Talk:Nikola Tesla/Archive 9

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Tesla in Colorado Springs

If I remember right, didn't NT burned out and fixed the power station in Manitou Springs when powering his lab in CS? I believe I read this in one of the more well known NT bios but forgot which one. Please let me know if this is the case.

Recognition and honors

I'm still trying to clean up this section, which has grown a bit awkward. I've already refined artistic categories, moved documentary films from this section to the Further Readings section, and relocated a few works of fiction which were in Further Reading to Recognition and honors. However, I'm not fully satisfied. I can think of two different approaches:

  • Creating a new root section called "Tesla in fiction" and moving the content under literature and Cinema, television and drama to it. Music would remain a subsection of Recognition and honors, since it's not fiction, or is it?
  • Creating a new root section called "Tesla in popular culture" and moving Literature, Music and Cinema, television and drama to it. Recognition and honors would then be limited to scientific or official honors.

Any preference or suggestion? Orphu of Io 15:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It is rather pointless to try to list every occurance of Nikola Telsa in popular culture, as anyone as prominent as Tesla is going to appear in countless ephemera. You might as well try to list every appearance of Albert Einstien in popular culture. Such lists, though popular in Wikipedia, are not at all encyclopedic. They are typically unverified, have no threshold for notability, and are generally formatted as lists of random trivia, none of which are appropriate for an encyclopedia article. This article will be much better off without such a list, as it only serves as a magnet for trivia. Kaldari 00:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the quality of the current content is very unequal. Also, I don't think that listing every weapon called "Tesla something" in a videogame is relevant to the article. Maybe a threshold for notability should indeed be established?
For example, Tesla would have to be a central character or inspiration for a work to be mentionned in the list. More remote connections would be only be evoked through generalization. Finally, items otherwise accessible through the wikipedia search engine should be avoided.
But still, you are right about the "trivia magnet" effet. Even if the section is rewritten according to stricter rules, it will probably eventually grow back to a list of trivia... I think we've effectively reached the limits of the wikipedian model here. Random trivia should ideally be accessible, but via pages automatically generated by search engine queries, not as part of a human-maintained article. Orphu of Io 17:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Another benefit of removing the pop culture section is that it drops the overall article length from 77K to 69K. Any articles over 32K are labelled "LONG" in the Good Article evaluation list (which this article is currently on). Thus 77K would be considered really, really, long :) Kaldari 18:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Someone has added all of the pop-culture trivia back into the article. I'm afraid this article will never be featured article material with so much cruft. Kaldari 05:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
As it seems some people are determined to keep the cruft in the article, I have at least moved it into a separate Trivia section, as it didn't make any sense being in the Recognition and honors section. Kaldari 07:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Why not moving it Nikola Tesla/in pop culture or just leaving it? There are much much longer biographical articles than this one Isaac Newton's had to be divided into several others. Look at Leibniz's article too. There's an entire section devoted to Einstein in popular culture in his article. It's not a big deal. Trivia is popular on wikipedia. We have articles devoted to cartoon episodes and characters and those articles are being kept. 72.144.103.32 16:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
And guess why Leibniz is still rated B-class - it's too long, see the comments page. I think it would be fine to split off the trivia cruft, although I imagine such a subarticle would be deleted before long. Do you really think that the fact that Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released a single called "Tesla Girls" belongs in an encyclopedia article about Tesla? Obviously not. If you want to add cruft like that, start a Telsa fan club with it's own website where you can list every song and toy gun named after Tesla. Kaldari 17:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The whole lot was removed on the 30th so I've grabbed it all and moved it to Nikola Tesla in popular culture - there are a lot of legitimate appearances that do need noting but we do need to make sure it is kept trimmed down. (Emperor 14:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC))

Place of birth

In the time when Tesla was born, the village where he was born belonged to the Military Frontier province of the Austrian Empire. This province was governed directly from Vienna and was not part of what was then Croatia. Area was included in Croatia in 1882 and Tesla was born in 1856, thus I hope that some people here are able to understand this simple historical fact. PANONIAN (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Birth

The proof is in your history book for elementary school. I hope you had one? PANONIAN (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Tesla's work at Niagara Falls and the missing papers

The article contains no mention whatsoever to Tesla's work for generating power from the Niagara Falls. It was a childhood wish that came true for him.

Also, I think Tesla's missing papers should be mentioned more thoroughly. --Jambalaya 10:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit war regarding nationality information in the intro

This edit war is not helpful. Please discuss your positions below and attempt to reach a consensus. If everyone can agree to do that at least, I will lift the protection. Disclaimer: The protection of a page on any particular version is not meant to express support for that version. Kaldari 07:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm tentatively unprotecting, since apparently no one cares any more. If you want to change any information about Tesla's nationality, please discuss it here before editing the article. Kaldari 14:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Admin: Please fix redirect comment (as its protected)

The article says "Tesla" redirects here, but in fact Tesla redirects to the unit Tesla (unit). — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 13:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Tremendous work

Due to my lack of familarity with the scientific nature of Tesla's work, I don't feel comfortable reviewing it for GA. (Especially when it comes to assesment of WP:V and NPOV). However, I will say that I was thoroughly impressed with this article. I felt that the prose flowed well with nothing overtly technical that couldn't be answered with the corresponding wiki-link. After reading the article, I felt more knowledgeable and enriched--which is obviously a nice mark for a very informative piece. Kudos to the article's editors. :) Agne 17:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of good edits have added to the article, but there is way too much nationalistic edit-warring and ethnic boosterism:"world-renowned" "one of the most important inventors in history" "well known" "Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture.""he was widely respected as America's greatest electrical engineer" "many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance" all lack citations, and detract greatly from the quality of the article. If the article had only accolades which came from books, speeches, awards ceremonies, or eulogies, the article woud be greatly improved. He won 2 major awards, and was widely praised at his funeral and in books from major publishers. Find where quotes similar to the ones above can be attributed to scientists and other leaders and the article will improve in quality and have a better chance of becoming a featured article. I think it can be shown that he was extremely important to AC electricity development and high frequency electricity including X-rays, and to radio remote control from 1882 to 1900, after which he drifted off into mad scientist mode, except for his high speed turbine invention around 1906. Eddy Kurentz 17:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

GAC

I evaluated the article based on 7 criteria:

  1. Well-written: Pass
  2. Factually accurate: Pass
  3. Broad: Pass
  4. Neutrally written: Pass
  5. Stable: Pass
  6. Well-referenced: Pass
  7. Images: Pass

Congratualtions, it passes! As opposed to the person above, I feel comfortable reviewing this article precisely because I don't know much about him, other than the technical side. This is a wonderful article, and I heavily encourage the editors involved to try to push it to Featured Article status. --PresN 22:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

If you don't know enough about the subject, how can you tell it's "factually accurate" or "neutrally written"? Have you taken into account the information that is not in the article or what's in the article? --Jambalaya 14:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Tesla discovers X-rays?!

I find it odd that there's not much discussion of one of Tesla's little-known accomplishments: the discovery of x-rays.

Is this timeline correct?

* Tesla mentions discovering a new form of radiation, keeps it secret, but does make photos of bones in his hand
* His research is destroyed when his lab burns down on March 13, 1985
* Roentgen discovers "x-rays" on November 8, 1985
* Tesla makes no claims, but he does send Roentgen a glass photography plate taken from the remains of his burned lab: a photo of human hand w/visible bones
I seriously doubt that Tesla sent Röntgen anything in 1985, as Tesla died in 1945, and Röntgen died in 1923. Perhaps you're referring to the 5th Avenue lab fire of March 1895, instead?  :-) If so, it sounds plausable, but you'd want to find a citation before adding, to avoid the ire of the crowd.  ◉ ghoti 19:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Lol Obviously my typo. I forgot to "save page" after preview. Yes, Roentgen announced the discovery of x-rays in 1895 and not 1985. I've fixed it above. but you'd want to find a citation before adding. More than one Tesla book mentions this issue, in particular "Tesla: Master of Lightning" pp74-75. Also, already the current WP Tesla entry states that Tesla started working with x-rays in 1882 and says that Tesla became aware of them specifically in 1892 (probably in reference to "On light and other high frequency phenomena" lecture at the IEE and Royal Society lecture of 1892.) So the photos recovered from the 1895 fire show that Tesla apparently was making x-ray photographs a half a year before Roentgen at the very least. In other words, Tesla discovered x-ray photography, then sat on the discovery. (This is a common difference between scientists and inventors. Inventors keep secrets. Scientists publish, and they publish fast before others beat them to the punch.) --Wjbeaty 23:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I've un-done the changes to your original post so that folks reading this will have a clue what we're talking about. If you've got these specifics, including titles, page and ISBN numbers, then go ahead, be bold and add the information, with references.  ◉ ghoti 03:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
This topic is probably Original Research. But I'm still thinking. There's a big problem: the book "Prodigal Genius" mentions that in 1892 when Tesla was experimenting with HV single-electrode vacuum tubes, he claimed to have discovered "light, black light, and a very special radiation." The same book says that before the lab fire, Tesla using this "special radiation" to produce shadowgraphs on film contained in metal boxes. And the book "Tesla: Master of Lightning" says that Tesla had made an accidental shadowgraph of a human foot in a high-lace shoe which was recovered from the rubble of the 1895 fire. Yet in his 1897 lecture "On the Streams of Lenard and Roentgen With Novel Apparatus for Their Use," Tesla very definitely stepped aside and let Roentgen have the credit for x-rays. Knowing what we know of Tesla's prior shadowgraphs of human bones, it appears that Tesla was being either polite or dishonest in concealing his own discovery. Polite, in not stealing Roentgen's thunder, and dishonest in not letting the physics community find out the embarassing fact that Tesla had discovered x-rays months (years?) previously, but had kept the discovery hidden from other scientists. --Wjbeaty 05:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
If Tesla did not show any witness his invention, did not apply for a patent, and did not write about it, he could have been accused of fakery if he came forward after he heard of Roentgen's work and said he had invented it first. He had too much class to want to look like a false claimant. Eddy Kurentz 17:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection

I'm trying to decide whether or not to remove the semi-protection on this article. Normally semi-protection should only be used for a short period of time, although exceptions are made for articles that are subject to long-term edit wars or vandalism problems. The semi-protection on this article seems to be doing a good job of reducing the edit-warring that the article was subject to previously. It seems that most of the disruption was coming from IP accounts who were only interested in a pro-Serbain or pro-Croatian POV, and not actually interested in the quality of the article. What do other people think? Is it time to remove the semi-protection or is it serving a useful purpose? Kaldari 17:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I honestly do not understand the debate about Tesla's nationality/ethicity. The man himself has said numerous times that he is a Serb, and he was born in then heavily Serbian populated region known as Vojina Krajna, part of Austrian empire. Croatia as a state did not exist until the rescent dissolution of SFRJ. By comparison, Serbia has had some form of kingdom/state since the early 12th century, and rescent findings push that timeline back three centuries. Granted, Ottoman empire conquered the region during 15th century, which caused Serb populations to dispurse accross the Balkan peninsula. Serbia was recognized as kingdom in late 19th century, and was the driving force behind Turkish defeat during First Balkan War. Given these and numerous other supporting facts (no opinions and no bias), how could anyone argue that Tesla was a Croat?

I don't think most of the people edit warring about Tesla's nationality are necessarily interested in presenting a balanced and historically-accurate account. Kaldari 18:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm unprotecting the article tentatively. Let's hope it can stay that way. Kaldari 16:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm semi-protecting the article again. Sigh. Kaldari 23:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you call him an "Austrian Empire-American" : )

And why is there no notice about the protected status at the top of the article itself?

Request - Filled

Could someone change all occurences of Conductor (material) to Electrical Conductor? on this page? InvertRect 16:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Why not just do it yourself though? In the time it took to type that message you could have done it. Sparkhead 22:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Telsa and alternating current - Wiki dates are wrong

If you look up Alternating Current in Wikipedia, it states that it was "devised by many contributors including Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, Lucien Gaulard, John Gibbs, and Oliver Shallenger from 1881 to 1889."

But if you look up Nikola Tesla in Wikipedia, it states that he "studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria (1875). While there, he studied the uses of alternating current."

How could he have studied the uses of alternating current in 1875, if he was one of the inventors of it years later???

I think its bad wording rather than wrong dates. There is a big difference between alternating current as a theoretical possibility/lab curiosity/future idea and alternating current as a practical means of power transmission. Plugwash 19:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Serbo-Croat vs. Serbian and Croation

Discuss. Kaldari 21:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"Serbo-Croat" or Central-South Slavic is a diasystem (or dialectal continuum). Croatian and Serbian are languages. Afrika Paprika 05:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah Africa, like Illinois and Indiana are two languages. Pure bullshit.Edison 04:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
You're saying he spoke Serbian and Croatian, which implies he spoke two languages. But he spoke the same language with both Serbs and Croats, and it logically follows that Serbian and Croatian are the same language. And I think you'll find that they are considered one language by most non-Croat linguists. One example at random: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/slavonic/staff/ --estavisti 05:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The statement that he spoke two of these languages is PC statement. He spoke Croatian actually as he was born in Croatia and educated in Croatia. The fact Croatian and Serbian are mutually inteligible doesn't mean they are the same language...f.e. Czech and Slovak; Danish, Swedish and Norwegian; Macedonian-Bulgarian, etc. Stating that he spoke some fantasy never existing "Serbo-Croat" language is just false and wrong. Afrika Paprika 21:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Pure bullshit. One language , two slightly different accents. maybe Kentucky and Illinois speak two different languages??Edison 04:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
He was actually born in Military Frontier part of Croatia, which was inhabited by a large Serb majority. Both of his parents were the Serbs. Thus, his native language must be Serbian. It is not logical that members of a Serb family could ever speak Croatian between themselves. ;) And he attended the primary school in Gospić, a town in the Frontier, and thus he spoke Serbian there, too. He could have heard Croatian for the first time only when he went to Karlovac to attend the gymnasium. But he also attended the University of Prague and yet I wouldn't say that he spoke Czech (as a native language). :) --Djordje D. Bozovic 21:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Per Tesla, he was born in the Military Frontier of Austria Hungary, not of Croatia. Croatia (the country) was created much later. Edison 04:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
All Serbs in Croatia are speaking and have spoke Croatian language and Tesla was no exception. Just like most if not all Croats in Serbian speak mainly Serbian language. He also did not attend only elementary school in Gospic but he also went to high school in Karlovac and later came to study in Zagreb from where he later went to Vienna, Budapest, Prague, New York (not nesscesarily in that order of course). Afrika Paprika 21:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, please... I wonder, was the Gorski vijenac that both Tesla and his mother knew by heart in Croatian too? And all the other Serbian folk poems Tesla's mother Djuka knew. And the Serbian folk stories she told him before he went to sleep. Were they in Croatian? And perhaps Tesla's father, who was a Serb Orthodox priest, served in Croatian? No, I'm sure they all actually were pure Croats! Just they didn't know that; there was no you to tell them. :) You see, perhaps Croats in Serbia in deed speak Serbian, but they have to, because they live in a Serb environment. On the other hand, in Lika, during the Tesla's lifetime, Serbs were the majority, and they were speaking Serbian freely, with no Croatian influences, unlike Serb-influenced Croats in Serbia (I believe you know that Military Frontier was NOT part of Hungary like neighbouring Croatia and Dalmatia [which were inhabited by the Croats, and the Frontier was inhabited by the Serbs], but under the direct jurisdiction of Austria). --Djordje D. Bozovic 11:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Surely there must be a reference somewhere for what Tesla's primary language was. Don't any of his biographies mention it? Kaldari 18:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

So in order to tell someone Serbian folk stories you must tell them in Serbian? LOL. That is really ridiculous right there. And btw. 'Military Frontier' was still part of Hungary(and Croatia) althogh it was under direct command of the army and the court as a buffer zone. Serbs were a minority btw. in the Slavonian and Croatian Military Frontier...substantial minority but a minority nonetheless. Afrika Paprika 20:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
No, it was not part of Hungary. It was under the direct jurisdiction of Austrian court. In Lika Serbs were the majority. Can you provide some references for your claims? --Djordje D. Bozovic 20:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
No, it was part of Croatia. Banatian Frontier was part of Hungary. And exactly, it was under the direct jurisdiction of the Austrian court and the King/Emperor. Nominally it was still and it never ceased to be part of Croatian kingdom. In Lika Serbs were a relative majority. For example in 1910. there were 104 000 Serbs and 100 000 Croats....what "huge majority". If we look at data of the whole Croatian and Slavonian Frontier(the one which is today part of Croatia) Croats were majority. Afrika Paprika 15:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Academic historian Sima Ćirković: "Teritorija Vojne granice bila je izuzeta ispod vlasti bana i Hrvatskog sabora. Teritorija Hrvatske, koju su suvremenici nazivali 'ostaci ostatka Hrvatskog kraljevstva' bila je na taj način još jednom okrnjena." (The territory of Military Frontier was not under the jurisdiction of the Ban and the Croatian Parliament. Thus, the territory of Croatia, which was called 'the remnant of the remnants of Croatian Kingdom' by the people of that time, was once again shortened.) So? :) --Djordje D. Bozovic 14:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Here is Tesla's father biography, with a statement that Milutin Tesla wanted to open a Serbian-language high school in Gospic (I don't know why, perhaps because he was speaking Croatian, like all the other Serbs in Croatia? :)). Then you have ...Ivo Andrić, the famous Nobel laureate in literature who wrote in Serbian, or Nikola Tesla... at [1]. This site says: Other than in mother tongue Serbian, Tesla was fluent in six other languages. But I couldn't find anything other than this. :( It seems that Nikola Tesla had no mother tongue at all! And that ends our discussion - the problem is solved! ;) However, here you can find this: He spoke five languages fluently, but English was

his mother tongue. :D lol! Now what can one say? --Djordje D. Bozovic 23:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, why should anyone point out that Serbian was Tesla's native language? It is quite enough just to say that he was a Serb, and it is logical that a Serb would speak Serbian, isn't it? His mother was singing Serbian epic poems (her family, as Tesla once stated himself, was one of the oldest Serbian families, having roots in the Middle Ages). His father was a Serb priest. There is no way that he could hear them two speaking Croatian, really. :) Don't be ridiculous! --Djordje D. Bozovic 23:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
But why don't we pick up a sentence written by Tesla himslef in his native language and analize it? Is there anything like that? --Djordje D. Bozovic 23:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems most of his published writing was in English. Kaldari 07:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Serbo-Croat is one language otherwise i could say that i can speak english, american, australian .... tiny differnces dont make two completely different languages, although the croatians now are changing the words in their languages to make it different to seperate themselves from serbs. to argue which language (croatian or serb) he spoke is stupid. his native tongue is Serbo-Croatian Дaнко

Actually, the speakers' preference is what makes the languages different. Have you ever heard of this saying: A language is a dialect with an army and navy. True, isn't it? --Djordje D. Bozovic 22:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The two {{fact}}s

Both quotations can be found in Margaret Cheney's biography of Tesla. So it can be used as a source. Somebody please source it when this page becomes unlocked. Horvat Den 22:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The Cheney book is a reliable source, even if there are mistakes in it, so if something has it as a a source, it is fine to cite it in the article and remove the 'fact' tag. If a different book says otherwise, then the article can be kept neutral by citing that as well. Eddy Kurentz 17:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Brother's Story

It's been a while since I've read Tesla's Bio, but I believe I read his younger brother fell down the cellar stairs horsing around or some cellar stairs involved accident- age five seems young to have had a horse riding accident, usually children this young would be supervised by adults. I'll try to find where I read this and get back.

Tesla had an older brother Dane, who died in a horse riding accident at the age of 22, in the time when Tesla was five. --Djordje D. Bozovic 16:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Birthplace

Why does it link to Croatian Krajina, a very poor stub, instead to the rich Military Frontier article? Also, the seperation on "Croatian" and "Slavonian" was by-gone abandoned (simply on districts) by the time Tesla was born... I have no idea who changed the link to "Croatian Krajina", as it seems like trying to present a POV, at the cost of a very good article. --PaxEquilibrium 16:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Tesla Invented the Radio, not Marconi

I have read that Nikola Tesla was given the credit for inventing the Radio. The invention was credited to Tesla in 1942. Why do people still say Marconi invented the Radio today?

Was the credit of 1942 taken back and given back to Marconi?


Jagoda 1 03:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

"Inventing radio" is a pretty meaningless phrase. See Nathan Stubblefield, who transmitted voice messages in 1892. Marconi used electromagnetic waves to send telegraph signals to great distances, like across the Atlantic Ocean, and his company put wireless units on many ships. Tesla did not. Such is fame. Edison 04:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

`````````````

As far as i know Tesla invented a fair few things he never got credit for. Mr Edison and Mr Marconi got that credit and not Tesla. However that changed in 1942 when a court ruled that Tesla invented the radio and not Marconi. Today it has also come to light that Edison also ripped off many ideas and some were from Tesla.

Truth comes out.

As for Nathan Subblefield, never heard of him but looks like he fell by the way side just like Tesla did.

We need to write the wrong...Jagoda 1 05:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Marconi stations were the first to be set up to allow communication between navy ships, merchant vessels, and shore stations, as well as allowing ship to ship communication. Tesla did very early experiments in the technology, as did his predecessor Hertz and others, such as Lodge, but he did not put a system into practice which had any practical use. He took out a very general patent which did not give details for a practical radio system. By 1942 it had long since expired. Eddy Kurentz 17:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)