Einstein×Tesla

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on TITANS, Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla. They take up On being misquoted.
2. 00:08
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   You know, Nikola, I saw the other day a picture of myself with the words, 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.' I never said this. Never wrote it. Yet it follows me everywhere, like a little dog made of lies.
3. 00:25
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   Ah! You too are haunted by the phantom quotations! They have me saying I wished to give the world free energy, as if I were some sort of charitable saint. I wished to give energy, yes, but through a system I would control, through towers and patents. I was not running a charity society.
4. 00:46
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   It is strange, isn't it? People need us to have said certain things. They need the universe to be simple, so they make us simple too.
5. 00:54
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   The universe is not simple. It is a symphony of frequencies, of vibrations that most cannot hear! But they reduce my life's work to, what is it, 'If you want to understand the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.' As if I spoke like a fortune cookie!
6. 01:14
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Did you say that one?
7. 01:15
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   I have no memory of it. Perhaps I said something like it, but not so... neat. Not so packaged. My thoughts on resonance were technical, mathematical. They were about the Earth itself as a conductor, about longitudinal waves through the medium.
8. 01:34
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Yes, exactly. The real ideas are never so quotable. I spent years trying to explain that space and time are not separate, that they curve, that gravity is geometry. But what do they quote? 'Everything is relative.' As if I meant your uncle's opinion is as valid as experimental physics!
9. 01:53
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   They have done the same to me with alternating current. 'Tesla invented AC power!' they say, as if I sat down one afternoon and conjured it from nothing. Pixii had a version, Ferraris had a motor. I made it practical, yes. I saw the rotating magnetic field in my mind, complete, while walking in Budapest. But invention is not magic.
10. 02:19
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    No, it is work. Years of work. False starts. I tried for a decade to make a unified field theory work, and I failed. But they don't quote that part. They want the genius who never doubted.
11. 02:32
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The public wants wizards, not engineers. They want us to have secret knowledge, to speak in riddles. 'The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.' Did I say this? Probably. It sounds like something I would say when I was angry, when Marconi took credit, when Edison smeared my system.
12. 02:55
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    That one does sound like you.
13. 02:56
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    But now it appears on websites next to photographs of sunsets! It has become inspirational. They have stripped it of context, of the bitterness. I was not being inspirational. I was being defiant.
14. 03:11
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Context dies first. Then nuance. Then what remains is a slogan. They have me saying 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' I wrote something like this once, yes, in an interview. But I also spent fifty years doing calculations! Imagination without mathematics is just daydreaming.
15. 03:31
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Exactly so! I imagined the rotating field, but then I had to build it. Wire by wire. Coil by coil. The vision was perhaps ten percent. The rest was copper and sweat.
16. 03:43
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Why do you think they do this? Why do they need us to have said these simple things?
17. 03:48
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Because they are afraid. Afraid of complexity. Afraid of the real work. If they make us into prophets, into speakers of obvious wisdom, then they do not have to follow our actual methods. They do not have to study. They can simply... feel inspired.
18. 04:04
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    There may be something to that. Although I think it is also that they want their own thoughts validated. They want Einstein to agree with them about school being bad, or about conformity being wrong. So they invent an Einstein who says these things.
19. 04:20
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Have they made you say nonsense about education?
20. 04:23
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Oh yes. 'Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree...' and so on. I never said this! I thought education was essential. I struggled in certain subjects, yes, because I found the teaching method stifling, but I never thought everyone was a genius. Some people are smarter than others. This is simply true.
21. 04:52
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Truth is no longer the concern. The concern is making people feel good. I have become, somehow, a symbol for the misunderstood loner. 'Tesla died penniless and alone,' they say, 'but he was right all along!' As if poverty were a badge of correctness.
22. 05:10
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Were you right all along?
23. 05:12
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    About some things, yes. About others, no. My wireless power transmission at scale, for instance. Technically possible, yes. Economically viable? Perhaps not in the way I imagined. But they do not want to hear about my failures. They want the mad genius in the tower, shooting lightning at the sky.
24. 05:34
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    We have become characters. Simplified versions. I am the wild-haired professor who says everything is relative and sticks his tongue out. You are the tortured visionary who speaks to pigeons and predicts cell phones.
25. 05:50
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I did speak to pigeons. This part is true. There was one in particular, a white one, with grey tips on the wings. I loved that pigeon.
26. 06:00
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I am not judging the pigeons, Nikola.
27. 06:02
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Good. But yes, you are right. We have become myths. And myths must be simple. The real Tesla was difficult, obsessive, sometimes wrong. The real Einstein was—
28. 06:17
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Also sometimes wrong. I resisted quantum mechanics for years. 'God does not play dice,' I said, and I did say that one. But it turns out perhaps He does play dice. Or at least, the universe behaves as if He does.
29. 06:33
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    You were wrong about quantum mechanics, and I was wrong about wireless power economics. But these nuances do not fit on a poster. They do not go viral, as they say now.
30. 06:46
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    What is the harm, though? So people find inspiration in words we may not have said. Is this so terrible? If it makes someone study physics or persevere through difficulty, is that bad?
31. 06:58
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The harm is that it is a lie. And lies, even comfortable ones, rot the foundation. If you inspire someone with a false quotation, you teach them that truth is optional. That feeling correct is more important than being correct.
32. 07:15
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Hmm. I see your point. But also, people have always done this. They did it with Newton, with Galileo. 'And yet it moves,' he never said at his trial. But the story persists because it captures something true about his defiance.
33. 07:30
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The story may capture a truth, but it is not the truth. And we are scientists. The distinction matters to us.
34. 07:37
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Yes, you are right. Although I confess, sometimes I see a fake quote of mine that is close enough to what I believe, and I think, well, I could have said that. I should have said it more clearly when I had the chance.
35. 07:50
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    This is the seduction. They make us into better speakers than we were. More concise. More poetic. But in doing so, they erase the struggle. The real Einstein stammered and tried different phrasings. The real Tesla gave interviews that went on for pages, full of tangents about ether and cosmic rays.
36. 08:14
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I did stammer. Still do, in a way. My thoughts come faster than my words, and they tangle.
37. 08:19
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    As do mine. But the fake quotes never tangle. They are smooth, polished. They are the ideas without the mess of thinking.
38. 08:29
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    So what do we do? How do we fight this?
39. 08:31
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    We cannot. We are dead. The misquotes will outlive us because they are simpler, more shareable. They fit the narrative people want.
40. 08:39
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    That is a depressing thought.
41. 08:41
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Yes. But it is true. And we are scientists. We prefer true depressions to false comforts.
42. 08:49
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Most of the time, anyway.
43. 08:50
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Most of the time.
44. 08:52
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Although, Nikola, I must say, if someone is going to invent a quote for me, I wish they would at least make it interesting. 'Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.' I mean, it is fine advice, but it is so... bland.
45. 09:08
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    That one is attributed to you? I thought it was Gandhi. Or perhaps Mandela. They all blur together in the great soup of internet wisdom.
46. 09:18
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Exactly! We have become interchangeable. Any dead person with credibility can have any vaguely wise thing attributed to them.
47. 09:26
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I saw one last week that said I predicted smartphones. I did predict something like radio communication in pocket form, yes, but I was thinking more about tuning into universal broadcasts, not about people photographing their meals and arguing with strangers.
48. 09:46
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    You did not foresee Twitter, then.
49. 09:48
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I did not foresee Twitter. If I had, I might have been less optimistic about the future of human communication.
50. 09:55
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    A fair point. Well, Nikola, at least we can take some comfort in knowing that somewhere, somehow, we are inspiring people, even if the words are not quite ours.
51. 10:08
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Small comfort. But I suppose it is something. Though I would prefer they read my actual patents. Those were quite inspiring, I thought.
52. 10:18
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    And I would prefer they work through my field equations. But we must accept the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
53. 10:25
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Did you say that?
54. 10:26
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Just now, yes. But give it time. Someone else will claim it soon enough.