The Man Who Saw Tomorrow


Though they said of you, “This man, Nikola, must be a fool…”
What secrets lay within your mind were kept away from them,
nor were they privy to your thoughts of traveling forth through time.
New worlds beyond their means, made common men seem dim.

When did you realize that time and space were really only one,
That neither of them matters when electrons are at play?
Could you see the end, before the final curtain fell upon the scene,
was that hocus-pocus, or did you hear a call from galaxies far away?

In a world when time and progress moved at a slower pace,
you finished first and dreamed of solving problems not yet seen.
And though some knew about your talent, others were confused;
you lit the world and brought the future to the people in between.

It could be said that madness and genius are not so far apart.
But no one since, or before you, has ever shown your range.
You built a world within your dreams and reality copied YOU.
Today we wonder why, at first, your ideas seemed so very strange.


Les

If anybody's interested here's a biography:

[www.teslasociety.com]

Cool! Thanks for posting the biography site too!

The poem is awesome. My favorite line:

"It could be said that madness and genius are not so far apart."

Cool beans!

"Loving people is like farting in the wind; You don't actually accomplish anything, but you feel better."

~The Great and Powerful Angelia~

That's really remarkable! I'd never heard of Nikola Telsa before this, and I probably wouldn't have if not for your wonderful poem. Thanks for sharing!

--Monique

Nice Les, after reviewing the biography I can see why you were inspired to write this piece. Nikola was a genius!

The last line in the last stanza, so true, as far as I was concerned, there has always been light, mind you I never really gave it any thought though either.

I liked this from the biography:
Mr. Behrend ended his speech with a paraphrase of Pope's lines on Newton: "Nature and nature's laws lay hid by night. God said 'Let Tesla be' and all was light."

Good bit of writing there Les, and I really like the title, apt.

How did you know to write about Nikola Tesla, how did you come across him?



Post Edited (07-15-04 20:39)

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)

Les,

Before I reached the end, I though you were describing Da Vinci (another of the greatest human beings to have lived, far...far...far before their time). I had never heard of Tesla, have book marked your reference so that I will be able to read more about him later. As for the poem itself, I enjoyed it very much. For some reason, I found it to actually be very relaxing, as the flow carried me to many thoughts, mostly of the genius' from the past. Glad you posted this!

-W. Wizard

Keeper, thanks for the read, who really knows what "genius" means?

Wizard, read my response to Gwydion. It could have been Einstein or Da Vinci, or maybe even Edison, but Tesla was unique.

Truthseeker, I think you were surprised just like I was the first time I heard about him. The more you find out about the man, the more amazing he seems to have been.

Gwydion, there has always been light, but not manufactured by men. You may recall a conversation on another thread when I said that I would write a poem about Tesla. I knew of the rock group Tesla and wondered about him. Then I know a guy who worked at the Lawrence Livermore laboratory working on Reagan's star wars technology during the 1970's whose online log-in was Tesla, so I was curious about where the name came from. Like Truthseeker, I had had no contact with his contribution to science until about one year ago. At that time I used to watch Biography on A & E network. Well, lo and behold they had a biography featuring Nikola Tesla. I watched in amazement as these facts were revealed.

A. The electomagnetic generator, using alternating current was dreamed up by him one day in practically its final form. Before this no one else had seen or heard of the inner workings of an electronic magnet or generator using alternating current.
(In the tv bio. it said that he saw the plan in its entirety in a vision and knew instinctively that it would work.)

B. He determined that the earth was a magnet (in 1913) and that wireless communication would be possible between continents. He also felt that communication between planets would be possible.

C. He claimed that we should beam radio signals into space because he felt that alien cultures were communicating with us and that we could learn what they knew about electricity.

D. He developed in theory an electonic generator which could provide free wireless communication on a global basis in 1915. This idea was shot down by J. P. Morgan, who would not support it because there was no money to be made from it.


Les



Post Edited (07-15-04 22:45)

Hi Les,
Have been gone for awhile.
I can't possibly hope to catch up on everything, but I enjoyed this new piece from you. Makes one wonder why some people are so brilliant, everyone has a brain, what constitutes a genius?

JP

We've missed you JP, welcome back. What constitutes genius, in Tesla's case I think he was just so far ahead of his time that people couldn't believe what he said, and at the same time he had practical applications in mind. Same with Da Vinci and Edison.

Les

Les,

I think the poem is great and aptly titled. As far as Tesla is concerned, I think he was from tomorrow. It has always surprised me that so few people have heard of him.

john

The Tesla Tower, from which he was planning to broadcast free power, and entertaining programs, once existed here on Long Island.

It was scrapped and recycled into bullets for WW1

Thank you Les.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)

Thanks for reading and commenting, John. I don't know why they don't teach about him in the textbooks. But even in high school his name was not mentioned. I think the fact that he believed in voices from space made many people from the established ranks of the science community question his validiity.

Johnny thanks for the read. If you check the thread in the lost quotations, I think I found the answer to that question you had about Frank Stanton.


Les

Nice! I was just rereading Operation Chaos, and thought you were talking about Lobachevsky at first. (Nikola/Nikolai.... pretty close)

pam

Thanks for the read Pam.

Les

Yes I did , Les, thanks.

You're correct...learned NOTHING in school about him...found out about the tower from a story in BOYS LIFE magazine.....it had a picture of the tower...its location was not even 10 miles from my house....that's what spurred me to find out more about Tesla.

A very fascinating person. It sounds like he was very personable too. The type of scientist you could actually "talk" to.

Les

Great poem!

Nikola Tesla is definitely deserved of such 'praise'.

meriti

================

Sobriety is overrated.

Good sutff Les

I'm glad you enjoyed Meriti, he was a great scientist.

Percival, thanks for reading and commenting.


Les

bump, for Nolon.

Les

I wondered who you guys were talking about. Wow. He is worth talking about. Informative bump and nice poem, Les.

You built a world within your dreams and reality copied YOU.

Yes, indeed.

Marty

The people from the Tesla Society birthday party would have enjoyed it that you've given him attention.

Thanks, Les

Peter

Thanks Peter, I can't believe it's been two years since I wrote this one.

Marty, thanks for reading. This poem was unique in that it literally took several months from thinking about the topic to actually writing the poem. Usually I spend no longer than a week on any given poem.


Les

I must contradict the fact that Tesla is almost unknown...he's a very popular scientist, if you don't know the unit of measure for magnetic field is the "Tesla". Whoever studied physics should know him. By the way...as many people say the father of science is Galileo, another of the underestimated genius that human history has ever had...we wouldn't even had the science were it not for its way of thinking and looking the world, after him Aristotle considered the nature of things to be known not by direct contact with the world, Galileo instead (that was a very religious person, despite what the Church made to him) claimed that to know how God built our universe we have to have the humility to dirty our hands, with patience, setting the correct questions we'll have the answers that we're looking for...in other words, he was the seed of physics: repeatability of the experiments. Whoever could claim that a certain phenomenon exists, but if he's not able to make it re-happen and happen over and over again, then it's not science.

Tesla is unique, that is sure as long as any important scientist is...but now I'm curious...do you know about a man called Von Neumann? ...Einstein said of him something like "there a number of excellent scientists I've met in my life and that history has ever produced, none of them impressed me like Von Neumann".


...oh , I forgot to say I appreciated the poem much.

[~ | .
| (||)|()

It's a nice poem, it like all of it best.

“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.”
--Winston Churchill

Maybe you are a bit of a genius too, Les.

Drew, thanks for the comments, that's a good quote.

Fabio, thanks for the information. The thing that upsets most people about
Tesla, is that his name was not even mentioned in high school text books here in the U.S. Why that is, I still do not know. [en.wikipedia.org] />
Les

lol Oh hey look...it seems that I have heard of Tesla. I guess two years is longer than my little memory can handle. lol

Whatever happened to Fabio, did we lose him in the crash?

Les

I would imagine so

I miss Fabio's comments, he always had something interesting to say.

Sorry I haven't responded to any poems lately, I've been out of town for a while.

Les

les
thanks for bumping this poem. my dad used to talk to me about telsa. i like what john had to say about him being from tomorrow. at any rate, your poem was good and you show me once again one of the reasons i enjoy emule.

and if fabio is reading this, i hope you come back. start a new email account in hotmail or yahoo, register in emule with that address and tadah, you should be back in here posting your poetry.

Bump, for a buddy.


Les

Les:

Good bump...very good poem.

You know what I just realized after reading through this thread again? You actually got a compliment from Percival!!!

That is indeed a rarity; actually it may be the only compliment from Percival in existence. Way to go, Les!

Joe

Joe, thanks glad you enjoyed.

actually it may be the only compliment from Percival in existence.

Au contraire, read his comments here: [www.emule.com] />

Les

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2021 05:44AM by les712.