Idiosyncratic
Today I am reading about the inventor of Alternating Current, Nikola Tesla, who is often called the Father of the 20th Century, at the behest of uncle George. The most fascinating thing in his Wikipedia entry are the personal stories:
"According to legend, Tesla was born precisely at midnight during an electrical storm, to a Serbian family in the village of Smiljan near Gospić... Tesla may have suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes, and was adamant about staying in a hotel room with a number divisible by three. Tesla was also noted to be physically revolted by jewelry, notably pearl earrings. He was fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene, and was by all accounts germaphobic. He greatly disliked touching round objects and human hair other than his own.Tesla was obsessed with pigeons, ordering special seeds for the pigeons he fed in Central Park and even bringing some into his hotel room with him. Tesla was an animal-lover, often reflecting contentedly about a childhood cat, "The Magnificent Macak". Tesla never married. He was celibate and claimed that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities. Nevertheless, Tesla displayed the occasional cruel streak; he openly expressed his disgust for overweight people, once firing a secretary because of her weight. He was quick to criticize others' clothing as well, demanding a subordinate to go home and change her dress on several occasions.
Tesla lived the last ten years of his life in a two-room suite on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker, room 3327. There, near the end of his life, when Tesla was slipping into what many consider an altered state of mind, he would claim to be visited by a specific white pigeon daily. Several biographers note that Tesla viewed the death of the pigeon as a "final blow" to himself and his work. Tesla believed that war could not be avoided until the cause for its recurrence was removed, but was opposed to wars in general.
In 1926, Tesla commented on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality, indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future.
In his later years Tesla became a vegetarian. In an article for Century Illustrated Magazine he wrote: "It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit." Tesla argued that it is wrong to eat uneconomic meat when large amounts of people are starving; he also believed that plant food was "superior to it [meat] in regard to both mechanical and mental performance." He also argued that animal slaughter was "wanton and cruel".
In his final years he suffered from extreme sensitivity to light, sound and other influences.
posted by cyclona23 at 5:17 PM
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