A lot; he was widely recognized as a genius in his own time. Sadly, his helicopter wouldn't have worked, and he never sketched an ICE.
helicopter prototype was off (just needed different shape propeller, additional stabilizing propeller and proper weight distribution), but it was on a correct development path. parachute design was correct as was demonstrated in 2000. (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bgE0_zA9lEU/U29iF1bk9QI/AAAAAAAAEu...)
what if tesla's highly speculated work is even 50% close?
we had thousands of electric cars manufactured and sold in USA 100 years ago (stop and think about it for a second: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/80/34/c5/8034...). wireless transmission of electricity/energy could put us on a completely different path as a humanity (as well as completely change political and business landscape worldwide).
And an ENGINE!
>At the 1932 occasion, Tesla claimed he had invented a motor that would run on cosmic rays.[205] In 1933, at age 77, Tesla told reporters that, after thirty-five years of work, he was on the verge of producing proof of a new form of energy. He claimed it was a theory of energy that was “violently opposed” to Einsteinian physics, and could be tapped with an apparatus that would be cheap to run and last 500 years. He also told reporters he was working on a way to transmit individualized private radio wavelengths, working on breakthroughs in metallurgy, and developing a way to photograph the retina to record thought.
We know that cosmic rays aren't prevalent enough to produce energy. It should be obvious that you can't record thought through a retina because the majority of thought in the brain occurs in areas obstructed by the retina. He was just an already-eccentric old man whose brain was breaking down, and in trying to cling onto his success from the past he might have developed delusions that to him seem perfectly logical. I don't see why we can't accept that the death ray idea was just as nonexistent/nonsensical as these other ones. Additionally, also from wikipedia:
>In a box purported to contain a part of Tesla's "death ray", Trump found a 45-year-old multidecade resistance box.
Scary thing? Delusional behavior can just happen to anyone. It's a mental illness and like any illness there may be no way to see it coming. One day, you suddenly think your 'Real Girl' doll is a real person that you love[0].
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_and_the_Real_Girl - Fantastic, true acting by an actor known mostly for his good looks.
FBI clearly stated in that FIA disclosed dossier that there was an outside entity trying to get access to his lab prototypes, papers, information. We do not know if and what was taken,
It's not like these "great minds" are alien superintelligences. How much smarter do you think they were than the average person, in terms of IQ? Maybe 2x maximum? Seems quite possible to judge. Tesla was not a Singularity.
IQ is definitely not the end all-be-all of intelligence because you can train yourself to become better at taking IQ tests by taking IQ tests: that's what all those people with >180 IQ who are "the smartest people in the world" did. And of course intelligence is only part of the equation: people could be much smarter than Tesla but simply never become interested in electricity, and even very smart people can make mistakes and arrive at incorrect conclusions (perhaps due to ego as well - we are all human). There are also different forms of intelligence, as some people are much better than others at verbal/spatial/logical reasoning but perform averagely in other categories.
So in general I'd say IQ is not a good way to look at this. We should look more at the fact that mental illness can affect everyone, and if someone starts suddenly making provably false outlandish claims, that doesn't mean they weren't once a great scientist or very intelligent person.
I disagree, I define a truly great mind as one that thinks very differently from others, and solves problems others can't. Not someone who can just solve problems more quickly.
Why do you think it matters what his IQ is? You can't measure someone's ability to think about new things with a test that asks you to solve relatively simple brainteasers. I am sure his IQ was quite high, but that doesn't mean someone with an equivalently high IQ could do what he did.
Edit: missed a word.
In terms of understanding of electric phenomena, its difficult to point at another with a similar level of understanding (or at least productive understanding).
With that in mind, it would seem he's quite a bit "smarter" than even very intelligent people, with the same life long pursuit.
Maxwell? Faraday? Heaviside? etc. Or are we explicitly talking circuits?
When you try to map some trends 'genius' people have that others dont, it comes to have some form of free/ilimited thinking, like kids often do, persistence and even stuborness based on faith that something others dont get it its actually possible, criativity, a good environment and in the end choose that path that im sure can become a big burden, that will require a lot of spirit, persistence and good will.
So i guess IQ tests alone will never be able to frame or to detect real geniuses in a objective automated manner.
Of course that more brainpower give you more chances to become a genius, but there are some traces of the personality that must also be there.
For instance, the majority of the smart people in the world, will not go through this route, giving they can just use their brains to get rich, famous, powerful and use it in a more egotistical and self-fulfilling manner.
this is not about not being appreciated at the given time. unless you think in 500 years it will be fashionable "to love that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."
https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-efimov-state-physicists-fi...
we are all the same, all part of one. if you love yourself and you love "one" you automatically love pigeons and all the other living creatures.
perhaps its our next evolutionary step and he was many years ahead of all of us...
when Leonardo da vinci sketched out a parachute or a helicopter-looking self propelling device prototypes that took 500 years to actually build - what did contemporaries think of him?
who are we to judge a great mind? we simply cant. yes he might have gone mad, but there is a very fine line between madness and brilliance and its often blurred. all we can do is take these ideas and test/iterate/test. id rather bet on a horse that is capable of running than on a just born foal.