Nikola Tesla

From Stripespedia

Nikola Tesla was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer. He was an important contributor to the birth of commercial electricity, and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current (AC) electric power systems, including the polyphase system of electrical distribution and the AC motor. This work helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution. However, because of his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist by many late in his life. Tesla died with little money in 1943 at the age of 86, in a hotel suite in New York City.

Today, he is widely known for his invention, the Tesla coil, a type of resonant transformer circuit invented by Tesla around 1891. Tesla and his works have been referenced numerous times in the world of the White Stripes:

• The song "Astro" mentions him and subtly references the War of Currents between Tesla and Edison.
• In Jim Jarmusch's film Coffee and Cigarettes, the vignette starring Jack and Meg is titled "Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil". In the scene, Jack shows Meg a Tesla coil while having some coffee and cigarettes -- fairly self-explanatory. The scene somehow manages to cram in basically every other White Stripes motif in existence; see the article on the film.
• Although Ben Blackwell has stated in the past that no one has yet correctly identified the object Jack is holding on the cover of Get Behind Me Satan, it has been suggested that the object is most likely a Tesla bulb of some sort. In the liner notes for the album, Jack writes, "Under my arm is a device with conductivity and I gave it to you." In addition, visual evidence exists to prove this -- compare this picture of a Tesla coil with the cover of the album.
• The liner notes for Elephant include a picture of Tesla's hand holding a lightbulb ("It's True..." lyrics), and the CD has a picture of Tesla's favorite pigeon.
• The Wardenclyffe Tower shows up in the news section of the band's official website (as of January 2012).

Quotes

• Jack White: "I knew what a Tesla coil was, since I wanted to build one since I was a little kid. When we first met Jim, he had a book about Tesla on his desk, and I started saying how much of an admirer of Tesla's I was. We started talking, and we were eventually going to make a video for our last album in which I was going to play Tesla. We were going to reenact Edison's electrocution of an elephant that he did to disprove Tesla's theory, and I was going to turn Edison's head into an incandescent light pulp at the end to pay him back for his murder of the elephant. It didn't work out because it got too expensive. The next thing, Jim came over and said he had a script for a short film about a Tesla coil. I was so excited about it, because we wanted to do something creative with Jim, and also, to bring people some more knowledge of someone who is really underrated and misunderstood."