•  


Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived - The Oatmeal

Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived

An ode to the father of the electric age.

Additional Notes:

  • If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time
  • Also, this Badass of the week by Ben Thompson is what originally inspired me to write a comic about Tesla. Ben's also got a book out which is packed full of awesome.
  • There's an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla . It's corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life.
  • The drunk history of Tesla is quite awesome, too.
  • History.com has a great article about Edison and how his douchebaggery had a chokehold on American cinema.
  • X-rays: just to clarify, Tesla did not discover x-rays, but he was one of the early pioneers in its research.
  • Cryogenic engineering: I'm referring to the cryogenic engineering that has to do with using liquified air to cool a coil and reduce its electrical resistance (Patent No. 11,865) , not freezing people and waking them up in the future so they can fight Wesley Snipes.
  • Transistor: Tesla's influence on the modern transistor can be found in patents 723,188 and 725,605. ( a better explanation here )
  • Radio: Tesla was the nicest geek ever until he decided to sue Marconi a few years later. 8 months after Tesla died, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patents on the invention of radio. So Tesla eventually won that battle, although he was dead by then.
  • Tesla VS Edison: I could write a novel on the differences between Tesla and Edison, but seeing as how this comic is already huge I decided to leave many things out. For instance, Edison killed cats and dogs, but Tesla loved animals and had a cat as a child. Originally Tesla wanted to be a poet, but after getting zapped by static electricity from his kitty he was inspired to study the effects of electricity. One could vaguely construe that Tesla's cat was responsible for the second industrial revolution, which arguably makes it the most awesome cat who ever lived.
    Edison believed that fossil fuels were the future and that there were enough resources in South America to provide for the next 50,000 years. Tesla believed that renewable energy sources like hydroelectric, solar, and wind power were the future. This is remarkable because in the 1890s there was no such thing as "going green," so Tesla's ideas on conservation were very forward-thinking at the time.
  • Lastly, a big thank you to Jane C. Daugherty for proofreading this article for me. If you want to learn things from the most awesome librarian this side of the North American tectonic plate, follow her on Twitter.

Hi. I'm a cartoonist.

I have a Netflix show coming out in July. Check out the trailer below.

Add it to your Watch List on Netflix

More comics from The Oatmeal  

Random  -  Popular  -  Latest

The primary difference between North and South Korea How to get more likes on Facebook The pros and cons of living with your significant other My dog, every time. How different age groups celebrate Christmas If air mattresses were honest Bro Cat would like to hang out 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee I have a hard time taking compliments Today, illustrated. Homeless man VS your cat The 5 Phases of Caffeine Intake
- "漢字路" 한글한자자동변환 서비스는 교육부 고전문헌국역지원사업의 지원으로 구축되었습니다.
- "漢字路" 한글한자자동변환 서비스는 전통문화연구회 "울산대학교한국어처리연구실 옥철영(IT융합전공)교수팀"에서 개발한 한글한자자동변환기를 바탕하여 지속적으로 공동 연구 개발하고 있는 서비스입니다.
- 현재 고유명사(인명, 지명등)을 비롯한 여러 변환오류가 있으며 이를 해결하고자 많은 연구 개발을 진행하고자 하고 있습니다. 이를 인지하시고 다른 곳에서 인용시 한자 변환 결과를 한번 더 검토하시고 사용해 주시기 바랍니다.
- 변환오류 및 건의,문의사항은 juntong@juntong.or.kr로 메일로 보내주시면 감사하겠습니다. .
Copyright ⓒ 2020 By '전통문화연구회(傳統文化硏究會)' All Rights reserved.
 한국   대만   중국   일본