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Tesla Quote



To All,

I found a masterful quote by Tesla in an old issue of "Modern Mechanics 
and Inventions" July 1934.  I thought it might amuse and interest a 
number of folks so here it is.


"The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not 
produce erroneous theories.  The scientists of today think deeply instead 
of clearly.  One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply 
and be quite insane."

"Todays scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments and they 
wander off through equation after equation and eventually build a 
structure which has no relation to reality."



Well spoken, I thought.  The wise will extract the truth from the above 
statement.  I will admit that I am no Nikola Tesla fanatic as are many of 
the Tesla buffs.  I am quite pragmatic as regards the fellow.  I have 
seen him in the light of truth as a man who was wise beyond his time, but 
absolutely set in his path on some issues.  He was too much of a showman 
for my tastes and expended his efforts mostly for show.  Often this was 
for cause, though.  He used wild demonstrations to impress the rich and 
famous in an effort to secure funds for his next great plan.  
Unfortunately his plans kept getting more grandiose and the rich became 
wise to his methods and soon realized that others who had funded Tesla 
never saw a penny returned.  He was indeed pure genius with great 
eccentricities which played well in Victorian times.  But, as people 
marched into the 20th century, and became more worldly, such foibles went 
from  an accepted part-and-parcel of a gentleman genius to the traits of 
a frustrated looney.

Tesla never believed in much of the then developing atomic theory.  He 
spurned it to his dying day.  He seemed "out of it" in his later years.  
Still, the more I study and learn about the physical goings on of things, 
I find his wisdom coming through more and more.  I have learned to never 
swallow a scientific theory or the concept of "great genius" as a 
mindless icon without a bit of investigation.

Richard Hull, TCBOR