American Experience: Tesla (2016)

20180605:
My friends and I wanted to start a documentary club* and so I drafted a template where we could keep all our notes. In order to test out the template, I watched this documentary.

Nikola Tesla

After watching this documentary, I realized I knew next to nothing about Tesla. I suppose the only thing I could claim knowing is there's an object called the "Tesla coil." The though that he's the inventor of the radio and responsible for creating the generator that gives us AC current is mindblowing! How, in comparison, is "Edison" a household name while Tesla's name remains obscure?

On a different note, I felt the quality of the different speakers wasn't as strong as some other documentaries I've seen. Though I haven't seen many with speakers (I usually watch Nature Documentaries) so I might not know what to expect.

There was one point in the documentary where Tesla strikes himself with electricity. Picturing him being struck with electricity (and having the electricity run through his skin to the ground) was most memorable.

*Unfortunately the club didn't last too long due to lack of participation, but I was able to actively watch a handful of documentaries from it.


Conceptual AC Motor

As of 20181115, Netflix determined the movie for me as a 62% match. I gave the movie neither a thumbs up nor a thumbs down.

Instant Comments: (time) (time remaining) (comment)
0:01 0:52 He's a Jedi.
0:06 0:47 Huh, I have no recollection of every learning the difference between AC and DC before.
0:13 0:40 This is at least the third time they've showed this same photo.
0:23 0:30 Noooo! How... This really goes back to what Edison said of Tesla: "Poet of Science." (gave up royalties for the sake of releasing his invention)
0:26 0:27 Magician. See The Prestige (2006)
0:31 0:22 I wonder if he was satisfied with all the fame he received and didn't think twice about the royalties he gave up.
0:33 0:20 Why don't they just say "obsessive compulsive"? Oh okay, this one guy just mentioned it.
0:37 0:16 Oh. This potato field with light bulbs was a scene in The Prestige.
0:41 0:12 J.P. Morgan
0:42 0:11 Marconi and the radio.
0:47 0:06 "Science meets science fiction."
0:48 0:05 I recently learned that pigeons and doves are interchangeable terms.
0:50 0:03 U.S. supreme court ruling after his death. Unfortunate.
0:52 0:01 Credits

Watched 20181115 (Netflix, Instant)
American Experience: Tesla (2016) David Grubin. 60 min

Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Relevant Links:
"American Experience" Tesla (IMDb.com)
Tesla (film) (Wikipedia.org)


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