$900,000 Raised For Buying Tesla's Lab 123
icebraining writes "As Slashdot reported earlier, The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman launched a funding campaign to help the Tesla Science Center, a 503(c) non-profit, buy the place of Tesla's final laboratory, the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York.
Well, thanks to 21511 contributors, it has already raised $912,080, well above the original $850,000 goal. But it's not too late to help: any money raised above the goal will be used by the organization to build a museum dedicated to Tesla."
I hope they reinstate the tower (Score:5, Insightful)
Museum? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Museum? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather see them make a museum that's actually awesome. Not just "this is what he did and how he did it". I want Tesla coil demonstrations (the kind he used to do with electricity arcing all around the room). I want "build you own X" areas for kids to build cool things. I want smart, exciting people giving smart, exciting presentations about what engineering and technology makes possible. In short, I want a museum that will inspire some small number of kids to follow in Tesla's footsteps.
Re:Museum? (Score:5, Insightful)
As important as dollars are to research, so are minds.
Re:Museum? (Score:5, Insightful)
Research in electrical engineering in 2050 will be done by kids visiting this museum now and realising how awesome it is.
It's important. (Score:5, Insightful)
In my view, building a museum to Tesla is important, so the actual genius, vision and true importance for humankind (Tesla) is highlighted, versus the treachery and deviousness that gets you riches (Edison).
The way I see it, this museum is not only going to educate people about what Tesla did for us all, how he enabled the modern society of the West, how he made life easier, what kind of thinker and innovator he was. No, for me this museum will also be a big "Fuck you Edison".
Re:I hope they reinstate the tower (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be very happy already if they could rebuild the tower in looks only, as it looks so otherworldly and adds some uniqueness to the location. Furthermore it'd be visible from pretty far away, giving Tesla that visibility and validation that he had to miss out on for so long.
Re:would be better without government funds (Score:5, Insightful)
Government does spend money on efforts to increase tourism, which brings money to the local economy. A Tesla museum in theory would bring more visitors to spend money (if nothing else, on food, gas, hotel, shopping, etc). There's nothing new here. Requiring the $850k to be raised is a test to confirm this is something people would want to come see.
Re:I hope they reinstate the tower (Score:5, Insightful)
That's simply the cult of Tesla. He was very bright and had a lot of good ideas but to say things like "Modern physics has nothing on Nikola Tesla" or "Tesla grokked physics like no one else before or (perhaps) since" simply isn't accurate. If we want to go with the celebrity route, Feynman would be the obvious counterexample to the second statement, especially since Tesla did absolutely no work in many fields of physics at all. But more to the point, Tesla couldn't have grokked things that well since the knowledge simply wasn't there, and because it is very hard for a single human to do everything. Thus for example Tesla never worked with superconductors (although they were known in his lifetime). Similarly, Tesla had as far as we can tell, no overarching ideas about theory that were at all helpful.
And of course, Tesla came out against special and general relativity. While it is conceivable that GR might have issues, SR is pretty damn well one of the best established theories there is. Tesla was just wrong.
Tesla was a man. A brilliant man, but a nevertheless, a man and not a god.
Re:would be better without government funds (Score:4, Insightful)