Serbian-born American electrical engineer and physicist who discovered the principles of alternating current (1881) and invented numerous devices and procedures that were seminal to the development of radio and the harnessing of electricity.

Cyberspace as described by William Gibson in _Neuromancer  (1984) was prefigured in Nikola Tesla's 1901 plan for a world system of totally interconnected, planetary communications. He believed he could engineer a globe unified by the universal regulation of time and fully traversed by flows of language, images, and money-all reduced to an undifferentiated flux of electrical energy.

- _Cyberpunktuations_ by Chris Case - _Mondo 2000_ (1990)
  

• radio (not Marconi)
  • palindrome: "I, madam. I made radio! So I dared! Am I mad? Am I?"
• X-rays (not Roentgen)
• vacuum tube amplifier (not Forest)
• flourescent bulb
• neon lights
• speedometer
• automobile ignition system
• radar
• electron microscope
• microwave oven

• he spoke six languages
• Nikola Tesla was a vegetarian.
• Tesla ended up saving Thomas Edison $100,000 (millions in that day).  Edison refused to live up to the verbal contract and did not pay Tesla for his help.
• he designed the first hydroelectric plant (Niagra Falls)
• Edison tried to discredit Tesla by staging demonstrations by electrocuting prisoners with a death sentence using AC.
• when Westinghouse got into financial trouble because Tesla's royalties were running into the millions, Tesla ripped up the contract and sold his patents for a flat fee.
• Tesla demonstrated the first remote controlled boats in 1898 at Madison Square Garden.
• Tesla envisioned a wireless broadcasting system of video, radio and electricity.
• early experimental electronic track _Wireless Fantasy_ MP3 (256k) by Vladimir Ussachevsky off of _Ohm: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music 1948-1980_ CDx3
• his 1901 patented experiments with cryogenic liquids and electricity provide the foundation for modern superconductors.
• alternating current system - which brought electricity to the masses and laid down the foundation for the global gaia network
• he talked about experiments that suggested particles with fractional charges of an electron - something that scientists finally discovered in 1977 as quarks.

witnessed a demonstration of a Tesla Coil in action at Burning Man 1998

• release _Brotherhood Of Electric: Operational Directives_ by Wellwater Conspiracy on Time Bomb (1999)

"Even in the fields most successfully exploited, the ground has only been broken. What has been so far done by electricity is nothing as compared to what the future has in store. It is paradoxical yet true to say that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects."  - Nikola Tesla

"Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called "the greatest evil in the world." The friction which results from ignorance can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent." - Nikola Tesla

"Universal peace as a result of cumulative effort through centuries past might come into existence quickly - not unlike a crystal that suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. - Nikola Tesla

"The chief cause of war is the vast extent of this planet. The gradual annihilation of distance will put human beings in closer contact and harmonize their views and aspirations."  - Nikola Tesla

"Can Man control [the] grandest, most awe inspiring of all processes in nature?....If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural....He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms....[Such powers] would place him beside his creator, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny." - Nikola Tesla

"My wireless transmitter does not use Hertzian waves, which are a grievous myth, but sound waves in theaether..." -- Nikola Tesla

• Joseph Schillinger

• Tesla - bad 80's metal band
• track _Tesla_ MP3 by Jimi Tenor off of _Intervision_ CD
• indie electronic IDM track _Tesla_ MP3 by Tarwater off of _Dwellers On The Threshold_ 12" on Kitty-Yo (2002)
• lyric: "it's not easy, being a god"
  
• video documentary _Tesla: The Genius Who Lit The World_ (vhs/ntsc)
• featured in _Spectres Of The Spectrum_ (vhs/ntsc)(1999) directed by Craig Baldwin

Electricity and Drugs. Energies. We started off with the LP three years ago and had the idea of doing a sort of decadent early electronics cabaret album, like Tesla - the inventor, would have done in Berlin. A weird idea. It started like that and evolved.

- John Balance of Coil re: _Love's Secret Domain_ LP 

track _Powerline_ by Hüsker Dü off of _New Day Rising_ 12"on SST (1985)

what's this humming in my head
was it something that someone said
it's connecting us with them
electric wires turned on again

it aggravates and it pacifies
hear the power in the lines
strung high on every pole
how can this power be bought and sold?
trying to harness solar rays
making minutes seem like days
it captivates and it hypnotizes
hear the power in the lines
powerline

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