Nikola Tesla and You!

[Dr H]

Tesla, for all practical purposes, invented the electrical power system we used today. He was not the first to use alternating current, but prior to Tesla, alternating current had one significant flaw: It didn't work as well for motors as direct current. Tesla's invention of polyphase alternating current and the induction motor changed this.

Yes, I forgot to mention the polyphase concept. Thanks for bringing that up.

 

[Dr H]

Tesla did some cool things. He had a bit of a scattershot approach to inventing though.

Yeah, but that was kind of the norm, in those days. "Let's try this and see what happens . . . <KA-BOOM!!!> Ok, then let's try this instead . . ." And so on.

Not to take anything from either man's accomplishments, but compared to Edison's approach to problem-solving, Tesla was focused to the point of obsession.

Now if you want a true unsung, unremembered genius, who's inventions shaped the modern world, with some actual conspiracy and supression of inventions going on, look up Philo Farnsworth. If you're reading this, you're probably looking at a table covered with Farnsworth inventions.

Well, Farnsworth did get commemorated with his own postage stamp some years ago. Although I think Edison and Tesla did, too.

 

[Dr H]

Ahh, but it would make my profession that much more in demand.

What would happen is the measures we tend to reserve for aerospace/defence/medical devices would be used on all electronic devices. This would increase the overall cost of...everything. Special filters, shielding etc would be commonplace and those damned cheater plugs would be outlawed. OUTLAWED I TELL YOU!!!!!


Ok, I'm better now...

Or, perhaps it would have spurred the development of optronics and fiber-optic technology.

 

[ErkDemon]

Tesla's...."special" projects, like death rays and all that, are not in use because they don't work.

Actually the UV-beam, ionised-air discharge-path "death ray" works. It just has a rather limited range of applications.
Lightning researchers currently use UV lasers bounced off ground-based mirrors to create conductive ionised paths through the air to direct lightning strikes at their sensors.

I don't know if anyone's using capacitative people-tracking systems outdoors (probably not, they kinda get screwed up by rain), but indoors, capacitative people-sensors are used in modern bank vaults. Those laser-array systems that you see in Hollywood movies are old hat - in the real world they use capacitance-sensing systems that allow the vault to "feel" you coming from fifteen feet away and set off the alarms.

 

[ErkDemon]

The Tesla v.s. Edison thing, with Edison as the sneaky evil guy who can't invent but steals others ideas is modern steampunk fiction.
A

Ehhh ... Edison was an //industrialist//. He realised pretty early on that it was an inefficient use of his precious time to spend it trying to get ideas to work, when he could hire engineers and scientists to do that tedious job for him, and then patent the results.

Most inventors don't make any money. Edison's approach was to try to do for inventing what Henry Ford did for motorcar manufacture - he set up a //facility// (Menlo Park), hired lots of smart penniless geniuses, and then stuck the Edison name onto the results (in much the same way that Walt Disney made sure that his artists didn't get credited, and that the only name on the end of a Disney cartoon was Disney's).

Edison got a lot of stuff done, but he also did some pretty corrupt and borderline stuff, like trying to get pet politicians to have AC distribution outlawed, or pretending to have a legal patent on the lightbulb when he knew full well that his patent was invalid.

 

[CurtC]

Some things would have worked, but would have been -- as shown by subsequent research -- to be impractical. Transmission of usable electric power through the air is quite possible, for example, but entails a lot of safety and logistical problems that Tesla never anticipated.

In the same vein, it would be quite possible for banks to distribute cash to people, instead of through ATM machines, by setting up a centralized powerful blower that shoots hundred-dollar bills at high speed in every possible direction, and you just catch what you need.

Both that and broadcast power are similarly possible but about equally impractical.

 

[technoextreme]

For the folks who buy into the 'he's so awesome but edison stole all his stuff' thing, I suggest you read the patent lists of the two folks. They have completely different styles. The Tesla v.s. Edison thing, with Edison as the sneaky evil guy who can't invent but steals others ideas is modern steampunk fiction. There was some historical rivalry, and Tesla did at one poing claim that Edison had cheated him out of a performance bonus for a generator wiring job, but nothing like what's modernly speculated. Sort of like Otto Von Titsling stealing the inventions of Messr. Brassiere, or Professor Shadenfreude stealing the inventions of damn near everyone...

Edison went off his kilter like Tesla did at one point. He's the only man to have came up with the idea to build an entire house out of concrete; furnish it with concrete; and build a piano out of concrete. He should have stopped at the concrete house idea. That was a great idea. Concrete piano? Not such a great idea.

Now if you want a true unsung, unremembered genius, who's inventions shaped the modern world, with some actual conspiracy and supression of inventions going on, look up Philo Farnsworth. If you're reading this, you're probably looking at a table covered with Farnsworth inventions.

Oooo go cry like a little baby. Believe it or not the modern incarnation of the light bulb has more to do with another man than it does with Edison. Weirder yet is that the guy is a Nobel Prize winner.

 

[ErkDemon]

There's also an unsubstantiated story that the Nobel prize guys approached Edison and Tesla about the possibility of awarding them a joint Nobel prize for their work on bringing electrical power to the masses, and Tesla got all excited over it, and then Edison turned it down because he knew that Tesla needed the money and the acclaim more than he did.

 

[kmortis]

Edison went off his kilter like Tesla did at one point. He's the only man to have came up with the idea to build an entire house out of concrete; furnish it with concrete; and build a piano out of concrete. He should have stopped at the concrete house idea. That was a great idea. Concrete piano? Not such a great idea.

You're missing his visonary side. He was predicting the invention of rock music...