Originally from Serbia, Nicola Tesla would emigrate to the US late in the XIX century, looking to take part in the upcoming scientific and technological revolution. And he did… even thought he wasn’t rewarded for it, neither financially nor symbolically. To this day, Tesla remains one of the greatest misunderstood geniuses in history. Even though he was literally responsible for almost seven hundred patents that would lay the ground for many modern technologies, to this day Tesla doesn’t get proper recognition.
Why was Tesla so awfully misunderstood?
Simply put, because he was well ahead of his time… centuries ahead, even. As literally as if he had somehow come from the future. If someone truly deserves being referred to as a true visionary, Tesla is such a man.
Regardless of the fact, he was unfortunate to get tangled up with some people who despite being known as scientists were more akin to politicians – such as Thomas Edison. Soon after arriving to America, Tesla approached Edison hoping he would understand his vision of Alternating Current. Edison quickly realized that Tesla’s concept was superior to his own vision of Direct Current, so rather than acting like a proper scientist would and embrace the innovative ideas offered by the Serbian inventor, Edison acted like a politician and started to actively ruin Tesla’s reputation, hoping that common people would not lend him any credibility. And in some ways, he did succeed.
Was Tesla really a crazy scientist?
As much as many influent people wanted to pass Tesla as some kind of crazy inventor, truth of the matter was that Tesla was a man of superior genius. If anything, he failed in just one thing: being able to convey his ideas clearly and efficiently, in a way that people could digest. In modern terms, it could be argued that Tesla merely lacked a skilled PR crew that would help him shape his public addresses more effectively. Since he wasn’t so good at bridging the gap between high scientific thought and common reasoning, his public addresses often made him come across as somewhat of an eccentric. People just couldn’t grasp there was much truth in his ideas for a brighter and technologically advanced future.
What kind of things did Nicola Tesla used to say?
He usually proposed seemingly outrageous claims and sometimes would lean towards exaggeration, which simultaneously awed, scared and offended the general populace. Tesla would often make speeches along the lines of:
“We must be able to transmit things from other places over long distances… pictures, the news, energy… why not matter too? We must liberate thought from its limitations imposed by space and time, and yet keep its characteristics. This will be possible in the next decades or centuries.”
Even though he still doesn’t get much credit over it, truth of the matter is that without the work of Tesla and his supreme mental abilities, we probably wouldn’t have modern technologies such as the X-ray machine, the radio, fluorescent lights, and even the Internet, of which he was one of the earlies visionaries. In fact, if you read the quotation above in the right light, you’ll soon realize that his vision of a global communication system that would transcend the boundaries of space and time, is now much closer to reality than people ever thought possible.
Such is the legacy of Nicola Tesla and his inventions, who was quite probably the greatest underdog genius of the modern age.
