Originally posted by Unfocused:
Yeah, Tesla was onto something, but I'm sure that it never got corporate funding or sponsorship due to lack of a good way to make money from it.
What is best for the people is not always best for those with the pockets to make it happen.
Actually, old Nikola was funded, originally working for Edison he provided the concept of alternating current and designed generators and motors etc to work with the new AC power.
He then left edison due to a large disagreement over which was better AC or DC and sought direct funding from a wealthy gent called Mr
Westinghouse, who had a fairly long financial agreement with Nokola.
They showed that Tesla's AC design was far superior and safer than edisons DC current, despite attempts to discredit Nikola from Edison by electricuting all sort of animals and even a person with high voltage AC current trying to scare people in new york.
Tesla and Westing house made the name Westing house the biggest name in electricity.
They also installed the AC generators at niagra, which are still used today.
So he had the funding well initially.
Westinghouse gave him some money to build his lab at wardenclyffe, the initial breif/agreement was to produce a system of wireless communication..... tesla went so much further..
His competitors, one of them being Marconi (its worth remembering that its been suggested that marconi stole/copied his design) had sent a message across the english channel, Westinghouse worried by this went to Tesla. Who in response made the worlds first remote controlled and battery powered boat, which had 4 independant signals operating it, instead of just one signal used by marconi to send his message.
Tesla argued his system far far superior and would allow message to be distributed anywhere in the world so Westinghouse let him continue.
However through a number of events Tesla starts to let slip his real intention for his new project was not the transmission of messages and was instead for the wireless transmission of power. Having explained this to Westinghouse, he explained you would be able to set down a receiver anywhere in the world and would be able to receive power. Westinghouse, probably feeling a little betrayed by only finding out what tesla had really been doing with his money at such a late date and the main reason being that without a system of controlled distribution they had no way to monitor peoples use let alone know who was using it.
Without being able to see a cost effective model in there westinghouse pulled all funds... tesla then tries to raise funds by going round the world trying to sell his idea.
However he then starts to tell people he can use his system for shooting at invaiders with high energy beams and born is the first ever DEATH RAY. However with no takers he returns home, the lab was let go due to a lack of funding and tesla winds up spending his remaining days penny less and living in a hotel room.
However on his death everyone start to become really intrested in his designs again, its speculated that russia managed to get most of the important documents with the americans mostly ending up with what was left behind.
Spin forward to the present day, the entire world runs on teslas AC power design, flourcent lights and much more.....
... how much more is the current day tesla enigma.
It just goes to show ..... if you have something thats going to make the world a better place but its not going to make you or anyone around you any money, you are either better off giving into the greed and make a mint or keep quite until its to late and theres no stopping you.
Just think if tesla was left with funding and could have completed his work, we would have a very diffirent world today...
... just think a world where people would not be fighting over the worlds natural resources and maybe we wouldnt be completely screwing over our planet as well.
How about Charles Garrett, the inventor of the Electrolytic Carburetor which ran a car on water in america in 1932.