...by Nikola Tesla. I haven't thought about this man since my college Physics courses. Now he seems to be popping up a lot. First, it was with The Prestige via Netflix last weekend. Next, it was a demonstration of wireless power.
The thought of wireless power is an amazing one. Really. If you haven't already watched the video at the link above, go and do it right now. It's much more interesting than my blog.
The ability to dramatically reduce the amount of wires and batteries we use in everyday life would create a lot of freedom.
Tesla does seem to be popping up more and more. A few months ago there was a series of lunchtime presentations (which unfortunately I couldn't attend) about Tesla at my work. He's an interesting guy who was tremendously important to our modern electrified world, but he's pretty much completely overshadowed by Edison... which might be because and Edison was pretty ruthless.
ReplyDeleteEdison was involved in the development of the electric chair and decided that it should use AC since that would cast negative connotations on the AC power transmission systems being proposed by Westinghouse/Tesla. He went around giving public demonstrations in which he killed animals using AC.
I meant to mention this in my 1st comment...
ReplyDeleteThe idea of wireless power transmission is pretty cool, but there's a part of me that wonders about the health effects of all the EM radiation that we're exposed to today. People used to drink mercury as a tonic for all sorts of ailments, and now we know that mercury is actually highly toxic. It seems like in 50 years people might look back at us with our cell phones and wireless routers and say "How could they have possibly thought that all this high-frequency EM radiation was OK?"
Don't get me wrong, I'm not walking around with a tin foil hat - I have a cell phone and WiFi, I just wonder about the consequences.
I have the same sorts of thoughts/feelings about health effects as well. History has taught us that inventors and scientists generally think very little about the health effects of their work. Many have risked their very lives to broaden the scientific/technologic horizon.
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