Tesla: Man Out of Time
Margaret Cheney
Cheney's biography reveals Tesla as, for lack of a better word, a man who might have been. For some ungodly reason, Tesla's patents, which revolutionized the face of the electricity industry, are completely ignored. His contributions are ignored as well, for the most part. Tesla's eccentric attitude and further eccentricities in his later life probably contributed to this, as he was a very respected man when he arrived in America. Part of this "degradation" might have been due to his refusal to accept the unfolding model of electricity as moving atomic particles.
He seems to have believed to his grave that electricity is a fluid, aether-like thing, and most of his latter experiments used that same metaphor. Of course, they failed. Tesla also acquired a bit of a cult following in the late 1800's (Hey! How in the world can a cult form without the Internet?). I was most impressed with how -- ahem -- whacked some of these people were. Many folk believed Tesla was actually from Venus. Um, right. Did these people's parents have any kids that lived?! The Tesla legacy has been held open for the longest time because the US Government, which is of course, brilliant and wise and benevolent (excuse me, the burritoes make me write this), removed quite a stack of papers and research work from his office, after his death, but before any family member could come and pick it up.
I want to visit the Tesla shrine in Europe, I think, just to see it. I don't think he was from Venus, though, so stop calling the hotline, you...
