From: flan@froggy.wustl.edu (Ian Flanigan)
Subject: Re: The Tesla Unit
Summary: Tesla, his life story by Laurie Anderson
Keywords: Muisc, Tesla, Electricity, Eddison
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 02:48:42 GMT

In article <C1IEqp.KEE@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> dam@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (David Morning) writes:
>cannon@scs.unt.edu (Dustin Cannon (Lab 3460)) writes:
>>	Hi everyone,
>
>>	I have a question (my normal mental state).  I recently read a 
>>biography on Nikola Tesla (Man Out of Time, Margret Cheney) and being a 
>>physics major I know about the unit Tesla.  So here is the question: What 
>>did Tesla do in magnetism that was so amazing that they named the unit 
>>after him?
>>        Does anyone know?  SHe didn't mention it in the book and I couldn't 
>>find it in the library (not suprising)
>
>From fuzzy memory, lots of developement work on high frequency, high voltage
>alternators generating mega-big sparks.
>He may well have been the man who actually invented the alternator as we know
>it today but I can't be certain.
>He's certainly an interesting character.

Laurie Anderson (a highly renowned source) has some things to say
about Nickola Tesla.  This is from United States Live:

A while ago, I got a letter and then a phone call from the Tesla
Institute in Belgrad.  The voice was very faint, and it said,
"Understand do we that much of your work has been dedicated to Nikola
Tesla.  And do we know the blackout of information about this man in
the U.S. of A.  And so would we like to invite you to the institute as
a free citizen of the world, as a free speaker on the American
imperialist blackout of information, capitalist resistance to
technological progress, the western world's obstruction of innovation.
So, think about it."

Thought, "Gee, really, a chance to speak my mind."  And I started
doing some research on Tesla, whose life's story is actually really
sad.

Basically he was the inventor of AC current, all kinds of generators
and the Tesla Coil.  His dream was wireless energy.  And he was
working on a system where you could plug appliances directly into the
ground--a system which he never really perfected.

Tesla came over from Gradz and went to work for Thomas Eddison.  And
Eddison couldn't stand Tesla for several reasons.  And one was that
Tesla showed up for work everyday in formal dress--morning coat,
spats, top hat and gloves and this just wasn't the American way at the
time.  Eddision also hated Tesla because Tesla invented so many things
while wearing these clothes.

Tesla also invented the generators that converted Niagra Falls into
the cleaner and more efficient AC current.

Eddison did his best to prevent conversion to AC and did everything he
could to discredit it.  In his later years, Eddison was sort of a
showman and he went around on the Chatauqua circuit in upstate New
York giving demonstractions of the evil effects of AC current.  And he
always brought a dog with him.  And he'd get up on stage and say,
"Ladies and Gentalmen.  I will now demonstrate the effects of AC
current on this dog."  And he took two bare wires and attached them to
the dog's head and the dog was dead in under thirty seconds.


 -- Laurie Anderson, from "The Dance of Electricity"

(all typos are mine)

-- 
Ian Flanigan

Project Zeus
Washington University in St. Louis	"You can never have too many napkins."
flan@starling.wustl.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science