Why is one of the greatest minds in history absent from history books and courses?

[Nobody Special]

We never heard much about Nikola Tesla when growing up.
He is only "famous" now due to Musk/Tesla and Nikola Motor


Did it have to do with one method being able to be monetized/controlled?



PS, Not TOTALLY absent, but for what he figured out, he is grossly 'missing' from history.

 

[ads2539]

Probably because he wasn’t American.

We only learned about Edison in school when I was a kid. We didn’t really learn about Westinghouse, either.

 

[bear1998]

Theres too many people that feel he was insane for one thing.
Tesla was the one that actually invented the most used electricity today (AC).....Edison had more backing n made Tesla look bad. Edison light fixtures were DC also.
It didnt help Tesla any for lookin into Aliens (not illegal) at the time. There has been quite a few documentaries on tv about Tesla....very interesting !

 

[Nobody Special]

Theres too many people that feel he was insane for one thing.
Tesla was the one that actually invented the most used electricity today (AC).....Edison had more backing n made Tesla look bad. Edison light fixtures were DC also.
It didnt help Tesla any for lookin into Aliens (not illegal) at the time. There has been quite a few documentaries on tv about Tesla....very interesting !

Maybe he was looking for someone.
Sort of like how it seems Mormons are looking for someone since they are obsessed with DNA like "23 & ME" and "Ancestry".:sad:

Tesla was a Venusian, brought to this planet as a baby, in 1856
https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla/Nikola Tesla Part 03 of 03

 

[Nobody Special]

Probably because he wasn’t American.

We only learned about Edison in school when I was a kid. We didn’t really learn about Westinghouse, either.

Learned more than I cared about historical artists/composers who were not American. :artist:

 

[5thToy]

He is definitely among my top list of science heroes. Indoctrination tends to favor locals in the writing of history I suppose.

 

[Nobody Special]

He is definitely among my top list of science heroes. Indoctrination tends to favor locals in the writing of history I suppose.

But yet Americans love British bands (current).

I tend to believe it was about money.
Why give away something free when you can figure a way to charge for it.

 

[5thToy]

But yet Americans love British bands (current).

I tend to believe it was about money.
Why give away something free when you can figure a way to charge for it.

Yeah, he was a notoriously poor businessman and money manager. It just wasn't in his blood. I respect him for his passionate focus and lack of greed. His is a sad story of being taken advantage of and dying a pauper, but part of me thinks he may not have had the mindset to make those leaps had he been more money motivated. We owe him.

 

[Ripper238]

Only had very brief history of Tesla in school, definitely thought he was a crazy scientist from that schooling.

However since I went into the digital electronics field he came up more often in discussion so it can depend on your schooling.

Now we have whole History channel episodes about him and him being taken advantage of by his employers, repressed, ideas stolen, all his work taken by the FED, some still missing...

He was way ahead of his time and it probably scared people back then.

 

[Oldmanb777]

He was a great genius. We learned about him in school. That was many years ago for me. But we didn't dwell on him like some others. Like most geniuses he had great big holes in his ability for other things. Like commons sense, or money management, or whatever. Maybe its just that their brains are wired to understand certain things, and not general everyday life. Or maybe they are so focused that they can't deal with trivial things in life. I don't know, but I have been around some very intelligent people and successful people, and there is usually something missing in their personality or understanding of simple things in what most would consider normal life.

 

[TK-422]

I learned from Red Dead Redemption 2 that his robot killed him then escaped to the hills.

 

[Deuxdiesel]

History is full of incredible scientists who didn't really get recognized as they should be. Look at Rachel Carson- her studies on the biological and ecological impacts of herbicides and pesticides have been largely ignored. It was nice to Katherine Johnson get some notoriety in Hidden Figures, but there are so many more. Sadly, most people think Elon Musk invented something, be he just provides the money and resources for the real brains behind his companies- the engineers.

 

[oldskoolwanderer]

James Clerk Maxwell