Nikola was truly the mad scientist of all times. I feel he is the model for Christopher Lloyd's role in , "Back to the Future."
My grandfather, the physicist Leland Johnson Stacy, was an associate of Tesla. He said the man was strange, but was so far beyond his times that most people thought him insane. He was very eccentric. Grandfather and Nikola both had photographic memories ( a family trait) and thought way outside the box, so they got along well. Tesla conferred with him on some of the research and development that Grandfather did on the vacuum tube amplifier, and in 1928 on an idea grandfather had ( which was not developed until many years later) of everyone having small wireless telephones which received their power from RF waves. Of course Grandfather was told by Bell Labs ( where he did his research) that this idea is impractical and nothing like it would ever be possible, so he invented the dial phone instead.
Grandfather and I built a Tesla coil ( and many other high voltage projects) when I was about 7. I remember holding a fluorescent lamp and having it illuminate when he pressed the button on the coil.
It was really neat growing up and spending all my summers with Grandfather Stacy. He would talk of conversations , ideas discussed, and meetings with Einstein, Edison, Marconi, Tesla, and many who I had no idea who they were. Because of his memory system, he would re-play 30 year old conversations as if he and the person had spoken yesterday.
He and I have the same memory system, although mine is far less developed. And like him I can't tell you what color my shirt is without looking down. Neither one of us has/had any facial recognition ability, and can't place names and faces together.It is even difficult with close friends and relatives we don't see daily. We remember who people are by things they did or said, not by their faces. This creates a lot of embarrassment and confusion when people who we know run into us and we don't appear to recognize them ( because we don't). As an example, I know who Bill Moran, Aldo, and Kevin are, but the only way I recognize them is by things I have recorded mentally that they did. In my mind,I can see Aldo unloading steel from his truck ( and smoking a cigarette), so I recognize him . Same for Kevin doing a presentation ( with cowboy caricatures of an unnamed knifemaker). Bill, I see in his shop sitting on a stool by the forge (spitting into a can). Many of you I have met more times than these people, but made no memory of the situation.When we get together at an event, I know that I have met you (usually) but have no idea who you are. Things like this tend to get you labeled as an absent minded professor....or on the case of Nikola, a mad scientist.
Stacy
