Nikola Tesla in popular culture

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Nikola Tesla in a photograph taken by Napoleon Sarony in the 1890s. Tesla circa 1890.jpeg
Nikola Tesla in a photograph taken by Napoleon Sarony in the 1890s.

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) is portrayed in many forms of popular culture. The Serbian-American engineer has particularly been depicted in science fiction, a genre which is well suited to address his inventions; while often exaggerated, the fictionalized variants build mostly upon his own alleged claims or ideas. A popular, growing fixation among science fiction, comic book, and speculative history storytellers is to portray Tesla as a member of a secret society, along with other luminaries of science.[ citation needed ] The impacts of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla are a recurring theme in the steampunk genre of alternate technology science-fiction.

Contents

Board games

Books

Appearances

Allusions

H. P. Lovecraft's character Nyarlathotep in the guise of Tesla in Rotomago and Julien Noirel's comic-book adaptation of the prose poem "Nyarlathotep". Nyarlathotep-par-Julien-Noirel.jpg
H. P. Lovecraft's character Nyarlathotep in the guise of Tesla in Rotomago and Julien Noirel's comic-book adaptation of the prose poem "Nyarlathotep".

Comics and graphic novels

Appearances

Allusions

Companies

Events and holidays

Nikola Tesla Day

Tesla's birthday, 10 July, is celebrated by some as World Tesla Day, Nikola Tesla Day, or simply, Tesla Day. [16] Some organizations celebrate Tesla Day informally on 10 July. [17] However, The Tesla Memorial Society wrote letters to several officials asking to commemorate 10 July as international Nikola Tesla Day. [18]

Tesla's birthday (or in one case, both the day itself and the week leading up to it) is officially celebrated as a holiday in various parts of the world. In Serbia, 10 July is celebrated as the National Day of Science. [19] In Croatia, it is called Nikola Tesla Day. [20] In Niagara Falls, Canada, it is named as the Day of Nikola Tesla. [21] In the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia, the local Association of Teachers also officially celebrate 10 July as the Day of Nikola Tesla though in practice, the celebrations last the seven days (one week) from 4 July to 10 July inclusive. [22]

Google honored Tesla on his birthday on 10 July 2009 by displaying a Google Doodle in the Google search home page, that showed the G as a Tesla coil. [23] [24]

Saint Tesla (2021) by Tatiana Basova, inspired by the proposal to have Tesla canonized as a saint St. Tesla.jpg
Saint Tesla (2021) by Tatiana Basova, inspired by the proposal to have Tesla canonized as a saint

On 7 January 2021 (which is both Orthodox Christmas and the anniversary of Nikola Tesla's death), the Tesla Science Foundation Serbia (TSFA) sent a petition to the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church proposing that the Synod consider the canonization of Nikola Tesla as an Orthodox saint with his birthday, 10 July as his feast day. [26]

Film

Appearances

The "Mad Scientist" from The Mad Scientist, the first of Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons, this character said to be inspired by Tesla Mad scientist and his pet.jpg
The "Mad Scientist" from The Mad Scientist , the first of Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons, this character said to be inspired by Tesla

Allusions

Music

Allusions

Online

Stage productions

A number of live theatrical plays based on Tesla's life have been produced and staged worldwide.

Opera

Television

Appearances

Allusions

Video games

Appearances

Allusions

Banknotes and coins

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla</span> Serbian-American inventor (1856–1943)

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer, futurist, and inventor. He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyarlathotep</span> Fictional Lovecraftian god

Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later, writers describe him as one of the Other Gods, an alien pantheon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wardenclyffe Tower</span> Experimental wireless transmission station (1901–1917)

Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917), also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early experimental wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla on Long Island in 1901–1902, located in the village of Shoreham, New York. Tesla intended to transmit messages, telephony, and even facsimile images across the Atlantic Ocean to England and to ships at sea based on his theories of using the Earth to conduct the signals. His decision to increase the scale of the facility and implement his ideas of wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's radio-based telegraph system was met with refusal to fund the changes by the project's primary backer, financier J. P. Morgan. Additional investment could not be found, and the project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational.

Edisonade is a genre of fictional stories about a brilliant young inventor and his inventions, many of which would now be classified as science fiction. This subgenre started in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and had its apex of popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other related terms for fiction of this type include scientific romances. The term was introduced in 1993 by John Clute in his and Peter Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. It is an eponym, named after famous inventor Thomas Edison, formed in the same way the term "Robinsonade" was formed from Robinson Crusoe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla Museum</span> Science museum in Belgrade, Serbia

The Nikola Tesla Museum is a science museum located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is dedicated to honoring and displaying the life and work of Nikola Tesla as well as the final resting place for Tesla. It holds more than 160,000 original documents, over 2,000 books and journals, over 1,200 historical technical exhibits, over 1,500 photographs and photo plates of original, technical objects, instruments and apparatus, and over 1,000 plans and drawings. Very little is on display in the small ground floor exhibition space.

Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. He is often portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.

<i>Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla</i> Book by Marc Seifer

The book Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla is a biography of Nikola Tesla by Marc J. Seifer published in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla's Egg of Columbus</span> Device to help explain alternating current induction motors

Tesla's Egg of Columbus was a device exhibited in the Westinghouse Electric display at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition to explain the rotating magnetic field that drove the new alternating current induction motors designed by inventor Nikola Tesla by using that magnetic field to spin a copper egg on end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death ray</span> Theoretical weapon

The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, notable inventors such as Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Scott, Erich Graichen and others claimed to have invented it independently. In 1957, the National Inventors Council was still issuing lists of needed military inventions that included a death ray.

<i>The Invention of Everything Else</i> 2008 novel Samantha Hunt

The Invention of Everything Else is a 2008 novel written by American author Samantha Hunt. The novel presents a fictionalized account of the last days in the life of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American electrical engineer. Other fictionalized versions of historical characters include Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Mark Twain. Tesla is the novel's protagonist along with a chambermaid named Louisa with whom he shares some common interests including science and pigeons. Much of the book takes place in the New Yorker Hotel. The book also includes elements of science fiction, namely time travel.

<i>The Secret of Nikola Tesla</i> 1980 Yugoslavia film

The Secret of Nikola Tesla, is a 1980 Yugoslav biographical film which dramatizes events in the life of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla. This somewhat fictionalized portrayal of Tesla's life has him contending with Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan in his attempts to develop alternating current and then "free" wireless power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Wireless System</span> Proposed telecommunications and electrical power delivery system by Nikola Tesla

The World Wireless System was a turn of the 20th century proposed telecommunications and electrical power delivery system designed by inventor Nikola Tesla based on his theories of using Earth and its atmosphere as electrical conductors. He claimed this system would allow for "the transmission of electric energy without wires" on a global scale as well as point-to-point wireless telecommunications and broadcasting. He made public statements citing two related methods to accomplish this from the mid-1890s on. By the end of 1900 he had convinced banker J. P. Morgan to finance construction of a wireless station based on his ideas intended to transmit messages across the Atlantic to England and to ships at sea. His decision to change the design to include wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's new radio based telegraph system was met with Morgan's refusal to fund the changes. The project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ravé Mehta</span>

Ravé Mehta is an American engineer, author, musician, artist and philanthropist of Indian descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe</span> Proposed science museum in New York

The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe is a nonprofit organization established to develop a regional science and technology center, museum and makerspace at the site of Nikola Tesla's former Wardenclyffe laboratory on Long Island, New York. The center had raised money through crowdfunding to purchase the property. In 2018, the Wardenclyffe site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Tesla coil</span> An electric circuit which produces very high voltage alternating current

Nikola Tesla patented the Tesla coil circuit on April 25, 1891. and first publicly demonstrated it May 20, 1891 in his lecture "Experiments with Alternate Currents of Very High Frequency and Their Application to Methods of Artificial Illumination" before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at Columbia College, New York. Although Tesla patented many similar circuits during this period, this was the first that contained all the elements of the Tesla coil: high voltage primary transformer, capacitor, spark gap, and air core "oscillation transformer".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla Memorial Center</span> Biographical and technology museum in Smiljan, Croatia

The Nikola Tesla Memorial Center is a cultural-historical site and museum located in Smiljan, Croatia, located at the birthplace of Nikola Tesla, one of the world's foremost engineers and inventors. It is dedicated to Tesla, who was born in 1856 in his Serb parents house in Smiljan, then part of the Croatian Military Frontier within the Habsburg monarchy. The young engineer later left his homeland to work in America. The Lika Museum in nearby Gospić administers the site.

<i>Tesla</i> (2020 film) 2020 film by Michael Almereyda

Tesla is a 2020 American biographical drama film written and directed by Michael Almereyda. It stars Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla. Eve Hewson, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jim Gaffigan, and Kyle MacLachlan also star.

"Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror" is the fourth episode of the twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 19 January 2020. It was written by Nina Metivier, and directed by Nida Manzoor.

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