Who has heard of Nicola Tesla?

[Lester]

The old saying if it sounds too good to be true it probabley isn't true, comes to mind. But me with an open mind is asking if any of you have knowledge of this chap.

Do a google search on Nicola Tesla, and you will find many, many entries on a chap that found a way to produce free electricity, and the device can be made easily.

So has anyone bourght the book, $47.00 and built the device and now powering their home for free?

If this thread gets shut down, I will know the energy companies are NOt happy.

Please keep your replies of a serious nature. Thanks.

[bojan]

Nikola Tesla was electrics engineer, and his most useful achievement was 3-phase generator... All the power in the world today is generated and distributed thanks to his invention (AC... contrary to Edison (he worked for him for a while) who was advocating DC.. ).
He was a dreamer too... and he experimented a lot with wireless transportation of electricity power, but this work went nowhere...

One of his most spectacular invention was Tesla transformer - basically a high voltage, high frequency transformer - he was able to power neon bulbs hanging in the air without wires...

The problem with wireless power distribution today would be the interference with other electronics appliances. IMHO this concept, while plausible in theory, would have been totally unworkable, because high frequency electromagnetic field woulf interfere with everything else..

We have a problem with alleged link between power lines and mobile phones and brain cancer.. imagine what would have been if the really serious power is distributed via EM field..

As far as book you are mentioning, no I haven't bought it (I even don't know what book you have in mind), but with power it is like this: what goes out, must come in from some place.. so there is no way for you to generate free energy (wind turbines or your own hydro-generators are exceptions .. but again, the energy comes from wind and/or water flow... so it is not free in principle).

[KenNo2658]

Watched a youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsYWnOnPIxQ
on this device. If it is the one you are thinking of, I don't think the power companies are going to be too concerned. The circuit will convert RF into DC, but not very efficiently. I reckon they must have had the antenna wire hooked up to a signal generator to get enough oomph to start a 3v phone battery charging. Either that or had the AE running for about a mile underneath a HV power line! If you could design an antenna to suck in all frequencies in the RF spectrum, you might be able to get useable voltages out of it, but without that, I don't think I'll be converting the house over!
Ken

[CraigS]

Tesla was a businessman, first and foremost.

He bombed in his attempt to gain a university degree and was subsequently very critical of science and scientists.

None-the-less, he contributed much to the modern-day world of electrical engineering and his activities coincided with a kind of second industrial revolution.

To this day, many pseudosciences glorify him and present him as a role model.

His ventures in the business world were not successful and his ideas were often ill-founded and lacking in real-world applications.

He had an eccentric personality at a time where flamboyant entrepreneurs were regarded as heroes in a developing, capitalistic, industrial USA.

Cheers

[bojan]

Craig, when Westinghouse was faced with bankrupt, Tesla tear apart the contract he had with him [1% or whatever profit of all power generated by Tesla's method was supposed to go into Tesla's pocket].
This is hardly a move by a businessman... Edison was a businessman.
Tesla was a dreamer - engineer, certainly not a businessman.

[PCH]

Hi, a great read is "The Man Who Invented the 20th Century" by Robert Lomas. It gives a great deal of info about this very clever man :thumbsup:

[CraigS]

Well ... I didn't say he was a good businessman.
But he certainly portrayed himself as one
:)
Cheers

[bobson]

Craig,

Its really pity you think this way. This is actually first time i ever hear anything so untrue about Nikola Tesla.

Money was never important to Tesla. But sadly you are not alone thinking about him this way. Here is example from wiki:

"Tesla was a lot of things, but he was a lousy businessman. In the end, that just added to his mystique. An example is that in 1896 he came out with a remote controled boat. Allready a millionary, his thought was selling the remote control boat to the navy to blow up enemy's ships. The navy did not buy this. He never though to make it a toy."

Many cashed in thanks to Teslas innovations. I guess in capitalism everything is looked at through money and then we wonder where is humanity going because of it.

cheers

bob

[CraigS]

Bob;
'Pity' and 'sad' are your feelings, and I respect others' feelings.
They are not mine.

History judges all those who achieve notoriety.

Tesla chose to live in, and do business in the US.
The bulk of his 'innovations' were achieved prior to WWI. Industrialism and thus capitalism, was rampant at that time.

As well as wondering where humanity is going because of capitalism, I also encourage you to contemplate where it has gotten humanity.

Anyway, lets get back to how to make free electricity … does anyone know how ?
(It seems Tesla didn't :question: )
:)
Cheers

[bobson]

Craig

You wrote:

"Tesla was a businessman, first and foremost."

Say what ever you want but you are so wrong in this statement and you know it.
Looks like you can not understand that some people do something because they love doing it not because of money. Tesla was eccentric. Slept only 3-4 hours, never married (said he doesn't have time for it). He devoted his life to science. So to say that he was a businessman first and foremost is simply wrong. Unless you were trying to be sarcastic?

[CraigS]

Ok .. I am prepared to be shown that there may be other perspectives to which I have not paid due attention.

I am not prepared to accept others as super-human mind readers and then have them attempt to use these supernatural powers to accuse me of deceit.

Do you have anything useful to contribute to this thread Bob ?

[bojan]

Hmmm
this is very circumstantial evidence for accusing someone as being a big bad capitalistic businessman, don't you think?

[bobson]

Craig,

If you still persist with nonsense by saying:

"Tesla was a businessman, first and foremost."

Then no, I don't have anything to say, not to you anyway.

[Lester]

Looks like no one has purchased the book then? Perhaps it is a hoax; somone making money and adding this famous man's name to it as a selling point.

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be: "Tesla wanted to be a businessman....."
Tesla's pure intellectual capability is indisputable.
However:
He was very old world in his attitude and hoped the scientific value of the discovery would transmorph into actual money.
He was urbane, cultured and completely out of his depth when it came to commerce, American or otherwise.
He was also arrogant and did not play well with others.

Edison was an inventor and an extremely hard driving businessman. Perhaps more than anyone he saw the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st.
He was raised on the idea of work as virtue and profit as reward.
He liked money and was not afraid to compete for it.

Both were geniuses in their own right.
Those who claim Edison stole ideas from this or that individual, ignore the fact that Tesla pinched much of Marconi's early theory.
At any rate, its not who has the IDEA. Any idiot can have a bright idea -I "invented" the internet in 1975, digital TV in 1980 and rechargeable mobile phones in 1992 and I'm an idiot - but it takes that different type of genius to develop the idea into a workable form. And a workable form that the money-carrying public will want to purchase.
One had it, the other didn't.

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Lester,
If ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, had invented a perpetual motion, free power machine do you not think that someone would have produced it.
Power companies are in business to make money and money only. Generating power is only how they DO it.
This type of business is capital-intensive and expensive to run.
If they thought could make more money by manufacturing perpetual motion machines, they would switch in a heartbeat.

[CraigS]

Who said anything about him being a "a big bad capitalistic businessman" ?

I've already said: "Well ... I didn't say he was a good businessman".

The guy formed his own company in 1886, he pursued the registration of many patents throughout his life (278 to 300 of them ?). In my view, that shows him to have had interests in the business side of it all.

At the time in history, he was surrounded by the likes of JP Morgan, Edison, etc and I'm sure, many other highly successful businessmen. I can't see how someone could be completely insensitive to the economic environment he was attempting to pitch his inventions into, and not attempt to mimic that environment and behaviours within it.

Success in business, is not always the definitive hallmark of every businessman and for what its worth, my view is that Tesla may quite easily have seen himself as a businessman.

I assert that views exist here, which seem to imply that being called a 'businessman' is somehow an insult. Similarly, it seems to be called an 'inventor' also conjures up some kind of romantic image of inspiration. This then, would be a classic case of looking at something from heavily biased perspectives.

Anyway, at the end of the day, my views on Tesla make no difference to anything important, and I see nothing particularly productive coming from any views of what he may, or may not have been.

Sheeesh !!

Cheers

[joe_smith]

bypass the meter :P

[Waxing_Gibbous]

My old flatmate got done for that!!

[rcheshire]

Hilarious!

The problem with the verbal communication, written or spoken, is that it doesn't convey the message well at times. Communication experts will tell you less than 50%.

Suggest reading Ogden and Richards on the theory of meaning - conversation/discussion, is a series of repair sequences that increase context, understanding and consequently shared meaning, which is the goal of effective communication.

Things that get in the way of effective communication are bias, prejudice, ego's... anti-social perspectives, reading too much Nietzsche and listening to too much Wagner...

[CraigS]

Hi Rowland.
Actually, (in spite of my personal anguish in this thread), I agree with you on that count. … Glad to be of service in providing some humour.
:)

This would also seem to be some kind of academic statement, aimed at establishing the speaker's expertise on the subject.
After all, most human communication is verbal, written or spoken !
I presume the speaker's point, is for the listener to consider becoming more familiar with, and exercise more often, the techniques of effective communication. A point I am also quite passionate about.


… painful sometimes as it may be, to confront these biases, which we all possess.

I wholly include myself as a strong practitioner of all these evils !
:evil:
Hopefully, we all learn from our communication blunders.
I certainly have, this time 'round.
:)
Cheers & Rgds

[avandonk]

Most of the 'free energy' proponents think they have measured their devices correctly for efficiency. They have not, due to poor measurement methods and lack of any real knowledge of physics.
The ones selling the books of how to or shares are about as honest as the crooks who are trying to sell 'sure fire betting methods'.
It is very simple. If it really works why sell it? Use your free energy method or betting system to make a big pile of money.
If you are still interested in this then I have a bridge and opera house to sell.

If you want to get free power just wrap a few coils around a high voltage transmission line and run a cable down to your house. Induction will do the rest if you survive!

Bert

[xelasnave]

Tesla seems to miss the recognition he rightfully should get.

It seems odd how humans focus upon peculularities in character when they have difficulty dealing with this man's wonderful works.
HE was human afterall and notwithstanding his greatness deserves to be cut some slack.

If one were to take the time to learn all about this man's work it would be hard to find any other man who really matched his genius.

OR think about him this way...remove from our world all that he gave us and it would be vastly different....I think he was finally credited with the invention of radio many years late but in school I was taught that the honor went to another... why I wonder....

For this man not to get the Nobel Prize for something is extrodinary.

I understand it was offerred to Edison and Telsa jointly and given the problems between these two men it must have been clear neither would have probably accepted it... what was going on in those minds to manufacture such a situation where the prize was to be shared by two enemies...I think it was a conspiracy to see Telsa missed getting the recognition he rightfully deserved... I dont know that he was ever given the prize ...something I must look into... great if he got it but terrible if he missed out.

When his named is raised there are many folk who come forward to offer only negative input... why is this so?

But who has the runs on the board over most other humans..he did things... Mr Tesla stands above most and any one who says different should be questioned as to their motive.

alex:):):)

[rcheshire]

Is there any truth to the idea that the old Omega navigation system is based on Tesla's wireless electricity?



The theory is that the majority of communication is expressed non-verbally - body language, facial expressions, mode of dress and so on. Words, written or spoken are symbols and in themselves do not convey meaning. The same sentence may mean different things to different people. Construction is important - metaphors are powerful communicators.

Richard's said, that meaning is optimal between individuals that have a shared context. That is, no learning is necessary on the part of the speaker or listener.

We explain things and ourselves - leaving no room for doubt and ambiguity - repair sequences

That's all very interesting... :) :D :P ;) :lol::mad2: :shrug: :confused2: :screwy: :rolleyes:

[bojan]

One more of many Tesla's inventions with profound consequences for the world we live in today: Three-phase asynchronous motor.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/04/induction_motors

[BerrieK]

We have just got a new MRI scanner at work that uses a 3T magnetic field - the equivalent of about 90 000 times the Earth's magnetic field.

Thanks Mr Tesla for alternating current.

[Terry B]

:eek::face:
This is what happens when you try.

[kustard]

We built a small Tesla Coil when I first started working. I was able to light up a fluorescent tube from about 2 metres away from it when it was running, no wires. It was pretty cool.

There's a famous picture of Tesla sitting in front of his huge Tesla Coil with electricity flashing all around him but as I understand it it was done using two shots, one of the coil and lightning and one of him in the chair then superimposed.

[bobson]

Thank you so much Alex!
Nikola Tesla was my countryman and I believe Bojan's too.
I thought maybe I overreacted when I wrote some comments here.
But after reading what others wrote I know I didn't.

cheers

bob

[Steffen]

At least Tesla has a physical unit named after him (the Tesla is the SI unit of magnetic flux density). Not many people (incl Edison) can say that for themselves ;)

Cheers
Steffen.

[avandonk]

James Clerk Maxwell

Bert

[Suzy]

You did over react. :sadeyes:
It wasn't a constructive post- it was character assasination. :sadeyes:
That's the way I saw it anyway. :shrug:
You grabbed a couple of Craig's words and really went for it, unncessarily I thought. Craig merely gave his account of how he saw him (and without the use of aggression). You can't expect everyone to share your passion to a "T". I actually mean that in a nice way. :) A simple I don't agree and an explanation would have done the job nicely. ;)
Nothing personal, Bob. :)

[TrevorW]

Carl Friedrich Gauss
Anders Angstrom
sir Isaac Newton

[KenNo2658]

James Watt
Georg Ohm

[Steffen]

Oh, there are quite a few, for sure, I'm thinking Hertz, Coulomb, Becquerel, Curie, Farad(ay), Kelvin, Celsius off the top of my head. But there are also very notable omissions. There are no units like Edison, Einstein, Helmholtz, Landau or even Cox ;)

Cheers
Steffen.