Complex Numbers

Mad Scientist

There's a reason that the "mad scientist" archetype exists.

Nikola Tesla: The extraordinary life of a modern Prometheus  

This article is from last August, and it speaks of a biographical movie about Tesla -- one which, apart from this article, I've heard nothing about. But long ago, I read a few books about him, and so I sometimes forget that many people only know the name because of Elon Musk or, sometimes, a mediocre band.

The opening of a new biopic of Tesla provides a timely opportunity to review the life of a man who came from nowhere yet became world famous; claimed to be devoted solely to discovery but relished the role of a showman; attracted the attention of many women but never married; and generated ideas that transformed daily life and created multiple fortunes but died nearly penniless.

That's a decent enough summary, I suppose. Read the article for details; I'm not going to paste a lot of it here. As a bonus, there are some awesome pictures.

Essentially, without Tesla, life today might have been very, very different. Oh, sure, most of his inventions would have been created by someone else eventually; such is the nature of inventions. But every once in a while, a whole lot of genius is concentrated in a single person. Everyone is familiar with Einstein and Newton; Tesla's main rival, Edison, mostly just had a big team and competent public relations. (Ironically, Elon Musk himself is more of an Edison than a Tesla)

Also, as you'll see, Tesla was the very definition of "eccentric," which I'm sure didn't help much in the publicity department.

His money long gone, Tesla spent his later years moving from place to place, leaving behind unpaid bills. Eventually, he settled in at a New York hotel, where his rent was paid by Westinghouse.

Amusing thing about that hotel: it's still around. Well, it's a hotel again, anyway; for a while there it was some cult headquarters or something, but now it's once again the New Yorker hotel, and it's located not far from Penn Station, in midtown Manhattan.

I stayed there once on a trip to New York, and while I didn't get Tesla's room (I didn't want to be That Guy), I made a pilgrimage to the floor it was on and stood outside the door.

Sadly, I didn't feel a spark.

Fortunately, these days, thanks to a few movies and such (one of which, The Prestige, had him portrayed by none other than David Bowie), more people know about Nikola Tesla, but I'm leaving this here just in case. The article is short, and really just hits the highlights.

Maybe I'll see if I can track down the biopic mentioned in the article.