New York - With this month's kickoff of a Nikola Tesla-related exhibit here, and with the swelling trove of data and dialogue on the inventor’s life and legacy available on the Internet, it’s clear that Teslaphiles in the engineering community are intent on ensuring the controversial pioneer’s rightful place in the annals of electrical science.
The Traveling Wardenclyffe Exhibit runs through October on Long Island at the Museums at Stony Brook and showcases the ill-fated work in wireless communications and energy that obsessed the prolific inventor in the early 1900s. Some of the scientists and engineers involved in that project are calling for nothing short of a reconsideration of Tesla’s work. They are joined by legions of Tesla fans who have weighed in over the Net on hundreds of pages devoted to the enigmatic inventor.
Indeed, many EEs, citing Tesla as their inspiration in their decision to enter the profession, are looking to focus other technologists’ attention on Tesla’s vision and away from the public perception of him as a “mad scientist.” The latter is a perception that Tesla himself may have unwittingly promulgated in his time (see related story, page 156).
“Tesla was undoubtedly one of America’s greatest electrical and mechanical engineers,” asserted Gary Peterson, vice president of corporate affairs on the Wardenclyffe project and an electrical engineer at a Breckinridge, Colo., company. “His [contributions to] ac power, radio communication and fluorescent lighting are vital components to life.
