This week: Ultra Tesla Trivia! Think you know all about the great inventor Nikola Tesla? Test your knowledge below–then explore more by clicking the links at the bottom of this page.
This photo shows workers inside one of Thomas Edison’s laboratories. Robert Underwood Johnson (January 12, 1853 – October 14, 1937) was an American writer, poet, and diplomat. The image shown was taken at Tesla’s Experimental Station in the mountainous Colorado Springs area. In a news story published by the San Francisco Examiner on January 4, 1901, a caption reads, “While investigating electrical phenomena on Pike’s Peak, Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor, says he plainly distinguished disturbances which must have been produced on one of the planets in the solar system.” Nikola Tesla built Wardenclyffe in 1901 in Shoreham, New York, near what was once the Long Island Railroad. False: Tesla designed a remote controlled BOAT that he called a telautomaton that he demonstrated in Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1898. True! However, it was an erroneous news report and the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to William Lawrence Bragg, shown in the photograph below. Nikola Tesla held conferences every year on July 10, his birthday as he celebrated it in the US. Milutin Tesla (1819-1879) Awesome job! Your knowledge of Nikola Tesla is excellent. Thank you for taking the Tesla Trivia challenge. Come back next week for an electrifying new Tesla Trivia game! Great try! We hope you learned lots of interesting facts about inventor Nikola Tesla and his contributions to humanity. Come back next week for an electrifying new Tesla Trivia game!
#1. TRUE or FALSE: Nikola Tesla once worked for Thomas Edison.
#2. Nikola Tesla was a longtime friend of which famous poet?
#3. Tesla is often associated with his laboratories in New York City and Long Island, New York. But he also conducted a number of important experiments in which other American city?
#4. While working on wireless power transmission in the western United States, Tesla claims to have received a repeating radio signal from another planet. Which planet did Tesla think was trying to contact Earth?
#5. This Tesla invention shown in the picture made what possible?
#6. Which great financier did NOT invest in Nikola Tesla?
#7. Where is Wardenclyffe, the last standing laboratory of Nikola Tesla?
#8. TRUE or FALSE: Nikola Tesla designed a remote control car that he demonstrated at Madison Square Garden?
#9. TRUE or FALSE: The New York Times once announced on their front page that Tesla won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics to be shared with Thomas Edison.
#10. Tesla visited the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition (Chicago’s World Fair) for a week at the invitation of the Westinghouse Corporation to show off several of his inventions. What amazing invention of the time did NOT make an appearance at this World’s Fair?
#11. Who has NOT played Nikola Tesla in a movie?
#12. Later in life, Tesla would invite newspaper reporters to an annual press conference to tell them about progress made on his inventions over the previous year. What day each year did Tesla hold these conferences?
#13. What did Tesla’s father do for a living?
Results
Explore more about Wardenclyffe, Tesla, and Dr. Bryan Field:
Dr. Bryan Field – Cited as expert in the science of Nikola Tesla in this 31 October 2021 newspaper article: “Laden durch die Luft” in Frankfuter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung by Piotr Heller. (German language)
Look Both Ways (Podcast) – Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower & Geothermal Energy, 10 August 2021
The Verge Science (YouTube video) – The Quest for Nikola Tesla’s Wireless Tower Transfer, 10 December 2020
PBS Drive by History with Dr. Bryan Field – Nikola Tesla’s Lab and The Trent House, 27 May 2020
