Speaker 1: this idea of elevating him beyond what his contributions were. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a cartoon that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: you guys out there saw because he posted about it
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page that the Oatmeal did all about
Speaker 1: Tesla and his contributions and his rivalry with Edison and
Speaker 1: kind of comparing him favorably against Edison in every single
Speaker 1: category and saying that there should be a Tesla museum.
Speaker 1: And so we wanted to talk about what Tesla actually
Speaker 1: did and what he did not do, and uh, and
Speaker 1: whether or not he deserves all those acohomis yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and and just just before anyone who is a rabbit
Speaker 1: fan of the oat mal gets honest, because I don't
Speaker 1: I do not want to incite your anger. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: we 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 so perfectly. No, I
Speaker 1: like its 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 real 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 definitely had a religious upbringing and his father really
Speaker 1: 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 the very first terrific
Speaker 1: tall tale that I heard about Tesla was that he
Speaker 1: was born on a dark and storm and I to
Speaker 1: lightning right right, He was born on the stroke of
Speaker 1: midnight as lightning crashed in the sky, and that one
Speaker 1: person said he would be a boy of storms, and
Speaker 1: his mother said, no, he shall be a man of
Speaker 1: the light. I might be inserting some of my hyper
Speaker 1: bowl in there. Goodness, my gracious. So yeah, And as
Speaker 1: a child they moved around quite a bit as his
Speaker 1: father was finding a church to be pastor in. And
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, so I remember he's born in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six. By eighteen seventy he moves in with his
Speaker 1: aunt and starts to attend a school that we're a
Speaker 1: teacher named Martin skul Chick, sorry Skolich Sokolich. Uh So,
Speaker 1: Martin Sokolich is teaching there, and he's teaching math and physics,
Speaker 1: and Tesla finds both the professor and the subject matter fascinating,
Speaker 1: and he becomes really focused on math and physics, and
Speaker 1: in fact he's so focused he graduates a year early.
Speaker 1: So he was certainly a man of genius. He possessed
Speaker 1: a genius and an affinity for physics, for math, for
Speaker 1: engineering that far outstripped most of his contemporaries. Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: But then again, this is also the era where we
Speaker 1: start seeing these technologies form and uh, and so it
Speaker 1: was an exciting time if you were interested in physics,
Speaker 1: because this is when we're making lots of big discoveries,
Speaker 1: things that some people say are 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 fields you're
Speaker 1: in to clearly understand it. Sure, but while doing this,
Speaker 1: researcher kind of blew my mind. I actually don't have
Speaker 1: a strong history in in electronic background, and and it
Speaker 1: blew my mind that it wasn't until eighteen seventy three
Speaker 1: that that James Clerk Maxwell proved that light is is
Speaker 1: electromagnetic energy. Yeah, yes, this is He's he's growing up
Speaker 1: at a time when uh, these discoveries are being made,
Speaker 1: and that would impact his own work and in fact
Speaker 1: drive him to achieve great things. Also, eighteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: that was the year he contracted cholera. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was due to the cholera that he kind of shaped
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. Yeah. Well, yeah, quite a
Speaker 1: few things. Because if you if you've heard about Tesla,
Speaker 1: you know that he uh, he reportedly had a bit
Speaker 1: of obsessive compulsive disorder, that he was a germophobe, that
Speaker 1: he was a clean He was obsessed with being clean
Speaker 1: and having cleaned things around him. He reported in his
Speaker 1: own biography that he had a severe aversion to touching
Speaker 1: other people's hair. That he had to do things if
Speaker 1: if they require repetition, in the repetition of threes, and
Speaker 1: if he did not, then he had to stop and restart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he may have developed some of the peculiarities. At
Speaker 1: this time. He was in bed for about nine months,
Speaker 1: nearly died a few times. So I would imagine that
Speaker 1: was definitely something that would shape you, whether or not that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were other issues that are beyond just
Speaker 1: getting sick. There were probably some things that were psychologically
Speaker 1: part of his being from the point where he was born.
Speaker 1: But we don't know to what extent obviously, and um
Speaker 1: and you know what's odd to me, I might as
Speaker 1: well talk about this for right now. So neat freak,
Speaker 1: if you want to put it that way. Germophobe doesn't
Speaker 1: like touching people. Loved pigeons, loved them rats with wings,
Speaker 1: that's what they are. Well, that that was, that was
Speaker 1: also towards the end of his life that he became
Speaker 1: obsessed with him became incredibly obsessed with pigeons. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just makes me think of that great scene in the
Speaker 1: documentary The Producers, Boydes Filthy Rotten Boydes. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: that your your Yiddish accent there is is better than mine.
Speaker 1: That's excellent. I should also point out that that that's
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty eight version of the documentary The Producers,
Speaker 1: not the musical version starring Nathan Lane. Matthew Broderick actually
Speaker 1: has zero mostel Gene Wilder. I'm getting off track anyway.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, so he's he's definitely got some interesting personality.
Speaker 1: Quirks eighteen seventy four. He starts to move around a
Speaker 1: little bit, mostly hiding out from the army because in
Speaker 1: that part of the world, in Austro Austrio, Austro Hungary. Look,
Speaker 1: I 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 dodging,
Speaker 1: that's the best way of putting it. Uh. The next year,
Speaker 1: eight five, he starts to attend the Austrian Polytechnic School
Speaker 1: and he starts off really strong. He's doing really well
Speaker 1: in his classes. He understands the concepts, and unlike some
Speaker 1: other some other visionaries like say Stephen Hawking, he was
Speaker 1: very good in school. Yep, yep. Also, you know, not
Speaker 1: not like Einstein or some of the other famous folks
Speaker 1: who seemed to have trouble in class. Now that that
Speaker 1: was true for about a year, and then about that
Speaker 1: second year, things began to take a little bit of
Speaker 1: a dip because he began to point out shortcomings or
Speaker 1: what he thought of as shortcomings in his professor's understanding
Speaker 1: of things like electrical engineering and saying things like, you know,
Speaker 1: you could build a device that does the same thing
Speaker 1: without this one component that you are claiming is absolutely
Speaker 1: necessary for it to work. That furthermore puts off gigantic
Speaker 1: electrical shocks that are actually pretty dangerous, like you could
Speaker 1: do it this way. And then, uh, if you mouth
Speaker 1: off your professors often enough, you might find yourself in
Speaker 1: some academic trouble. And that's kind of what Tesla did.
Speaker 1: He he began to get disillusioned about pursuing studies in
Speaker 1: an academic setting, and after about a little over three years,
Speaker 1: he actually dropped out of the polytechnic school. So he
Speaker 1: moved to Slovenia in eight to work as a draftsman
Speaker 1: for an engineering firm, but by eighteen seventy nine, the
Speaker 1: next year, some some police officials show up and asked
Speaker 1: to see his residents papers, which he did not have,
Speaker 1: so then he was escorted back to his family's home
Speaker 1: because he didn't have a residence permit for Slovenia, And
Speaker 1: that same year his father passes away, uh and Tesla
Speaker 1: starts to a new career as a teacher in the
Speaker 1: same school that he attended as a boy, but realizes
Speaker 1: very quickly, that's not not for him. Yeah, he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to do that. Um So Then the next year,
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty, 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: Telegraph 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 you know, he hasn't really made a name
Speaker 1: for himself yet. He's been a very enthusiastic student at
Speaker 1: times of his life, and he is certainly interested in
Speaker 1: electronics or really we should say electricity electronics too early,
Speaker 1: but electricity and its applications. Um So, he does that
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. In eighteen eighty too, he
Speaker 1: joins the Continental Edison Company and begins to work on
Speaker 1: things like dynamos, which are well, you've heard us talk
Speaker 1: about dynamos and our episodes about electromagnets and motors and
Speaker 1: uh induction in the reverse of that, so we I
Speaker 1: won't go into it. But anyway, he starts to work
Speaker 1: on that. Now this means that he becomes an employee,
Speaker 1: although you know, indirectly and way down the line of Edison.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's sitting there working for the company of
Speaker 1: the man who would one day become his greatest rival.
Speaker 1: According to me, they have dragon ball style fights in
Speaker 1: the sky. Yeah, they also would occasionally catch Pokemon, but
Speaker 1: it was only the one that shoots the electricity. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know which one. Oh, come on, it's Pikachu.
Speaker 1: I was just I was trying to bait Lauren to
Speaker 1: see if I could get it. I actually know that
Speaker 1: you win this time vocal bomb. So at this time
Speaker 1: he also gets the idea for the A C induction motor,
Speaker 1: although Asterisk not necessarily the first person to think about that.
Speaker 1: Supposedly in a vision, well supposedly he had these visions.
Speaker 1: Supposedly he was was very light and audio sensitive, and occasionally,
Speaker 1: upon looking at one object or having a certain idea,
Speaker 1: would would get an extremely strong visual perception of something
Speaker 1: that he had already seen, or or of nothing, nothing
Speaker 1: imaginary unless it was a new invention. But yeah, occasionally
Speaker 1: he would get these flashes that that kind of disturbed
Speaker 1: him a lot, according to his autobiography. Yeah, so essentially
Speaker 1: what would happen is he would be walking through a
Speaker 1: park and look at a beautiful scene, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: an idea would form, fully formed in his head, like
Speaker 1: not not something he had been puzzling about necessarily, It
Speaker 1: might just be hey, boom, here are all the pieces
Speaker 1: and the puzzle is completely it together. You know, we
Speaker 1: opened up the box and the puzzles there, as opposed
Speaker 1: to you've been trying to fix this problem for years,
Speaker 1: and oh here's the inspiration. And so yeah. Supposedly he
Speaker 1: was walking through the city park in Budapest with a
Speaker 1: friend and saw a beautiful sunset and quoted some poetry
Speaker 1: and then had an idea for for the induction motor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just drew it in the sand and then kept walking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that's true, it's hard to say. Because Tesla,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, was something of a showman, a
Speaker 1: little bit of an unreliable narrator. I would say unreliable
Speaker 1: narrator is a very kind way of putting it. The
Speaker 1: same sort of thing is true of all the big
Speaker 1: names at this time, because they were the rock stars
Speaker 1: of 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 might be mixing that up with
Speaker 1: a documentary though, So then the the in in uh
Speaker 1: in A ten two. This whole time where he's making
Speaker 1: he's working for Edison. He's got this idea for the
Speaker 1: A C induction motor. He also is reportedly not paid
Speaker 1: 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 yeah, and this this
Speaker 1: is when he was very he was what twenty six
Speaker 1: at the time, and in Paris, and so he was
Speaker 1: he was really distantly connected from to Edison at the time.
Speaker 1: But apparently grudge started, right you use this, If you
Speaker 1: use this and just say like this is indicative of
Speaker 1: how Edison treats people, it would apparently become company policy
Speaker 1: not to pay people for their work. That's what that's
Speaker 1: what suggested 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 happens 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 beingthing he deserved. Um, but then we'll
Speaker 1: get into that again. Yeo, he makes the big move
Speaker 1: from Europe to America. He he had basically no money
Speaker 1: at the time. From what I understand, well, he definitely
Speaker 1: 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 ship.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I did not read about this, and
Speaker 1: supposedly Tesla himself was nearly thrown overboard, probably for being
Speaker 1: a witch. That that last part is just me guessing.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any reason. I didn't have. There was
Speaker 1: no reason given as to why Tesla would have been
Speaker 1: thrown overboard, so I'm just inventing one. But no, apparently
Speaker 1: the ship he was on had a mutiny aboard it.
Speaker 1: I 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 asked,
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 to Edison that they switched to an alternating
Speaker 1: current model as opposed to direct current, and Ederson was
Speaker 1: very much against that idea. So then in eighteen 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 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: some fifty thou dollars for a particular project, and when
Speaker 1: Tesla completed the project again supposedly with flying colors and
Speaker 1: beyond all expectations, Edison then said, ha, ha, you don't
Speaker 1: understand American humor. I'm not giving you any money, and
Speaker 1: then Tesla resigns, even though Edison supposedly at that point
Speaker 1: offered an enormous raise to keep Tesla there. This makes
Speaker 1: Edison look like the biggest jerk on the face of
Speaker 1: the planet. I mean, I can't imagine my boss coming
Speaker 1: up to me and saying, hey, you know when I
Speaker 1: told you were going to make fifty dollars if you
Speaker 1: did this thing, and then you did that thing, you
Speaker 1: did it really well. Well, you're not gonna get any money.
Speaker 1: Oh you want to leave, I'll raise your salary. That
Speaker 1: just like what kind of crazy person does that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't sound I mean, you know it
Speaker 1: could I start. I never met Edison, didn't did you
Speaker 1: mean him? You're very old? Uh? Tesla then claimed that
Speaker 1: he spent the next year making money by digging ditches.
Speaker 1: So again, a great, great story if you're looking at
Speaker 1: his life in the terms of like a tragic tale.
Speaker 1: You know, here you have this genius of super genius,
Speaker 1: the man who will one day light up the United
Speaker 1: States with his alternating current power grid, making money scraping
Speaker 1: by by digging ditches. Yeah. Again, a lot of this
Speaker 1: comes from Tesla himself, and whether or not all of
Speaker 1: it is true, it remains part of myth. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that. I don't doubt there were some
Speaker 1: bad business dealings. I'm sure that was the case, and
Speaker 1: I don't doubt he had some hard times and maybe
Speaker 1: he did make his living for a full year being
Speaker 1: you know, digging ditches and that was the only thing
Speaker 1: he could do. But it sounds more, it sounds like melodrama.
Speaker 1: But sometimes like works like that, sometimes that's the Sometimes
Speaker 1: that's the truth. Stranger things. But anyway, h then by
Speaker 1: by e eight seven, so you know A six digging ditches,
Speaker 1: we don't need to go into as that's it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, meanwhile, in eighteen eighties, actually it's interesting Westinghouse
Speaker 1: Electric had developed a transformer for commercial use. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's another thing we should mention is that, uh, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons Tesla was really pushing for this alternating
Speaker 1: current thing with Edison is that back in Europe, that's
Speaker 1: what they were using a C was, That's that's the
Speaker 1: route they took. They didn't they didn't go down the
Speaker 1: 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 Nights had to
Speaker 1: dodge these lines so often that their team was thus
Speaker 1: named the Brooklyn Dodging, 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 within Besters again, and he establishes
Speaker 1: a lab at eighty nine Liberty Street in New York
Speaker 1: and then 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
Speaker 1: Engineers now known as the Triple E, or as I
Speaker 1: always prefer to call them. I that once for all
Speaker 1: you engineers out there. Uh. And he also agrees to
Speaker 1: start selling patents to George Westinghouse. So even though you know, Lauren,
Speaker 1: like Lauren was saying, in eighteen eighty six, you already
Speaker 1: had Westinghouse working on transformers and alternating current. That was
Speaker 1: before Tesla had even started to work for Westinghouse. 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 he begins to experiment with wireless power in florest
Speaker 1: and neon lighting, as well as X rays, although at
Speaker 1: the time he isn't sure exactly what they are. He
Speaker 1: was 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 Americans and 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
Speaker 1: mean he's he's going from city to city. You know,
Speaker 1: he stopped in places like Chicago and New York, London, Paris.
Speaker 1: So he becomes again, like I said, like a rock star.
Speaker 1: He's known for these lectures, and it sounds weird for
Speaker 1: us to say that that he's like a rock star.
Speaker 1: But this was an era where these these thinkers were
Speaker 1: really pushing the development of technology to a point where
Speaker 1: everyone was sure that, you know, okay, we're five years
Speaker 1: away from the incredible future. And in many ways they
Speaker 1: were right. It's just that their view of what the
Speaker 1: incredible future would be ended up being a lot different
Speaker 1: from what it really was. But it was an era
Speaker 1: of rapid development, so these guys were considered to be
Speaker 1: the people pushing that rapid development is really exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and think things like when the Chicago World Fair was
Speaker 1: that was that? Want to say? Yeah? That was that
Speaker 1: was famous because there was a whole Edison Tesla story
Speaker 1: there about who is going to provide power? Right, and
Speaker 1: it was really Edison versus H. Westinghouse. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean Westinghouse back by Tesla. Sure, sure, yeah. West Westinghouse
Speaker 1: was using technology that Tesla had patented and and systems
Speaker 1: that Tesla worked on, but it was not truly Tesla
Speaker 1: versus Edison. That's that's kind of how I think. Even
Speaker 1: in a previous episode of Tech Stuff, we sort of
Speaker 1: talked about it in those terms, because that's sort of
Speaker 1: the romantic way of doing it, right as the idea
Speaker 1: of these two geniuses facing off against each other and
Speaker 1: who will win and alternating current one out in that one.
Speaker 1: So it was really Westinghouse that one, all right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: The story goes that there was a there was a
Speaker 1: business deal the government was looking to contract either either
Speaker 1: Westinghouses Company or Edison's company to power the World's Fair
Speaker 1: and and Westinghouse one out because it was cheaper. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and when and yeah, and when they threw
Speaker 1: when President grawf for Cleveland, I think it was through
Speaker 1: that switch and which like a hundred hundred thousand bulbs
Speaker 1: lit up 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. Then he was president again. Yes,
Speaker 1: he also liked the song Funky called Medina eighteen five.
Speaker 1: So then one of the buildings that heused, one of
Speaker 1: Tesla's labs, caught fire in eight and his lab burned down,
Speaker 1: and the fire destroyed what was estimated to be about
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment. And and he had
Speaker 1: no insurance. Yeah, and fifty that's it's a lot of
Speaker 1: money today. It was a huge amount of money in
Speaker 1: um And and at the time he was experimenting with
Speaker 1: with radios. Yeah, and and supposedly, according to him, was
Speaker 1: ready to transmit a signal fifty miles out to West Point,
Speaker 1: New York. Yeah. So that this is during if you've
Speaker 1: listened to the Old Tech Stuff episode about who invented
Speaker 1: the radio, there's a lot about Tesla and Marconi. And
Speaker 1: there there's a whole story there too about how Marconi,
Speaker 1: like Tesla, got a patent for for the radio. Then
Speaker 1: Marconi applied for a patent, Then the patent office overturned
Speaker 1: Tesla's patent, gave Marconi the patent, and then later on
Speaker 1: overturned it again and gave it back to Tesla. And
Speaker 1: later on is in like the nineteen seventies after Tesla
Speaker 1: was dead long after. Um. Yeah, there's a 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. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and that's a more firm one that Yeah, he
Speaker 1: absolutely lost that fight and lost probably a lot of
Speaker 1: money in fame. I think. Uh, Marconi won the New
Speaker 1: Belt Prize all kinds of fun. Was not happy about that. Excited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he demonstrated a wirelessly controlled model boat, so essentially a
Speaker 1: an RC boat at the Electrical Exposition in Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden where years later, Highlanders would fight it out to
Speaker 1: determine who would win the prize, and Queen would sing
Speaker 1: Princess of the Universe in the background. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't really like that documentary. WHOA, Okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a little break here. Let's let's take
Speaker 1: a take a moment to thank our sponsor, and now
Speaker 1: back to our show. Alright, getting back into Tesla's life.
Speaker 1: In moves to Colorado to perform some experiments with wireless power.
Speaker 1: And now this is where one of the big myths
Speaker 1: about Tesla comes up. This idea that he wanted to
Speaker 1: build this huge tower that would tap into the this
Speaker 1: this resonant frequency that exists around the world, and that
Speaker 1: 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 terrest
Speaker 1: real stationary waves, an idea about tapping into the Earth
Speaker 1: itself as a conductor. Okay, sounds interesting, Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not that it's not that everything was that he said
Speaker 1: was crazy or it was just to be able to
Speaker 1: actually use this in a way that would allow you
Speaker 1: to transmit power reliably safely without losing power over distance
Speaker 1: or zapping and killing everybody. Uh is something we haven't
Speaker 1: solved yet, And there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: say that all of his work would have proven if
Speaker 1: if it's still existed. Get into more about more destruction
Speaker 1: of his work and where it all when it went to.
Speaker 1: But then if it's still existed, it would prove that
Speaker 1: this sort of thing is possible, and it's only the
Speaker 1: energy companies that are keeping it down because they stand
Speaker 1: to 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, forward thinking, and maybe let's
Speaker 1: have you know, perhaps the people these days are not
Speaker 1: vision nary the way that he was. But yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe that's it. Maybe they just need to take a
Speaker 1: walk in the park and look at the sunset, think
Speaker 1: about some poetry that would help. I guess, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: far be it from me to downplay the importance of
Speaker 1: poetry in the world. I certainly think it's important being
Speaker 1: English lit major. Uh. In nineteen o one, well, all right,
Speaker 1: so so he starts to think really about wireless power
Speaker 1: and the phenomena that it would be, Like what what
Speaker 1: would go into making this and how it would change
Speaker 1: the world. And he really was thinking it was an
Speaker 1: interesting idea. So in nineteen o one, with funding from
Speaker 1: various sources, including people like JP Morgan, he starts to
Speaker 1: build the Warden Cliff Tower. And this is at a
Speaker 1: long island sound and uh, this is um this thing
Speaker 1: is supposed to be a wireless power transmitting station essentially,
Speaker 1: and within nineteen o three starts to test it, even
Speaker 1: though the tower itself is not completed at that point.
Speaker 1: And this this was this was a tower that that
Speaker 1: again reached deep into the ground, took d of tap
Speaker 1: into this this terrestrial uh wave stationary way. I actually
Speaker 1: have a really great quote from Tesla. If I had
Speaker 1: made out excellent in the system that I've invented, it
Speaker 1: is necessary for the machine to get a grip on
Speaker 1: the earth. Otherwise it cannot shake the earth. It has
Speaker 1: to have a grip so that the whole of this
Speaker 1: globe can quiver. Yeah, if you also remember the story
Speaker 1: about Tesla putting an oscillating motor onto a building and
Speaker 1: then nearly shaking it to its foundation, that kind of
Speaker 1: dates from the same sort of concept. And the Earth
Speaker 1: is still here, by the way, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert to how this story plays out. MythBusters
Speaker 1: actually actually cracked that one in the episode back in
Speaker 1: A two six, I think they showed. They showed that
Speaker 1: it could, like a small repetitive motion could cause a
Speaker 1: bridge to start to shake a little enough to notice
Speaker 1: a couple couple hundred feet away, right, but not necessarily
Speaker 1: enough to to make it crumble into pieces. Um, but anyway,
Speaker 1: we all earthquake. Warncliffe Tower becomes an important part of
Speaker 1: Tesla's life. He was one of these things that he
Speaker 1: really thought that that the terrestrial stationary waves was the
Speaker 1: uh discovery of his life. That was the most important
Speaker 1: out of everything that he had worked with with alternating current,
Speaker 1: with transformers, with all these other technologies, those paled in
Speaker 1: comparison to this one and so Warncliffe Tower was very
Speaker 1: important to him. Unfortunately, Uh, there weren't. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot to show for it. And also he
Speaker 1: was running up the electric bill. Yeah yeah, and Morgan
Speaker 1: was getting pretty sick of it. Meanwhile across the ocean, Um,
Speaker 1: Marconi had signaled the letter as across the Atlantic. Then
Speaker 1: that didn't make Tesla happy. And and I mean and
Speaker 1: and you know Marconi was such a such a newspaper darling.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was again and yet another person who was
Speaker 1: very good at catering to the media to get a
Speaker 1: message across. So uh, you know, not unusual at this time.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen o four, the Colorado Lab is torn
Speaker 1: down due to excessive use of electricity and the building
Speaker 1: materials are sold for scrap to pay for the cost couch.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen o six, like you said, JP, Morgan,
Speaker 1: who had been an investor withdraws and Tesla has to
Speaker 1: end up laying off a lot of employees over at
Speaker 1: Warncliff Tower. Uh, We're gonna skip ahead a few years
Speaker 1: because this is essentially where he's working on this Warncliff
Speaker 1: Tower experiment, which ends up draining a lot of his
Speaker 1: energy literally and resources, and without a lot to show
Speaker 1: for it. Um the next day, I have his nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven when he started working with steam turbines and electricity production. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was. This was a big development. It was very
Speaker 1: important in the whole uh part of generating electricity for
Speaker 1: a growing need in America because at this point you're
Speaker 1: starting to see communities get wired for electricity and beyond
Speaker 1: just the narrow band in the Northeast that had it,
Speaker 1: So it was important to find different ways of generating it,
Speaker 1: beyond firing from coal plants. She wanted to find something
Speaker 1: that was sustainable even at that time, and in ninetelve
Speaker 1: Tesla suffered another setback, although not one nearly as large
Speaker 1: as Lady Astor. John Jacob Astor was one of Tesla's
Speaker 1: most wealthy and enthusiastic investors, stopped investing in Tesla's work
Speaker 1: because he stopped breathing. He was at board a little
Speaker 1: boat called the Titanic. Oh, I've heard of that one.
Speaker 1: I think I saw a documentary about it one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his heart will go on, but his investment payments stopped. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He Um. He went down with the boat. He did
Speaker 1: get Lady Astor on a lifeboat, so he made sure
Speaker 1: his wife was safe, and he stayed behind to wait
Speaker 1: for his turn to get on a lifeboat, but tragically
Speaker 1: was not able to do that and he did die,
Speaker 1: and with that Tesla lost one of his most significant
Speaker 1: sources of investment money. So it was another financial setback
Speaker 1: for Tesla. Um. I don't think he could blame that
Speaker 1: one on Edison. No, No, maybe Mark Coni, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about the use of radios on the Titanic, But
Speaker 1: then that was more of a personnel thing than a
Speaker 1: technology thing. A nineteen fifteen, Tesla and Edison are both
Speaker 1: listed as being uh considered for a Nobel Prize and
Speaker 1: that they would be co recipients of the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 1: When the Nobel Prizes are announced, the prize goes to
Speaker 1: two people. That would be William Henry Bragg and his son.
Speaker 1: Now the Nobel Committee admitted that Edison and Tesla were
Speaker 1: under consideration for the Nobel Prize, but they did not
Speaker 1: say any more than that. What has come up since
Speaker 1: then as the rumor, which is gospel in some corners
Speaker 1: of the Internet, that the reason why Tesla and Edison
Speaker 1: did not receive the Nobel Prize together is because they'd
Speaker 1: rather be caught dead than to share a prize with
Speaker 1: the other man. That's a that's a good myth that
Speaker 1: the rivalry was so great that they would both refuse
Speaker 1: a Nobel prize rather than have to share it with
Speaker 1: the other That's pretty amazing. And it may be true
Speaker 1: that when I say rumor, I don't mean that it's
Speaker 1: fake or false or a lie. I just mean that
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure. Other people probably do, but
Speaker 1: I don't. Nineteen sixteen, Tesla declares bankruptcy. He did not
Speaker 1: pasco or collect two hundred dollars y. It was just
Speaker 1: not a good year for him. Uh. In nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: he ended up proposing what would depending upon whom you ask,
Speaker 1: Okay people, some people will say in nineteen seventeen, Tesla
Speaker 1: predicted radar radar. Yeah, that he was the guy who
Speaker 1: came up with radar, but the government turned him down.
Speaker 1: The Navy board said that they would not invest in
Speaker 1: such a technology. By the way, the person from private
Speaker 1: industry who was on the Navy board, well he was
Speaker 1: from from what I understand about the story, Tesla had
Speaker 1: proposed this, this way of finding ships underwater. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: therefore when the government from the Navy didn't didn't really
Speaker 1: give him the go ahead, it wasn't because radar is
Speaker 1: dumb or the Tesla's demo 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 tightly controlled
Speaker 1: electric beams of energy to zap them into the water
Speaker 1: to reflect off the surfaces of submarines, detect that those
Speaker 1: reflections and the information would be displayed back in a
Speaker 1: fluorescent display, which sounds great, except for the problem is
Speaker 1: that these beams would attenuate underwater, and so you would
Speaker 1: 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 attenuate Asian problem. And so it
Speaker 1: just 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 claim that he invented radar as
Speaker 1: being a little generous, nineteen, 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 in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four. Actually, if 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: On the cold blood of a fight, and The New
Speaker 1: York Times published as an article about Tesla's death, ray,
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 him 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. He actually called it a piece beam
Speaker 1: from what I understand, Yeah, I said that would really
Speaker 1: end war because how could you have war If you
Speaker 1: can't fly over another country without worrying about your entire
Speaker 1: fleet being destroyed, then obviously war is off the table.
Speaker 1: That was kind of his his somewhat naive plan. And
Speaker 1: whether or not this thing would ever work is another
Speaker 1: interesting question, or if there ever was anything beyond just
Speaker 1: this idea that hey, maybe one day I could build
Speaker 1: something that does this. Uh, that's another you know, that's
Speaker 1: another one of those things. It's a myth, right. 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 to in 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.
Speaker 1: Um he due to all of these various financial troubles
Speaker 1: over the years, and and basic misspending. I think head, yeah, 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 growing TVs out the window? Guys, I
Speaker 1: am sitting across from the from the person who had
Speaker 1: just compared Nicola Tesla to Lindsay Lohan. I think it's
Speaker 1: an apt comparison. Look, Lindsay Lohan hasn't reached the age
Speaker 1: Tesla was at when he started to really uh contribute
Speaker 1: to humanity. So I think we owe her a year
Speaker 1: or two. I'm just saying that if anyone actually figures
Speaker 1: out Tesla's particle beam and aims it at the HW
Speaker 1: office is and just just just just let me know
Speaker 1: I'm perfectly willing to give you Jonathan g a syncritis coordinates.
Speaker 1: Please keep in mind that stuff you missed in history class,
Speaker 1: and stuff mom never told you sit really near me.
Speaker 1: So if you love those shows, keep your beam particle
Speaker 1: pointed somewhere else. That's not cool. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: to talk more about Nicola Tesla, an eccentric inventor and
Speaker 1: lover of alternating current in just a moment after this
Speaker 1: quick break. January seven three was a bad day for
Speaker 1: Tesla because that's the day he passed on. He was
Speaker 1: eighty six years old. Uh and two days later, all
Speaker 1: of his papers and a state was seized by the government.
Speaker 1: Well some some stories say that his nephew showed up
Speaker 1: the morning after he passed away, and that his body
Speaker 1: had already been removed, and that the nephew noticed that
Speaker 1: it seemed like some of his papers were missing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this 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,
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 various nefarious purposes for the United
Speaker 1: States government. Now keep in mind this is nte. World
Speaker 1: War two is a thing, and so there is a
Speaker 1: genuine concerned that information that has scientific significance could fall
Speaker 1: into the hands of other nations and give give other
Speaker 1: other nations a lot of advantages over the United States.
Speaker 1: And so it was very important to guard whatever advantages
Speaker 1: you had against that absolutely. And also I mean remember
Speaker 1: that that Tesla was a Serbian American um as as such,
Speaker 1: the from from from what we can discern, of fact,
Speaker 1: it was actually the Department of Justice Alien Property Custodian
Speaker 1: Office that temporarily seized his papers, right, so it was
Speaker 1: not the FBI. It was a Department of Justice and
Speaker 1: the FBI. Still they've got like a like a top
Speaker 1: ten myths on on the internet. Number ten. Number ten
Speaker 1: is is that we took Tesla's papers like guys, Like guys,
Speaker 1: we didn't. We did for real, Zo, we didn't grab
Speaker 1: those And actually I looked into it and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be until well, 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 Kasanovich, his nephew,
Speaker 1: and that is that is nine years later. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: granted nine years. Like we're a talking about time during
Speaker 1: not just the World War two with the Red Scared
Speaker 1: as well, So I mean not that that justifies suppressing information. Also,
Speaker 1: you're talking about the government, So it may very well
Speaker 1: be that there wasn't any intentional um slowness on the
Speaker 1: part of the government. That's just the way the government works.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I honestly don't know. What I
Speaker 1: do know is they did release the estate and the
Speaker 1: papers to Yugoslavia, to to his nephew. That they wound
Speaker 1: up in a in a museum. So if you wanted,
Speaker 1: if you're one of the people demanding that there's a
Speaker 1: Tesla museum, good news there is. You just have to
Speaker 1: go to Europe to see it. Also, supposedly after World
Speaker 1: War two was over, copies of his papers were sent
Speaker 1: out to one of the Air Force spaces and Project
Speaker 1: Nick was a thing that was heavily funded, and then
Speaker 1: the papers disappeared, never to be seen again. Yeah, their
Speaker 1: love conspiracy theories here, they're there was one one person
Speaker 1: posted on Facebook when I mentioned that we were going
Speaker 1: to be covering Tesla today, So are you going to
Speaker 1: talk about how they used a lot of his work
Speaker 1: in the developments of stuff in Area fifty one? And
Speaker 1: the answer to that is no, because there's no real
Speaker 1: documentation of that. There's actually quite a bit of information
Speaker 1: about what went on at Area fifty one. It's stuff
Speaker 1: that was top secret at the time. But um, we'll
Speaker 1: have to do an episode all about Area fifty one
Speaker 1: sometime in the future, just because it's a fascinating topic.
Speaker 1: But it's all about, you know, developing things like stealth
Speaker 1: technology and various kinds of test uh prototypes for the
Speaker 1: Air Force or for the army. But but nothing like
Speaker 1: the Tesla death ray, at least nothing that shows up
Speaker 1: in any real record. And I would argue that the
Speaker 1: reason why it doesn't show up on a real record
Speaker 1: is probably because it didn't exist. Um that my second
Speaker 1: choice would be it didn't work, and so there was
Speaker 1: no point in more valut. I don't think we would
Speaker 1: still be debating whether or not exists if it actually
Speaker 1: did exist, because someone would have come forward by now probably,
Speaker 1: or it would have zapped somebody. Although there there is
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Did I did
Speaker 1: an episode a couple of years ago on this even
Speaker 1: You can go check that out on YouTube. That's it,
Speaker 1: oh bolan uh. Then also there here's some other myths
Speaker 1: that Tesla invented alternating current. He did not. He did not.
Speaker 1: He alternating current was already a thing in Europe by
Speaker 1: the time Tesla was born. It wasn't widespread, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like there was a huge power grid in Europe, but
Speaker 1: there were people working on alternating current and even working
Speaker 1: 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, I'm sure, and it was it
Speaker 1: was his patents in his his work with Westinghouse that
Speaker 1: led to alternating current, the coming the thing that the
Speaker 1: US uses and and the thing that is capable of
Speaker 1: going across long distances. Both of those are extremely extremely important.
Speaker 1: I can't downplay either of those exactly. Yes, but but
Speaker 1: you know, he did not invent it. He didn't invent it.
Speaker 1: He's 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 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 Westinghouse 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 X rays. I've as we covered before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ivan Poolui, I have no idea how to say his
Speaker 1: last name. I know I just butchered it. But but Ivan,
Speaker 1: my buddy Ivan. He he had actually observed the phenomena
Speaker 1: of X rays before Tesla had. But just like Tesla,
Speaker 1: he wasn't really sure what it was he was looking at.
Speaker 1: He thought it was interesting, but he wasn't really sure
Speaker 1: about you know, what this stuff actually is. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be until Wilhelm Ronin really looked into it and began
Speaker 1: to make theories and hypotheses and tests some really clever
Speaker 1: things about them. That's that's when we started to know
Speaker 1: that what they were. But other other scientists had been
Speaker 1: observing it, they just didn't understand it. Again, we talked
Speaker 1: about the radar thing, and we talked about FBI. So
Speaker 1: those are the big myths. Other myths are you know,
Speaker 1: the whole Testla 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's some and and I mean there was
Speaker 1: 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 out a pittance
Speaker 1: at times, because the company would come to him and say,
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 Contessa is like, look,
Speaker 1: I'll cut you a deal. Yeah. They were basically kind
Speaker 1: of like, can we give you a tenth of the
Speaker 1: fee that we're going to promise you and then give
Speaker 1: you some stock right before a terrible economic downturn. And
Speaker 1: Tesla was like, yes, is good, give me that, and
Speaker 1: and and and the famous Westinghouse deal where um uh.
Speaker 1: Even even even though a Westinghouse won the so called
Speaker 1: War of the Currents, the company was not doing well
Speaker 1: and and wound up after they had built the generator
Speaker 1: at Niagara, I think started to go under and there
Speaker 1: were some issues with mostly it was just again just
Speaker 1: just poor decisions on Tesla's part um test the let
Speaker 1: him out of the contract just to he said said like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay me the rest. That's fine,
Speaker 1: you save your company. Yeah, which is which is great.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's lovely, it's a nice it's a terrific
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, it's it's when you when
Speaker 1: you end up having no friends other than pigeons and
Speaker 1: owing every hotel in New York money. Maybe that's why. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that could that could be one of the factors. Um
Speaker 1: he certainly, And I know that people are probably listening
Speaker 1: to this episode and thinking that I am. I think
Speaker 1: Tesla was a worthless lay about that. Nothing could be
Speaker 1: further from the truth. I think he really did make
Speaker 1: incredible contributions to to the success of the United States
Speaker 1: in general and to several technologies around the world in particular.
Speaker 1: But it's also important not to overstate his contributions and
Speaker 1: to understand, especially at the expense of other very important
Speaker 1: inventors and minds and works, it's a disservice to everyone
Speaker 1: else who worked on these same things and helped make
Speaker 1: them a possible a reality really in our lives, and
Speaker 1: and you know, you've got to also pay attention to
Speaker 1: some of the crazier ideas like the death ray, the
Speaker 1: death raying, Yeah, or being able to move the entire
Speaker 1: earth with putting essentially a wire around it and tapping
Speaker 1: into the frequency that it generates, which, hey, maybe that
Speaker 1: is possible, it's just not practical, right, Yeah, that's and
Speaker 1: I think that that's a problem with a lot of
Speaker 1: his latter theories is they were not particularly practical. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was also, I mean, there there's stories about
Speaker 1: him having a couple of nervous breakdowns at various times
Speaker 1: in his life. I think that he was probably not
Speaker 1: necessarily mentally well for a deal of his existence. I agree,
Speaker 1: I agree. I think he probably had quite a few
Speaker 1: uh issues to work through, and that I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I can, considering how well we treat those kind of
Speaker 1: people today, it is easy to see how at the
Speaker 1: turn of the century he was not particularly given the
Speaker 1: chances that he needed. And Ladies and gentlemen, that wraps
Speaker 1: up our conversation are our our classic episode of tech
Speaker 1: stuff about Nicola Tesla, And believe it or not, I
Speaker 1: really admire Tesla a lot. I mean, truly was a
Speaker 1: genius a true genius and someone who had been wronged
Speaker 1: quite a bit throughout his life. But that being said,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think everything he thought of was absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: I don't go quite that far. So uh. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed this classic episode. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future topics for tech Stuff, send me a
Speaker 1: message on social media. You can find me on Facebook
Speaker 1: or on Twitter with the handled text stuff. HS with
Speaker 1: you and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.