zerepgn t1_j8uiksz wrote
Seeing firsthand how difficult it is for things to get patented, I would not refer to Tesla’s later years as having Nobelitis.
The dude had 112 patents in the US alone. That does not seem like some minor feat achieved by someone who had some breakthrough successes.
As for the Marconi argument, tesla states in his own words that his later pursuits of “wireless” transmission had more to do with conduction (through the earth) than radiation (omnidirectional, from an antenna).
One of my favorite reads so far on Nikola Tesla has been this. This poorly named book contains transcripts from Tesla’s patent dispute on what is today known as the ‘and’ gate. If you have technical background it is very much worth a read.
I am pretty sure what Tesla’s technology focused on (which is not a mainstream focus of Electrical Engineers today) is the fact that some of the terms in maxwell’s equations were written off by early scientists (Heaviside?) due to the fact that they did not resemble anything “physical.” Tesla (I believe) sought out the meaning in these terms and applied it to his technology.
Tesla is quoted as saying, "The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” I believe he was referencing the fact that the non-physical terms were omitted.
Blakut t1_j96dp2t wrote
what were the rules for being nominated for a Nobel Prize? Who could do it during Tesla's time?
pier4r OP t1_j8vg1ty wrote
>Seeing firsthand how difficult it is for things to get patented, I would not refer to Tesla’s later years as having Nobelitis
I'm not sure how the two things disprove each other. Winning the Nobel prize isn't easy either (I'd say is harder than making patents)
One can have a good career at first, achieving things that are pretty hard, and then due to this success one could start going in the Nobelitis direction.
From your comment I get the feeling that you didn't read the article (or watched the video) nor checked the Nobelitis part. Could it be?
zerepgn t1_j975cmf wrote
Patents have to essentially be proven to work in order for them to be accepted. From what I understand, “Nobelitis,” refers to the idea that some Nobel prize winners develop scientific ideas after that are “not scientifically sound.” Patents that aren’t “scientifically sound” would most likely not be granted because the principles they would be based on would not bear actual fruit.
So yeah I don’t think Nobelitis is relevant here.
The idea of Nobelitis in general seems like it could be interpreted subjectively in order to discredit alternative ways of thinking. That’s just an opinion though.
pier4r OP t1_j97cwwy wrote
The nobelitis part was referring to tesla's later period , there few patents are involved. Have you read the article?
One example:
> Tesla claimed that not only could he send electric power wirelessly for 50 million or 100 million miles at “rates of one hundred and ten thousand horsepower.” He also said that he had made a radio machine that “could easily kill, in an instant, three hundred thousand persons.” Even stranger Tesla swore that he received an unusual communication that he decided must have been from Martians. (Although he also added the thought that there could also be aliens on Venus or the moon as, “a frozen planet, such as our moon is supposed to be, intelligent beings may still dwell, in its interior, if not on its surface.”[58])
about "things that work"
> As the years passed, Tesla didn’t manage to demonstrate any significant communication nor transmission of power from his tower. Instead, on January 19, 1903, Marconi was the one who sent the first two-way transatlantic wireless signal from Roosevelt in America to King Edward of England and back, and Marconi appeared to everyone to be the winner of the wireless race.[62] Tesla was undeterred, but Morgan was done with Tesla and his promises and cut off funding. By the next year, Tesla wrote J. P. Morgan in desperation: “Since a year, Mr. Morgan, there has hardly been a night when my pillow was not bathed in tears.”[63] By 1906, he had to fire all his employees at his wireless tower, Wardenclyffe, where it remained empty for many years
Thus I still have the feeling you didn't bother to read the article.
zerepgn t1_j97nzb0 wrote
Ok so it seems like Tesla ‘only’ had 14 patents after 1903 (I chose 1903 because apparently the wireless ‘race’ is a big deal to popsci enthusiasts). According to a study published in 2017 in the journal Scientometrics, Nobel Prize winners in physics held an average of 2.9 patents each. Seems to be above average in that respect even after the arbitrary date that ‘Nobelitis’ is claimed.
As far as a race to get some sort of signal across the Atlantic, Marconi very much could have ‘won’. This signal was extremely crude and capable of nearly nothing in terms of data transfer or anything useful. The year before, Tesla was serving a deposition for a patent dispute regarding what we now know as the ‘AND’ gate.
Essentially, multiple coils were employed, each with their own characteristic resonant frequencies. Only when all resonant frequencies were sensed by the system, did the system respond. The and gate is currently described as “when both inputs are true, the output is true.” That is what is happening here. It is not commonly known that Tesla was the first to do this.
What Tesla was trying to do with wardenclyffe is often highly misconstrued. It consisted of an elevated terminal where voltage would be oscillating at very large values and a ground interface system (think like the ground rod that nearly every house has for their electrical system, but optimized) where the voltage was low but the current was massive. This system was much different than common radios at the time which Marconi was more alike. The difference was whether or not the system was optimized for radiation (common today for data and signals) vs conduction (through the earth itself, acting more as a compression wave than a transverse wave).
If you choose to research Tesla with an open mind, there is much more to be found than what is considered in this underselling article.
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