These days, the name “Tesla” is synonymous with “crashing into things and catching on fire,” which is basically how the man himself operated. His ability to push science forward by decades at a time could mostly be attributed to a brain that worked completely differently from every other brain that’s ever existed, which was great for humanity in general but not so awesome for those who had to interact with him and/or clean up his pigeon shit.

现如今,特斯拉这个名字听起来就是”菜刀砍电线火花带闪电“的同义词,这就是特斯拉的能力。他一次性将科学推进几十年的能力归功于一颗与其他大脑完全不同的超级大脑,总体来说是人类的宝贵财富,但是对于一些需要同其打交道的人来说则不是那么好了。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


15
He Was Born in a Thunderstorm

他在一个雷雨交加的夜晚出生

If you were watching a Tesla biopic that opened with Mrs. Tesla laboring sweatily while thunder boomed and lightning flashed outside, you’d be like “Oh, boy, it’s gonna be that kind of movie,” but according to family legend, that actually happened. The story goes that the midwife remarked, “Your new son is a child of the storm,” to which Mrs. Tesla responded, “No, he is a child of the light,” which feels like a minor quibble, but we don’t recommend arguing with immediately postpartum women.

如果你看一部特斯拉传记片,以特斯拉夫人汗流浃背,外面风雨交加,雷声大作,你大概会想,”我天哪,这是那种类型的电影“,但是根据家族传说,这是事实。故事是这样的,助产士说你的儿子是雷电之子,特斯拉夫人回科:不,他是光之子。这似乎是一个小小的争论,但我们不建议同刚生产完的产妇争论。

14
He Experienced Visions in “Flashes of Light”

他曾在“闪光”中体验到了幻觉

Mrs. Tesla didn’t realize just how right she was. Since childhood, Tesla experienced blinding “flashes of light” that often contained detailed visualizations of his future inventions. This was probably part of the debilitating mental illness he suffered from, but it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t useful to a scientist and inventor.

特斯拉夫人并没有意识到她有多么地正确。自童年起,特斯拉就经历了各种闪光,这些闪光往往包含他对未来发明的详细想象。这可能是使他精神衰弱的原因之一,但是对于一个科学家来说这也可以是很有帮助的。

13
He Lived in the Mountains For a Year

他在山里住了一年

To avoid being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army as a young man, Tesla adopted the Unabombercore aesthetic, hiding out in seclusion in the Croatian mountains. “For most of this term I roamed in the mountains, loaded with a hunter’s outfit and a bundle of books, and this contact with nature made me stronger in body as well as in mind,” he later wrote.

年轻时,特斯拉为了逃兵役,特斯拉采用了炸弹客的方式,隐居在克罗地亚山区。他后来写道:“这段时期的大部分时间里,我都在山里漫步,穿着猎人的行头,带着一摞书,这种与大自然的接触经历使我身心更加坚强。

12
He Was Physically Revolted By Pearls

他对珍珠精神过敏

It’s generally agreed that Tesla suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder or something similar, which led to a lot of irrational beliefs and behaviors, but the most inexplicable was his feelings about jewelry. He hated how it felt, obxted to the entire concept of women’s earrings, and “the sight of a pearl would almost give a fit.”

人们普遍认为特斯拉患有强迫症或类似的疾病,导致了许多非理性的想法和行为,但最令人费解的是他对于珠宝的感觉。他讨厌珠宝,对女性的耳环持否定意见,并且”见到珍珠的时候总是会吓一跳。“

11
He Had a Strict Diet

他有一个严格的饮食规定

His disorder no doubt contributed to some eyebrow-raising dining practices, but so did his principles. He believed meat was on the way out, so he stuck to a simple but strict diet of milk, honey, bread, and vegetable juices. He would probably want us to note that there’s no scientific evidence the Tesla diet will make you a genius or anything but even hungrier.

他的疾病导致了一些令人震惊的饮食习惯,但是他的原则就是如此。他相信肉类正在走向过去时,所以他坚持简单但是严格的饮食——牛奶、面包、蜂蜜和蔬菜汁。他可能想让我们注意到,没有科学证据表明特斯拉式的饮食可以让你成为天才或任何,只会让你更加饥饿。

10
He Believed in Aliens

他相信外星人

In 1901, Tesla announced that he’d received radio signals from outer space two years earlier and that “the feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.” He wasn’t entirely wrong: Almost 100 years later, scientists hypothesized that the signals had come from one of Jupiter’s moons passing through its magnetic field.

在1901年,特斯拉宣称他于两年前接收到了来自外太空的射频信号,而且”我的相关感觉不断增强,我是第一个听到外星声音的人“。他的感觉也不算错,大约一百年后,科学家们认为这些信号来自木星的一颗卫星穿过其磁场时产生的。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


9
He Claimed to Have Built a Death Ray

他声称建造了死光

In 1934, Tesla claimed he’d worked out how to direct a beam of energy that could instantly kill from 250 miles away and eliminate warfare forever. Not to call the man a liar, but he somehow couldn’t find a single government to fund the device’s creation, and while he later claimed to have built and tested it himself, he conveniently died before he could actually unveil it.

在1934年,特斯拉宣称他研究出了引导一束可以从250英里外进行击杀,永远地消除了战争。不要称他为骗子,但是他确实找不到一个政府来资助这个设备的研发。而他最终宣称他研发出来了,并且进行了个人的测试,他在正式推向市场之前就去世了。

8
He Was Weird About Women

他对待女性很奇怪

Tesla was famously celibate, but he insisted it was because he “worshipped” women and found himself “unworthy of the obxt” of his worship. He also had real specific opinions about how women should look and act, firing one secretary because of her weight, demanding another go home and change because her dress was too modern for his liking, and complaining about “the present economic condition wherein women strive against men and in many cases actually succeed in usurping their places in the professions and in industry.” But he also wrote that “the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded,” resulting in “a new sex order, with the female as superior,” so who knows what he was on about.

特斯拉以单身著称,但是他强调这是因为他“崇拜”女性,而且发现他自己不值崇拜,而且他对于女性的行为举止给予了切实的意见,因为体重的原因开除了一名秘书,因为另一名秘书的衣着太过时尚,他要求她回家去换,他还抱怨在当前经济环境下,女性正越来越多地同男性作竞争,而且还在多个工商业领域取得了成功。他还写道,女性已经在心智方面证明了对男性的成功,随着几代人的发展,这种能力将会再显著提升,从而会形成一种新的性别秩序,女性成了优越的了,谁知道他在说些什么。

7
He Only Slept Two Hours a Night

他一晚上只睡两个小时

Tesla insisted he never slept more than two hours a night, once even working 84 hours straight, so next time someone tells you we all have the same 24 hours work with, electrocute them in the face. Tesla’s professors once told his father that his “working and sleeping habits were killing him,” and he did soon suffer the first of many “nervous breakdowns,” so don’t go trying it out for yourself.

特斯拉强调他一天从不睡超过两个小时,一次甚至连续工作了84个小时,所以当下次有人告诉你我们都同样有着24小时来工作,就用电电死他。特斯拉的导师有一次告诉他的父亲他的工作和睡眠习惯正在害死他。他很快就迎来了第一次的神经崩溃,所以不要轻易去尝试。

6
He Had an Interesting Exercise Routine

他有一个有趣的锻炼计划

Tesla believed that curling his toes 100 times every night before bed stimulated his brain cells. There’s no apparent downside to that one, so knock yourself out.

特斯拉相信每晚弯曲脚趾100次可以剌激他的脑细胞,这一点没有任何风险,尽管尝试吧。

5
He Fell in Love With a Pigeon

他爱上了一只鸽子

Toward the end of his life, Tesla spent increasing amounts of time feeding pigeons in the park, eventually just leaving the windows of the hotel rooms where he lived open so they could come and go as they pleased and really trying the patience of the housekeeping staff who had to clean up after them. There was one particular pigeon who he loved “as a man loves a woman, and she loved” him. He claimed she telepathically communicated it to him when she was dying, which was possibly the greatest heartbreak of his life.

在生命的最后时刻,特斯拉花费了大量的时间去公园里喂鸽子,最终他发展到了把酒店房间的窗户打开让鸽子自由进出,在客房服务人员的耐心的底线疯狂试探,其中有一只特别的鸽子,特斯拉爱它就像男人爱女人, 而女人也爱男人。他声称她通过心灵感应在她临终时告诉了他,这可能是他一生之中最大的心碎。

4
He Held Birthday Press Conferences

他举行了庆生新闻发布会

As Tesla became increasingly reclusive (see: pigeon love), he began holding press conferences every year on his birthday so people would leave him alone the rest of the year. At these events, he told reporters everything he’d been working on or discovered, which was usually pretty weird, including the death ray, the discovery of a “new source of energy,” and a device to improve “the size, quality, and quantity of eggs and chickens.”

随着特斯拉越来越避世(参见人鸽之恋),他开始在他生日那天每年举行新闻发布会,这样人们就可以在生命中剩下的岁月里远离他了。他在发布会上向记者们透露他做的所有的事情,他所有的发明和发现,其中有一些非常奇怪,包括死光,发现了一种新能源,发明了一种装置用来改善鸡和鸡蛋的数量和大小。

3
He Invented a Lot Weird Stuff

他发明了很多奇怪的东西+

They couldn’t all be the alternating current. In addition to the death ray, Tesla claimed to have built an “earthquake machine” that could topple the Empire State Building with just five pounds of air pressure and created plans for a camera that could take pictures of thoughts.

特斯拉所有的发明不可能都是交流电、死亡射线这样级别的发明,特斯拉还声称他制造了一台地震机,只需要5磅的气压就可以将帝国大厦推倒,并计划制造一台可以拍摄人类思想的照相机。

2
The FBI Seized All of His Stuff After Death

FBI在他死后没收了他所有的东西

Considering their refusal to fund his death ray, the U.S. government was awfully interested in Tesla’s papers, confiscating everything from his hotel room after he was found dead in 1943. It apparently took 10 years for Dr. John G. Trump (yes, those Trumps) to declare the notes largely worthless and release them to Tesla’s heirs. Well, some of them.

考虑到他们拒绝为特斯拉的死亡射线提供经费,美国政府对于特斯拉的文件非常感兴趣,在1943年发现特斯拉死亡后,没收了特斯拉酒店房间里的一切。约翰·特朗普(是的,这些特斯普们)博士用了10年的时间才宣布这些文件一文不值,并将其中的一部分归还了特斯拉的继承人。

1
Some of Tesla’s Papers Are Still Classified

特斯拉的一些文件仍然是保密的

In 2018, the FBI released 250 pages of Tesla-related documents they’d been keeping secret for 75 years, and that’s not even all of them. Does this mean the U.S. government is building a death ray? Only time and the continued existence of warfare will tell.

2018年,FBI解密了保密了75年的250份特斯拉的文件,还有一些没有解密,这意味着美国政府正在建造死亡射线吗?只有时间和持续存在的战争才能说明一切了。