Nikola Tesla Commemoration

Anyone who has ever taken even a passing interest in technology or electronics has probably heard the name Nikola Tesla. His inventions are undeniable, and have allowed us to make many steps forward in technology. He invented the vacuum tube, the light bulb (yes, he did invent it before Edison; Edison just beat him to the patent office), fluorescent lights, distributors, AC power, the electric AC motor, the Tesla coil, and the radio (only credited to Tesla after his assistant, Guglielmo Marconi, sat before a court and made a sworn testimony that Tesla had in fact invented it), to name a few. Nobody really disputes his brilliance in regards to his earlier inventions. It is the inventions he was working on after his retirement from Westinghouse that have put him into the category of world-class eccentric. His designs for free power, death rays, anti-gravity ships, and amphibious airships, among others still seem to be science fiction today. There is also a lot of mystery surrounding Tesla's later years, as well as what actually happened to his protege, Marconi, after Tesla's death.

One of Tesla's better known experiments regards his famed Wardenclyffe tower, a power experiment of world-wide proportions. Tesla theorised that he could use the Earth's own conductive properties to amplify electrical current. Using the giant coil contained within his Wardenclyffe tower and a free connection to the local power plant (provided by a friend of his working for the power company), he started firing directed bursts of electricity straight into the Earth. These directed bursts of electricity would bounce off the far side of the planet, and return to the coil with a greater charge than it left with. After several cycles, Tesla's Wardenclyffe tower was producing millions of volts of electricity, and actually creating electrical arcs of up to 30 feet with a higher voltage than natural lightning. Tesla intended for the tower to demonstrate how the ionosphere could be used to provide free electricity to everyone without the need for power lines. The project's main investor, J.P. Morgan, who could not foresee any financial gain from providing free electricity to everyone, balked. The Wall Street banker famously remarked: "If this energy is available to everyone, where do we put the meter?"

The experiment continued in Colorado Springs, but came to an abrupt end when the local electric company's generator was destroyed by the amount of power being backfed into the system. Tesla's experiment caused a city-wide blackout, and evidently also was responsible for killing wildlife that was in contact with the ground, melting the soles on people's shoes to the sidewalk, and also possibly causing a massive power outage on the far side of the planet that he was bouncing the electricity off of. In addition to this, his lab glowed with a blue corona, similar to St. Elmo's Fire, and turned all of the grass and other low foliage in the area blue from the electrical discharge. While experimenting in his Colorado Springs laboratory, Tesla also claimed to have had success with teleportation; as portrayed in this scene:

Tesla's stranger inventions really are quite fascinating, and one has to wonder if they actually did work, given his proven genius with earlier inventions. Some of his stranger inventions include:

Electro Dynamic Induction Lamp - created in 1894, this lamp is said to be far advanced to anything currently available (US Patent 514,170)
Bladeless Tesla Turbine - Patented in 1916 (US Patent 1,329,559), is said to be the most efficient engine, and is roughly 20 times more efficient than currently available turbines, though is still not in use.
Ozone Generator - Patented in 1896 (US Patent 568,177). Ozone generators are currently banned for medical use in the U.S. despite claims of some doctors that ozone therapy can cure cancer and AIDS.
Anti-Gravity and the Wall of Light - Tesla theorized that a "wall of light" could be created using the sun's own rays; and within this wall, time, space, gravity, and matter could be manipulated.
Anti-gravity aircraft - Tesla had designs for saucer shaped craft that would draw power from the ionosphere; flying without onboard power plants or fuel. Also of note, Tesla's design for an electric submarine could have also been the basic design for these airships, since the cigar-shaped craft could allegedly also go underwater and act as submarines.

 The historical conspiracy associated with Nikola Tesla really began when he died. Directly after his death, agents of the United States Government raided his living quarters and prevented his family from entering. Later, when his family was allowed access to the room, it was reported by his family that all of Tesla's technical writings and research had been confiscated. Over the years, many brave and creative souls have endeavored to recreate the many different works of Tesla. A great number of those people have been threatened, have had their work and property destroyed, and in some cases, have disappeared or died. A classic example being Tesla's patented device that could draw electricity directly from the atmosphere. In a documented experiment for the Pierce Motor Car Company in 1931, Tesla built that technology into a vehicle that could run continuously on this free electricity; yet this vehicle never entered mass production.

 Tesla, arguably modern society's most visionary inventor and the man that largely gave us today's world, died penniless. Always more interested in ideas than commercial gain; he chose instead to give his genius to the world, without regard for personal enrichment. His worldview is, perhaps, best expressed in his own words, at the end of his dream for Wardenclyffe: "It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence - by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed - only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."