This article is from WeChat official account:The elementary school monk at the foot of Laohe Mountain (ID: gh_586564bb7b66)< span class = "text-remarks">, original title: “a different kind of legend: the great God Tesla”, author: old school and mountain monk, from head Figure: vision China
He is called the person closest to God…
He is hailed as the greatest scientist in history…
Every time his prophecy makes the world fast forward 100 years…
There is a general consensus in the scientific community that there have been two recognized geniuses in human history: Da Vinci and Nikola Tesla! His achievements are almost the sum of Einstein and Edison!
Don’t sell off, let’s make a conclusion first: These remarks are not only false, but also absurd!
Almost all online rumors about Tesla are false. In our lovely Baidu Encyclopedia, half of the Tesla entry is rumors.
Our more lovely CCTV science and education channel, a documentary in 2009, “Science Superman: Nikola Tesla”, endorsed various rumors of Tesla with a serious tone and citations, and it was unfounded. , Personal heroism completely inconsistent with the basic laws, it is not an exaggeration to call it a shame in the popular science circle.
There are so many rumors that we can’t dispel the rumors. Let’s just list the true parts, first set things right, and then talk about our amateurs.How to evaluate the historical positioning of a great god.
Tesla and Edison
Tesla and Edison often appear together. The fate of these two brothers is not shallow, but it is not the kind of “hero cherish hero” tale we expect.
The story of Edison is not going to go on. In short, the business is very big. In 1882, the 26-year-old Tesla got his first decent job: an engineer at Edison’s European branch, similar to today’s electrician.
The company’s main business is electric lights, but in that era, every household was not connected to electricity, so when you bought electric lights, you had to install generators, so Tesla had to install and maintain generators.
This baby has been a schoolmaster since he was a child. Of course, he was talented and soon became the most important engineer in the branch. In the second year, the electrical equipment provided by Edison to the German train station came out of a big basket, and Tesla repaired it after three attempts. What’s more to say, a letter of recommendation went directly to the US headquarters.
Look at how people wrote this recommendation letter:
“I know there are two great people, one is you and the other is this young man.” What’s more, Edison met with Tesla warmly and cordially, and entrusted him with the important task. Tesla lived up to expectations and quickly solved many difficult problems.
So far, Tesla has revealed its amazing talent in electrical engineering!
Two points are emphasized here: First, his talent is mainly reflected in the electrical field, such as generators; second, his talent is mainly reflected in engineering application technology, not theoretical research.
For companies, such talents are more valuable than Newton Einstein. Suddenly, Edison and Tesla were incredibly crooked. Then…there was no more. The two fell out…
Edison’s lights use direct current, but Tesla believes that alternating current is the future. In fact, if you understand a little bit of knowledge, you can understand: AC power is easy to transform, with less transmission loss, but it is dangerous; DC power loss is large, and transmission distance is short, but safe.
So the two diverged on the technical route. Note that this is a battle of routes, not a battle of technological level.
In addition, there is another important and clichéd reason why the two parted ways: money. According to Tesla unilaterally, he improved the generator as agreed, but Edison nakedly denied the huge bonus that had been promised. Then Tesla asked for a salary increase, and Edison alsodisagree.
What’s more to say, the 30-year-old Tesla resigned with AC technology. Technologists of big companies go to the sea to start a business, and it is not a matter of minutes to get an angel investment.
So, Tesla found a local tyrant and set up his own company, which also sold electric lights and generators, and officially went against his old owner.
Edison immediately showed the true qualities of a businessman, attacking Tesla in all aspects, media, policies, laws, low-price competition, etc. Among them, Edison did two very unscrupulous things in order to promote the dangers of alternating current.
First, I killed an elephant with alternating current, and used my invented video camera to make a movie and play it everywhere. This video can still be found online today.
Secondly, I specially invented the electric chair driven by AC power and persuaded the government to use the electric chair as a tool for execution. The killing process of this thing is extremely cruel, so the publicity effect is very good.
The ending of this famous “current war” is naturally not difficult to predict. No matter how Edison struggles, it is impossible to stop the tide of the AC era led by Tesla.
So why didn’t Edison do AC? Is it because AC technology is too difficult? Or did Edison look down on AC power?
Edison was born in technology after all, and it is impossible to be sensitive to alternating current at all. You know, all Edison’s products and accessories are centered on DCIt’s designed for electricity. Now you let him change AC power. Is this Nima that you can change if you want to change it?
This kind of example is everywhere now. Nokia was one of the first companies to develop smart phones, but died of smart phones. Kodak Film was one of the first companies to develop digital cameras, but died of digital cameras.
The direct current Edison faces the alternating current Tesla, and he must be in a bad mood!
Edison may be the first technical and commercial compatible compound talent in the history of mankind. He engages in technology by himself and makes money by commercialization.
Even though Edison fell down on AC power, there were so many technical products. He immediately turned over on the battery, then fell down, and then turned over again with a sound film… It was really a lifetime of a military horse.
If there is only one choice among scientists and entrepreneurs, then Edison is undoubtedly an entrepreneur, and Tesla is more like a scientist or an engineer.
Unfortunately, Tesla’s business acumen was not as good as Edison’s fraction. Most of the patented technologies were coaxed away by major companies, including alternating current technology. He had a bleak old age and died in a hotel.
Tesla’s core technology
The monk will take a look at Tesla’s many dazzling technologies to see if we can figure out a logical path for your reference.
Tesla went to a university in Austria, majoring in electrical engineering. On the eve of Tesla’s university, Maxwell published “On Electricity and Magnetism” at Cambridge University, England, which later became the cornerstone of electromagnetic theory.
So, it can be speculated that Tesla was studying the theory of electricity in the Faraday era, rather than the theory of electromagnetics. Note the difference between “electricity” and “electromagnetics” here.
Tesla started from Edison at 30After resigning, the main technical result is alternating current, which can be regarded as the starting point and core of Tesla’s technology.
During the age of 30-40, Tesla perfected various technologies related to alternating current, such as asynchronous motors, high-frequency currents, and Tesla coils.
The rumors always say that the Tesla coil is an energy amplifier, which can make thunderstorms over New York raging, and can make Tunguska explode out of thin air, without any intention to respect the law of energy conservation.
The magical Tesla coil, in fact, the principle is not innovative, the basic structure is the coil and capacitor:
Today, the Tesla coil is a very common thing. The most attractive thing for the layman is that it can produce lightning-like electric sparks, which looks extremely sci-fi. It is conceivable that people in that era saw artificial lightning, which is equivalent to primitive people seeing fire, and the shock is self-evident!
During the age of 40 to 45, because alternating current is easy to change voltage, high voltage is created. When high voltage is applied to the electrodes, radiation will be generated. Therefore, Tesla began to study various rays, particle radiation, etc. Early research on X-rays has also been done on concepts such as particle beam weapons.
The device that generates X-rays is a high-voltage electric gun, which is Tesla’s strength, but X-rays themselves are electromagnetic waves. At this time, the shortcomings of Tesla’s lack of electromagnetic theory were fully exposed. In the face of mysterious rays, not only did he have no theoretical results, but put forward a wrong understanding.
FinallyThe laboratory was destroyed by fire, and Tesla was not interested in continuing to study X-rays.
Later, the one who really made X-rays solid was the first Nobel Prize winner in physics that we know: Roentgen. The rumor is obviously wrong to count Roentgen’s contribution to Tesla.
In addition, dealing with coils and capacitors all the year round makes it easy to make oscillating circuits. Connecting a coil and a capacitor together is the simplest oscillating circuit in which current can oscillate repeatedly.
The oscillating circuit is plugged into the antenna and it becomes a radio transmitter. With a little effort, you can make magic weapons such as remote controls and walkie-talkies. Of course, this process cannot be as easy as I said, and the technical details in the middle are unknown.
Tesla made a lot of achievements in radio application technology, invented the first radio transmitter, and successfully demonstrated wireless communication. But compared with Marconi in Europe, it is not so dazzling.
With the support of their respective consortia, the two people fought a dark lawsuit in order to fight for the right to radio invention.
However, Marconi first commercialized radio technology, which is indeed undisputed, and he won the Nobel Prize for it. The wireless telegraph company established by Marconi is still the world’s communications giant.
Now it seems that it is reasonable to say that Tesla first invented the radio transmitter, followed by Marconi, and further improved the technology to commercialize it.
As mentioned earlier, Tesla is not as good as Marconi in terms of radio. Marconi took the lead in completing the transatlantic radio broadcast, so Morgan divested his capital, and Tesla was equivalent to bankruptcy, the experimental equipment was taken to repay the debt, and life has been bleak ever since. As for long-distance wireless power transmission, Marconi never tried it, because anyone who understands the principles of electromagnetics knows that long-distance wireless power transmission is as mysterious as water turning into oil. It is impossible for electrons to run in the atmosphere directly, so if you want to transmit electricity, you can only convert electrical energy into other forms of energy, such as electromagnetic waves, lasers, and sound waves. In Tesla’s time, the only choice was electromagnetic waves. This thing was barely okay for face-to-face transmission, and more than a few hundred kilometers was nonsense. The rumor happens to be a big book about this, but it is not said that Tesla was maliciously suppressed, causing humans to miss great technology. Of course, it may be that Tesla deliberately used wireless transmission to tell the story in order to raise funds, or it may be that the rumors have pressed the story to Tesla, but anyway, one thing is certain: Tes Pull’s understanding of electromagnetic theory is far less than his talent in engineering technology. About 50 years old, Tesla did some work for the power station, improved the generator mechanically, and set upThe bladeless turbine is included. This kind of turbine does not use fluid to impact blades to generate power, but uses fluid shear force to drive. This matter sounds mysterious, but it’s not complicated. If you are interested, you can search for “How to make a Tesla bladeless turbo pump”. There are tutorials on the Internet. At this age, being able to make such an achievement across the border really shows that Tesla has an extraordinary IQ and an absolute technical genius! But to the historical scale, bladeless turbines are far from revolutionary progress. So far, what Tesla really knows is the commercialization and promotion of AC technology. Note that it is only a commercial application. To talk about the principle, the hat of the “father of alternating current” has always been worn by Faraday. In his later years, the monk guessed that a clever and arrogant person like Tesla would certainly not be content to be an engineer. The truly earth-shattering achievements have to be found in basic science. Therefore, in his later years, Tesla began to be obsessed with basic science again, which is obviously not his strong point. What’s even more regrettable is that in Tesla’s later years, physics entered an explosive period, and quantum mechanics and relativity came out, so Tesla’s opponents in basic science are such a group of people: In the face of such a group of evildoers, Tesla, who lacks a theoretical foundation, is more like a folk science in basic science. For example: Gravity is one of the crowns of basic science. As long as a little progress is made, the historical positioning can rise, so gravityIt is an important gathering place for civil affairs. Tesla was not absent either. The “Dynamic Theory of Gravitation” proposed by him attempts to explain the generation of gravity through the motion of the ether. This is obviously influenced by Newton’s view of time and space, and his thinking is still stuck in the classical physics of the 19th century. Although this article is not up to the professional level, it is still considered to be the level of a science fiction writer, so it has not been published in professional journals, but the layman still looks like it. According to the rumors, this article was described as a killer that destroys the world, so it was blocked and not published. Tesla is a very active thinking person, but also a little nervous, often unable to sleep, daydreaming. For example, he proposed the concept of a mind projector, which is a device that projects images from the human brain. I want to emphasize that these whimsical ideas are just imagination, not research. The current rumors largely regard Tesla’s later years of reverie as his research results. Tesla died in a New York hotel in early 1943. After his death, he had no children and only a large debt. Tesla is a great electrical engineer after all, so his personal belongings and research materials have been sealed by the US government, and the information on particle beam weapons is classified as top secret. According to the current public information, the U.S. government has not found any valuable devices or information at all. It was classified as top-secret only for confidentiality considerations. It happened during the Second World War, and weapons-related information was of course extremely sensitive. Later, his personal belongings and ashes were collected in the Nikola Tesla Museum. This is about Tesla’s life. Still still a big god Tesla’s contribution to the theory of electromagnetics was lacklustre, and he failed to confound a theorem. But objectively speaking, alternating current alone is enough to be recorded in the annals of history. Tesla eventually mixed up with a unit: the unit of magnetic induction was named after Tesla. But wanting to sit on the top ten throne in the scientific world is definitely hopeless. Tesla was also nominated for a Physics Prize. Although the Nobel Prize nomination is not a measure, it is also a reference. The rumors say that Tesla has won N Nobel Prizes and nominations. Obviously, they don’t know that the official website can check the number of nominations and awards. Tesla has never won the Nobel Prize, only one nomination in 1937. The 1937 prize finally gave the theory of quantum mechanics: the diffraction of electrons by crystals. Looking back today, Tesla did not lose unjustly. By the way, what is controversy: Einstein was nominated 62 times and won 1 time. It’s like adding a yellow robe! Scientific Food Chain How to evaluate the historical positioning of a scientific theory or technological invention? This of course requires experts, but as laymen, we also have simple and rough methods. Xie Er in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory” is known for his arrogance. For this reason, someone specially made a picture to illustrate the reason, which is quite a scientific food chain.