22 April 2009, mkrause
What are the most fascinating things about Tesla? His inventions? Or his visions, ideas, his character, his straight- and boldness, his humor? How many facets has his character? Why do so many see him into the same category as Einstein, Goethe, Edison? Or (that’s the crazy part): even into god (from Mars)-like realms. Or saying (Margaret Cheney) that he (Tesla) could think like a reptile (a crocodile?) What? Tesla makes you really wonder. About invention, character and life. “He’s a role model for all of us”, that’s how the CalTech physicist David L. Goodstein did put it, quite correctly.
6 April 2009, mkrause
Countess Vilma Parlaghy-Lwow knew who she was portraying, they had met some 10 years ago. The two persons in the room talked in German; they had learnt the harsh language in school “over there”, in Europe. Also known as the language of poets, it was this language that the two best-agers had some story to tell in. She could tell that he sat in the same chair where the German emperor Wilhelm II once sat in. Now, the countess had another emperor in front of her, an emperor of the technological age. Nikola Tesla had ordered that the room should be lit by his oscillators, producing a somewhat bluish gleam on his face. It was this color he liked most, it is the color of dreams. Not long ago, he had been the most respected electrician of his age, quite on the same level as Thomas Alva Edison. Now, Tesla was living on credit. His WorldWideWireless system in Wardenclyffe didn’t succeed; his turbine was a commercial failure, too. And the luxury cars his Waltham speedometer was built into were rare high-class product, no Ford Model-T. If you look at the painting, Tesla fixes his gaze on something very distant, out of sight. The painting can be seen in Northern Germany (Husum), where the sea has washed ashore the so-called Blue Portrait of Nikola Tesla. It’s well worth a visit.
Inzwischen lebte Tesla ausschließlich von Kredit. Sein geplantes weltweites Drahtlos-System war kein Erfolg, auch seine Turbine nicht, und die Autos, in die sein von der Firma Waltham produzierter Tachometer eingebaut wurde, waren seltene Luxusautos. Schauen Sie sich das Porträt an; Tesla fixiert etwas weit abgelegenes, außerhalb des Bildes Gelegenes. Sie könne sich das Bild in Norddeutschland anschauen, wo die Sie das so genannte „Blue Portrait“ von Nikola Tesla an Land gespült hat. Schauen Sie sich das Bild an, es lohnt sich.
