WI: Nikola Tesla was succesful?

Onyx

Banned
Nikola Tesla, the most badass scientist with the most coolest moustache, is probably one of my heroes (He made a god damn Large Electric Coil to prove the world that even SH!t like that can work!)

Sadly, I have to say he wasn't a good business man, and was stumped away by Edison (Glances at Edisons Ghost)
But, WI, Tesla was a very successful man? Would've we seen VTOLs by WWII? Tesla Coils by the 1950s? Giant Electrical Orbs zapping people to ashes!?!?!?!?

*Looks at the sky*
God Speed you crazy Serbian-Croat Scientist!!!
God Speed....................
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
Daedulus said:
Nikola Tesla, the most badass scientist with the most coolest moustache, is probably one of my heroes (He made a god damn Large Electric Coil to prove the world that even SH!t like that can work!)

Sadly, I have to say he wasn't a good business man, and was stumped away by Edison (Glances at Edisons Ghost)
But, WI, Tesla was a very successful man? Would've we seen VTOLs by WWII? Tesla Coils by the 1950s? Giant Electrical Orbs zapping people to ashes!?!?!?!?

*Looks at the sky*
God Speed you crazy Serbian-Croat Scientist!!!
God Speed....................
Click to expand...

For all I know there were tesla coils being used in the 1950s. He wasn't stumped away by Edison, one of the only real remnant of Edison's business empire still in existence, as far as I know, is General Electric. Westinghouse is still in business also.

Historically there were VTOLs being experimented with at the very end of the Great War.
 

grdja83

Only thing Tesla "failed" was his wireless power transmittance and vehicles powered by that. And he had to fail, because ionosphere and Earth's geomagnetic properties don't work that way. He pretty much completely ignored mainstream science and run with his personal views of waves and electricity, it led him as far as it could. Anything more was fantasy.
 
Mr.Wigglemunch

Mr.Wigglemunch

grdja83 said:
Only thing Tesla "failed" was his wireless power transmittance and vehicles powered by that. And he had to fail, because ionosphere and Earth's geomagnetic properties don't work that way. He pretty much completely ignored mainstream science and run with his personal views of waves and electricity, it led him as far as it could. Anything more was fantasy.
Click to expand...


They are actually working on wireless electricity transmission and it works.
 

Geekhis Khan

As an Electrical and RF Engineer myself, Tesla's like a personal hero, but I have to admit the guy crossed the line from genius to madness more than twice.

Not only did he have Howard Hughes level OCD and bizarre phobias and obsessions like nobody's business (he had an incapacitating earring phobia!), but eventually his "dreamland" views of the capabilities of power transmission left behind the laws of physics.

His "Wireless Power Transmission" idea, while cool in a Vacuum Zeppelin kind of way, was just not feasible. The wavelengths at that frequency require antenna aperatures on a near global scale for any sort of coupling efficiency. Modern RF power transmission ideas require conversion to microwave transmissions, which require tech not really practically developed until much after Tesla died, or require laser transmission. Even today with computer controls we're a way off from practical energy transmission.

His Death ray? Ditto. Not really practical and impossible to aim.

The "Genius Philanthropist and Good Socialist Saint Tesla Unduly Trampled by teh Evol Greedy Capitalist Edison" is a modern myth based more in modern political perceptions than in historical fact. Edison certainly took advantage of Tesla and then later tried to discredit him after Tesla quit (idiot move on Edison's part that seriously came back to haunt him), but others (like Westinghouse) more than made up for that and Tesla had ready sponsors, partners, and investors even up to the batshit end. If Tesla wanted to he could have been as big as Edison or Westinghouse in the electricity business, but he was a genius tinkerer, not a practical businessman, and never wanted to be otherwise.

While I love Tesla, I must say that once he started on the road beyond AC Power you're entering ASB territory. :(
 
Mr.Wigglemunch

Mr.Wigglemunch

Oh ofcourse I agree, your far more qualified than me on any of these matters also, I just thought he should get some congratulations on the subject since something he worked for is coming into existance... as are death rays, which you could view as being lasers and also they are working on Active Denial Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System which although not deadly would amaze someone back in his day just as much and they could obviously advance that system into something else...
 

catboy637

He did try to make a machine that could collapse a building by repeated tapping. That could be an effective espionage tool.
 

Mark E.

Tesla's eccentricities and lack of business sense sank his career. Had he been able to manage a research lab, he could have butterflies forward many important electronic inventions, perhaps leading to microchips decades sooner. His obsession of unrealistic power transmission did not in itself cause him to fail. After all, Edison was obsessed with concrete houses and sunk a substantial piece of his profits into them, but that failure did not take him down overall.
 

Geekhis Khan

Ok, it's going to take a LOT more than luck to make his "Free Power" scheme and EM Wunderwaffen work. It'll frankly take the direct intervention of myotis celestia (ASBs).

The "Death Rays" were to be EM blasts supposed to "burn" aircraft or cities with their raw electrical power. In practice you'd get something more akin to the modern notion of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse). At best you could short out some electrical systems like radios or even conceivably electrical systems in older wood-and-fabric planes, but the metal skin of newer airlines would work as an effective Faraday Cage and protect anything that wasn't hooked to an antenna. [Note: the US police have recently tried EMP experiments to kill power in cars, but the metal body of the cars makes anything not on a trolley directly under the car ineffective.] Furthermore, you'd need ass-loads of power at the low frequencies he was trying. It would be an omnidirectional weapon without directional antennas (all but impossible at those freqs due to wavelength), so you'd not want you OWN forces in the area even if it did work. Maybe, if Tesla had spent years and been more open to reality, you could see an earlier birth of electronic countermeasures...at least once someone like the more practical Marconi (who BTW used Tesla's data and equations, so his EM experiments were not a complete loss) invents practical radio communications, that is.

The EM Power distribution he did works in a very limited fashion, providing power to a very small area (no more than a km). In this way it can make a feasible, if highly inefficient local power network. Given time, you could see local wireless power from RF frequencies (sort of a "power LAN") that could work well with florescent lights. But his "global power" network that was intended to turn the whole earth into a free power battery by shooting giant Tesla coils into the stratosphere was cloud cookoolander territory.
 

Mark E.

Geekhis Khan said:
But his "global power" network that was intended to turn the whole earth into a free power battery by shooting giant Tesla coils into the stratosphere was cloud cookoolander territory.
Click to expand...

Tesla has to come to his senses and put the power scheme on the back burner and turn his creativity into something more practical. That's the POD, and a very significant one since Tesla stands right in the direct path of modern electronic and electrical engineering. Think of the historical impact if voice radio is perfected before, rather than after, WWI.
 

Geekhis Khan

Mark E. said:
Tesla has to come to his senses and put the power scheme on the back burner and turn his creativity into something more practical. That's the POD, and a very significant one since Tesla stands right in the direct path of modern electronic and electrical engineering. Think of the historical impact if voice radio is perfected before, rather than after, WWI.
Click to expand...

There's certainly no reason why he couldn't have put his efforts towards radio communications at the turn of the century or even have discovered or come up with the core principles of radar. Of course he needs a major change of focus and mindset for this to happen. His obsessions by this stage were practically beyond workable. :(

Maybe if he tried to collaborate with Marconi rather than sue him...
 

Deleted member 1487

Well, the development of radio communication for WW1, which did exist in heavy and unreliable form, would completely change the conduct of the war. Expect generals to control more directly battle before them, meaning quicker responses to battlefield developments and much greater artillery coordination. Field phones would not be cut because of damaged lines, meaning defending troops will still be able to call in accurate artillery barrages.

Just think where technology would be after the war...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top