Nicola Tesla, clearly a brilliant mind ahead of his time, made many extravagant claims about his inventions. Some of the things he described seem to be out of the reach of even current technology/science. If Westinghouse, or some other wealthy patron, had continued his funding, what could he have achieved? Obviously more than the AC power and 3-phase motor he's known for today, but what? Was his broadcast power scheme workable? Could he have really 'Cracked the planet like an egg' as he claimed he could?
2007-05-29 19:36:51 · 5 answers · asked by AmigaJoe 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
It seems likely if his broadcast power scheme had worked (and perhaps it did) it seems likely none of our present communications systems would work except fiber optics which might have come along much sooner.
By the way there are those who say Tesla left copious quantities of notes and they are still classified as top secret by the military.
2007-05-29 20:00:05 · answer #1 · answered by Bullfrog21 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nicola Tesla was certainly a genius, but he was at best eccentric, at worst a charleton. Many of his ideas and patents are too out of this world to even be worth mentioning. Today, we look back on many of his ideas, such as the "death-ray" and see his ideas as prophetic. But this is because science has progressed and we see his wacko ideas in hindsight and want to make a connection. In fact, there are thousands of such people who had crazy ideas in the past, but because of the progress of science in the meantime, we like to believe they had some idea what was going to happen because it sounds vaguely similar to something modern.
In the end, when his ideas are examined, they are based purely on fantasy and speculation (some of which might end up coming true), and very few were based on intelligent extrapolation from the current (no pun intended) knowledge at the time. Certainly he was imaginative, fanciful and creative, but these qualities alone do not a successful scientist make. They are, however, required to be a snake-oil peddler.
Incidentally, Westinghouse DID provide a lot of funding to him, even beyond the application of AC, but that was really his only practical invention. All of his other ideas fell flat. Even the Tesla coil, his only other major eponymous invention, survives only as a sideshow curiousity without any significant usefulness.
2007-05-30 03:25:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Very possibly the guy could have done just about anything. He was probably the greatest genius ever. Einstein was not even in his league. That may be why Tesla didn't get the funding, etc he needed to do all he could have done. Maybe time itself would have become goofed up. Who knows? God may have intervened in this way.
2007-05-30 02:41:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Tesla was certainly an interesting character. Unfortunately he left behind almost --no-- notes, records, or data from any of his many experiments (which doesn't make him a very good Scientist âº) so it's difficult to say what he may, or may not, have been able to do.
Doug
2007-05-30 02:42:49 · answer #4 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The problem with broadcast power is that it's noisy like you wouldn't believe! You'd have to yell to be heard over it. And if he could have cracked the planet, we wouldn't be here now because of the magna flow.
2007-05-30 02:44:55 · answer #5 · answered by Katherine W 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋