Inventor Nikola Tesla Is Back in Tech Fashion | Hacker News Reader

Inventor Nikola Tesla Is Back in Tech Fashion

online.wsj.com

27 pointsprakash23 comments

Wow good job, WSJ you picked up on a trend just about 10 years after it really heated up.

In addition to being about 10 years late this is a really, really bad article about Tesla. It does not mention anything about his very substantial actual achievements but makes him sound like a crazy dreamer who did not achieve much but became a cult favourite because of how weird he is.

The article did not mention that Tesla developed the system which pretty much everyone in the world uses to get their electricity, or that almost all electricity made now is made using one of his motors, or that after a lengthy patent dispute the US courts determined that he was the actual inventor of radio transmission, etc.

Tesla's contributions have been at least as influential as those of Edison and likely more so.

You sure you read the article?

"Tesla was a scientist and inventor who achieved fame and fortune in the 1880s for figuring out how to make alternating current work on a grand scale, electrifying the world. He created the first major hydroelectric dam, at Niagara Falls. He thrilled packed theaters with presentations in which he ran high voltage through his body to illuminate a fluorescent light in his hand. His inventions helped Guglielmo Marconi develop radio."

Granted, the Tesla-cultism is a lot older than 10 years so the trend thing is just article-filler.

I personaly consider tesla's invention have shaped/influenced our lives more than Edisons or any other scientists for that matter.

I never knew much about Tesla through out my formal education in india and discovered about such a great scentist from the Move "Prestige". not the right way to know about a great scientist, but better than not knowing.

I wonder which will be cast as the villain in 100 years when the hip visionaries we'll be looking back on will be Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Not exactly a lovable loony underdog dying destitute and alone in a hotel in that pairing. Both are obscenely rich and successful.

Though Tesla himself made a "mint" selling his AC patents to Westinghouse in the 1890s, according to the article, then proceeded to squander his fortune thereafter.

I am not sure that was true. Many biographies I read said that he gave away his patents or at least sold them for a very low price when Westinghouse complained that he was losing money, and ask Tesla to help him as a friend.

I am not sure whether "squander" is the right word to use here. To a Scientiest as ambitious and risk taking as tesla, a failed experiement would mean loosing wealth. But when you consider that all those failed experiments could have inspired/helped future generations, i find the word in appropriate.

just my first thought when i read it. no negativity intended.

OK, good point, no negativity taken (actually, I was just tracking what the article said - the various comments here have made me want to learn a lot more about Tesla, an obviously fascinating person about whom I knew very little up to this point).

Cool. It was a Big Surprise to me that I haven't learned about Tesla & his inventions even after "studying" science for so many years.

So far!

Hah. It'd be quite impressive if either of them manages to squander their astronomical fortunes. Then again, they're both talented people.

Steve Jobs will never be destitute and alone in a hotel. At worst, he’ll be broke and alone in a hotel for about five minutes, and then he’ll write an incredibly brilliant business plan on the back of a napkin and get the night watchman to invest his life savings in it.

Maybe RMS will become the hero and Linus the villain.

Unlikely.

Linus' PR record is very clean, RMS' much less so.

Precisely my point.

This brings to mind PG's submarine article. I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasn't the brain child of a PR firm working for Tesla Motors.

Although it might also be helpful to recall that the essay originally used a Business Week article about del.icio.us as an example of a 'hit', which it wasn't (del.icio.us did not have a PR firm). Sometimes an article is just an article. Probably most of the time.

Sometimes Hackers are nothing like Painters

Sometimes rewriting Netscape from scratch results in Mozilla

I'm surprised they didn't mention that the SciFi show "Sanctuary" has Telsa as a character...who is a vampire...that can control electricity.

Ironically, Dresden Codak portrays him as wearing an incandescent bulb: http://dresdencodak.com/2005/11/29/secular-heaven/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegeodynamics

Well, Tesla does have an S.I. unit named after him (magnetic field, http://www.unitarium.com/si-units ).

Better yet, he managed to keep his name's final vowel - Volta and Faraday got theirs chopped off (seems there's a story about that).

(P.S. afterthought on electric cars: GM took the hint, and grabbed another couple of SI unit names for their US/EU models ;-)

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