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From: eugenez@azure.UUCP (Eugene Zinter)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Tesla
Message-ID: <131@azure.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 12:59:00 EST
Article-I.D.: azure.131
Posted: Fri Mar  1 12:59:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Mar-85 08:21:41 EST
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Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
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When Tesla came the the United States (from Yugoslavia), he
had heard of Edison.  I believe he actually looked up to him
as a great person.  AS someone to be like.

This all changed after being employed under Edison.  

Tesla had at one time wondered if the time he spent in college
was wasted.  This was because he noted that Edison had
no college education.  But when he discovered how Edison
did things, he decided his college years were well spent.

Tesla reasoned this way with how Edison solved problems.
If Edison were looking for a needle in a haystack, Edison
would examine every straw until he found the needle.  Tesla,
however, would design some aparatus for sensing the needle
so it wouldn't be necessary to search through every straw.

An example of this is when Edison was looking for something
that would make an acceptable filamint in his light bulbs.
He tried hundreds of things as well as ANYTHING!!!  Even 
had expeditions bring
him back bamboo, etc.  Instead of reasoning out what might
be a good thing to try, he simply tried everything under
the sun.  I believe he finally settled on tungsten?  Not
sure on that though.

Edison only did what he did because he had several people
working under him at all times.  It was a joint effort.
Tesla had NO ONE helping him designing his devices.
Tesla's effect on the world was FAR greater than Edison's.

I would like to know where Kevin Szabo got his information
about Tesla sending Edison's technicians strange devices.
This is new to me and sounds fascinating.  Perhaps some of
these are locked up somewhere.  Please expand Kevin.

Tesla indeed sold his patents to Westinghouse.  Westinghouse
himself wanted to pay Tesla, but the board of directors
overuled.  Tesla wanted his great work to get to the world
in a usable form.  So he decided to lose a fortune to give
the world such technical advances.  Alternating Current as
we use it today is directly attributed to Nikola Tesla.
The inventer of the Alternating Current Motor, Alternating
Current Power Transmitting Systems, and a host of other things.
Had Westinghouse paid Tesla the money promised, we would have
an entirely different method of radio communication and power
transmission.  It would have put us another 50 to 100 years
ahead in these areas.

I never heard (Jim Stekas) of Edison electrocuting an elephant.  I read
of Edison paying kids to round up cats so he could have public
demonstrations of the true dangerousness of Alternating Current
by electrocuting cats in front of crouds of people.  And, at the
same time while Tesla would be at the World Fair, etc. passing
1, 2, or MORE MILLION volts of Alternating Current through his
body while he held a glass bulb containing a metal bar.  The metal
bar would vaporize, but he was unharmed.

Tesla NEVER used any dirty tricks on Edison.  He was too good of
a person.  Edison, however, was a different story.  If Edison
had had his way, our cities would now have DC power plants spaced
out about 1 mile from each other scattered all over the city.
Yep, LOTS of em.  And the people at the end of the DC power line
would have DIM light, while the people nearest the DC POWER plant
would have too bright of lights (bulbs burning out too soon also), etc.
A real mess---but that's what Edison wanted.

Keith Doyle:  If you find out where the elephant eloctrocution
footage is, please tell me.  I sure never heard of this one.
I have a VERY poor opinion of Edison.  And this will seal
my opinion.

Also, for those curious  about Tesla, look in your library.
John J. O'neil wrote Tesla's biography and there are SEVERAL
books about him.  Not to mention a book devoted to showing ALL
of his Patents.  I believe he has over 200 of them.  Some books
are VERY interesting (Margaret Storm wrote another one).  Tesla's
Mother had NOT a photographic memory, but an audiographic one.
That is, anything She heard, she could repeat.  Whether or not
it was in a language she understood or not.  And repeated word
for word, no matter how many words.  She was also an inventer,
which was unusual in Yugoslavia.  Tesla's father was a minister,
who could recite any verse in the entire Bible.  Tesla himself
had a total photographic memory.  Anything he saw, he could
remember and picture it again.  After being burned a number of
times by people, he stopped writing things down.  After all, he
had no need to really.  He used to be followed by secret agents
from both our country and Russia, and ?.  They would pick up
any scrap of paper that he might have written anything on--
when he would go to a restaurant, etc.  Anywhere.  He was no
doubt aware of this.  I have always wondered what he may have
written down (diagrams, or messages, or ?).  Since he no doubt
knew of their presence, I bet he pulled some good tricks on them.

Does anyone know if there any photographs available of Teslas's
experiments in Colorado Springs (I have the Colorado Springs
Notebook---it's in print for those who don't know).  But I want
to see some photographs of the experiments he did to generate
lightning bolts in EXCESS of 100 FEET (yes, FEET).  I've seen
the normal 30 to 40 foot lightning bolt pictures.  I want to
see the HEAVY DUTY photos!!

Another curious bit of information.  Tesla's main technician
still lives in Canada.  He is the one who worked with Tesla
in Colorado Springs during the Transmission of Power Without
Wires experiments and the "Death Ray" experiments.  He knows 
how to build all these things.  But he is passed of as being
crazy and won't show anyone anything anyway.  This is because
he is bitter about how the world treated Tesla.  Besides, can
you imagine how the "Death Ray" device would have been used?
We would have had them on the borders of our country and
spaced throughout the country.  Tesla agreed to build one
for only $2 million dollars for the government.  There was
one catch:  It had to be used as offensive ONLY.  It couldn't
be made mobile.  The government refused to agree---Tesla
refused to build it.  It would have been quite interesting
to see Nuclear war averted by a device that could vaporize
any missile within a 200+ MILE range.  Nuclear war would be
impossible with such a device---at least missiles fired
at us from other countries anyway.  They would be simply
destroyed as soon as they got within the 200 mile range!!

I suspect Tesla could have made Star Trek reality at LEAST
by NOW!!


						Eugene C. Zinter