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I've been watching a series on Nicolas Tesla on the Science Channel and there is much I never realized about this man.  The more I hear and learn the more I'm impressed beyond the measure of this man's intellect and knowledge as well as his ideas and projects.   I also never realized what likelihood there was that Tesla was actually murdered, potentially for some of his ideas or projects.

The particular series on Tesla that is currently running on the Science channel concentrates on Tesla's idea of a "Death Ray" but some of his inventions or ideas that interest me is his idea of wireless, free, transmission of electricity.  Having spent much of my life in the work and study of Electronics and Electricity I feel I should have known more about this man and his ideas.  I also know the nuances involved with Electronics and how even though it is much-established, accepted, knowledge with electronics they still call it "Theory" when referring to it and teaching it.  

As I learn more about Tesla the more I wonder just where we would be today if he was able to live longer and had the ability to explore more of his ideas and theories, sadly he was eccentric enough and crazy enough that many of his supporters and backers were reluctant to continue to support him and his source of funding dried up fast restricting him from diving further into many of his theories, ideas, and studies.  So Tesla will continue to be a mystery and an anomaly of a person and a debatable genius of an inventor.  

 

Be as the Bereans ( Acts 17:11 )

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Two men, in history have always fascinated me, Harry Houdini and Nikola Tesla. I've read everything on them I could ever find. I watched that show too and while it was a whole lotta sensationalized BS, the historical facts were enough to keep your interests. More about Tesla should be taught to our kids. His inventions were the groundwork for everything from our power grid to basically WiFi. 

I know Harry Houdini was into a lot including debunking many frauds as well as his other endeavors.  I always thought what a tragic loss having Houdini die from something so trivial as he died from.  Not that his injury and what killed him was trivial but the fact that the person that struck him, in the stomach with the blow that eventually killed him, did so before Houdini could prepare himself for the blow.   I was nothing more than Houdini saying he could take a punch to the gut from anyone, and he possibly could have given time to prepare himself for the strike, but why even make such a boasting?  

He was so famous for his escape artist stunts and magic as well as debunking so many frauds yet it was a braggadocious type stunt or masculine contest and effects from it and his failure to get treatment for it, that led to his death.  I don't know if it was just that he felt himself to be invincible or didn't really give enough serious thought to the blow he took to the gut from the guy who took the challenge from him to strike him.  I feel had he had time to prepare for the blow he could have possibly absorbed it but then at this point who knows. 

There is speculation, today, as to whether or not the stomach punches, by the student, actually was directly involved in leading to Houdini's death.   What is thought more likely is that the blows he received, from the student, happened at the time he was having pains from a troubled appendix.   In Houdini's mind the blows he received from the student possibly prevented him from attributing the pains, he was having to something he would have normally have sought medical attention about, to being soreness and pain from the punch itself.  

Houdini did not seek medical help in time to prevent the rupture of the appendix, leading to the infection that actually killed him, because he possibly attributed the abdominal pain he was having to those stomach punches rather than if the punches had never occurred he would have recognized it as something abnormal and potentially seek help in time, before the appendix ruptured.  In other words, the blows from the punches didn't rupture the appendix or cause the problem but rather became a scapegoat symptom Houdini used to deny the real underlying problem until it manifested itself to the point he could no longer deny it to be something that serious.  

I also found it interesting how so many kept returning on the anniversary Halloweens believing that Houdini would and could actually return from the dead or back from the afterlife.  That he, Houdini, had actually, prior to his death, arranged for a special word or phrase, known only to Bess, his wife, to prove it was actually him instead of, say a huckster or fraud like many that he had revealed before he died.  He must have foreknown that there would be people, after his death, who would claim to be in touch with him so he would protect Bess from that fate by establishing that word/phrase, known only to them.  If Houdini had the benefit of modern medicine, that we have today, or the antibiotics we have today then he, most likely,  would have even survived his long delay in getting treatment.  He may have still died from it but most likely he would not have.  It's too bad to lose such a talent of a person so early in his career and life.

 Is there any illusionist or magician or person today that can ever come close to being compared to Houdini?

Last edited by gbrk
unclegus posted:

I have seen some of the program you mention, it does raise questions.

I agree, and some of those questions lead right to foreign powers but then the questions are who and what papers were taken?  Questions that may never be answered.  One thing about it, I don't think Tesla has any contemporaries but then if he did I most likely wouldn't know them anyway so I hope he does but given Tesla's work I doubt it.

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