From the Big Brothel in the Sky

[kandrathe]

Hi,
Definitely tossing money down a hole. Tesla was a genius, that cannot be denied. He was also ignorant of many of the underlying principles on which he based his gut feel inventions and theories. He was the extreme of a type we all know, the person who will accept an idea most rapidly and most devoutly the more outré it is.

Many of Tesla's claims have been busted in the years since he made them (at least one even on Mythbusters). And nothing in his writings even indicates that he understood non-Euclidean geometry well enough to be able to begin to understand Einstein's work in that field.

Perhaps the best way of expressing Tesla's nature is that if they ever make a film of his life, Michael Keaton should play Tesla (think Night Shift).;)

--Pete

PS No, I do not dislike Tesla. In many ways I admire him. But the adulation he receives is usually inversely proportional to the adulator's (?) knowledge of science and Tesla's life.

I too admire him, and in fact I think he was smarter and a "better" inventor than Edison. But, when I read Tesla's criticism of Einstein's theories he comes across as a person who really didn't understand them. He was ahead of his time, and he even seemed to be ahead of his own understanding with some of his "particle beam" research.

P.S. I really do admire his auto.