In the Nick of Time

Isn’t it interesting how many famous people die unknown and poor, even people who were once famous? Of course, I suppose the world is full of non-famous, poor people, but still, you’d think that once you were rich and famous, you’d stay that way. The poor part I can understand. I mean, everyone makes bad money decisions and money is kind of hard to get and keep. Do you ever look at your W-2 in January and wonder what the hell you did with all that money and why don’t you have it anymore? I look at think, and mine shit, I waste a lot of money. Sometimes I’ll come into a little cash and then wonder to myself why I didn’t do something intelligent with it. Anyway, I understand how a rich person can become a poor person (except for those idiots who win millions in the lottery and blow the entire thing in a year, so that now they are broke and unemployed). But how does somebody become unknown? Are we that fickle?

Mozart was fairly unknown at the time of his death. How does the writer of all those operas become unknown? Yes, I know he wrote a lot of other beautiful music, but common people knew the operas. Only rich bastards who could afford the private concerts really knew the other stuff. How does the person who wrote “The Marriage of Figaro” become unknown? People today hold onto their fame better, I think, thanks to television. Even people who were only marginally famous for a short time hold onto fame better nowadays. How else could you explain Joey Buttafucco and Loraine Bobbit? But, for example, how does a guy like Nikola Tesla, possibly the greatest scientist of this or any other time, end up dying broke and unknown?

Tesla was born in 1856 in what is now Croatia. He is one of the most important inventors (if not the most important inventor) in history. His influence can be seen anywhere in modern civilization wherever electricity is used. He contributed to the fields of robotics, ballistics, physics, electromagnetism, and nuclear physics. He became famous in 1893 after his demonstration of wireless communication. In other words, forget Marconi; it was Tesla who invented the radio, the credit for which he did not receive until 1947.

When Tesla came to the United States in 1884, he had nothing except a letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison. Tesla went to work for Edison for the princely sum of $18 week. Tesla quickly proved his worth to the Edison company by solving some of Tom’s more difficult design problems. Edison offered Tesla the sum of $50,000 (worth a million today, adjusted for inflation) to redesign the company’s direct current generators. After finishing the task he went to Tom for the cash and Edison told him in true capitalistic fashion that Nick just didn’t understand the American sense of humor. Tesla quit after being refused a raise to $25 a week.

He formed his own company, Tesla Electrical Light and Manufacturing Company, based on using Alternating Current (AC) in contrast to Edison’s Direct Current (DC). Tesla’s investors were so dubious of his ideas that they relieved him of his responsibilities in essence firing him from his own company. Nikola worked as a common laborer for the next few years to raise money until he went to work for George Westinghouse. Westinghouse liked his ideas on Alternating Current. It is interesting to note that this battle between Direct Current and Alternating Current would lead to the electric chair.

When the electric chair was invented, Thomas Edison pushed for it to be run by Alternating Current, which may be surprising since Edison’s electricity ran on Direct Current. Edison felt that the chair, being an instrument of death, would make the public afraid of Alternating Current and lead to the eventual preeminence of Edison’s Direct Current. Edison’s move backfired on him and the public became enthralled with the new lethal furniture and Alternating Current eventually won out, which is what we use today in our homes.

In 1887 Tesla began working on x-ray technology and discovered that the rays could be harmful to humans, although he did not see that the harm was caused by radiation believing it was due to ozone. In 1891, at the World’s Fair, he was able to ignite Vacuum tubes wirelessly, thus proving the possibility of wireless energy transmission. He invented the fluorescent light. He invented the spark plug. In 1897 he demonstrated the first radio controlled robotic boat, believing that there could be a demand for such devices. He set up a laboratory in Colorado where he would prove that the earth was an electrical conductor. He would produce artificial lightning. There, he worked on wireless telecommunication. He would also claim to receive radio messages from both Mars and Jupiter, which came as a series of “clicks”. In 1900, the lab would be torn down and sold in order to pay debts.

This was just the beginning of his money problems. In 1904, the patent for the radio would go to Marconi in a reversal of an earlier decision, so Tessa would receive no more income from that invention. World War One would cause him to lose money for all his European patents. He had a difficult time finding investors because many of his ideas were just to far ahead of his time. Indeed, later in his life, Tessa would come to be seen as a mad scientist by many, and respected scientists largely disregarded his views.

In general, Tessa was opposed to war, and developed a weapon, which he believed would put an end to all war because of its destructive capability. It was a death ray (although he called it a peace ray) or sorts. According to Tessa, it could bring down 10,000 enemy aircraft at a distance of 200 miles or kill an enemy army in its tracks. It was based on taking electrical energy out of the air and using it as a repelling force. He tried to interest the United States War Department in the device and several European countries as well. None of the governments purchased a contract to build the device.

When he was 81, he developed his theory of gravity. He also claimed that Einstein’s theory of relativity was fraught with errors. He did not hold that space was curved. But we will never know about Tesla’s “Dynamic Theory of Gravity”, because he never published it. And his beliefs were considered laughable by serious researchers and scientists. And yet, upon his death at the age of 86 in 1943, all of his papers were seized by the United States government and declared top secret. I find it ironic that before his death the American Institute of Electrical Engineers awarded him the Edison Medal, considering their life-long feud.

Tesla’s personal life was a trifle odd. He developed an obsessive compulsion about the number three. He would walk around the block three times before entering a building and demand three napkins at his place setting. His friends were mostly artists, as opposed to other scientists. He was a very close friend of the American writer, Mark Twain. A life-long bachelor, he believed in genetic engineering and that women would one day become the dominant sex in America. In the future, he said, humanity would be run by “Queen Bees”. He was fluent in Serbian, English, Latin, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, and German. He held bachelor’s degrees in mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering.

There are many conspiracy theorists who suggest that Tesla also invented technology that is in use today by the government. This technology consists of an “earthquake machine” which, using the electrical current generated by the rotating earth, can cause an earthquake by the touch of a button. Tesla is also credited with creating technology in the area of weather control which conspiracy theorists claim the government is using now. Others claim that he was able to create ways to gain free energy by using the power of gravity and the earth’s rotation thus making fossil fuels unnecessary. This knowledge, according to all theorists, is being suppressed to protect the oil companies. There are even some who claim he experimented with time travel and invisibility and claim he was involved with the infamous Philadelphia Experiment.

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if he had invented some free form of energy, and that form of energy was somehow squashed by the government. I do find it very interesting that the government seized his papers and materials, although he was a United States citizen. They wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t something there, I’m sure.

Today, he is quite famous. He has been a character in any number of films. There is a rock band named after him. There is a crater on the far side (appropriately) of the moon named after him. His face use to grace the former Yugoslavia’s currency. Today, in Serbia, there is an airport named after him. And the Tesla Award is the most prestigious award given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has his own Manga comic book in Japan. But on January 5^th, (my birthday, by the way) in 1943, he died of heart failure in a small, cheap hotel room, and his death wasn’t even noticed for three days, until the 8^th.

I guess Nikola Tesla is like all those other amazing people who change the world and then die penniless and forgotten. I wonder what his theory of gravity entailed. I wonder if that was amongst the papers seized by the government and declared “top secret” by J. Edgar Hoover. I don’t know. You would think if there were anything there the government would be using it. But then, who knows, maybe they are.