Facts you don't know about Nicholas tesla

                             

Nikola Tesla was an electrical engineer, inventor and one of the most outstanding physicists in the history of science. But beyond his brilliant work, some aspects of his life remain unspoken in the pages of history.

Tesla registered more than 300 patents and became famous for developing AC (alternating current), while his work became the basis of developments in wireless communications, radar, laser X rays, lighting, robotics, and many other areas.

Here is a list of interesting facts you probably never knew about the guy. The information below comes from interviews with W. Bernard Carlson, author of “Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age,” and Marc Seifer, author of “Wizard: Life and Times of Nicola Tesla.”

1. He Was Born During a Lightning Storm

Nikola Tesla was born approximately at midnight, between July 9 and July 10, 1856, during a lightning storm. During Tesla birth, and according to the story told by his family, the midwife wrung her hands and declared the lightning a bad omen. “This child will be a child of darkness”, she reportedly said, to which Tesla’s mother replied: “No. He will be a child of light.”

2. He Was Amusing Person

Most people have no idea that Tesla had an extraordinary sense of humor, Seifer said. For example, after dining with writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, he wrote this in a correspondence to a close friend:

April 1, 1901

My dear Mrs. Johnson,

What is the matter with inkspiller Kipling? He actually dared to invite me to dine in an obscure hotel where I would be sure to get hair and cockroaches in the soup.

Yours truly,

N. Tesla

3. The Tesla Museum was funded by a cartoon

In May, the Wardenclyffe was purchased by the Tesla Science Center for $ 1,370,000 donated by the websiteIndieGoGo. The campaign was started by Matthew Inman, creator of the popular comic Oatmeal.

4. Some of Tesla’s inventions are classified

When Tesla died in the year of 1943, the Office of Alien Property took his stuff. Most of his things were given to his family, and many were taken to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade. However, some documents still remain classified by the U.S. Government.

5. He and Edison were rivals, but not sworn enemies

Many have pictured Tesla and inventor Thomas Edison as enemies (see it shows in Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison: Epic Rap Battles and 10 Ways Edison Treated Tesla Like a Jerk,) but Carlson says this relationship has been misrepresented. Early in his career, Tesla worked for Edison, designing direct current generators, but famously quit to pursue his own project: the alternating current induction motor. Sure, they were on different sides of the so-called “Current Wars,” with Edison pushing for direct current and Tesla for alternating current. But Carlson considers them the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of their time: one the brilliant marketer and businessman, and the other a visionary and “tech guy.”

6. Tesla was an environmentalist

As Alcorn said, Tesla was “worried about the fact that people consume the Earth’s resources too fast, so he wanted to make sure that these resources were renewable“. Thus he studied the ways to gather the natural energy from the ground and air. He created artificial lightning in his lab and detected differences in electrical potential on Earth and on high objects.

7. He had the Idea for Smartphone Technology in 1901

Tesla may have had a brilliant mind, but he was not as good at reducing his ideas to practice, Carlson said. In the race to develop transatlantic radio, Tesla described to his funder and business partner, J.P. Morgan, a new means of instant communication that involved gathering stock quotes and telegram messages, funneling them to his laboratory, where he would encode them and assign them each a new frequency. That frequency would be broadcast to a device that would fit in your hand, he explained. In other words, Tesla had envisioned the smart phone and wireless internet, Carlson said, adding that of all of his ideas, that was the one that stopped him in his tracks.

This Tesla coil snuffed out the power in Colorado Springs when this photo was taken. Photo by Dickenson V. Alley, photographer at the Century Magazines via Wikimedia Commons.

“He was the first to be thinking about the information revolution in the sense of delivering information for each individual user,” Carlson said.

He also conceived of, but never developed technology for radar, X-rays, a particle beam “death ray” and radio astronomy.

8. Tesla died living as a very poor humanist

In addition to being an environmentalist, the famous inventor was also a humanist. According to Alcorn, “he did what he did for the sake of the betterment of mankind and wanted to give people an opportunity to have a better quality of life. Thus, he never seemed to care about monetary gain and never had enough money for his research.”

Although he had famous friends such as Mark Twain and French actress Sarah Bernhardt, he was never a wealthy man, unlike Edison and Westinghouse who proved much more successful entrepreneurs.

He was an accomplished pool player who liked to hustle, even for tiny amounts of money. At the height of his fame, when he was dining at Delmonico’s every night, he regularly bilked players out of a few quarters each—about $15 in today’s money.

9. He scared the sh*t out of Mark Twain’

One famous legend surrounding the eccentric Tesla was that he had an earthquake machine in his Manhattan laboratory that shook his building and nearly brought down the neighborhood during experiments.

Tesla’s device wasn’t actually an earthquake machine, Carlson said, but a high frequency oscillator. A piston set underneath a platform in the laboratory shook violently as it moved another experiment in more efficient electricity.

It didn’t bring the block to ruins, Carlson said, but it did “shake the poop out of Mark Twain.” Twain was known for having digestive problems. One day Tesla, who knew Twain through their gentlemen’s club, invited him over. He instructed Twain to stand on the platform while he flipped on the oscillator. After about 90 seconds, Twain jumped off the platform and ran for the facilities.

10. He had famous friends

People aren’t aware that he was close friends with conservationist John Muir, Seifer said. Muir, one of the founders of the Sierra Club, loved that Tesla’s hydroelectric power system was a clean energy system. It runs on waterfalls, which Tesla referred to as “running on the wheelwork of nature.” Also among his friends: financiers Henry Clay Frick and Thomas Fortune Ryan. “He lived in the Waldorf Astoria, at the height of the gilded age,” Seifer said, adding that his fame later in life lessened.

11. Tesla suffered from insomnia and obsessive compulsive behaviors (OCD)

He claimed that he needed only two hours of sleep a night, although he occasionally took an afternoon nap. Tesla hated round objects and jewelry, and could not bear to touch hair. Also he was obsessed with the number 3 and had a habit of polishing each point of the dining room before dining, using precisely 18 napkins.

12. Pearls drove him crazy

Tesla could not stand the sight of pearls, to the extent that he refused to speak to women wearing them. When his secretary wore pearl jewelry, he sent her home for the day. No one knows why he had such an aversion, but Tesla had a very particular sense of style and aesthetics, Carlson said, and believed that in order to be successful, one needed to look successful. He wore white gloves to dinner every night and prided himself on being a “dapper dresser.”

Every photograph of Tesla, he said, is very carefully constructed to capture his “good side.”

13. He had a photographic memory and a fear of germs

Tesla had what’s known as a photographic memory. He was known to memorize books and images and stockpile visions for inventions in his head. He also had a powerful imagination and the ability to visualize in three dimensions, which he reportedly used to control the terrifying vivid nightmares from which he suffered from as a child. It’s in part what makes him such a mystical and eccentric character in popular culture, Carlson said. He was also known for having excessive hygiene habits, born out of a near-fatal bout of cholera as a teenager.

14. Tesla built a tower intending to suck electricity out of the air

He built a 185-foot tower on Long Island, planning to suck electricity out of the air and send it through the earth. Sadly for humanity: it did not work. In 1917, the tower was torn down. Somebody blamed the government, who allegedly blamed the Germans who were supposedly using it as a spy tower. This all appears to have been a cover: Tesla was broke and his debtors wanted to salvage what they could from the wreckage.

Source; www.exposingtruth.com/

Facts about John Nash

1. Nash was an introverted individualist as a child

Long before John Nash exhibited any interest in mathematics, he already had certain unique features that, one might argue, predicted his success in later life. His sister Martha remembered her brother being a unique and introverted child:

Johnny was always different. [My parents] knew he was different. And they knew he was bright. He always wanted to do things his way. Mother insisted I do things for him, that I include him in my friendships. … but I wasn’t too keen on showing off my somewhat odd brother.

2. One of Nash’s inspirations — E.T. Bell’s Men of Mathematics

When Nash was 14 years old he showed first signs of passion for mathematics. One of the biggest inspirations was E.T. Bell’s classic book titled The Men of Mathematics, which tells the story of some of the greatest mathematicians throughout history. The book is also famous for inspiring another great future mathematician — Freeman Dyson.

3. Nash’s first passion was chemistry 

Before finding one’s way as a mathematician, Nash had a profound interest in chemistry. In 1941 he entered Bluefield College, where he enjoyed studying science subjects, especially chemistry. This passion interestingly lead to another eccentric hobby — practical jokes.

4. Nash was a renowned prankster

John Nash’s way of letting his steam off was pranking other people. It appears that the aspiring mathematician had a special talent for coming up with unique ways of tricking people. He is famous for using his chemistry knowledge to make explosives or tying his sister to a chair wired with batteries.

5. Nash used to have long discussions with Einstein

While studying in Princeton, Nash had many opportunities to meet renowned aspiring mathematicians and physicists. There he also became interested in tensors and general relativity. He even had a chance to meet Albert Einstein himself and to discuss his ideas regarding gravity.

6. Nash met his future wife Alicia in an advanced calculus for engineers class

Alicia, besides being  renowned for her talents in mathematics, was a cosmopolitan coming from an aristocratic family, which spoke French and English as well as Spanish, often traveled abroad and valued intellectual prowess as well as art. Nash found these features very appealing and later wrote: She was one of the few girls that attracted my attention.

7. Nash was a bit of a legend in Princeton

Despite his mental problems Nash was allowed to come back to work in Princeton, where he became a bit of a local legend. He would wander around the campus with his red sneakers, write mysterious equations on blackboards and was liked by many students.

8. Nash credits logical thinking for his recovery

John Nash quit taking anti-psychotic medication in the early 1970s. Despite this, however, he was able to make an impressive recovery, especially in the early 90s, when he received the Nobel prize in economic sciences. Nash himself often said that his recovery was due to the ever-going struggle between his logical mind and delusional thinking in which clear thinking came on top.

9. Even at an old age Nash preserved his intellectual abilities and curiosity 

Despite long years of mental illness, Nash always expressed his wish to come back to mathematical research. Among his beloved topics of game theory and economics, he also expressed great interest in cosmology and gravitation.

                                        

10. John and Alicia remarried in 2001

Despite many ups and downs in their relationship and Nash’s mental health, John and Alicia always stayed close. Due to relationship problems they got divorced in 1963, but later in the early 70s Nash lived in Alicia’s house as a boarder, where she took great care of him. According to Nash, his wife’s care and love was another major factor in his recent recovery.

Source: physicsdatabase.com

Everything you need to know about Alan Turing

An English mathematician, logician and cryptographer, Alan Turing was responsible for breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II. His work gave the Allies the edge they needed to win the war in Europe, and led to the creation of the computer. On the PBS NewsHour tonight, Jeffrey Brown interviews Benedict Cumberbatch about his role as Turing in “The Imitation Game.”

Turing took his own life in 1954, two years after being outed as gay. Homosexuality was still a crime in Great Britain at the time, and Turing was convicted of “indecency.” He died from eating an apple laced with cyanide. He was only 41 years old.

At the time of his death, the public had no idea what he had contributed to the war effort. Sixty years later, Queen Elizabeth II officially pardoned Turing.

Andrew Hodges, a mathematician at the Mathematical Institute at Oxford University, wrote the biography “Alan Turing: The Enigma”, which inspired the film. We spoke with Hodges this week about some things many people don’t know about Turing.

Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

1. He was an Olympic-level runner

He participated in a few sports, such as rowing, but he loved running. Turing had “a bit of a ‘smelly trainers’ aspect” to his personality,” Hodges said. To work it into his day, he often ran to the places he needed to go. He used to run the 10 miles between the two places where he did most of his work, the National Physical Laboratory and the electronics building on Dollis Hill, beating colleagues who took public transportation to the office.

He joined running clubs, becoming a competitive amateur and winning several races. In 1948, his best marathon time was 2 hours 46 minutes 3 seconds — only 11 minutes slower than the Olympic winning time that year.

When one of his running club members asked why he trained so vehemently, he replied, “I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard.”

2. He embodied some values of the Hippie movement

“He was a hippie before his time,” Hodges said. “He was very casual in those days, and thought very scruffy.” Had he lived a few decades later, he would have worn t-shirts and jeans every day, Hodges added.

It wasn’t uncommon to see Turing dressed rather shabbily, with bitten nails and without a tie, he said. With his youthful face, he was often mistaken for an undergraduate even in his 30s.

He also shared the left-leaning views of many of his Kings College compatriots, who included economists John Maynard Keynes and Arthur Cecil Pigou. Though Turing joined the Anti-War Movement in 1933, he never got deeply involved in politics. But watching Hitler’s rise to power in the late 1930s scared him, Hodges said, and it spurred his interest in cryptography, which would later help Great Britain in the war.

3. He got bad grades and frustrated his teachers

Science was a considered a second-class pursuit in English public schools in the 1920s, Hodges said. Turing’s passion for science embarrassed his mother, who had hoped he would study the classics, which was the most acceptable pursuit for gentlemen.

But he got bad to mediocre grades in school, followed by many complaints from his teachers. His English teacher wrote:

“I can forgive his writing, though it is the worst I have ever seen, and I try to view tolerantly his unswerving inexactitude and slipshod, dirty, work, inconsistent though such inexactitude is in a utilitarian; but I cannot forgive the stupidity of his attitude towards sane discussion on the New Testament.”

His math and science grades weren’t much better. He was nearly stopped from taking the national School Certificate exams on the subject, for fear he would fail.

4. The father of the computer also dabbled in physics, biology, chemistry and neurology

Turing’s most notable work today is as a computer scientist. In 1936, he developed the idea for the Universal Turing Machine, the basis for the first computer. And he developed a test for artificial intelligence in 1950, which is still used today.

But he also studied physics, especially as a young man. He read Einstein’s theory of relativity as a teenager, and immediately filled a notebook with his own thoughts and ideas on the subject. He dabbled in quantum mechanics, a new field at the time, as well as biology, chemistry and neurology after the war. Much of this work was related to creating machines that could learn and “think”, but some of it came out of simple curiosity about the world.

5. He developed a new field of biology out of his fascination with daisies

Even as a child, Turing saw life through the eyes of a scientist, Hodges said. There is a famous sketch of Turing as a boy “watching the daisies grow” while the other children play field hockey. That sketch would foreshadow Turing’s ground-breaking work in 1952 on morphogenesis, which became a completely new field of mathematical biology. It was a mathematical explanation of how things grow — a great mystery to science, Hodges explained. His work on the subject has been cited more than 8,000 times.

The subject of one of his seminal papers on the topic was called “Outline of the Development of the Daisy."

6. He stuttered when talking

It is true that he had a bit of a stammer, something dramatic portrayals of Turing have exaggerated, Hodges said. He “took his time finding the right words,” he explained. In his biography he notes that a BBC radio producer had called Turing a very difficult person to interview for that reason.

7. He didn’t keep his sexuality a secret among friends

The laws at the time prevented Turing from being openly gay, but he never kept his sexuality secret either. He was open with his social circles at Kings College in Cambridge, which was “an oasis of acceptance” at the time, Hodges said. Many people would have clung to that oasis, he said, but Turing branched out to continue his work.

In 1952, he was arrested and charged with “indecency” after a brief relationship with another man. Defiant, he did not deny the charges.

“When he was arrested, the first thing he said was he thought that this shouldn’t be against the law,” Hodges said. “He gave a statement that was unapologetic, that detailed what had happened.”

8. He refused to let a punishment of chemical castration stop him from working

The punishment for homosexuality was chemical castration, a series of hormone injections that left Turing impotent. It also caused gynecomastia, giving him breasts. But Turing refused to let the treatment sway him from his work, keeping up his lively spirit.

“He dealt with it with as much humor and defiance as you could muster,” Hodges said. “To his close friends, it was obvious it was traumatic. But in no way did he just succumb and decline. He really fought back … by insisting on continuing work as if nothing had happened.”

He openly talked about the trial, even in the “macho environment” of the computer lab. He mocked the law’s absurdity. In defiance, he traveled abroad to Norway and the Mediterranean, where the gay rights movements were budding.

Homosexuality was considered a security risk at the time, and the conviction cost Turing his security clearance. That was a harsh blow, and Hodges believes that when he was restricted from leaving the country anymore, it ultimately led Turing to suicide.

“After he’d been revealed as gay in 1952, he couldn’t do any more secret work,” Hodges said. “It would have been hard to accept that he was not trusted.”

Source; pbs.org