Tesla back in popular imagination...

Nikola Tesla is everywhere...and no, this does not refer to the late 1800's/early 1900's, but right now! He is appearing in movies, books, blogs...you name it. Eccentric, inventor, genius, far ahead of his time, scientist, mystic...all of these attributes and qualities make him interesting even in the modern era, 60 odd years after his death.

Consider Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day". Here is a brief extract from the synopsis...

"The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx."

Many events in the book happen during or around Tesla's experiments in Colorado Springs. Tesla himself does appear. although in a brief cameo. Pynchon is smart in the way he weaves a web of mystery around the famed inventor.

The second popular appearance is in the movie, "The Prestige". Tesla is played by none other than David Bowie. Here there is more of the mysticism as well as the mention of the financial troubles Tesla faced during his experiments. Also present are references to his feud with Edison, dubbed as the War of Currents. In the movie he works on creating a device capable of teleportation, but has unintended consequences.

Nicola Tesla has also appeared in a graphic novel named the "Five Fists in Science", where he teams up with Mark Twain to bring about peace by fighting off the dastardly forces ruled by Thomas Edison!

Some of his ideas were right off the chart, and we are just coming to terms with them, for eg., wireless electricity, directed energy/particle weapons, a flying machine that could run without use of an engine, wings, ailerons, propellers or onboard fuel source.

Rumour has it that the Tunguska event was caused by a directed particle beam from Tesla's experiments!

Of course we know that his ideas on AC current were right in spite of being maligned by Edison and his cohorts...and it is no surprise that he has often been dubbed as "the man who invented the twentieth century" and the "patron saint of electricity".

Cross-posted on Desicritics.

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Technorati tags: Nicola Tesla, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, The Prestige, Edison, Mark Twain, War of Currents, Five Fists in Science, wireless electricity, directed particle weapons, AC Current, Tunguska event, Teleportation