39 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
39 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
||
|
|
NIKOLA TESLA
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
(1856 - 1943)
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
______________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
"Called a madman by someone, a genius by others, and an enigma by
|
||
|
|
nearly everyone, Nikola Tesla was possibly the greatest inventor the
|
||
|
|
world has ever known. He was, without doubt, a trail blazer who
|
||
|
|
created astonishing, sometimes world-transforming, devices that often
|
||
|
|
were virtually without theoretical precedent. It was Tesla who
|
||
|
|
introduced us to the fundamentals of robotry, computers, and missile
|
||
|
|
science and helped pave the way for such space-age technologies as
|
||
|
|
satellites, microwaves, beam weapons, and nuclear fusion. Yet, Tesla
|
||
|
|
still remains one of the least recognized scientific pioneers in
|
||
|
|
history.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Certainly he was one of the strangest of scientists-almost
|
||
|
|
supernaturally gifted, erratic, flamboyant, and neurotic nearly to the
|
||
|
|
point of madness. A dandy and popular man-about-town, he was admired
|
||
|
|
by man as diverse as George Westinghouse and Mark Twain and adored by
|
||
|
|
scores of society beauties. Yet his bewildering of compulsions and
|
||
|
|
phobias extended from such mundane subject as food and clean linen to
|
||
|
|
pearls and women's ears. He was fond of creating
|
||
|
|
neighborhood-threatening electrical storms in his apartment laboratory
|
||
|
|
and once nearly knocked down a tall building by attaching a mysterious
|
||
|
|
"black box" to its side. (He claimed he could have destroyed the
|
||
|
|
entire planet with a similar device.) And because he kept so few
|
||
|
|
notes, to this day we can only guess at the details of many of the
|
||
|
|
fantastic scientific projects that occupied his fevered intellect."
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Adapted from the: "Man out of time" by Margaret Cheney
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
______________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
lpv@umiacs.umd.edu
|
||
|
|
|