Little Billy Learns the True Awesomeness of Nikola Tesla   November 5th, 2012

I was inspired of writing this bit of fiction like a grade-school science report while driving home from a Jonathan Coulton concert and listening to more of his music in the car. This wasn’t inspired by any song in particular, just the overall geeky milieu. I wanted to throw a reference to the ninja site, Real Ultimate Power in there too. Ultimately this isn’t as funny as I’d hoped it could be, but it’s kind of cute and was fun and a decent exercise for NaNoWriMo.

Little Billy Learns the True Awesomeness of Nikola Tesla

by Will A. Sanborn, 11/04/12

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10th, 1856 to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia). Nikola was the fourth of five children, an older brother, Dane, who was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five, and three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica. Some accounts claim that Tesla had caused the accident by frightening the horse. Wikipedia has a lot of useful information on Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was a bright student and received high marks in school. He worked so hard in college that his professors even told his parents that he risked dying from being overworked. His second year at university, he argued with Professor Poeschl over the design of the Gramme dynamo. Tesla suggested that commutators weren’t necessary and was probably right, since he was so very smart.

His third year at university he became addicted to gambling and lost his allowance and tuition money. He never graduated from the university and did not receive grades for the last semester. That did not stop him from being the most awesome scientist ever though.

After his time at college, Tesla worked for the Budapest Telephone Exchange. He made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater. Those improvements were never patented or described, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.

He then worked for the Continental Edison Company in France in 1882, before coming to America to work for Thomas Edison himself in 1884. Nikola Tesla was a ninja scientist and so very awesome at everything he did. Edison was not a ninja, he was a pirate instead. He stole people’s inventions and was a big jerk.

In 1885 Tesla claimed he could improve the efficiency of Edison’s motors and generators, which of course he did. Edison had promised to give him fifty thousand dollars, which was a really lot of money back then, way more than today. That amount of money could’ve probably bought a really big mansion and a cool sports car. Of course when Tesla did fix things, just as he said he could, Edison told him that he was only joking. Tesla promptly quit so Edison didn’t have him to push around any more.

Tesla told the world how Alternating Current was so much better than Direct Current, which Edison used, and which was pretty stupid. Westinghouse was a smart company and they picked up the idea of AC power. Edison was a bully again and even electrocuted an elephant to try and show how unsafe AC power was. He was such a mean old man.

It doesn’t matter though, even though Tesla and Westinghouse had a lot of problems getting money at the time, they ultimately won and we use AC power in our houses today. Edison may have given us the light bulb, but Tesla showed us how to light up the world!

Tesla had a lot of problems in his career of science. That is because he was so far ahead of the world that short-sighted people like Edison just didn’t get him. He even had a way of sending power through the airwaves, like radio and TV. Nobody wanted to fund that though because the electric companies couldn’t figure out how to send people bills for wireless power. Man, we could be living in the future now, with radio power and flying cars, if only more people had listened to Tesla!

Tesla also experimented with Radio, which isn’t a surprise, because he was so awesome. He also discovered X Rays, because looking at people’s bones is pretty neat.

Tesla never got a nobel prize, but he didn’t need it to know how cool he was. There were even rumors that he was offered the prize but he refused it. He probably did because he was tired of dealing with all the jerks and bullies.

There are also rumors that he was working on a death ray, but died before he could finish it. That is too bad, as I bet it would’ve been really cool. That would have shown people.

In conclusion. Tesla was a wicked smart scientist and people should have gotten his ideas better. When I grow up, I’m going to be an awesome inventor, just like Tesla. I bet my inventions will finally get jerks like Derrick and Jason to stop bugging me during recess and while we wait for the bus after school.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2012 at 2:23 am and is filed under Whimsical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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