📡 The Future, For Which I Really Worked
Nikola Tesla’s Wireless War with Edison, Marconi—and Time Itself
by Denik deBro
“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
— Nikola Tesla
🧠 Slide 1: The Dreamers in the Stars
Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla gazing across a wireless world they imagined before the world was ready.
⚡ Slide 2: The 25-Mile Miracle
DYK: Nikola Tesla Lit 200 Lamps Wirelessly—From 25 Miles Away?
In 1899, from his Colorado Springs lab, Tesla used the Earth itself to transmit electricity without wires. It wasn’t just science—it was a revolution waiting to happen.
⚔️ Slide 3: The War of Currents
Edison fought back hard, launching a smear campaign against Tesla’s AC current.
He even electrocuted animals in public demonstrations, including the circus elephant Topsy, to paint AC as deadly.
Tesla never stooped to Edison’s level—but he still won the Current War.
🏛️ Slide 4: Wall Street Strikes Back
Tesla dreamed of free global energy through his Wardenclyffe Tower, but financiers like J.P. Morgan pulled the plug.
“If anyone can draw power from the air... where do we put the meter?”
The dream collapsed—not for lack of science, but for lack of profit.
🧾 Slide 5: Marconi’s Lawsuit Backfires
Marconi copied 17 of Tesla’s patents, got approval from the USPTO, and was credited as the inventor of radio.
He later sued the U.S. government for patent infringement during WWII.
But in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed his patents in Tesla’s favor—a victory that came months after Tesla died penniless and alone.
🌌 Slide 6: Legacy Above Us
Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla—two men of mischief and mind—reunited beyond the stars.
Though one shaped stories and the other sculpted lightning, both dreamed of a freer, more connected world.
Twain gave us the moral conscience of America.
Tesla gave us the nervous system of modern civilization.
Neither lived to see how deeply their fingerprints would cover the future.
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
— Nikola Tesla“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
— Mark Twain
Their visions, once dismissed as fantasy, now shape everything from smartphones to satellites, social networks to solar grids.
They were not men of their time.
They were men of ours.
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We owe a lot to Edison but he was egregiously mean to Nikola Tesla.
Tesla and Twain—one lit up minds, the other lit up cities. It’s wild how much of today still runs on their yesterday.