Let's Build a Tesla Museum

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Hello, there is an internet group that just popped up, and I would like to share it with all you science geeks and Tesla fans out there.

Description: They're trying to raise money to buy back Nikola Tesla's old laboratory, known as the Wardenclyffe Tower, and eventually turn it into a museum.

For more information, you can visit: Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum

Discuss. Is this a good idea? Would you like to see a museum?

brilliant idea, giant tesla coils, sparks from fingers, interferes with all the mobile phones around
wish it were in London

The idea itself is great, but they should create an online version of the museum. I'm not going to travel there.

I'm for the idea. Edison gets all the glory ¬¬

Yeah, edison sucks by comparison. A kid at school thought Edison was better, so me and another tesla fan had to convince him otherwise...

And they should make an online museum, in addition to the real one. Or they could make it one of those traveling museum things, like the dead sea scrolls exhibit, so tons of people could see it.

There's a Tesla museum in Belgrade, Serbia. I visited it as part of an excursion during a physics conference. It was pretty neat.

But yeah, some more recognition for Tesla would be nice. Edison was a clumsy hobbyist compared to Tesla.

Wow! that cool...did not know that!

Edison was a douchebag

Tesla was a genius, yet he gave away his ideas.

Edison was a businessman and a genius. He patented his ideas.

Who's the better person? Neither -- they're both dead.

Who was the better scientist? Debatable.

Who was the better inventor? Edison, by far. His inventions were both practical and popular. Tesla's inventions -- while magnificent -- are now mostly laboratory curiosities. No death rays, no earthquake devices, no global broadcast power transmitters.

Yes, I built my own Tesla coil. I also have a van de Graf generator. But the clincher is that my home receives its electricity over power lines, powering incandescent filament lamps, both of which were Edison developments.

Why is it that a man who becomes wealthy through his own labors (and the labors of his employees) while providing practical solutions is vilified, yet the person who can't exploit his own discoveries enough to feed himself is somehow an 'unsung hero'?

We're not villifying him. He was just not as good as tesla, in many people's opinions. There are theories that say Tesla invented the radio before the other guy. The only reason edison managed to make the incandescent lightbulb was because he tried different metals for the little circuity thing inside--you know, that coil that makes all the heat--until he finally figured out it was tungsten, and it took him FOREVER. While working on the lightbulb, he scarcely got any sleep and ate very little, because he was so busy working. Edison was certainly very smart--and that he was a genius is a possibility--but the lightbulb, his most famous invention, was only successful because he was not only smart, but INCREDIBLY persistent.

No debate. Edison was a practical worker and no theorist. He had no grasp of Maxwellian Electrodynamics at the theoretical level. In fact, Edison denigrated pure theory.

Tesla was a theoretical man and a mathematical sophisticate. Tesla was smarter than Edison. Edison was in a practical sense more single minded than Tesla. In the long run, Tesla's ideas won out, as ideas must win eventually. In the short run Edison acted in a practical manner. It was Edison who wired part of New York City for electric lights. He used an inferior technology, but he created "facts on the ground" first. Eventually Tesla's alternating current approach triumphed over Edison's use of direct current as it must. Transmitting electrical power by A.C. is less lossy over long distance. That can be proven mathematically.

ruveyn

Yes, Alternating Current, advocated by Tesla, won out over Edison's Direct-Current advocacy.

Yes, Tesla may have been the greater theoretician, and he may even have been more intelligent.

But Edison was more practical, and more prolific, in his research. So if we measure a scientist's greatness by both the quality and the quantity of his inventions, then Edison wins hands-down.

It's sorta like comparing Albert Einstein to Henry Ford -- both were great men, but how do you get to work nowadays: With an automobile produced on an assembly line, or through a direct matter-to-energy conversion transporter?

Einstein was almost purely academic although he and Szilard got a patent on a certain type of refrigerator. Both Edison and Tesla were hands on workers. Tesla built some marvelous a.c. installations out near Colorado Springs and he even develop radio broadcasting before Marconi. That is pretty practical. The main difference between Tesla and Edison was there scope. Edison was more focused on immediate applications, Tesla took a longer view. They had very different temperments.

ruveyn

Okay. I'll buy that. I admire Edison, Einstein, Ford, and Tesla -- they were all great, and each in his own way.

They're trying to buy back his lab in Long Island now.

The main advantage is that AC voltage can be changed with transformers. Jack it up for transmission which has less amps, and less line loss. Then step it down for distribution. The same distribution line can feed a 110 volt street light, and a 480 volt 3 phase industrial service next door.

Edison invented the electric chair as a scare tactic to try to gain public support for his DC system.