Freedom of Information Release on Nikola Tesla (2011)

as well as Tesla was recognized during his lifetime. Plenty of folks thought da vinci was crazy too.

helicopter prototype was off (just needed different shape propeller, additional stabilizing propeller and proper weight distribution), but it was on a correct development path. parachute design was correct as was demonstrated in 2000. (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bgE0_zA9lEU/U29iF1bk9QI/AAAAAAAAEu...)

what if tesla's highly speculated work is even 50% close?

we had thousands of electric cars manufactured and sold in USA 100 years ago (stop and think about it for a second: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/80/34/c5/8034...). wireless transmission of electricity/energy could put us on a completely different path as a humanity (as well as completely change political and business landscape worldwide).

the theory that we might at some point in time love a pigeon (or any other living creature) as much as we love each other (humans) is not that far off ... if you think about it.

we are all the same, all part of one. if you love yourself and you love "one" you automatically love pigeons and all the other living creatures.

perhaps its our next evolutionary step and he was many years ahead of all of us...

obsession with number 3 ... maybe because there was something to it after all?

https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-efimov-state-physicists-fi...

> It's not like these "great minds" are alien superintelligences.

I disagree, I define a truly great mind as one that thinks very differently from others, and solves problems others can't. Not someone who can just solve problems more quickly.

Why do you think it matters what his IQ is? You can't measure someone's ability to think about new things with a test that asks you to solve relatively simple brainteasers. I am sure his IQ was quite high, but that doesn't mean someone with an equivalently high IQ could do what he did.

Edit: missed a word.

IQ is an irrelevant metric. Look at his achievements pragmatically.

In terms of understanding of electric phenomena, its difficult to point at another with a similar level of understanding (or at least productive understanding).

With that in mind, it would seem he's quite a bit "smarter" than even very intelligent people, with the same life long pursuit.

Im not from the field (speaking as an 'average joe' here), but i dont think genius come from brain mechanical power alone.

When you try to map some trends 'genius' people have that others dont, it comes to have some form of free/ilimited thinking, like kids often do, persistence and even stuborness based on faith that something others dont get it its actually possible, criativity, a good environment and in the end choose that path that im sure can become a big burden, that will require a lot of spirit, persistence and good will.

So i guess IQ tests alone will never be able to frame or to detect real geniuses in a objective automated manner.

Of course that more brainpower give you more chances to become a genius, but there are some traces of the personality that must also be there.

For instance, the majority of the smart people in the world, will not go through this route, giving they can just use their brains to get rich, famous, powerful and use it in a more egotistical and self-fulfilling manner.

IQ isn't an absolute score of intelligence, it's relative and assumes a normal distribution. Someone with a 200 IQ is not twice as intelligent as someone with a 100 IQ, they are ~7 standard deviations better on the score of a test designed to assess intelligence.

IQ is definitely not the end all-be-all of intelligence because you can train yourself to become better at taking IQ tests by taking IQ tests: that's what all those people with >180 IQ who are "the smartest people in the world" did. And of course intelligence is only part of the equation: people could be much smarter than Tesla but simply never become interested in electricity, and even very smart people can make mistakes and arrive at incorrect conclusions (perhaps due to ego as well - we are all human). There are also different forms of intelligence, as some people are much better than others at verbal/spatial/logical reasoning but perform averagely in other categories.

So in general I'd say IQ is not a good way to look at this. We should look more at the fact that mental illness can affect everyone, and if someone starts suddenly making provably false outlandish claims, that doesn't mean they weren't once a great scientist or very intelligent person.

> in trying to cling onto his success from the past he might have developed delusions that to him seem perfectly logical

Scary thing? Delusional behavior can just happen to anyone. It's a mental illness and like any illness there may be no way to see it coming. One day, you suddenly think your 'Real Girl' doll is a real person that you love[0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_and_the_Real_Girl - Fantastic, true acting by an actor known mostly for his good looks.

there was a lot of interest in his work. we simply dont know if something was taken, stolen or appropriated by someone else.

FBI clearly stated in that FIA disclosed dossier that there was an outside entity trying to get access to his lab prototypes, papers, information. We do not know if and what was taken,

Ockham's razor, maybe? Mental illness is a thing we have observed; magic 10 dimensional eyeballs aren't.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. You're asking if Tesla had the power to see extra-dimensional structures? I guess I'm fairly secure in assuming that Tesla was experiencing hallucinations, in ways that are common among people experiencing hallucinations (unexplained lights are fairly standard), rather than possessing extra-dimensional superpowers that would, as far as we know, be completely unique to him.

Unless you're positing that anyone experiencing these types of symptoms are in fact viewing extra-dimensional objects. In which case, good luck with that.

Wow, the full text of that paragraph is even worse:

> Interestingly enough one of the largest sources of exaggerated Tesla history in the last few years was a cartoonist (Mr. Inman) who runs the website "The Oatmeal". A cartoonist (a guy with no engineering, legal or historian background) born in 1982 on the wrong side of the continent felt the liberty of making passionate statements about New York's electrical history based on crap he read on the internet. After a Forbes article by Alex Knapp about the myths of Tesla inspired by this Edison Tech Center article came out, the cartoonist attacks Knapp in the arrogant and cynical style typically demonstrated by the worst of US-born Millennials. Mr. Inman, like many comedians seems to be fundamentally unhappy and finds an outlet through humor. Oddly enough his behavior is similar to Tesla's in that he reacts in a nasty fashion if someone challenges his ideas, even when they mean well.

You're cherrypicking the part of the document that addresses the comic and I do agree the tone could be more professional, but it a fairly serious rebuke of some pretty terrible claims. Ironically, when Hawkings, Linus, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc use the same tone, the tech community seems to not have any problems with it. The factual aspects of this page are pretty good and I'm hard pressed to find any issue here historically. I'm something of a amateur Edison-era historian, love this period, and feel that if we want to properly honor history and the lives of the people who more or less helped build the modern world, then we should be honest about the facts and park the fanboyism.

I do feel they gloss over the elephant electrocution and even by standards of that time was a bit shocking, even if there were almost no animal welfare laws. To be fair to Edison's group, this PR stunt was tasteless, but the elephant was already sentenced to death. My understanding is the alternative would have been a grisly shooting with an elephant gun which is far less humane than electrocution.

Again, the Oatmeal comic is pretty poor representation of the period. I understand its popular and ties in with Tesla fandom and an over-represented demographic on the web, but I think those honest about knowing what these men did should dismiss it and dig into more academic sources. This period is so exciting and interesting, its a shame a lot of youngsters grow up with a simple minded 'Tesla vs Edison' narrative which is such a stupid oversimplification of an amazing and progressive period in US history.

About the only way you can gather some semblance of "historical truth" or "historical facts" about either Edison or Tesla would be to read as many biographies and books about both men, both contemporary accounts, auto-biographical accounts, and later historical treatises.

In short - read everything you can about both individuals - their life, their history, their accomplishments, and their rivalry thru the years.

At one time, I was more on the "fanboy" side of things with Tesla; for years, from about 1992 or so (long before the Oatmeal piece, and certainly before "The Prestige" was published), I collected many books and anything else I could get my hands on about Tesla. Prior to that, as a teenager, I had heard about him thru histories of Edison - mainly in connection to the "Tesla Coil" as well.

But I had neglected Edison. At some point, many years later I decided that having only a one-sided view of things wasn't right, and started collecting and reading things on and about Edison.

What I discovered was ultimately, neither man could be claimed to be "all that" and both were products of their times. Both had their greatnesses, and both had their lows. I consider both men to have made many contributions, but they also had plenty of faults. I also consider it one of those "historical tragedies" that the two men became bitter rivals, rather than working together. I believe that Edison could have gone so much further with Tesla's guidance and temperament as an engineer and scientist (Tesla being more of a theoretical scientist before an engineer, and Edison being more an experimentalist engineer before a scientist). I often wonder what would have happened if Edison and Tesla had explored the "Edison Effect" - the world would probably not be the same today, certainly.

Thanks for pointing all of that out. I forgot that those things predated the comic.

confused.biz

John Titor was a Time Traveler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor).

If you like anime, Steins;Gate uses John Titor as a plot device (http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=7729)

No time traveller but he is living in the wrong decade.

Very few children of billionaires become notable people themselves, outside of usually philanthropy or keeping the family business in much of it's original state (millionaires kids as well to a much lesser degree). There are some very clear human and biological reasons why. Even in the tech industry with hyper progressive parenting it's rare to hear about the kids outside of capital raising circles.

Regardless I was talking about talent and achievements here not personality, and I don't think there's much use of discussing that here. It's been discussed to death elsewhere.

From personal experience, the French have little regard for native writing or pronunciation of names.