The Most Interesting Thing I Learned This Week: Expounding on Nikola Tesla

The two or three of you that have been visiting Come and Blog It for some time now may know that I have always had a fascination with Nikola Tesla and his amazing inventions. Not only was he creating things that we still use today, but he was way ahead of his time doing most of his work in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Nikola Tesla at about age 40

Most of the time the most interesting thing I learn in a week I just come across by chance, but part of writing about something interesting on a weekly basis may mean you have to go digging for just the right piece of info. I don't want to pull from things I've learned in the past - to me that would be cheating. I want to learn at least one new interesting thing every week. This week was a pretty busy work week that seemed to gobble up all of my attention and not produce anything to interesting, so I decided to think about what I found interesting. That led me to do a little digging on Tesla. There is way too much information on this man to list it all so if you want a quick overview of his life, check the video at the bottom of this post.

So, what fancy new info did I learn about Tesla this week? Glad you asked.

First, Tesla theorized in the late 1800s that he could send sound AND images from one place to another without wires. Think about that - he was theorizing that he could essentially send a Youtube video from one place to another without wires. Before 1900. It was in 1900 in Paris when the first public exhibition of a movie with sound took place. Now I'm sort of kidding when I say he was thinking about movies - but essentially he was saying he could transmit more than just sound, such as with radio, over the airwaves. This blew people's minds (since transmitting sound was still extremely new) and is about when people started calling him insane. Yet here I am sending images and sound to you without wires.

And secondly, I knew that he was building a tower on Long Island that would test his theories of transmitting over long distances, but I always thought he just ran out of money. What actually happened is that he had a silent partner financing the project - J.P. Morgan. He also had a secret plan. He believed that his tower at some point would be able to send wireless electricity to the world for free. Upon discovery of the secret plan, Morgan pulled the plug and kept Tesla from getting any other investors. Morgan was not about to give out electricity unless he could charge for it. The tower was never built and was dismantled for scrap in World War I.Tesla did some truly amazing things - and his mind was strange and worked in ways we don't understand. Yet, for all he did, most of us think of Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison when we think of electricity. The truth is that Tesla is the reason we have a world that is lit up as it is today.

For more info on an interesting man check out this video:

The Most Interesting Thing I Learned This Week: Five Phases of Matter and BW3

For most of the week, I didn't learn anything that was that interesting at all. I thought after two weeks, my series was already in jeopardy of being canceled. That was until I had some man-time doing some welding with my buddy, Cory. As we were repairing some metal chairs in my back courtyard and drinking a couple of High Life tall boys, I began to wonder as to the history of welding.

As I began researching welding, I came across something I had never been informed of before in my life. There are not three states, or phases, of matter as we all have grown up believing. There are in fact five! We all know about solid, liquid and gas, but actually the most prevalent state of matter in the entire universe is plasma. That's right, plasma. It's pretty close to a gas, but has too many unique qualities to be considered a gas, so it is, in fact, it's own state of matter. It's what stars consist of, mostly.

The fifth phase is called Bose-Einstein Condensate. Feel free to click the link and try to understand that particular state of matter. I read it twice and still am baffled.

All you need to take away from this is that when I have a kid, and the teacher begins to teach my kid about the three states of matter, my child will raise his or her tiny little hand and say, "But my daddy told me there were five states of matter: sowid, wiquid, gas, pwasma and Bose-Einstein Condensate." And that will be the proudest moment of my life.

Bonus Most Interesting Thing:

While we're on numbers, I asked the right man a question last night that has bugged me for years. Why do people call Buffalo Wild Wings "BW3"? I only see two W's there. My friend Patrick happened to work there at one time and knew the answer that I'm willing to bet only one of the four of you at most knows. The third W comes from Buffalo Wild Wings and Weck - the original name of the restaurant chain. The nickname stuck despite the name change.

So, what the heck is weck then? (See what I did there.) Weck is German for "roll" and the short way to say Kummelweck, which is a type of roll that BW3 served sandwiches on at the time.

Food and science this week. How am I ever going to top that?

It's Important to Build Rapport With Your Audience

I decided about 5 minutes ago that I was done working for the day. I had a whole list of tasks to get done that I started at 8AM. I have accomplished all that I can for the day; I'm tired, so I decided to do the only thing that made sense to me.

Stop working and go play The Legend of Zelda on my Wii.

Oh, that's right...old school Nintendo on my shiny new toy. Stacie and I played Zelda last night until 11.30. Any of your wives play Nintendo with y'all until 11.30 at night? Didn't think so. I win.

Last night I mentioned that we needed to find Link's boomerang to which Stacie responded, "Who's Link?" Well, it turns out she's not alone in her lack of knowledge. A quick search of the world wide web will inform you that most people think the character you use in The Legend of Zelda is, in fact, Zelda. But Zelda is the princess you are trying to save from the Evil Gannon. I'm pretty sure you don't see her at all in the entire game, so it can be understandable why one might think Link is actually Zelda.

I wrote that last paragraph in order to prove to you the vastness of the knowledge bouncing around in my brain. You see, if I convince you that I am knowledgeable in completely useless things, hopefully you will count me as knowledgeable in very useful things. It's called building rapport with the audience. Each time I build rapport with you in this post, I will note it with an * so that you can pause and really appreciate the moment.

Obviously, I am not saving Princess Zelda right now. Zelda has been in need of saving since July of 1987* so I figure she can wait a few more minutes. A lot has happened over the past few days (such as the PlayStation cell phone being put on hold due to less than desirable technical quality*) and I feel like I should comment.

First, we inaugurated America's first not-completely-white President*. Yes that's a rapport building asterisk there because I'm pretty sure everyone thinks he is black. He is. But he is equally white. Truly a president for all!! Except the Hispanics...and Native Americans...and Asians. Did I pull everyone into my very inclusive circle there. Well, if your ethnicity was not listed this is for you "...and Other/Choose Not to Answer." Actually...that's what President Obama would have to check!

If I missed anybody, I'm pretty sure Joseph Lowery, who helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955*, covered them.

Someday, as a white, I hope to do what is right. Amen.

In related current events, President Bush must have felt lighter than air (to find the weight of air: m/V = p / RT = 101325 N/m2 * 1 m3 / (287 J/kg-K * 273.15 K) = 1.2925 kg/m3)* when he woke up Wednesday morning. The weight of the world ( 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, though technically that is the mass of the earth because we get weight from the earth's gravity which obviously doesn't pull on itself)* was literally off of his shoulders. In the now 7.5 years following 9/11 he has done what he promised to do and ensured no terrorist attack took place on American soil under his watch. Everything else is debatable, but that one point is not. And for that and for his service I say thank you. I had the chance to meet and interact with President Bush once when he was the Governor of the Great State*. He's a good man. Much like I'm sure President Obama is a good man. To disagree with his policies and decisions is one thing, but to treat the man like a dog's turd is a whole other story. I trust that he did what he thought was right and what he thought was best for the country. I trust that Obama will do what he believes is right and best for the country. I'll probably disagree with him a lot, but I will never come close to showing him the disrespect President Bush was showered with daily and hopefully no one else will either. I wonder what a Bush presidency would've looked like if 9/11 never happened...

The Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. I did not see that coming. The Cardinals last home playoff game was in 1947 in CHICAGO! And now they've won two home games and a road game and are on their way to Tampa. (Notice I did not put an asterisk next to that Cardinals tidbit because of the overkill that is Super Bowl hype I'm pretty sure most of you already knew that. But for those of you that didn't, add it to that big ol' stack of rapport I've got goin' on.)

I for one hope the Cardinals win. Not because I hate the Steelers with all the burning hotness of 10,000 suns (and I'm talking about the very hot center of the sun which reaches about 27,000,000 degrees F not the chilly 10,000 degree F surface of the sun.)* Okay that is part of the reason. I mean can you blame me. This happened:



But as a fan of a team that loses a lot (roughly a .348 winning percentage since 1991)* I feel like if the Cardinals can get it together, anything is possible. And Kurt Warner is a Renaissance man.

Let's see...PETA decided to rebrand fish as SeaKittens....hahahahahahaha...they hope this gets people to see fish as cute and cuddly not as food...hahahahahahahah....that might be the funniest thing ever. I mean, first they probably should've done SeaPuppies because I'm pretty sure the people that are getting up at 3AM, getting in their truck, going to the lake, boating to their favorite fishing hole and pulling out SeaKittens probably are dog people. Just a guess. They'd probably be okay with a few less cats...that's good stuff. Secondly, you can't just change a name. Shakespeare said it first, a rose by any other name*...

Well, kids, I've gotta jet. I'm taking my wife to see a play tonight. It's got Jeffrey Donovan from Burn Notice in it. If you don't watch Burn Notice, you should. It's kind of like MacGyver, but cooler and newer. New season starts tonight on USA.

I feel like I've built up some great rapport with you here today. We hit on some personal stuff, civil rights, math and science, video game history, and even literature. I'm a wealth of knowledge. Trust me.