MetaFilter posts tagged with tesla

They called him mad! Mad! Zzzzt!

Deathalicious — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:10:04 -0800

Wireless electricity has been mentioned previously. A recent TED Talk actually shows it in action. The presenter, Eric Giler of WiTricity Corp (a startup founded by MIT researcher Marin Soljačić), mentions the first attempt at wireless electricity, the Wardenclyffe Tower, designed and built over a hundred years ago by Nikola Tesla. The Wardenclyffe Tower was designed to provide wireless communication as well as the wireless transfer of energy. It was destroyed during WWI because the U.S. government worried that German spies could use it as a landmark. Parts of the structure remain near the corner of Tesla Street and NY 25A. There has always been an aura of conspiracy around Tesla and his creations, so of course the tower has been "credited" with a number of "unexplained" events, including the Tunguska explosion of 1908.

Hydrogen. It's the fuel of the future, and it always will be.

molecicco — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:27:48 -0800

Pics of the new Tesla S-Model have been leaked. With an anticipated price tag of 50K and a potential 45-minute recharge time, will this finally kick-start a true replacement to the internal combustion engine? And if so, where will the electricity come from? What future is there for the fuel-cell vehicle, or will fuel cells remain stationary? Is that really it for hydrogen? Do we even have enough lithium for everyone to drive cars like this?? Or will we have to switch to something more common, like zinc? Incidentally, we can recycle the used-up zinc (ie ZnO) using solar energy. OK OK - so the VRB system is technically a flow cell or flow battery, and not simply a fuel-cell, but really it's just an augmentation of the same technology (PEM) utilized in the hydrogen fuel cells that we thought, for a while, would be in our cars of the future. Previously, previously, previously, previously.

SpaceX finally makes it to orbit

b1tr0t — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:52:37 -0800

SpaceX's fourth flight was successful. Scaled Composites' X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne made the first privately funded hop into space. SpaceX just took the next big step and inserted a dummy payload into orbit. Next, they will launch the much larger Falcon 9 and later test out the human-carrying Dragon. CEO Elon Musk also enjoys dabbling in banking and exotic electric cars.

Immediate prospects for the electric car

rongorongo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:43:59 -0800

Two takes on the immediate future of the electric car: we are either "Going Nowhere Fast" (if you ask a petrolhead from Top Gear magazine) or we are witnessing "The End of the Petrolhead" (if you ask The Economist). A bestiary of current and planned models includes TeslaMotors (now in production), Fisker Automotive (who are being sued by Teslamotors), the GM Volt (due 2010), The Lighting Car Company, the plug in Prius, the GWiz (now slightly less squishy apparently), the Corbin Sparrow, a few (vapory?) models from Zap! and the wondrous Sinclair C5.

Electric Christmas Trees

Tube — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:22:43 -0800

Electric Christmas Trees. The Tesla tree looks to be a new page from a website that has been posted previously.

This Should be Played at High Voltage

nthdegx — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:25:07 -0800

Steve Ward's Singing Tesla Coil video. Previously.

Danger, Danger High Voltage

psmealey — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:50:46 -0800

Creepy High Voltage Installations The Russian countryside yields sometimes most improbable sights - abandoned artifacts and installations from bizarre military/scientific research, strangely futuristic forms left to rust and decay - to be found by a curious photographer. "Master" stumbled upon this installation close to Russian city of Istra (50 km from Moscow) quite by chance, and these mysterious shots were percolating for a while around the web, until the answer was found. According to this little, cryptic, and quite secretive website [in Russian], the weird alien-like towers are the Experimental Grounds for High-Voltage Generation, the only open-air kind in the world. Amazingly, it's still in use... as the powerful lightnings rip through the night and the darkened forest - much like in "The Prestige" movie.

DANGER - High Voltage

Spike — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:28:21 -0800

Don't try this at home. Watch in awe, bedazzlement, and concern as a lone Australian (with no professional training) builds tesla coils, lasers, railguns and exploding wires -- in his own garage. [Previous mad science on MeFi]

Pass the Future, please.

cenoxo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:36:40 -0800

Tales of Future Past* — It's been a looong Monday. Do you want to get off the planet and out of the city to a place where you can really live? Well, here's some food for thought on the way home down life's highways. First, take a break from all this depressing war talk. Then empower yourself by giving yourself some space and maybe taking off for a few days. Drive just a bit slower, turn up the volume and imagine that your mechanic will say the tranny's OK after all. Once you're in the front door, take time to get slightly wired and forget all about politics. Get recharged for tomorrow: have a nice long bath, put your mind at ease, watch Ur Fave shOw, and listen to some soothing music. Now, don't things look a lot better? [*Note the 'Start the Tour' links at the bottom of each page.]

"The future, for which I have really worked, is mine."

unknowncommand — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:43:50 -0800

How did we miss the 150th anni versary of Nikola Tesla's birth?

electric music

madamjujujive — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:08:08 -0800

Tesla coil music system (YouTube alert) and five other musical gadgets you didn't know about.

The Tesla Roadster

rongorongo — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 08:14:16 -0800

Nikola Tesla lends his name to an electric car that can reach 60pmh in 4 seconds and travel 250 miles between charges. Early witnesses include Arnie and Wired. An old Tesla rumour is that he made his own back in the 1930s.

A Brief History of Precision Guided Weapons

Heywood Mogroot — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 04:04:52 -0800

One-page history of remote-controlled weapons. Includes some Tesla goodness.

takeafuckingjokewillya?

slogger — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:13:57 -0800

Did God create hurricane Katrina? Well, probably not. But perhaps, it was George Bush continuing his plan for world domination by using HAARP and scalar technology to control the weather by applying the suppressed theories of Nikola Tesla! See, once Bush has induced economic armageddon it will quickly induce the peak oil crisis thus leading to permanent martial law whereby he'll be able to suspend the constitution. Once all these pesky government controls have been removed, then Bush will finally be able to achieve the neocon dream of a New American Century.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP!

warbaby — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 21:32:35 -0800

Lightning On Demand is a volunteer organization of engineers, artists, scientists and machinists. Our key objective is to produce a controllable discharge of lightning at the greatest physical scale imaginable using modern technology. They've built the worlds biggest Tesla coil, Electrum, a Taser Cannon and some other projects

the future used to be so much nicer...

Aleph Yin — Sat, 29 Nov 2003 08:22:20 -0800

"The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere "stick" in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis."

From an interview with Nikolai Tesla in 1937 about the now near future...

nick.a — Sat, 12 Oct 2002 14:00:35 -0800

While scientists like Einstein and Heisenberg are familiar names, others like Nikolai Tesla have been largely forgotten by history, despite the fact that some of his work with electricity still cannot be replicated to this day. Despite this, claims of governmental conspiracies are probably fairly far from the truth.

tranquileye — Tue, 14 May 2002 11:40:29 -0800

Bert Hickman has a ten inch diameter Tesla coil powered from two neon sign transformers in his screened-in (but unheated) porch, along with a device that produces magnetic fields strong enough to shrink coins. One of the byproducts of the coin-shrinking: an eight inch ball of plasma.