IEEE Susquehanna Section: Nikola Tesla – The Pioneer who Paved the Road to the Electrical World as We Know It
Room: Room 101, Morrison Gallery, Bldg: Madlyn L Hanes Library (Building D), Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, Pennsylvania, United States, 17507IEEE Susquehanna Section Technical Dinner and Presentation This talk will present the history and life of Nikola Tesla, one of the most interesting scientists and persons of all time, and the the inventor of many things that we still use today. Tesla was at the forefront of the well-documented "current wars" (DC vs AC) and his system of power generation is still the basic system we use to this day. It is quite the feat for anything in engineering to last that long. But his inventions don't stop there. In fact, Tesla has over 300 patents with many more inventions not patented. His Tesla Coil invention remains a popular item to be built and cause fascination by many hobbyists. Guglielmo Marconi is usually credited with inventing radio, but it was shown after a long fight in 1943 that Tesla was indeed the first, and his much earlier patent proved it. Unfortunately, Tesla's death occurred about 6 months before the patent office corrected the history. While widely recognized as one of the greatest scientists and inventors of all time, Tesla also had some very eccentric personality traits. Tesla has a cult following to this very day and is the subject of many conspiracies and mysteries. This presentation will discuss Tesla, both the man and the inventor. The presentation will discuss many of Tesla's most important inventions and patents, and discuss his history and life. This presentation is an abbreviated version of a talk given at Penn State University (State College) in 2006 commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth. During that talk, many demonstrations were performed and recorded on video, some of which will be presented as part of this talk. The presentation will be preceded by dinner. Since we are all suffering "winter fatigue" by now and ready for spring and warmer weather, the dinner theme for this event will be "spring picnic in March," and will include many of the yummy things you'd expect at a spring picnic: - Hamburgers - Hot Dogs - Burger Topping Bar - Potato Chips - Potato Salad - Fudge Brownies There is a fee for the entire dinner+presentation event. There is no fee for only attending the presentation. Parking for the event is free and is in the parking lot south of the library. See the below map of the PSU Harrisburg campus for an overview on where the building and parking is located. Speaker(s): Jim Breakall, Agenda: Dinner: 6:00 - 7:00 PM Presentation: 7:00 - 8:30 PM Room: Room 101, Morrison Gallery, Bldg: Madlyn L Hanes Library (Building D), Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, Pennsylvania, United States, 17507