"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." (Nikola Tesla)
Tesla became well known as an inventor and would demonstrate his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was
noted for his showmanship at public lectures.
In the summer of 1889, Tesla traveled to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and learned of Heinrich Hertz' 1886–88 experiments that proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves. Tesla found this new discovery "refreshing" and decided to explore it more fully.
In repeating, and then expanding on, these experiments,
In March 1896,
after hearing of Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging (radiography), Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging,
Tesla theorized that the application of electricity to the brain enhanced intelligence. In 1912,
he crafted "a plan to make dull students bright by saturating them unconsciously with electricity,"
Tesla was incorrect in his assumption that high frequency radio waves would penetrate water
Since 1900, Tesla had been living at the Waldorf Astoria in New York running up a large bill.In 1922, he moved to St. Regis Hotel and would follow a pattern from then on of moving to a new hotel every few years leaving behind unpaid bills.
" I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."
Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company began paying him $125 per month as well as paying his rent, expenses the Company would pay for the rest of Tesla's life.
At the 1932 occasion, Tesla claimed he had invented a motor that would run on cosmic rays.
He claimed it was a theory of energy that was "violently opposed" to Einsteinian physics, and could be tapped with an apparatus that would be cheap to run and last 500 years.
and developing
a way to photograph the retina to record thought.
At the 1934 party, Tesla told reporters he had designed a superweapon he claimed would end all war.
[Tesla's] thoughts and efforts during at least the past 15 years were primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.[
He curled his toes one hundred times for each foot every night, saying that it stimulated his brain cells.
Tesla disagreed with the theory of atoms being composed of smaller subatomic particles, stating there was no such thing as an electron creating an electric charge....and that they had nothing to do with electricity.
Tesla believed that atoms are immutable—they could not change state or be split in any way.
"To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view."
Tesla, like many of his era, becoming a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics.
"
The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization"
- Telsa