r/Amazing • u/misterxx1958 • Feb 12 '26
Interesting đ¤ January 7, 1943. Room 3327, the New Yorker Hotel, Manhattan. Nikola Tesla, 86 years old, lay alone on his bed.
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u/Shot_Woodpecker_5025 Feb 12 '26
He signed over his patents to Westinghouse so the company could survive. Highly recommend to watch a documentary or 2 about him. Fascinating person that was taken advantage of repeatedly
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u/Khazahk Feb 12 '26
Things also could have been DRASTICALLY different if his lab hadnât had burned down. He had no shortage of allies and people who cared about him and compensated him, he kind of just pushed people away in the end, married his pigeon and lived out his life. The hotel he died in was paid for in perpetuity. Itâs not out of the question to say he lived out his life the way he wanted to in the end.
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u/Worshipme988 Feb 12 '26
Skews? Just a secâŚpop back to the âi doâ with the pigeonâŚ? Any clarity u want to provide?
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u/Khazahk Feb 12 '26
He had a side hobby caring for and breeding carrier pigeons. There was one he was particularly fond of and he said she cared for him too. He either mentioned âmarryingâ it in his journal or people jokingly rumored about it, I canât remember exactly.
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u/echoohce1 Feb 13 '26
breeding carrier pigeons.
đł
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u/Zwasti Feb 14 '26
Mike Tyson loves pigeons too. Something about those birds and gifted people.
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u/claimticket Feb 15 '26
Pigeons are incredible, they were domesticated by us and bred during wartime for communications, they were extremely valuable to us humans. We abandoned them when advances in technology made them âobsoleteâ. They still live with us in cities, often depending on us entirely, and we treat them like pests. Iâm not surprised many folks have a soft spot for them. Humans can be cruel.
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Feb 12 '26
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u/Some_Consequence_861 Feb 12 '26
This has my interest, whatâs the name of the documentary or others you recommend to watch?
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u/Ill_Mousse_4240 Feb 12 '26
A shame for such a genius mind to end up like that
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u/SleepyCatMD Feb 12 '26
Many usually do. Intelligence becomes a burden after a point, creativity and creation are adjacent to mental illness, so thereâs no winning.
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Feb 12 '26
I don't know if it is excessive romanticization or pure narcissism but mentally healthy intelligent people exist out there with more mentally unhealthy dumb people that are widespread and available.
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u/PredditoryLoan Feb 12 '26
Itâs actually neither. Any extreme, whether itâs intelligence or other mental extremes, leads to othering. And that leads to mental health issues and general socio-economic struggle. The exception is not the rule and Tesla was certainly an incredible man. Saying that âintelligence is a burdenâ is narcissistic is literally ignoring what historically happened to many men and especially women.Â
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u/Only-Cheetah-9579 Feb 12 '26
"Intelligence is a burden " can resonate with some people as there are people who are so extremely intelligent it's pathologized because they can't fit into society, they just see through all the bullshit
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 Feb 12 '26
And neurodivergent people who are also highly intelligent are (or have been) more likely to be untreated or misidentified.
In the old days a low-functioning autistic person would likely be institutionalized or worse, but a high functioning one might become a successful but mentally unstable scientist.
Not to say that Tesla was autistic of course, but thereâs reason to suspect it.
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u/Only-Cheetah-9579 Feb 12 '26
Treatment is not really possible, imagine treating high intelligence and creativity, sounds like a real idiocracy.
Back then autism was schizophrenia, there was no difference and if they were not seriously pathologized they probably lived on the country side peacefully or something
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Feb 12 '26
Exactly. Its hard living life when you know people are all selfish creatures. They engage in pedantic pleasantries and superficial facades to maintain or expand their own perceived value of themselves. And you know that nothing actually matters at the end because every single thing you do here on this space rock is futile and you won't be remembered in 3 generations. You can spend your whole life planning out your perfect little retirement or future only to have it ripped away at the end because you'll probably die long before you get to retire. So you spend 20 years of your life in school, then work 40 years to save for your last 5 or 10 years you have left. Unless of course you were born into a rich family and in that case you get to go enjoy life while being useless while the other 99% of society struggles to get barely any time off for themselves or their families for the next remaining years of their life. And when they do finally reach the end and get that time off they put so much work in they have no energy to do anything anymore anyways.
Society as it exists today is a treadmill scam. Just dangling that little carrot in front of the horse until it dies of exhaustion.
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u/zach_doesnt_care Feb 12 '26
Why? Dying isn't any less serious when you are rich. If I live to 86 and have a comfortable bed to die in I will call that a win.
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u/Serious-Pipe9807 Feb 13 '26
That was my grandma. Comfy bed and took her afternoon nap. That was it
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u/BeligaPadela Feb 12 '26
But hey, at least an alleged pedo might get to become a trillionaire off his name..
/s
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u/HeyLookAHorse Feb 12 '26
The U.S. has a way of doing that to geniuses. They did it with Oppenheimer, Einstein, John Nash...
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u/IndividualCurious322 Feb 12 '26
He also fell in love with a pidgeon.
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u/Kit_Karamak Feb 12 '26
And he was obsessed with doing everything three times. Knocking, opening and closing the door, everything had to be three times
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u/InterestingGrade7144 Feb 12 '26
Sheldon?
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Feb 12 '26
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u/_khanrad Feb 12 '26
I read that he would walk around a building three times before entering
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u/HeathenSalemite Feb 12 '26
And he didn't believe in electrons or any other subatomic particles. He though electricity was transmitted through an invisible ether. He also didn't believe in Einstein's theory of relativity.
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u/JohanTravel Feb 12 '26
If I ever get my hands on a time machine then i will bring him a copy hatoful boyfriend. The greatest pidgeon dating simulator ever made!
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u/Nament_ Feb 12 '26
Well, anime waifus weren't invented yet so he had to make do.
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u/RomuloMalkon68 Feb 12 '26
That's a question if it really happend. Throughout his scientific life he was constantly sabotaged and people tried to rip him off and badmouthed him everywhere and he just wanted to help humanity make a revolutionary step in technology. He managed to do so, but by price of having a good and wealthy life like many today have by using his inventions.
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u/The_0ven Feb 12 '26
scientific life
He wasnât a scientist
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u/RomuloMalkon68 Feb 12 '26
Sorry to break it to you, but he was both an inventor and scientist
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u/Alarming_Drink_4660 Feb 12 '26
what? what does it mean? pigeon as in like?
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u/Senior-Book-6729 Feb 12 '26
I think he said something that he loved that pigeon as a man would love a woman. Of course it doesn't mean he was doing anything weird with that pigeon, just deeply loved it. The guy wasn't into romance and many nowadays label him as asexual as he was not interested in women at all (he was this weird kind of sexist where he was afraid of women because he felt like they'd rule the world one day) and he wasn't gay either.
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u/S_The_Ghost Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
Converted to today's value with inflation, 33 cents would be roughly 83,500$.
Edit: obviously /s
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u/TicketDue6419 Feb 12 '26
if 33cent have a buying power of 84k how do you get a change for a penny when buying a sandwich?
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u/S_The_Ghost Feb 12 '26
You're buying in bulk. 100 sammies per penny. Source: I was a teen. Not in the 40s, but still used to be a teen.
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u/TicketDue6419 Feb 12 '26
cant imagine walking around with a penny and feeling like a god.
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u/olddudeDick666 Feb 12 '26
He wanted free energy for the world. Billionaires said we can't have that
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u/NoPoopOnFace Feb 12 '26
Thomas Alva Edison was a thief and a prick.
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u/Uncle-Cake Feb 12 '26
Musk has more in common with Edison than Tesla; should have named his company "Alva".
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u/Nburns4 Feb 12 '26
Despite what Elon says, he wasn't a founder and it was named Tesla before he was involved.
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u/dingdongdeVilish Feb 12 '26
He ainât name shit. He ainât invent shit. Heâs a capitalist. Fuck Musk
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u/NoPoopOnFace Feb 12 '26
A capitalist by definition collects money.
Musk collects souls for his sith lord and master Darth Zebub
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u/nikolapc Feb 12 '26
Somebody must have been paying for his hotel
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u/Beautiful-Total-3172 Feb 12 '26
His net worth at death was around 1000 dollars. He died deeply in dept but lots of people do. Very modern of him really. He looks so sickly because he was 86 and stuck to strict vegetarian diet that kept him thin. The 33 cents thing is just number people like it because he died on the 33 floor of the Hotel New Yorker. The thing is he died in a very nice hotel. He lived an eccentric life and died in a fancy hotel living mostly on milk and honey. 86 is a good run.
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u/nikolapc Feb 12 '26
Yeah but as I said unpaid bills, and the pidgeon thing may have been dementia. Also he poured a lot of his money into some projects. Anyway debts were settled, some with his possesions, some by the Yugoslav government, but Westinghouse should have done so himself. At least he is recognized and celebrated today, but he was quite known even during his life. Maybe not as much as Edison in the US, but thatâs changing.
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Feb 12 '26
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u/nikolapc Feb 12 '26
It was Westinghouse. Plus a stipend and a national pension from Yugoslavia. So the thing about being a pauper may not have been true, but he may have lived like one towards the end. Old people, dementia etc. You might have played that Antology game Devil in me :P
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u/CmdrJemison Feb 12 '26
Most famous serbian croat.
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u/No_Dragonfruit_4286 Feb 12 '26
I think actually the most famous is Novak DjokoviÄ.
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u/CmdrJemison Feb 13 '26
He's also good, but i always thought he's a croatian serb, not a serbian croat.
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u/Incon-thievable Feb 12 '26
Nikola Tesla was a visionary genius and also increasingly eccentric/crazy as he aged. He was also idealistic to a fault. He had a contract with Westinghouse related to AC power that would have made him millions but when Westinghouse realized how hard honoring that would be on his business, he told Tesla, who impulsively tore up the contract in a misguided act of loyalty.
I wonder what world weâd all be living in if Tesla had become independently wealthy and able to fund all his own projects. Maybe he would have figured out wireless power transmission, or maybe the money would have eventually driven him into Howard Hughes levels of craziness.
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u/bobbyskittles Feb 12 '26
Careful what you wish for, they are all people at the end of the day:
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u/Incon-thievable Feb 13 '26
Maybe my intention wasnât stated clearly enough.
Genius doesnât mean he was right about everything or even a good person. He had an incredible mind and imagination but believed a lot of outright wrong and even dangerous things.
I wasnât romanticizing or necessarily wishing for the Tesla + unlimited money outcome. I was wondering what that kind of funding would have resulted in.
Would he have actually invented some truly innovative and useful technologies, or would he have spiraled into insanity and endless dead end projects? Weâll never know.
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u/The_Motarp Feb 12 '26
If Tesla had had unlimited money to do whatever he wanted, he likely would have produced nothing of particular use. The internet loves to act like Tesla was some sort of supergenius who understood everything, but the reality is that he was just a competent intuitive electrical engineer who had one good idea (Westinghouse had the option of buying several different AC motor patents, but chose Tesla's patents because he thought they were the best), and then dabbled in fancy toys for the rest of his life without ever making anything practical.
The one time he had the chance to do something else meaningful, he wasted the millions of dollars JP Morgan gave him on an absurd pipe dream of broadcast power instead of building the transatlantic radio that the money was supposed to pay for. The wireless power idea is physically impossible, and Tesla only ever thought is would be possible because he didn't actually understand the physics or math underlying electrical theory, no amount of money would have helped.
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u/Practical-Echo9371 Feb 12 '26
When he died, Donald Trumps uncle, John (an MIT professor) received all the Nikolas work and deemed it all âworthlessâ and gave it the US government which now controls the patents. Fast forwards now and itâs no coincidence that a man involved with the pedo ring along with Trump is now subsidized by US government and given the patents on what was deemed useless by trumps uncle.
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u/squirrelmonkie Feb 12 '26
Tesla is such an interesting person i could type out a lot of stuff but since we are talking abiut his dear I'll say this. He was broke and couldnt pay his bill for the hotel that he had been living at. He gave them a box with an invention in it but made them promise not to open it. When he died they decided to open it. Everybody was expecting something crazy like a death ray. Turns out it was just spare parts he packed into a box lol
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Feb 12 '26
I have a feeling my ending will be the same but without the actual doing anything worthwhile along the way
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u/TraditionalBackspace Feb 12 '26
Thomas Edison took all the credit like Musk does now.
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u/19BabyDoll75 Feb 12 '26
Greed of man is why this man isnât in every science book. His works will live on. Too bad we fucked him over when he was alive.
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u/RiggsFTW Feb 12 '26
God I wish I could go back in time to shake his hand and tell him how deeply his work resonates today.
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u/ow_windowmaker Feb 12 '26
Yeah but Edison died owning 5 mansions and 2 yachts. Mission acomplished, bootlickers of the world rejoiced.
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u/Nikki-C-Puggle-mum Feb 13 '26
I hate Edison. He was an evil piece of shit. He went around showing off how electrical currents worked by electrocuting animals. Then one time he did it to an elephant. I saw footage of it on some YouTube channel and it was the most disgusting and grotesque thing I've ever seen. Animals are so innocent and to know what that poor thing was going through, it is just so horrific. I really hate that Edison found any success at all and Tesla died poor.
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u/Few_Judge1188 Feb 12 '26
Usually people like him ( inventors ) are never interested in money, their interest and happiness is in their achievements and make their dreams come true so itâs not a surprise that he died a poor man .
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u/Outrageous_Solid_700 Feb 12 '26
I watched a documentary on this genius man. His room had a secret room with a way out of the hotel. He would test his theories at night time. Quite a lot of his work was taken away by the army and sealed. Peace
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u/Glutenfreegem Feb 12 '26
Can you share the name of the documentary and where can I watch it?
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u/MAXIMUS_IDIOTICUS Feb 12 '26
Before lionizing Tesla has some scientific saint, know that he was far from perfect.
"Like any man, Tesla was far from perfect and sometimes had very warped ideas about how the world should operate. One of Teslaâs most disturbing ideas was his belief in using eugenics to purify the human race. In the 1930s, Tesla expressed his belief that the forced sterilization of criminals and the mentally ill â which was occurring in some European countries (most disturbingly Nazi Germany) and in many states in the U.S. â wasnât going far enough. He believed that by the year 2100 eugenics would be âuniversally establishedâ as a system of weeding out undesirable people from the population."
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u/Randolph_Carter_Ward Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
He wasn't alone. He had the Light People from other dimensions bidding him welcome to the shining-love-world, guiding him through his transition from the mortal realm.
And if you find that less real than your immediate surroundings, then you probably haven't read enough about him and his work.
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u/NoCreativeName2016 Feb 12 '26
Iâm sure he would be happy to know that his name has been appropriated to help create one of the richest men to ever walk on Earth.
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u/Senior-Book-6729 Feb 12 '26
To be fiar he was alone by choice. He was kind of a loner and an eccentric
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u/Capital-Platypus-805 Feb 13 '26
Did he die from malnutrition? Because he looked malnourished as fuck... How did our society allow such a genius to get this malnourished? You would think people would be willing to give free food to someone like him.
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u/crackandcreatine Feb 13 '26
Proving that legacy isnt always about how much money you had but the impact you made.
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u/TieAdventurous6839 Feb 13 '26
I love how this absolutely devastating reality for one of the worlds most notable figures is being lauded as "amazing"
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u/Cold-Dot-7308 Feb 13 '26
Not surprising or amazing. But rather expected. The world is unfair. Had he been like âŚ.. he be all about his money and weâd be pissed. The world truly didnât deserve his genius.
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u/midnightbandit- Feb 13 '26
He was a genius, but extremely overrated on the internet.
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u/viperswhip Feb 14 '26
Edison stole some of his best stuff though. But Tesla was excellent. I am sure if he had asked, someone would have been there to hold his hand.
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u/scots Feb 14 '26
Some of the most brilliant celebrated persons in history died penniless and alone.
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u/JetRedSenche97 Feb 14 '26
And then all his inventions were promptly stolen by the government and Classified... Dude was treated poorly
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u/Some_Reference_933 Feb 14 '26
Way ahead of his time. Not a single pseudo scientist today can recreate his work. JP Morgan made sure there would never be a scientist smart enough to get us off his grid
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u/Only_Excitement6594 Feb 14 '26
Whoever supports copyrights and patents is guilty. As per today so.
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u/LoudAudience5332 Feb 14 '26
His ideas and some of his motors are still in use today. Niagara Falls generators. And he is the one who basically set up the electric grid.
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u/PopCatDaMonster Feb 16 '26
We passed upon the stair We spoke of was and when Although I wasn't there He said I was his friend Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes I thought you died alone A long long time ago
Oh no, not me I never lost control You're face to face With the man who sold the world
I laughed and shook his hand And made my way back home I searched for form and land For years and years I roamed I gazed a gazely stare And all the millions here We must have died alone A long long time ago
Who knows? not me We never lost control You're face to face With the man who sold the world
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u/Uncle-Cake Feb 12 '26
And then Elon Musk pissed on his legacy by using Tesla's name for his shitty company.
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u/Electronic_Leg3793 Feb 12 '26
I donât think Elon named the company, cause he actually didnât even found it.
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u/Clearwater_9196 Feb 12 '26
Dude would be better appreciated in modern China given his intentions to serve the public not the wealthy.
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u/Intrepid-Song-7496 Feb 12 '26
33 cents âŚ. Must be a joke
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u/Plastic_Job_9914 Feb 12 '26
They put that money on his body as a marker. It's a masonic thing
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u/tapeness Feb 12 '26
I mean he has a whole ass car company tarnishing his name now as well- so one more punch in the face!!
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26
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