Mankind Benefit Quotes
Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances. Tesler was the first scientist to conceive of an try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.
America had reached an agreement with Colombia to buy the Canal Zone to built an inter-ocean canal. There was great momentum in the US and much of the world for such a project. But the ever changing government of Colombia decided to reneg on the agreement and demanded more money. Roosevelt felt that the United States was being “held up” and so he supported a small insurgent group in Panama who declared Panama independence from Colombia. President Roosevelt sent an American warship to be sure that the Colombians could not land forces and put down the revolution. Roosevelt then negotiated a treaty for the Panama with the new revolutionary government of Panama. This divided American public opinion much of which thought that in effect Roosevelt, not liking the terms the Colombian owners of Panama insisted upon, just took Panama through the fiction of a revolution. TR thereafter always tried to explain his actions. See {589008} for additional material.
