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I am reading a pre-release of Ravé Mehta’s graphic novel with my son as our bedtime book, and it is much more engaging than the biographies we read in the past that were adapted from various grad student theses.

“Tesla’s true story is more surreal than any fictional account I’ve seen of him” — Ravé in WIRED

Here is Chapter One of the book. It should be available by Halloween.

And if you have not heard of Nikola Tesla, the Oatmeal has a cheeky comic strip that lays it all out, with a bit of poetic license.

One of his many accomplishments is the AC induction motor, the technology that makes the Tesla car perform as it does, with no permanent magnets and no Rare Earth minerals. (hence the visual pun – Tesla is the key)

And if you are a fan, you can donate to the effort to preserve Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Lab as a Tesla Museum. It’s getting close!

“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.” — Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

7 responses to “The Inventor – Nikola Tesla”

  1. I spied Elon Musk’s Tesla Coil recently

    Elon's Tesla Coil

    Elon donated to the museum too: "He is a hero of mine."

    And some images from The Inventor biocomic… Tesla arrives in America:

    Edison electrocutes an elephant in a public marketing campaign against Tesla’s AC power

    Edison was so competitive with Tesla (partnered with Westinghouse at the time) that he arranged for the electric chair to use AC power for electrocutions, conveying the marketing message that AC is lethal (versus the DC power systems that Edison sold). Edison’s lab “Westinghoused” 24 dogs purchased from local children for 25 cents apiece before moving to larger animals, and then a human criminal.

    Redemption song

    On his deathbed, Edison volunteered that his biggest mistake was trying to develop DC instead of the vastly superior AC system that his former employee, Nikola Tesla, had put within his grasp.

  2. This is so great!!! Yes, the future is ours!!!! He was probably always right:)

  3. Edison the SHOWMAN was always playing the PR for the press, might say he was the ROCK star of the 80’s..the 1880’s, people and press would come to MENLO PARK by train and just GAWK at him and hung on his every word.sadly when he moved to WEST ORANGE the Invention Factory in Melno Park was left to rot and be looted, and this monster was built in it;’s place ………………..

    http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/

    Paul Israel is doing a bang up job of investigatng the Edison Papers and printing them for modern times…….

    I Actually touched the broken glass bulbs shards they threw away in trash at the MP lab when they did a dig a few years back……..Very Moving.

  4. From what you have seen and read, what you think of Edison? When I grew up, we were given the grade-school revisionist history version. It was only when I read Tesla biographies that I even heard about this other side of Edison…

  5. From growing up in the area and from grade school to currnent times, I was taught he was a inventor yes, but also a person who thrived on public adoration and approval THE MOST MAJOR accomplishement of his was the INVENTION of the INVENTION FACTORY (HUH??) where people we brought together and ideas pooled and then created by Batchlor and others from his(andothers) designs and concepts. It was a cut-throat times back then, ideas stolen and copied without any credits given, and when TAE left MENLO his ithrust switched from being a inventor to being inventor/businessman…To walk the areas of Menlo Park now and just imagine the solice and isolation it provided him(was failed housing development located near a rail station) to concentrate on the inventions there was the main reason for being there…………He also challenged TESLA for inventing a better power distribution system and offered money to him only to reneg when Tesla did………So I say history has a way of embellishing the accomplishements of the victors and leaving the ones who really contributed by the wayside………….

  6. yet, don’t they use DC in data centers? 48v or something? although this is for different reasons. long distance, you do want AC, I believe.

  7. exactly.

    P.S. if you donate, you can get a cool bumper sticker =)
    Tesla > Edison Bumper sticker

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