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Speaker 1: Get in test with technology with text Stuff from dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Be there and welcome to text Stuff. Today we're going

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Speaker 1: to listen to a classic episode of tech Stuff. I'm

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Speaker 1: recording this just before Labor Day weekend, and on Labor

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Speaker 1: Day weekend here in Atlanta, we have dragon Con. Now,

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Speaker 1: by the time you listen to this, dragon Con will

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Speaker 1: already be over and will know the outcome of something

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Speaker 1: of enormous proportions. I'm talking about a major debate, the

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Speaker 1: Tesla versus Edison debate. Nicey, that's gonna go on at

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Speaker 1: dragon Con, and I have been picked to represent Nicola

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Speaker 1: Tesla in that debate. Now, fortunately, Lauren and I recorded

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Speaker 1: an episode back in two thousand and thirteen about Nicola Tesla,

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Speaker 1: and we also talked about the truth versus the myth

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Speaker 1: of his life. So let's listen to that right now.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: pedestal on the Internet that is gleaming and beauteous and

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Speaker 1: will zap you if you ever dare say anything against him.

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Speaker 1: He's staring at us from the walls of the podcast

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Speaker 1: room right now. Yes he is. Yes. Now, the question

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Speaker 1: of whether or not he'll be staring at us in

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Speaker 1: our news studio remains to be answered. Uh, we'll probably

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Speaker 1: end up propping him up on a mic stand or something,

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Speaker 1: so he's still judging us constantly. But yeah, we want

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Speaker 1: to talk about Tesla, kind of talk about his his

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Speaker 1: contributions to technology and also maybe take a critical look

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

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Speaker 1: and some of the misconceptions people have about his contributions

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Speaker 1: because he's he's a mythological figure, really a mythological nerd figure,

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Speaker 1: which is which is fabulous. I mean, it's really terrific,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's it's understandable why because he he by

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Speaker 1: the end of his life, was so downtrodden. And there's

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Speaker 1: nothing that people and geeks especially love more than than

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Speaker 1: an anti hero. Yeah. Here, here's a guy who has

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Speaker 1: been beaten down. He's he's uh seen his fortunes dwindle away.

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Speaker 1: He's he's made some bad choices. Uh, he has all

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Speaker 1: the earmarks of a classic geek. Geeks love this underdog

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Speaker 1: kind of story. And and when you get into things

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Speaker 1: like sort of the the demonification of other people, Edison

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Speaker 1: in particular, Yeah, but even people like JP Morgan and Lustinghouse.

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Speaker 1: Then it seems like the whole world had turned against him.

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Speaker 1: And and depending on how you look at his story,

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Speaker 1: it can definitely come across that way. But that's doing

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a disservice to the entire tale.

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Speaker 1: And Uh, the reason why I'm talking about in this

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: out there saw because you posted about it on our

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: we want to talk about what Tesla actually did and

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

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Speaker 1: not he deserves all those acoomis yeah. Yeah. And and and

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

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Speaker 1: the Oatmeal gets honest, because I don't. I do not

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Speaker 1: want to incite your anger. Uh, it's we realize that

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

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Speaker 1: the statements are factual, the writer whose name I'm completely

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Speaker 1: forgetting right now, has come out and said that, hey,

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

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Speaker 1: some of this was hyper Bowl. So yeah, no, I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: eight fifty six and born in in Uh part of Austrio,

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Speaker 1: Hungary which is now Croatia UM And as a boy,

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Speaker 1: he went to what we would think of in the

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Speaker 1: United States is elementary school or primary school and studied

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Speaker 1: German arithmetic and religion because his dad was a pastor

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

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Speaker 1: the Orthodox Church. Actually, so yeah, so he definitely had

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Speaker 1: a religious upbringing and his father really wanted him to

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Speaker 1: be a priest. By the way, Yes, he did a lot.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he was not so thrilled about Tesla going

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Speaker 1: into engineering. UM. When he was a young boy, Tesla's

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Speaker 1: Tesla's older brother named Dane, died in a tragic accident.

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Speaker 1: He actually fell off a horse and died. There were

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Speaker 1: some stories that Tesla or Nicola Tesla was playing around

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Speaker 1: and spooked the horse that caused. Yes, and so actually

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

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Speaker 1: insert this earlier. But but the very first terrific tall

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Speaker 1: tale that I heard about Tesla was that he was

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Speaker 1: born on a dark and stormy night to lightning. Right right,

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Speaker 1: he was born on the stroke of midnight, as lightning

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Speaker 1: crap in the sky. And that one person said he

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Speaker 1: would be a boy of storms, and his mother said, no,

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Speaker 1: he shall be a man of the light. I might

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Speaker 1: be inserting some of my hyper bowl in there. Goodness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: when we're making lots of big discoveries, things that some

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Speaker 1: people say are low hanging fruit, you know, in retrospect,

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Speaker 1: the idea that there were all these discoveries to make.

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

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Speaker 1: from this point forward because all the quote unquote easy

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

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Speaker 1: were easy, it's just that now you are have to

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

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Speaker 1: really understand it. Sure, but while doing this research, it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: I appreciate that that your your Yiddish accent there is

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

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Speaker 1: that that that's the nineteen sixty eight version of the

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Speaker 1: documentary The Producers, not the musical version starring Nathan Lane

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Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick, actually has zero Mustell and Gene Wilder. I'm

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Speaker 1: getting off track anyway. Um so yeah, so he's he's

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Speaker 1: definitely got some interesting personality quirks eighteen seventy four. He

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Speaker 1: starts to move around a little bit, mostly hiding out

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Speaker 1: from the army because in that part of the world,

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Speaker 1: in Austro Austria, Austro Hungary. Look, I can't say that.

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Speaker 1: Uh yes we do, thank thank goodness. We don't speak

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Speaker 1: into a microphone for a living right. Uh, But back

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Speaker 1: in that time, in that part of the world, Army

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

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

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Speaker 1: doing that right. He kind of um, he was dodging,

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Speaker 1: that's the best way of putting it. Uh. The next year,

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Speaker 1: eighteen five, he starts to attend the Austrian Polytechnic School

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Speaker 1: and he starts off really strong. He's doing really well

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Speaker 1: in his classes. He understands the concepts and unlike some

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Speaker 1: other some other visionaries like say Stephen Hawking, he was

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Speaker 1: very good in school. Yep, yep. Also, you know, not

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: what he thought of as shortcomings and his professor's understanding

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Speaker 1: of things like electrical engineering and saying things like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you could build a device that does the same thing

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Speaker 1: without this one component that you are claiming is absolutely

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Speaker 1: necessary for it to work. That furthermore puts off gigantic

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Speaker 1: electrical shocks that are actually pretty dangerous, like you could

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

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

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Speaker 1: in some academic trouble. And that's kind of what Tesla did.

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Speaker 1: He he began to get disillusioned about pursuing studies in

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Speaker 1: an academic setting, and after about a little over three

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Speaker 1: years he actually dropped out of the polytechnic school. So

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Speaker 1: he moved to Slovenia in eight to work as a

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Speaker 1: draftsman for an engineering firm. But by eighteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: the next year, some some police officials show up and

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Speaker 1: asked to see his residents papers, which he did not have.

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Speaker 1: So then he was escorted back to his family's home

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Speaker 1: because he didn't have a residence permit Fort Slovenia. And

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Speaker 1: that same year his father passes away. Uh and Tesla

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Speaker 1: starts to a new career as a teacher in the

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Speaker 1: same school that he attended as a boy, but realizes

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Speaker 1: very quickly that's not not for him. Yeah, he doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to do that. Um. So then the next year eighteen,

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Speaker 1: he moved to Prague. He tries to attend Carl Ferdinand University,

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Speaker 1: but he's unable to understand Greek or check, both of

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Speaker 1: which were prerequisites to attend as a student, so instead

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Speaker 1: he audits classes uh, and he begins to work for

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Speaker 1: the Budapest Telephone Exchange and also the Central Telegraph Office.

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Speaker 1: Eighteen eighty by the way, it was the year that

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Speaker 1: the Thomas Edison unveiled his electric in kendescent lamp to

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of uh. You know, he hasn't really made a name

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: electro magnets and motors and uh induction in the reverse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: have dragon ball style fights in the sky. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: also would occasionally catch Pokemon, but it was only um

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Speaker 1: the one that shoots the electricity. I don't I don't

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Speaker 1: know which one. Oh, come on, it's Peakachu. I was

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Speaker 1: just I was trying to bait Lauren to see if

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Speaker 1: I can get it. I actually know that. Dang, you

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Speaker 1: win this time voco baum uh. So at this time,

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Speaker 1: he also gets the idea for the a C induction motor,

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Speaker 1: although Asterisk not necessarily the first person to think about that.

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Speaker 1: Supposedly in a vision, well supposedly he had these visions.

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Speaker 1: Supposedly he was was very light and audio sensitive, and occasionally,

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Speaker 1: upon looking at one object or having a certain idea,

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Speaker 1: would would get an extremely strong visual perception of something

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Speaker 1: that he had already seen, or or of nothing nothing

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Speaker 1: imaginary unless it was a new invention. But yeah, occasionally

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Speaker 1: he would get these flashes that that kind of disturbed

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Speaker 1: him a lot, according to his autobiography. Yeah, so essentially

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Speaker 1: what would happen is he would be walking through a

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Speaker 1: park and look at a beautiful scene, and then suddenly

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Speaker 1: an idea would form, fully formed in his head, like

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Speaker 1: not not something he had been puzzling about necessarily. It

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Speaker 1: might just be hey, boom, here are all the pieces

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Speaker 1: and the puzzle is completely put together. You know, we

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Speaker 1: opened up the box and the puzzles there, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to you've been trying to fix this problem for years,

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Speaker 1: and oh, here's the inspiration. And so Yeah. Supposedly he

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Speaker 1: was walking through the city park in Budapest with a

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Speaker 1: friend and saw a beautiful sunset and quoted some poetry

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Speaker 1: and then had an idea for for the induction motor, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and just drew it in the sand and then kept walking. Yeah.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: unreliable narrator is a very kind way of putting it.

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Speaker 1: The same sort of thing is true of all the

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Speaker 1: big names at this time, because they were the rock

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

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Speaker 1: of thing. Edison was a master at at PR. You know,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: not a showman. I saw this one photograph. He looked

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

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Speaker 1: up with a documentary though. So then the the in

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Speaker 1: in uh In two. This whole time where he's making

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: what suggested of this. It also becomes you know, a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: big move from Europe to America. He he had basically

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Speaker 1: no money at the time. From what I understand, well,

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: ship Goodness, I did not read about this, and supposedly

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Speaker 1: Tesla himself was nearly thrown overboard, probably for being a witch.

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Speaker 1: That that last part is just me guessing. I didn't

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Speaker 1: have any reason. I didn't have. There was no reason

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Speaker 1: given as to why Tesla would have been thrown overboard,

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Speaker 1: so I'm just inventing one. But no, Apparently the shipp

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Speaker 1: he was on had a mutiny aboard it. He ended

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Speaker 1: up getting to New York way later than when he expected, and,

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Speaker 1: according to some reports, had four cents in his pocket. Now, also,

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Speaker 1: depending upon whom you ask, he either immediately went to

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Speaker 1: work for Edison, as in got off the out filed

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Speaker 1: and went into the office, or he started the next day.

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Speaker 1: That seems to be the two stories. Either way, I

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Speaker 1: think that's pretty remarkable. Um and uh. And he works

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Speaker 1: for Edison and he's helping them with their systems. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Supposedly again, he started to suggest to Edison that they

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Speaker 1: switched to an alternating current model as opposed to direct current,

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Speaker 1: and Ederson was very much against that idea. So then

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Speaker 1: in eighteen five, Tesla forms the Tesla Electric Light Company.

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Speaker 1: An investor group actually asks him if he will work

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Speaker 1: on an ARC lighting system, and he agrees to do

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Speaker 1: it and then is later forced out of his own

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Speaker 1: company with nothing to show for it. Was was that all?

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Speaker 1: I mean? Because he started the company because he had

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

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

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Speaker 1: the reason he did that was because again here's another

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Speaker 1: story of Tesla getting cheated. That Edison had promised Tesla

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Speaker 1: a princely saw a fifty thou dollars for a particular project,

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Speaker 1: and when Tesla completed the project again supposedly with flying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: could I start. I never met Edison, didn't did you

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Speaker 1: mean him? You're very old? Uh. Tesla then claimed that

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Speaker 1: he spent the next year making money by digging ditches.

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Speaker 1: So again, a great, great story. If you're looking at

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Speaker 1: his life in the terms of like a tragic tale,

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Speaker 1: you know where you have this genius, incredible super genius.

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Speaker 1: The man who will one day light up the United

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Speaker 1: States with his alternating current power grid, making money scraping

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Speaker 1: by by digging ditches. Yeah. Again, a lot of this

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Speaker 1: comes from Tesla himself, and whether or not all of

385
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Speaker 1: it is true, it remains part of myth. You know,

386
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Speaker 1: I don't doubt that. I don't doubt there were some

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Speaker 1: bad business dealings. I'm sure that was the case, and

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Speaker 1: I don't doubt he had some hard times and maybe

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Speaker 1: he did make his living for a full year being

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Speaker 1: you know, digging ditches and that was the only thing

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Speaker 1: he could do. But it sounds more it sounds like melodrama.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes like works like that, sometimes that's sometimes that's

393
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Speaker 1: the truth stranger things. But anyway, Uh, then by by

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Speaker 1: eighty seven, so you know, A six digging ditches, we

395
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Speaker 1: don't need to go into. That's well. I mean, meanwhile,

396
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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighties six actually it's interesting Westinghouse Electric had

397
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Speaker 1: developed a transformer for commercially. Yeah, so that's another thing

398
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Speaker 1: we should mention is that, Uh, one of the reasons

399
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Speaker 1: Tesla was really pushing for this alternating current thing with

400
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Speaker 1: Edison is that back in Europe that's what they were using.

401
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Speaker 1: A C was that's that's the route they took. They

402
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Speaker 1: didn't they didn't go down the direct current route at all.

403
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Speaker 1: They went with alternating current. And that becomes important when

404
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Speaker 1: we start talking about the myths of of Tesla as well.

405
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Speaker 1: In a little bit, right, Yeah, the u s as

406
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Speaker 1: so embroiled in d C current. The name the Brooklyn

407
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: Dodgers actually comes because they were using direct current power

408
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Speaker 1: lines that were kind of haphazardly strung across the city,

409
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Speaker 1: and and Brooklyn Knights had to dodge these lines so

410
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Speaker 1: often that their team was thus named the bog whereas

411
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,360
Speaker 1: the New York Giants were called that because they came

412
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Speaker 1: from a race of mythical creatures that lived up Giant. Okay, No,

413
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Speaker 1: I just wanted to show off that I knew something too,

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Speaker 1: but I don't really know anything. Seven after the ditch

415
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Speaker 1: digging has finished, Tesla begins to work with investors again,

416
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Speaker 1: and he establishes a lab at eighty nine Liberty Street

417
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Speaker 1: in New York and then just a few blocks away

418
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Speaker 1: from Medicine's. Yeah yeah, And the next year he starts

419
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Speaker 1: to talk about a C motors and transformers for the

420
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Speaker 1: American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Now known as the I

421
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Speaker 1: Triple E, or as I always prefer to call them.

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Speaker 1: I ye that once for all you engineers out there. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he also agrees to start selling patents to George Westinghouse.

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Speaker 1: So even though you know, Lauren, like Lauren was saying

425
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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six, you already had Westinghouse working on

426
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Speaker 1: transformers and alternating current, that was before Tesla had even

427
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Speaker 1: started to work for westinghends. Uh that that's something to

428
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: keep in mind as well. So eighteen eighty nine he

429
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: establishes a new lab on Grand Street in New York.

430
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: There's a lot of labs. He had a lot of

431
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: labs spread out throughout New York. He also lived in

432
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: hotels mostly even then. Yeah, mostly towards the end of

433
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: his life, but yeah, early on he was living in

434
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 1: a lot of hotels as well. I think he also

435
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: joked about about how is his hours, especially when he

436
00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: was working in Edison's lab. We're from like ten in

437
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: the morning until five thirty am the next day, and

438
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: and so that a lot of his sleeping A wasn't

439
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: really sleeping, and B was probably under his desk, right,

440
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: I can identify were that Uh. In he begins to

441
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: experiment with wireless power in fluorescent and neon lighting, as

442
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: well as X rays, although at the time he isn't

443
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: sure exactly what they are. He was calling shadow pictures. Yeah,

444
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: this was before Wilhelm laurent Gen had really established what

445
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: X rays were and what they could do. So Tesla

446
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: was one of the people who was observing the phenomena

447
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: of X rays early early on. Yeah, there are a

448
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: few other people at the time who were working with them,

449
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, yeah, in fact, that'll go into the

450
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 1: myths as well. But then he becomes an American cities

451
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: and also I believe patented the Tesla coil. There you

452
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: go an interesting thing in his mother passes away. That

453
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: same year, he becomes the vice president of the AI

454
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 1: Triple E, which is even it's a I I guess

455
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: is how I would say that. And he becomes famous

456
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: worldwide for his lectures on alternating current So at this

457
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 1: point he's on the lecture circuit. I mean, he's he's

458
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: going from city to city, you know, he stopped in

459
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: places like Chicago and New York, London, Paris. So he

460
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: becomes again, like I said, like a rock star. He's

461
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: known for these lectures and it sounds weird for us

462
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: to say that that he's like a rock star. But

463
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 1: this was an era where these these thinkers were really

464
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: pushing the development of technology to a point where everyone

465
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: was sure that, you know, okay, we're five years away

466
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: from the incredible future. And in many ways they were right.

467
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,120
Speaker 1: It's just that their view of what the incredible future

468
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: would be ended up being a lot different from what

469
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: it really was. But it was an era of rapid development,

470
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: so these guys were considered to be the people pushing

471
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 1: that rapid development. Is really exciting. Yeah, I think things

472
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: like when the Chicago World Fair was that was that

473
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: oh three years I want to say, yeah, that was

474
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,400
Speaker 1: that was famous because there was the whole Edison Tesla

475
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: story there about who is going to provide power? Right,

476
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 1: and it was really Edison versus uh Westinghouse. Yeah, but

477
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: I mean Westinghouse backed by Tesla. Sure, sure, yeah, west

478
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: Westinghouse was using technology that Tesla had patented and and

479
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: systems that Tesla worked on, but it was not truly

480
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: Tesla versus Edison. That's that's kind of how I think.

481
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 1: Even in a previous episode of Tech Stuff, we sort

482
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: of talked about it in those terms, because that's sort

483
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 1: of the romantic way of doing it, right as the

484
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: idea of these two geniuses facing off against each other

485
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: and who will win and alternating current one out in

486
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: that one. So it was really Westinghouse at one al right, right, Yeah,

487
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: The story goes that there was a there was a

488
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 1: business deal the government was looking to contract either either

489
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: Westinghouses Company or Edison's Company to power the World's Fair

490
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: and and Westinghouse one out because it was cheaper. Yeah,

491
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: and then and when and yeah, and when they threw

492
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: when president for Cleveland, I think it was through that

493
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: switch and which like a hundred hundred thousand bulbs lit

494
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: up all at the same time, and people were like, oh, oh,

495
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: this is a thing trivia for you folks out there

496
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: who don't know your history. Grover Cleveland was the only

497
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: president to serve two non consecutive terms as president. He

498
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: was president, then he wasn't president, then he was president again. Yes,

499
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: he also liked the song Funky Cold Medina eighteen nine five.

500
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: So then one of the buildings that held one of

501
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: Tesla's labs caught fire in eight and his lab burned

502
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,719
Speaker 1: down and the fire destroyed what was estimated to be

503
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment and information, and

504
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: he had no insurance. Yeah, and fifty dollars that's it's

505
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: a lot of money today, it was a huge amount

506
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: of money in um. And and at the time he

507
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: was experimenting with with radio signal. Yeah. And and supposedly,

508
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: according to him, was ready to trans to signal fifty

509
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: miles out to West Point, New York. Yeah. So that

510
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: this is during if you've listened to the Old Tech

511
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: Stuff episode about who invented the radio, there's a lot

512
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: about Tesla and Marconi. And there there's a whole story

513
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: there too about how Marconi, like Tesla, got a patent

514
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,959
Speaker 1: for for the radio. Then Marconi applied for a patent,

515
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: then the patent office overturned Tesla's patent, gave Marconi the patent,

516
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: and then later on overturned it again and gave it

517
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: back to Tesla. Later on is in like the nineteen seventies,

518
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: after Tesla was dead. Um. Yeah, there's that whole story,

519
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: and and there's there's arguments there too, because again, the

520
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: invention of any sort of technology requires that you talk

521
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: about so many different people who who contributed to the

522
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: discoveries that led to the possibility of something existing. That

523
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: it's impossible to actually point at one person and say

524
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: this person invented radio, but both Marconi and Tesla were

525
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: working on it and uh, and there's argument over who

526
00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: should have real credit there. Uh, but go listen to

527
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: our episode about who invented the radio if you want

528
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: to hear more about that, because I think that that

529
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: that that argument is so long and detailed that it's

530
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: hard to sum up in an episode just about Tesla. Yeah, yeah,

531
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: it's yeah, certainly another another one of those points that

532
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: people like to bring up in terms of he was

533
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: so downtrodden. Yeah, it's a good another point. Yeah, and

534
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: that's a more firm one that Yeah, he absolutely lost

535
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: that fight and lost probably a lot of money in fame.

536
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: I think. Uh Marconi won the New Belt Prize. Yeah,

537
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: all kinds of fun. Was not happy about that. I'm excited. Uh.

538
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: In he demonstrated a wirelessly controlled model boat, so essentially

539
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: a an RC boat at the Electrical Exposition in Madison

540
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: Square Garden, where years later Highlanders would fight it out

541
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: to determine who would win the prize and Queen would

542
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: sing Princess of the universe in the background. I didn't

543
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: I didn't really like that documentary. WHOA Alright, getting back

544
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: into Tesla's life. In eight he moves to Colorado to

545
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: perform warms some experiments with wireless power. And this is

546
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: where one of the big myths about Tesla comes up,

547
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: this idea that he wanted to build this huge tower

548
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: that would tap into the this this resonant frequency that

549
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: exists around the world, and that you could transmit power

550
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: wirelessly across miles of space. Um. He claimed that he

551
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: had another one of those visions that let him understand

552
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: the geoelectrical phenomenon he called terrestrial stationary waves. An idea

553
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: about tapping into the Earth itself as a conductory sounds interesting, Yeah,

554
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: And it's not that, uh, it's not that everything was

555
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: that he said was crazy or it was just that

556
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: to be able to actually use this in a way

557
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: that would allow you to transmit power reliably safely without

558
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: losing power over distance or zapping and killing everybody, uh,

559
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: is something we haven't solved yet. And there are a

560
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: lot of people who say that all of his work

561
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: would have proven if if it's still existed. We'll get

562
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: into more about more destruction of his work and where

563
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: it all when it went to. But then if it's

564
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: still existed, it would prove that this sort of thing

565
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: is possible, and it's only the energy companies that are

566
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: keeping it down because they stand to lose so much

567
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: if this, if this information got out, I'm hesitant to

568
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: agree to anything like that because it suggests that no

569
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: one but Tesla could have ever come up with this,

570
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: and therefore the idea is lost forever. When I would argue,

571
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: we have people who are far more informed about electrical

572
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: engineering than Tesla was, even though he was a brilliant man.

573
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: You know, perhaps the people these days are not a

574
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: visionary the way that he was. But yeah, maybe maybe

575
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: that's it. Maybe they just need to take a walk

576
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: in the park and look at the sunset, think about

577
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: some poetry that would help. I guess. You know, hey,

578
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: far be it from me to downplay the importance of

579
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: poetry in the world. I certainly think it's important. Being

580
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: English lit major uh in nineteen o one. Well, all right,

581
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: so so he starts to think really about wireless power

582
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: and the phenomena that it would be, Like what what

583
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: would go into making this and how it would change

584
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: the world, and he really was thinking it was an

585
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: interesting idea. So a nineteen o one, with funding from

586
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: various sources, including people like JP Morgan, he starts to

587
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: build the Warden Cliff Tower. This is at a long

588
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: Island Sound and uh, this is um. This thing is

589
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: supposed to be a wireless power transmitting station essentially, and

590
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: within nineteen o three he starts to test it, even

591
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: though the tower itself is not completed at that point.

592
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: And this this was this was a tower that that

593
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: again reached deep into the ground to kind of tap

594
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: into this this terrestrial uh wave stationary wave. Actually have

595
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: a really great quote from Tesla, if I had made

596
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: without excellent in the system that I've invented, it is

597
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: necessary for the machine to get a grip on the earth,

598
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: otherwise it cannot shake the earth. It has to have

599
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: a grip so that the whole of this globe can quiver. Yeah,

600
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: if you also remember the story about Tesla putting an

601
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: oscillating motor onto a building and then nearly shaking it

602
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: to its foundation, that kind of dates from the same

603
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: sort of concept. Um. And the earth is still here,

604
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,240
Speaker 1: by the way, so that's kind of a spoiler alert

605
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,240
Speaker 1: to how this story plays out. The MythBusters actually actually

606
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: cracked that one in the episode back in two exciting

607
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: they showed. They showed that it could, like a small

608
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: repetitive motion could cause a bridge to start to shake

609
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: a little enough to notice a couple of couple hundred

610
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: feet away, right, but not necessarily enough to to make

611
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: it crumble into pieces. Um. But anyway, all earthquake, Warncliffe

612
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: Tower becomes an important part of Tesla's life. It was

613
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: one of these things that he really thought that that

614
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: the terrestrial stationary waves was the uh discovery of his life.

615
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: That was the most important out of everything that he'd

616
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,359
Speaker 1: worked with with alternating current, with transformers, with all these

617
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 1: other technologies, those paled in comparison to this one. And

618
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:03,439
Speaker 1: so Warncliff I was very important to him. Unfortunately, uh,

619
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: there weren't. He didn't have a whole lot to show

620
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: for it. And also he was running up the electric bill,

621
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,720
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and Morgan was getting pretty sick of it. Meanwhile,

622
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: across the ocean, um, Marconi had signaled the letter as

623
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic and that didn't make Tessla happy. And

624
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: and I mean and and you know, Marconi was such

625
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: a such a newspaper Darling. Yeah, he was again yet

626
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: another person who was very good at catering to the

627
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: media to get a message across. So, uh, you know,

628
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: not unusual at this time. So in nineteen o four,

629
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: the Colorado Lab is torn down due to excessive use

630
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: of electricity and the building materials are sold for scrap

631
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: to pay for the cost couch. And in nineteen o six,

632
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: like you said, JP Morgan, who had been an investor

633
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: Withdraws and Tesla, has to end up laying off a

634
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 1: lot of employees over at Warncliff Tower. Uh, We're gonna

635
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: skip ahead a few years because this is essentially where

636
00:35:55,040 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: he's working on this Warncliff Tower experiment, which ends up

637
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,919
Speaker 1: draining a lot of his energy literally and resources and

638
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: without a lot to show for it. Um. The next day,

639
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: I have his nineteen eleven when he started working with

640
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: steam turbines and electricity production. Uh, he was this was

641
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 1: a big development. It was very important in the whole

642
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: uh part of generating electricity for a growing need in

643
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: America because at this point you're starting to see communities

644
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: get wired for electricity and beyond just the narrow band

645
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: in the northeast that had it, so it was important

646
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 1: to find different ways of generating it beyond firing from

647
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: coal plants. I wanted to find something that was sustainable,

648
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 1: even at that time. And in nineteen twelve, Tesla's suffered

649
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: another setback, although not one nearly as large as Lady Astor.

650
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: John Jacob Astar, who was one of Tesla's most wealthy

651
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: and enthusiastic investors, stopped investing in Tesla's work because he

652
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: stopped breathing. He was a or a little boat called

653
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: the Titanic. Oh, I've heard of that one. I think

654
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: I saw a documentary about it one. Yeah, his heart

655
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: will go on, but his investment payments stopped. Yeah. He Um,

656
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: he went down with the boat. He did get Lady

657
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: Astor on a lifeboat, so he made sure his wife

658
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: was safe and he stayed behind to wait for his

659
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: turn to get on a lifeboat, but tragically was not

660
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: able to do that and he did die, and with that,

661
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: Tesla lost one of his most significant sources of investment money.

662
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: So it was another financial setback for Tesla. UM. I

663
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 1: don't think he could blame that one on Edison, maybe

664
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: Mark Coney because we're talking about the use of radios

665
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: on the Titanic, but then that was more of a

666
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: personnel thing than a technology thing. A nineteen fifteen, Tesla

667
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: and Edison are both listed as being uh considered for

668
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize and that they would be co recipients

669
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:07,239
Speaker 1: of the Nobel Prize. When the Nobel Prizes are announced,

670
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: the prize goes to two people. That would be William

671
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: Henry Bragg and his son. Now, the Nobel Committee admitted

672
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: that Edison and Tesla were under consideration for the Nobel Prize,

673
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: but they did not say any more than that. What

674
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: has come up since then as the rumor, which is

675
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,839
Speaker 1: gospel in some corners of the Internet, that the reason

676
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: why Tesla and Edison did not receive the Nobel Prize

677
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: together is because they'd rather be caught dead than to

678
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:41,240
Speaker 1: share a prize with the other man's. That's a good myth. Yeah,

679
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: that the rivalry was so great that they would both

680
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: refuse a Nobel prize rather than have to share it

681
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: with the other. That's pretty amazing. And it may be

682
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: true that when I say rumor, I don't mean that

683
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: it's fake or false or a lie. I just mean

684
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: that we don't know for sure. Other people probably do,

685
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: but I don't. Tesla declares bankruptcy. He did not pasco

686
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: or collect two hundred dollars. Yeah, it was just not

687
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,359
Speaker 1: a good year for him. Uh. In nineteen seventeen, he

688
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: ended up proposing what would Uh depending upon whom you ask,

689
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: Okay people, some people will say in nineteen seventeen, Tesla

690
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: predicted radar radar. Yeah, that he was the guy who

691
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: came up with radar, but the government turned him down.

692
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: The Navy board said that they would not invest in

693
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:34,240
Speaker 1: such a technology. By the way, the person from private

694
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: industry who was on the Navy board a said, well,

695
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: he was from from what I understand about the story. Uh,

696
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: Tesla had proposed this, this way of finding ships underwater. Yeah,

697
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: that's the problem. Right. So the more you look into it,

698
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: the more you realize it's not radar he's talking about,

699
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: not in the sense that we use it today. Well,

700
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: he he was talking about radar, but it was not

701
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: really the best system for finding ships underwater. And so

702
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: therefore when the guy ferment, when the Navy didn't didn't

703
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: really give him to go ahead. It wasn't because radar

704
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,879
Speaker 1: is dumb. It's or the Tesla's demos because it wasn't

705
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:09,839
Speaker 1: the right technology for that application. What Tesla did not

706
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 1: take into account was he he wanted to use tightly

707
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: controlled electric beams of energy to zap them into the

708
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: water to reflect off the surfaces of submarines, detect that

709
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: those reflections and the information would be displayed back in

710
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: a fluorescent display, which sounds great, except for the problem

711
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: is that these beams would attenuate underwater, and so you

712
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,879
Speaker 1: would not get accurate representations of what you were looking at.

713
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: You wouldn't you couldn't be sure that you know, you

714
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: could be pointing it directly at a submarine and miss

715
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 1: it because of this attenuation problem. And so it just

716
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: isn't practical for the use that Tesla was suggesting it.

717
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: And uh, and so that shows that Tesla had a

718
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: misunderstanding either of the physics of water or the technology itself.

719
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: Either way, it wasn't truly radar. It's not exactly the

720
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: same thing that radar is, and it was not being

721
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: used in the way that radar ultimately would be used.

722
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: So while some people claim that he invented radar, that's

723
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: being a little generous. Nineteenth we just busted a myth,

724
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: and I hadn't I apologize because I haven't gotten to

725
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: that section yet. But that's okay, that's one less for

726
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: us to worry about when we get there. In nineteen

727
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: thirty four, actually, if we can, if we can step

728
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: back just to shore, let's please in In nineteen nineteen,

729
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: he published an autobiography called My Inventions Uh that was

730
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: published in six parts in the Electrical Experiment or magazine.

731
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: And this is important because it is one of the

732
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 1: main sources of information about Tesla's life, which is why

733
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 1: you have to take everything with a grain of salt,

734
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: because he was a bit of a self promoter. So

735
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: there's not I'm not saying that Tesla was lying in

736
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: his autobiography. What I'm saying is you just have to

737
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: take into consideration the possibility that he may have exaggerated

738
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 1: some facts, not that he was purposefully trying to mislead people,

739
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: but that when you become a self promoter, that that

740
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: can happen. Even if you don't mean it to happen,

741
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: it can happen, which is kind of crazy that you're

742
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: just you know, in your mind, you're like, this is

743
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: totally how it happened, and then anyone else is like dude,

744
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: I was there, and that totally is not how it happened. Um, Jonathan,

745
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 1: You've never beheaded anyone in the cold blood of a fight.

746
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 1: On the cold blood of a fight four and The

747
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: New York Times publish as an article about Tesla's death,

748
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:29,839
Speaker 1: ray beam, Yeah this was. Tesla said that he had

749
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 1: come up with an idea that would allow governments to

750
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: build a device capable of emitting a beam of energy

751
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: that could bring down a fleet of ten thousand enemy

752
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 1: planes at a distance of two hundred fifty miles, and

753
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: that his idea was that by outfitting pretty much everybody

754
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: with one of these, you would have that mutually assured

755
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: destruction that makes peace possible, all right. He actually called

756
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: it a piece beam from what I understand, Yeah, I

757
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: said that would really end war, because how could you

758
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 1: have war? Or if you can't fly over another country

759
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: without worrying about your entire fleet being destroyed, then obviously

760
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: war is off the table. That was kind of his

761
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: his somewhat naive plan. And whether or not this thing

762
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: would ever work is another interesting question, or if there

763
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: ever was anything beyond just this idea that hey, maybe

764
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: one day I could build something that does this Uh,

765
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: that's another you know, it's another one of those things.

766
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: It's a myth, a right. Uh. He decided to go

767
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: feed the pigeons in the park, which was a bad

768
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: decision to make that particular day, as as he was

769
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,839
Speaker 1: crossing the street, he was struck by a cab. Then,

770
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: depending upon which report you read, he flew thirty five

771
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: to forty ft in the air and landed and was

772
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: perfectly unharmed except a little bruised or he had broken

773
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: several ribs. It all depends on which person you're asking.

774
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 1: Tesla said, yeah, I'm all right. Other people like, dude,

775
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: he was messed up. He was crying about his pit jins.

776
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,919
Speaker 1: It was ugly. He had He had at this point

777
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: become a little bit destitute, um, due to all of

778
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: these various financial troubles over the years and and basic misspending.

779
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: I think head, yeah didn't. Yeah. There were a lot

780
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: of hotels that were suing him because he had lived

781
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,919
Speaker 1: inside the hotel for years and years and owed them

782
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, and then he would relocate to a

783
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: different hotel and he think, like, why would another hotel

784
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: even trust him? He was Tesla again, this is a

785
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 1: rock star guy, and it elevates the status of your

786
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 1: hotel that he's staying there. But you can only have

787
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan in your hotel for so long before you're like, seriously,

788
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: could you please stop making holes in the growing TVs

789
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: out the window? Guys, I am sitting across from the

790
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: from the person who had just compared Nicola Tesla to

791
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan. I think it's an apt comparison. Look, Lindsay

792
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: Lohan hasn't reached the age Tesla was at when he

793
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: started to really uh contribute to humanity, So I think

794
00:44:58,080 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: we owe her a year or two. I'm just saying,

795
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: if anyone actually figures out Tesla's particle beam and aims

796
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: at at the HW office is and just just just

797
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: just let me know, I am perfectly willing to give

798
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: you Jonathan's g A Syncretis coordinates. Please keep in mind

799
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: that stuff you missed in history class and stuff Mom

800
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 1: never told you sit really near me, So if you

801
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,720
Speaker 1: love those shows, keep your being particle pointed somewhere else.

802
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 1: That's not cool. January three was a bad day for

803
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: Tesla because that's the day he passed on. He was

804
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,439
Speaker 1: eighty six years old. Uh, and two days later, all

805
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 1: of his papers and a state was seized by the government. Well,

806
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: some some stories say that his nephew showed up the

807
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: morning after he passed away, and that his body had

808
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: already been removed, and that the nephew noticed that it

809
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 1: seemed like some of his papers were missing. Yeah, this

810
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: is where one of those stories pops up. In fact,

811
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: now that we've had Tesla shuffle off the mortal and

812
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 1: Tesla coil no, thank you, I've been waiting to use

813
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: that one. Uh, we can talk a little bit about this,

814
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: this idea. So there are a lot of rumors either.

815
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 1: One of the big rumors is that the FBI seized

816
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: all of Tesla's papers and did so in an effort

817
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: to to use them for various nefarious purposes for the

818
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: United States government. Now keep in mind, this is World

819
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: War two is a thing, and so there is a

820
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: genuine concern that information that has scientific significance could fall

821
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 1: into the hands of other nations and give give other

822
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 1: other nations a lot of advantages over the United States,

823
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: and so it was very important to guard whatever advantages

824
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: you had against them. Absolutely. And also, I mean remember

825
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 1: that that Tesla was a Serbian American as as such.

826
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: The from from from what we can discern, of fact,

827
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,320
Speaker 1: it was actually the Department of Justice Alien Property Custodian

828
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: Office that temporarily seized his papers, right, so it was

829
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: not the FBI. It was the Department of Justice and

830
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: the FBI still they've got like a like a top

831
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: ten minutes on on the internation. Number ten. Number ten

832
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 1: is is that we took Tesla's papers, like guys, Like, guys,

833
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: we didn't. We did it for reals, yo, we didn't

834
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,840
Speaker 1: grab those and actually I looked into it and it

835
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: wouldn't be until you know, if you read most of

836
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: the stories, it's like the FBI took the papers and

837
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: they never released them, and we want, we demand that

838
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: these papers be released. Guys. It was the Department of

839
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: Justice number one and number two. In ninety two they

840
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: sent the papers to uh To Kassanovich, his nephew, and

841
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,280
Speaker 1: that is that is nine years later, Yeah, alright, granted

842
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: nine years. Like we're just talking about time during not

843
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,439
Speaker 1: just the World War two, with the Red Scare as well,

844
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,879
Speaker 1: so so I mean not that that justifies suppressing information. Also,

845
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: you're talking about the government, so it may very well

846
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: be that there wasn't any intentional um slowness on the

847
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,959
Speaker 1: part of the government. That's just the way the government works.

848
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I honestly don't know. What I

849
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 1: do know is they did release the estate and the

850
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 1: papers to Yugoslavia to to his nephew that they wound

851
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: up in a in a musing him. So if you wanted,

852
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 1: if you're one of the people demanding that there's a

853
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: Tesla museum, good news there is. You just have to

854
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: go to Europe to see it. Also, supposedly after World

855
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:12,399
Speaker 1: War two was there were copies of his papers um

856
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: were sent out to one of the Air Force spaces

857
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: and Project Nick was a thing that was heavily funded,

858
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,439
Speaker 1: and then the papers have disappeared, never to be seen again. Yeah,

859
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 1: their love of conspiracy theories here there. And there was

860
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: one one person posted on Facebook when I mentioned that

861
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: we were going to be covering Tesla today, So are

862
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: you going to talk about how they used a lot

863
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: of his work in the developments of stuff in Area

864
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 1: fifty one And the answer to that is no, because

865
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 1: there's no real documentation of that. There's actually quite a

866
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 1: bit of information about what went on at Area fifty one.

867
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: It's stuff that was top secret at the time. But um,

868
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: we'll have to do an episode all about Area fifty

869
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,720
Speaker 1: one sometime in the future, just because it's a fascinating topic.

870
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 1: But it's all about you know, developing things like stealth

871
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:56,439
Speaker 1: technology and various kinds of test prototypes for the Air

872
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: Force or for the army. But but nothing like the

873
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: Slaw death ray, at least nothing that shows up in

874
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 1: any real record. And I would argue that the reason

875
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: why it doesn't show up on a real record is

876
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: probably because it didn't exist. Um that my second choiceold

877
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: be it didn't work and so there was no point

878
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: in more valut. I don't think we would still be

879
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: debating whether or not exists if it actually did exist,

880
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: because someone would have come forward by now, probably I

881
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: would have zapped somebody. Although there there is stuff I

882
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Did I did an episode

883
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago on this even you can

884
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:32,720
Speaker 1: go check that out on YouTube. That's true, oh bolan uh.

885
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: Then also there here's some other myths that Tesla invented

886
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 1: alternating current. He did not. He did not. He alternating

887
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: current was already a thing in Europe by the time

888
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: Tesla was born, it wasn't widespread. It wasn't like there

889
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 1: was a huge power grid in Europe. But there were

890
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: people working on alternating current and even working on things

891
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: like induction motors and transformers at that time. And so

892
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: Tesla even studied alternating current when he was in school.

893
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: So it's not something that he invented. He did, however,

894
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: take the knowledge that was being generated around alternating current

895
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: and applied it and furthered it. So it's not it's

896
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: not that he just copied someone else's work. He really

897
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: did make legitimate contributions, I'm sure, and it was it

898
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: was his patent in his his work with Westinghouse that

899
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:24,919
Speaker 1: led to alternating current becoming the thing that the US

900
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: uses and and the thing that is capable of going

901
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: across long distances. Both of those are extremely extremely important.

902
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,359
Speaker 1: I can't downplay either of those exactly. Yes, but but

903
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: he did not invent it. He didn't invent it. He's

904
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 1: not the reason why it's what's being used in Europe.

905
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: Uh So that's one thing we can kind of put

906
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: to bed. And in fact, the first work with alternating

907
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: current dates back to five, which was, you know, twenty

908
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: years before Tesla was born. So unless he also invented

909
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: time travel, and don't write me and tell me he did,

910
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: that's not That's not the case. Um, like I would

911
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: believe anything after watching The Prestige again another documentary, right, Uh.

912
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: Beyond that, a Westinghouse, like we pointed out, was working

913
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: on UH distribution grids designs for A C power and

914
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:20,799
Speaker 1: transformers before Tesla had even started to work for the company. Now, granted, again,

915
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: Tesla's patents and the information that he was able to

916
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 1: provide to Westinghouse ended up making those much more robust

917
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: and it made it possible to actually act on that.

918
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 1: But again it shows that he's not the only one

919
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: working on this at the time. Um. He's also not

920
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: the guy who invented transformers. Those were first being used

921
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: in Budapest in the eighteen seventies uh, and the very

922
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: first modern transformer was built by William Stanley in eighty five.

923
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: He did not invent the fluorescent lamp. Alexandra A. Beccarell

924
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,759
Speaker 1: was the first guy to to observe fluorescence, and he

925
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: did so in eighteen fifty seven when Tesla was one.

926
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: So again, unless Tesla was also observing florescence at one

927
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: year old, and maybe he was. I mean, he was

928
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,280
Speaker 1: born in a storm after all. Thor was his buddy. Um,

929
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: you can't say that he invented that. He did not

930
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: discover X rays used before. Yeah, Ivan Pului, I have

931
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: no idea how to say his last name. I know

932
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:22,240
Speaker 1: I just butchered it. But but Ivan, my buddy Ivan,

933
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 1: he he had actually observed the phenomena of X rays

934
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 1: before Tesla had, But just like Tesla, he wasn't really

935
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:31,919
Speaker 1: sure what it was he was looking at. He thought

936
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: it was interesting, but he wasn't really sure about, you know,

937
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: what this stuff actually is. It wouldn't be until Wilhelm

938
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: Ronen really looked into it and began to make theories

939
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:45,919
Speaker 1: and hypotheses and test things about them. That's that's when

940
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,439
Speaker 1: we started to know that what they were. But other

941
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:53,720
Speaker 1: other scientists had been observing it, they just didn't understand it. Again,

942
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: we talked about the radar thing, and we talked about FBI.

943
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 1: So those are the big myths. Other myths are you know,

944
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: the whole Tesla versus Edison thing. Uh, it was really

945
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:08,800
Speaker 1: more Edison companies versus Westinghouse companies and not so much

946
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: a personality thing. Well, it does sound like the two

947
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:14,760
Speaker 1: of them clashed. There are a whole bunch of reports

948
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: about how I mean, right, right from the get go,

949
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: they didn't really like each other, right, um, and and

950
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: it's easy to see, you know, they were both very

951
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 1: strong personalities, um and very big showman and it didn't

952
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like either of them really liked not

953
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: that anyone likes it, but but to be made a

954
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: fool of. And both of them were in the business of,

955
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: in fact, trying to make a fool of the other person.

956
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: So yeah, there was some of that. There was some showmanship,

957
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: There was some there's some and and I mean there

958
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 1: was clearly some sort of legitimate beef between Edison and Tesla,

959
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 1: at least as far as you know, Tesla getting the

960
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: credit that he wanted and Tesla, you know, a lot

961
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: of his fortunes switched, mainly because he made some really

962
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: bad business deals. He sold patents off at a pittance

963
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: at times, because the company would come to him say,

964
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: you know, there's this massive economic downturn coming. We need

965
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 1: this these patents, but if we pay you what they're worth,

966
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: then we're going to go under. And contest was like,

967
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:14,799
Speaker 1: I'll cut your deal. Yeah. They were basically kind of like,

968
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 1: can we give you a tenth of the fee that

969
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: we're going to promise you and then give you some

970
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: stock right before a terrible economic downturn, and Tesla was like, yes,

971
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 1: is good, give me that, and and yeah and and

972
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:28,840
Speaker 1: and the famous Westinghouse deal where um uh. Even even

973
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 1: even though Westinghouse won the so called War of the Currents,

974
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: the company was not doing well and and wound up

975
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:38,759
Speaker 1: after they had built the generator at Niagara, I think,

976
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: started to go under and there were some issues with

977
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: Mostly it was just again just just poor decisions on

978
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,320
Speaker 1: Tesla's part. Um Testa let him out of the contract,

979
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: just said said like, oh no, you don't have to

980
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,080
Speaker 1: pay me the rest. That's fine, you save your company. Yeah,

981
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 1: which is which is great. I mean, it's lovely, it's

982
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: a nice it's a terrific I mean, but you know,

983
00:54:58,200 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: it's it's when you when you end up having no

984
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 1: friends there than pigeons and owing every hotel in New

985
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: York money, maybe that's why. Yeah, yeah, that could that

986
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 1: could be one of the factors. Um He's certainly and

987
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: I know that people are probably listening to this episode

988
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:16,160
Speaker 1: and thinking that I'm I think Tesla was a worthless

989
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:18,319
Speaker 1: lay about that. Nothing could be further from the truth.

990
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: I think he really did make incredible contributions to UH,

991
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,760
Speaker 1: to the success of the United States in general, and

992
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 1: to several technologies around the world in particular. But it's

993
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: also important not to overstate his contributions and to understand,

994
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: especially at the expense of other very important inventors and

995
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: minds and works, it's a disservice to everyone else who

996
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: worked on these same things and helped make them a

997
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:49,640
Speaker 1: possible a reality really in our lives. And and you know,

998
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 1: you've got to also pay attention to some of the

999
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 1: crazier ideas like the death ray. The death ray, yeah,

1000
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,280
Speaker 1: or being able to move the entire earth with putting

1001
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:01,719
Speaker 1: essentially a wire around it and topping into the frequency

1002
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: that it generates, which hey, maybe that is possible, it's

1003
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: just not practical, right, Yeah, that's and I think that

1004
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 1: that's a problem with a lot of his latter theories,

1005
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: is that they were not particularly practical. Yeah, So he

1006
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:14,560
Speaker 1: was also I mean, there there's stories about him having

1007
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: a couple of nervous breakdowns at various times in his life.

1008
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:21,919
Speaker 1: I think that he was probably not necessarily mentally well

1009
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,280
Speaker 1: for a great deal of his existence. I agree, I agree,

1010
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: I think he probably had quite a few uh issues

1011
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 1: to work through, and that I mean, you know, can

1012
00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: considering how well we treat those kinds of people today,

1013
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: it is easy to see how at the turn of

1014
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 1: the century he was not particularly given the chances that

1015
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: he needed well. I hope you enjoyed that look back

1016
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: on Nicola Tesla and our our attempt at stripping away

1017
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: some of the mythology to really get a look at

1018
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:55,399
Speaker 1: the man and his contributions. We really had a good

1019
00:56:55,440 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: time researching that episode and recording that episode. And since

1020
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,280
Speaker 1: we started this whole endeavor, you heard that the beginning

1021
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 1: that I was going to do a debate at Dragon

1022
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 1: Con Tesla versus Edison. I am here to report on

1023
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: the outcome of that debate. I won, or rather Tesla one.

1024
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:20,640
Speaker 1: So the way they decided this was by taking donations

1025
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: that all went to the Atlanta Food Bank, and I

1026
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: raised twice as much as my Edison opponent. So it

1027
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: turns out that even when I strip away the mythology,

1028
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: people just like to side with the underdog. And if

1029
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for future topics of tech stuff.

1030
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 1: You can write me tech stuff at hell Stuff Works

1031
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,520
Speaker 1: dot com, and I'll talk to you again really soon

1032
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: for more on this and basands of other topics because

1033
00:57:49,000 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: it has to works dot com.