Bowie and Tesla

Another example of the universe intersecting in fantastic ways, I just saw Christopher Nolan's movie The Prestige that stars David Bowie as Nikola Tesla! A little backstory, Wolverine is playing a London-based magician visiting Tesla during Tesla's sojourn in Colorado to place an order for a magic trick that will amaze his audiences. Spoiler alert: the cat in this video is not harmed:



Meanwhile I continue to be on the hunt for a decent Tesla biography although his own autobiography looks interesting. Having recently learned of Edison's dick treatment of Tesla (defaulting on his promise to pay him $50,000 for solving a problem only to later tell him he was only joking, then denying his request for a $7 raise), I'm now vowing to write anti-Edison pro-Tesla messages on all my checks to ConEd. Take that!

Here's one of my favorite anecdotes about him (via Wikipediea):

Tesla established his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston Street. There, at one point while conducting mechanical resonance experiments with electro-mechanical oscillators, he generated a resonance in several surrounding buildings but, because of the frequencies involved, not his own building, causing complaints to the police. As the speed grew, he hit the resonant frequency of his own building and, belatedly realizing the danger, was forced to apply a sledgehammer to terminate the experiment, just as the police arrived.

Here is Tesla describing it in his own words:

"I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. Suddenly, all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulance arrived. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. I told my assistants to say nothing."