tesla, thanks monte davis / the baileys

[John BAILEY]

Nope, unless we're bilocated versions of the same person. Nobody's ever
seen us in the same room, at any rate. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of mikebailey at speakeasy.net
Sent: Thursday, 1 February 2007 6:48 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: tesla, thanks monte davis / the baileys

>In his youth and in his prime, Nicola Tesla grasped electromagnetic 
>theory and practice far better than I ever will, and accomplished 
>things that changed the world. But gradually, along the way, "change 
>the world" took priority -- and increasingly in his last decades, 
>whatever bending of the science might be necessary to make that
possible, so be it.

coupla addendoddities leap to mind,

a) Spider Robinson uses the Tunguska incident for a revisioning of the
Tesla story, a lot of fun if you like that sort of thing.  And the "no
wine before it's time" guy (big fella, also made a radio show about
Martians I think) made a film about Tesla, black and white though
(bummer)

b) my friend's grandpa used to deliver something to Wardenclyffe, and he
saw Tesla's guys using cordless power tools - he said the people pointed
to some kind of generator as the source.  Obviously if true, it was very
close range (and one wonders if anybody did epidemiological followups
with the employees) - this isn't an attempted refutation or even a
counterfact, just something I thought was interesting

c) there's a Tesla group on Yahoo groups, mixed bag but some gems.  I
don't follow it as closely as I follow the p-list, but every so often
somebody brings out a technical refutation of the "free power" idea, and
every so often somebody else tries to defend it or offers a forthcoming
implementation (none of which yet has come to aught that I'm aware of)
but fun to watch

Dave, John Bailey and I aren't related as far as I know - John, please
correct me if I'm wrong here...