Tesla
Narrator: In 1891, a Serbian scientist demonstrated his latest inventions before an awestruck audience at Columbia University.
旁白：1891 年，一位塞尔维亚科学家在哥伦比亚大学向一群惊叹不已的观众展示了他的最新发明。
"Tubes…
“管子……
held in the hand of Mr. Tesla," a reporter wrote, "appeared like a luminous sword in the hand of an archangel representing justice."
特斯拉先生手中握着的，”一位记者写道，“就像代表正义的大天使手中的一把发光剑。”
Nikola Tesla was already famous – the scientist whose experiments with electricity were destined to transform daily life in the 20th century.
尼古拉·特斯拉已经很出名了——这位科学家的电实验注定会改变 20 世纪的日常生活。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: We live in an electrical world.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作者：我们生活在一个电气世界。
We take it all for granted.
我们认为这一切都是理所当然的。
We have light bulbs, we run our refrigerators, our air conditioners, our electrical motors.
我们有灯泡，我们运行我们的冰箱，我们的空调，我们的电动机。
All of that is all directly back to Tesla.
所有这一切都直接回到特斯拉。
Narrator: A hundred years ago, he pointed the way toward robots, radio, radar, remote control, the wireless transmission of messages and pictures.
旁白：一百年前，他为机器人、无线电、雷达、遥控、信息和图片的无线传输指明了道路。
He dreamed of harnessing the wind and the sun to make free energy available for everyone.
他梦想利用风和太阳为每个人提供免费能源。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: When you think about electricity you think of Edison.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：当你想到电时，你就会想到爱迪生。
But Tesla was just more of an original American than Edison.
但特斯拉比爱迪生更像一个原创美国人。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Tesla had a lot of obsessions and odd phobias and yet he was enormously popular and celebrated.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：特斯拉有很多痴迷和奇怪的恐惧症，但他却非常受欢迎和著名。
They did not stop him.
他们没有阻止他。
Narrator: At the turn of the 20th century, Tesla was acclaimed, millions of Americans knew his name.
旁白：20世纪之交，特斯拉备受赞誉，数百万美国人都知道他的名字。
But only decades later, he was forgotten by all but a few.
但仅仅几十年后，除了少数人之外，他就被所有人遗忘了。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: He doesn’t have a disciplined imagination.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：他没有受过训练的想象力。
He has a fertile imagination.
他有丰富的想象力。
And so he gets kind of crazy.
所以他变得有点疯狂。
Oh, he is a genius, no doubt about it.
哦，他是个天才，这是毫无疑问的。
But he’s an idiosyncratic genius.
但他是一个特殊的天才。
Narrator: His luxuriant imagination was the source of his genius, and the cause of his downfall.
旁白：丰富的想象力是他天才的源泉，也是他垮台的原因。
On June 6th, 1884, 28-year-old Nikola Tesla arrived in New York City, one of the millions of immigrants who had begun to transform the fabric of American society during the final decades of the 19th century.
1884 年 6 月 6 日，28 岁的尼古拉·特斯拉抵达纽约市，他是 19 世纪最后几十年开始改变美国社会结构的数百万移民之一。
Six feet 2 inches tall, he spoke with a heavy Serbian accent and weighed little more than 140 pounds.
他身高 6 英尺 2 英寸，说话带有浓重的塞尔维亚口音，体重仅 140 磅多一点。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: He’s very tall, gangly, handsome.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：他很高，瘦长，英俊。
Looks like a vampire a little bit.
看起来有点像吸血鬼。
Narrator: "What I saw was…
旁白：“我看到的是……
rough, and unattractive," Tesla wrote.
粗糙且缺乏吸引力，”特斯拉写道。
"‘Is this America?’ I asked myself in painful surprise.
“‘这是美国吗？’我痛苦地惊讶地问自己。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Everything about him is fastidious and courtly.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他的一切都非常挑剔且彬彬有礼。
He’s very elegant looking.
他看起来非常优雅。
He’s got these amazing blue eyes that people notice.
他有一双令人惊叹的蓝眼睛，人们注意到了。
Narrator: Tesla had only four cents in his pocket along with some of his favorite poems, but he carried with him a recommendation to the man he admired more than any other.
旁白：特斯拉口袋里只有四美分，还有他最喜欢的一些诗，但他随身带着一封推荐信，推荐给他最崇拜的人。
Thirty-five year old Thomas Edison was already a celebrated inventor, an American folk hero.
三十五岁的托马斯·爱迪生已经是一位著名的发明家、一位美国民间英雄。
The incandescent light bulb he had patented 5 years before had captured the imagination of people all over the world.
5年前，他获得专利的白炽灯泡激发了全世界人们的想象力。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Light was always associated with flame.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：光总是与火焰联系在一起。
And Edison, by inventing a light bulb was going to shift the country away from natural gas and gas lighting to a world in which there would be electricity and electric light bulbs in every household.
爱迪生发明了灯泡，将使这个国家从天然气和煤气照明转向每个家庭都有电和电灯泡的世界。
And this was very astonishing to people.
这让人们非常惊讶。
It was a miracle.
这是一个奇迹。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Electricity was very mysterious at the time.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：电在当时是非常神秘的。
My grandmother, born in 1900 maybe, insisted that we always have those child proof things in the plugs because she thought the electricity was dripping out and it would collect on the floor and you’d step in it.
我的祖母，也许出生于 1900 年，坚持要求我们在插头中始终放置那些儿童安全的东西，因为她认为电流会滴落，它会聚集在地板上，你会踩到它。
Narrator: Tesla meandered down the lanes of lower Manhattan heading toward Edison’s office with a revolutionary idea he was certain the celebrated inventor would be grateful for.
旁白：特斯拉沿着曼哈顿下城的小巷蜿蜒走向爱迪生的办公室，他确信这位著名的发明家会感激他的革命性想法。
Beneath the ground ran 80,000 feet of copper conductors - the world’s first electric grid, Thomas Edison’s creation - lighting homes and powering factories on the lower tip of Manhattan.
地下有 80,000 英尺长的铜导体，这是托马斯·爱迪生发明的世界上第一个电网，为曼哈顿下端的家庭照明和工厂供电。
But Edison’s system generated direct current – DC – and DC had severe limitations.
但爱迪生的系统产生的是直流电，而直流电有严重的局限性。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Direct current couldn’t go very far.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：直流电走不了多远。
You would have had to have a generating station every mile.
每英里都必须有一个发电站。
It was a very limited form of power.
这是一种非常有限的权力形式。
So this was a real problem.
所以这是一个真正的问题。
And Tesla had the solution, a brilliant solution.
特斯拉有解决方案，一个出色的解决方案。
Narrator: With Direct Current, a generator produces electricity – a stream of electrons – that flows along a wire to a light bulb, or a motor, and then returns to the generator in one long continuous loop.
旁白：通过直流电，发电机产生电力（电子流），电力沿着电线流向灯泡或电机，然后以一个长的连续循环返回到发电机。
But as the electrons travel, energy is lost to the resistance of the wire.
但当电子行进时，能量会因导线的电阻而损失。
Like a long river whose energy is spent the farther the current travels.
就像一条长河，水流走得越远，能量就越消耗。
The alternative to DC is AC, alternating current.
直流电的替代品是交流电，即交流电。
With alternating current, the electrons don’t flow in a single direction.
在交流电中，电子不会沿单一方向流动。
Instead they vibrate back and forth, like an ocean tide, surging with power that could send electricity long distances.
相反，它们像海潮一样来回振动，涌动着可以远距离输送电力的能量。
But no one had designed a motor that could run efficiently on AC.
但没有人设计出一种可以在交流电下高效运行的电机。
Even Thomas Edison himself was baffled.
就连托马斯·爱迪生本人也感到困惑。
But in a waking vision, Nikola Tesla had imagined an AC motor when he was 26, two years before he met Edison - as if he had been waiting for that astonishing revelation since he was a small boy in Croatia.
但在清醒的时候，尼古拉·特斯拉在 26 岁时就想象出了一台交流电机，也就是他遇见爱迪生的两年前——就好像他从克罗地亚的一个小男孩起就一直在等待这个惊人的发现。
He was born in the tiny Croatian village of Smiljan in 1856 - as family stories have it, on the stroke of midnight while a thunderstorm raged around him.
1856 年，他出生在克罗地亚的一个小村庄斯米连（Smiljan）——正如家族故事所说，那是在午夜钟声敲响时，雷雨在他周围肆虐。
"He’ll be a child of the storm," the midwife said.
“他将成为风暴之子，”助产士说。
His mother responded, "No. Of light."
他的母亲回答说：“没有。光。”
His father was a Greek Orthodox priest who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.
他的父亲是一位希腊东正教牧师，希望他的儿子追随他的脚步。
But he took after his mother, who invented a variety of ingenious devices for farming and housekeeping and encouraged the boy’s precocious gifts.
但他效仿了他的母亲，母亲发明了各种巧妙的农耕和家务设备，并鼓励男孩早熟的天赋。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Tesla takes his lifelong obsession with electricity back to when he was three years old and he is petting the family cat, Macak.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），历史学家：特斯拉将他一生对电力的痴迷带回了他三岁时，当时他正在抚摸家里的猫 Macak。
And he begins to create sort of this sheet of sparks.
他开始创造这种火花。
And it makes this crackling noise like thunder.
它发出像雷声一样的噼啪声。
And he says to his father, "What is that?" And his father said, "Well, it’s electricity such as you get during thunderstorms.
他对父亲说：“那是什么？”他的父亲说：“嗯，这是雷暴期间得到的电力。
And stop that because you’re, you know, electrifying the cat."
停止这种行为，因为你知道，你正在给猫通电。”
Narrator: For the rest of his life, Tesla would be awestruck by the wonders of electricity.
旁白：在特斯拉的余生中，他都会对电力的奇迹感到敬畏。
As a child, he spent hours playing beside a tumbling stream that ran beside his home.
小时候，他经常在他家旁边的一条湍急的小溪旁玩耍几个小时。
His very first invention – a hook designed to catch frogs – made him the envy of his friends.
他的第一项发明——一种用来捕捉青蛙的钩子——让他的朋友们羡慕不已。
Before he was six, he had invented a motor consisting of a rotating spindle powered by June bugs.
六岁之前，他发明了一种由六月虫提供动力的旋转主轴组成的电机。
"I wanted to harness the energies of nature to the service of man," he wrote later.
“我想利用自然的能量为人类服务，”他后来写道。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: You can see the seeds of a number of his inventions when he was a child.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作家：你可以看到他小时候的许多发明的种子。
But he sometimes had difficulty separating reality from his own imagination.
但有时他很难将现实与自己的想象分开。
Narrator: "Sometimes," he wrote, "I was quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not."
旁白：“有时候，”他写道，“我完全无法区分我所看到的是否是有形的。”
From an early age, he was afflicted by spontaneous, inexplicable visions that confused his picture of reality, yet empowered his preternatural gift for invention.
从很小的时候起，他就受到自发的、莫名其妙的幻象的困扰，这些幻象混淆了他对现实的看法，但却赋予了他超自然的发明天赋。
When he was 12, in an extraordinary feat of mind-control, he banished the images that haunted him by willing himself to live in a visual world of his own invention.
当他 12 岁时，他完成了一项非凡的精神控制壮举，通过愿意自己生活在自己发明的视觉世界中，消除了困扰他的图像。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: He could travel in his own visions, travel to foreign countries, understand foreign languages, and having control over these visions spurred on his creative energy in later life.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：他可以带着自己的愿景旅行，去外国旅行，理解外语，并且对这些愿景的控制激发了他晚年的创造力。
Narrator: By the time Tesla was seventeen, he had honed a keen visual facility.
旁白：特斯拉十七岁的时候，他已经磨练出了敏锐的视觉能力。
"When I get an idea," he wrote.
“当我有了一个想法时，”他写道。
"I do not rush into actual work.
“我并不急于投入实际工作。
I start at once building it up in my imagination.
我立刻开始在我的想象中建造它。
I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind."
我在脑海中改变结构、进行改进并操作设备。”
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Early in his life he developed this really magnificent way of visualizing physical things.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔（Peter Fisher）：在他生命的早期，他就开发了这种可视化物理事物的真正奇妙的方式。
By the time it came for him to build them they came almost fully formed.
当他开始建造它们时，它们已经几乎完全成型了。
Narrator: When he was 21, Tesla won a scholarship to a Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria.
旁白：21 岁时，特斯拉获得了奥地利格拉茨理工学院的奖学金。
He studied with a fierce determination - sometimes 20 hours a day.
他以坚定的决心学习——有时一天学习20个小时。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Tesla couldn’t stop learning, he couldn’t stop reading.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：特斯拉无法停止学习，他无法停止阅读。
He memorized all of Faust.
他记住了《浮士德》的全部内容。
His memory was photographic and unassailable.
他的记忆力过目不忘，无懈可击。
He would see something once, he would hear something once and it never left him.
他会看到一次，听到一次，而这些东西永远不会离开他。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: He was obsessive so once he started to read Voltaire he had to read every single thing that Voltaire ever wrote.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作家：他很着迷，所以一旦他开始阅读伏尔泰，他就必须阅读伏尔泰写过的每一本书。
Narrator: As Tesla immersed himself in the study of mathematics and science, the mysteries of electricity were waiting to be unraveled.
旁白：当特斯拉埋头于数学和科学的研究时，电的奥秘正等待着被揭开。
When a professor told his class that it was impossible to construct a motor that could run on alternating current, Tesla objected.
当一位教授告诉他的班级不可能制造出可以用交流电运行的电机时，特斯拉表示反对。
"Mr. Tesla may accomplish great things," the professor told the class, "but he certainly never will do this." Tesla disagreed.
“先生。特斯拉可能会成就伟大的事情，”教授告诉全班，“但他肯定永远不会这样做。”特斯拉不同意。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: He’s pushing it with the professor.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：他正在和教授一起推动这件事。
He’s saying ‘I see.’ And this is visionary.
他说“我明白了。”这是有远见的。
He’s saying, "I can do this."
他说：“我能做到。”
Narrator: At first, he didn’t see the solution, but he saw the problem.
旁白：一开始他没有看到解决办法，但他看到了问题所在。
DC motors waste energy.
直流电机浪费能源。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: …
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：……
there’s metal surfaces moving over each other and they kind of do this and there’s…
金属表面相互移动，它们会这样做，然后……
there’s sparks, it smells, it breaks, it wears out.
有火花、有气味、会破裂、会磨损。
It’s a clunky, inelegant way to do it.
这是一种笨拙、不优雅的方式。
He’s thinking that really wants to be AC.
他认为他真的想成为 AC。
And he almost kills himself trying to make it work.
为了让它发挥作用，他几乎自杀了。
Narrator: "Day and night, year after year, I worked incessantly," he wrote later.
旁白：“日日夜夜，年复一年，我不停地工作，”他后来写道。
"I could visualize motors and generators, the images I saw were to me perfectly real and tangible.
“我可以想象电动机和发电机，我看到的图像对我来说是完全真实和有形的。
Solving the problem of alternating current was a matter of life and death.
解决交流电问题是生死攸关的问题。
I knew that I would perish if I failed."
我知道如果我失败了，我就会灭亡。”
Obsessed, he stopped studying, lost his scholarship, dropped out of school, and drifted.
由于痴迷，他停止了学习，失去了奖学金，辍学，漂泊了。
He was falling into a hallucinatory, mind-shattered space, and suffered, in his own words, "a complete nervous breakdown."
他陷入了幻觉、精神崩溃的境地，用他自己的话说，“精神彻底崩溃”。
For 4 years, Tesla’s imagination tormented him.
特斯拉的想象力折磨了他四年。
And then, it saved him.
然后，它救了他。
In 1882, walking in a Budapest park as the sun was setting, the solution, he wrote, "came like a flash of lightning." "I cannot describe my emotions."
1882 年，当太阳落山时，他在布达佩斯的一个公园里散步，他写道，解决方案“像一道闪电一样出现”。 “我无法描述我的情绪。”
"A thousand secrets of nature I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her at all odds and at the peril of my existence."
“我愿意付出一千个自然的秘密，换取我不惜一切代价、冒着生命危险从她那里夺取的一个秘密。”
Peter Fisher, Physicist: I think he sees some kind of intrinsic beauty to an AC motor.
物理学家 Peter Fisher：我认为他看到了交流电机的某种内在美。
I think that’s where you really see this…
我想这就是你真正看到的地方……
this famous Tesla insight and intuition.
这就是特斯拉著名的洞察力和直觉。
Narrator: Tesla’s genius was to take a DC motor and reimagine it.
旁白：特斯拉的天才在于采用直流电机并重新设计它。
He eliminated the mechanical parts where metal rubbed against metal, replaced the inner cylinder with one made of copper, and sent an electric current through the outer ring, turning the outer ring and the cylinder into magnets.
他取消了金属与金属摩擦的机械部件，用铜制成的内筒代替了内筒，并通过外环发送电流，使外环和筒体变成了磁铁。
The interaction of the two magnets made the inner cylinder spin without any parts touching.
两个磁铁的相互作用使内筒旋转，但没有任何部件接触。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Imagine a merry go round, okay?
物理学家 Peter Fisher：想象一下旋转木马，好吗？
So and you want to spin your kid around and there’s a pole sticking up from the merry go round so you grab the pole here and you push it across like that.
所以，当你想让你的孩子旋转时，旋转木马上有一根杆子伸出来，所以你抓住这里的杆子，然后像那样把它推过去。
And the merry go round goes around and you wait until the pole comes and then you grab it and push it again, okay?
旋转木马一圈一圈地转，你要等到杆子来了，然后你抓住它并再次推它，好吗？
So you can think of the pole as the electromagnet on the cylinder and you are the magnet on the outside and you’re timing your grab.
所以你可以把杆子想象成圆柱体上的电磁体，而你是外面的磁铁，你正在计时你的抓取。
Because if you just…
因为如果你只是……
if you grabbed it here, you know you wouldn’t be able to push, you’ve got to grab it like that...So that’s the way an AC motor works.
如果你在这里抓住它，你知道你将无法推动，你必须像那样抓住它......这就是交流电机的工作方式。
No sparking, no smell, nothing wearing out.
无火花、无异味、无任何磨损。
He really just saw the whole thing in an instant.
他真的是在一瞬间就看到了整个事情的经过。
Narrator: Tesla was a 26-year-old with an idea he was convinced would change the world.
旁白：特斯拉当时 26 岁，他坚信自己的想法会改变世界。
He went to work as an engineer for a branch of Thomas Edison’s company in Paris, but decided his main chance lay in NY with the great man himself.
他在托马斯·爱迪生公司巴黎分公司担任工程师，但他认为自己的主要机会在纽约，与这位伟人本人在一起。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He has a design in his head and he’s actually made a prototype which works.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），历史学家：他脑子里有一个设计，他实际上制作了一个可以工作的原型。
He is a huge admirer of Thomas Edison.
他是托马斯·爱迪生的忠实崇拜者。
He feels, if Edison is presented with better technology he will embrace it as something that he could develop in his own company, presumably with the help of his very junior employee, Nikola Tesla.
他认为，如果爱迪生获得更好的技术，他会欣然接受，认为他可以在自己的公司中开发这种技术，大概是在他的初级员工尼古拉·特斯拉的帮助下。
Narrator: In the spring of 1884, Nikola Tesla brought his invention to America to share with his hero - Thomas Edison.
旁白：1884年春天，尼古拉·特斯拉把他的发明带到了美国，与他的英雄托马斯·爱迪生分享。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: This is late 19th century America in New York City.
Jill Jonnes，历史学家：这是 19 世纪末的美国纽约市。
There’s a tremendous sense of possibility and it’s an age of incredible invention and technological change.
这是一个充满无限可能性的时代，这是一个充满令人难以置信的发明和技术变革的时代。
And he totally expects to be part of that.
他完全希望成为其中的一部分。
Narrator: Tesla walked confidently into Edison’s office in lower Manhattan the very day he arrived, and flashed a letter of introduction from Edison’s Paris office.
旁白：特斯拉在抵达的当天就自信地走进爱迪生位于曼哈顿下城的办公室，并亮出了爱迪生巴黎办公室的介绍信。
Meeting Edison, Tesla said, "thrilled me to the marrow."
特斯拉说，见到爱迪生“让我兴奋不已”。
But they were cut from two different molds.
但它们是由两个不同的模具切割而成的。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Edison was a completely practical man and inventor.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：爱迪生是一位非常务实的人和发明家。
He wanted to make things work and sell them.
他想让东西发挥作用并把它们卖掉。
Tesla really just wanted to understand how the mysteries of electricity worked.
特斯拉其实只是想了解电力的奥秘是如何运作的。
Harold Clark, Scientist: Tesla was a very well educated engineer.
哈罗德·克拉克，科学家：特斯拉是一位受过良好教育的工程师。
He understood both theory and mathematics.
他既懂理论又懂数学。
Edison did a lot by trial and error.
爱迪生通过反复试验做了很多事情。
He was able to work well with things when he could see the cause and effect immediately.
当他能立即看到因果关系时，他就能很好地处理事情。
He wasn’t nearly as well educated.
他几乎没有受过良好的教育。
He didn’t even go to college
他甚至没有上过大学
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Edison, as he gets to know Tesla, refers to him, and this is not particularly a complement, as a poet of science.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），历史学家：爱迪生在认识特斯拉时，提到他是一位科学诗人，这并不是特别的补充。
Narrator: Tesla worked for Edison redesigning generators, 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.
旁白：特斯拉为爱迪生重新设计发电机，每周 7 天、每天 20 小时。
"I have had many hard-working assistants, Edison told him, "but you take the cake."
“我有很多勤奋的助手，”爱迪生告诉他，“但你得了。”
Encouraged, Tesla worked even harder.
受到鼓舞，特斯拉更加努力地工作。
He desperately wanted Edison’s blessing as an inventor - and needed his savvy as a businessman.
他迫切希望得到爱迪生作为发明家的祝福，同时也需要他作为商人的悟性。
But when he described his AC motor to his boss, Edison told him bluntly he was wasting his time.
但当他向老板描述他的交流电机时，爱迪生直言不讳地告诉他，他在浪费时间。
There was no future in alternating current.
交流电没有未来。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Edison had a lot of experience in how incredibly difficult it was to go from the idea to the reality.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：爱迪生有很多经验，知道从想法到现实是多么困难。
And so he was very skeptical of people who just said, "Ah, well I have this idea and this is going to be the solution." And it also would have meant that he had to retrofit and redo the entire system that he was so emotionally wedded to.
因此，他对那些刚刚说“啊，我有这个想法，这将是解决方案”的人非常怀疑。这也意味着他必须改造和重做他如此热爱的整个系统。
Narrator: Disillusioned by Edison’s rejection, after six months, Tesla abruptly quit, and struck out on his own.
旁白：特斯拉对爱迪生的拒绝感到失望，六个月后，他突然辞职，自立门户。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He’s very naïve and doesn’t know how the world works and he thinks that he will be welcomed and well-funded because he wants to elucidate the mysteries of electricity.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他非常天真，不知道世界是如何运转的，他认为他会受到欢迎并获得充足的资金，因为他想阐明电力的奥秘。
Narrator: He spent a year patenting designs for arc lights for two New Jersey businessmen, who cheated him out of patents, and left him penniless.
旁白：他花了一年时间为两名新泽西商人申请弧光灯设计专利，他们骗走了他的专利，让他身无分文。
When it came to business, Tesla would always be naïve.
在做生意时，特斯拉总是很天真。
He spent the next winter digging ditches for two dollars a day.
接下来的冬天，他每天挖沟渠，收入为两美元。
"There were many days," he said, "when I did not know where my next meal was coming from."
“有很多天，”他说，“我不知道下一顿饭从哪里来。”
Samantha Hunt, Writer: When he leaves Edison’s lab his heart is broken.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：当他离开爱迪生的实验室时，他的心碎了。
This man who he thought was going to be a mentor to him in some kind of dark, opposite way ends up mentoring him, right?
这个他以为会以某种黑暗、相反的方式成为他导师的人最终却指导了他，对吗？
Just by teaching him maybe what he didn’t want to be.
只是通过教他也许他不想成为的人。
Narrator: Tesla was alone, without family or friends.
旁白：特斯拉孤身一人，没有家人或朋友。
He had been in America for nearly two years, and had nothing to show for it.
他来美国快两年了，却没有什么可展示的。
"My high education in science, mechanics and literature, "he wrote, "seemed to me like a mockery."
“我在科学、机械和文学方面接受的高等教育，”他写道，“对我来说就像是一种嘲弄。”
Then, that spring, his luck turned around.
然后，那年春天，他的运气发生了逆转。
Two investors who learned that Tesla had worked for Edison took a chance on the Serbian inventor.
两名得知特斯拉曾为爱迪生工作的投资者在这位塞尔维亚发明家身上冒险了。
They made him their partner and rented him a laboratory where he could perfect his invention.
他们让他成为合作伙伴，并租给他一个实验室，让他可以完善他的发明。
If it worked, it was worth millions.
如果成功的话，价值数百万美元。
During the last part of the 19th century, as the railroad bound the nation together with steel tracks and made a handful of Americans fabulously rich, 22 year old George Westinghouse had invented the railroad air brake, and parlayed his invention into a formidable fortune.
19 世纪后半叶，当铁路用钢轨将整个国家联系在一起并让少数美国人变得异常富有时，22 岁的乔治·威斯汀豪斯发明了铁路空气制动器，并将他的发明转化为一笔巨大的财富。
Now a wealthy man who knew how to bring inventions into the marketplace, Westinghouse was looking to the future, and the future was electricity.
现在，作为一个知道如何将发明推向市场的富人，西屋电气正在展望未来，而未来就是电力。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: There were a lot of people saying there’s money to be made here.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：很多人说这里可以赚钱。
And Westinghouse comes across Tesla.
西屋电气公司遇到了特斯拉。
And he thinks this man is a jewel and he may even have nailed the toughest technical problem in the middle of this emerging, potentially immensely profitable game changer, alternating current.
他认为这个人是一颗宝石，他甚至可能已经解决了交流电这一新兴的、可能带来巨大利润的游戏规则改变者中最棘手的技术问题。
Narrator: In 1888, Westinghouse bought Tesla’s patents for tens of thousands of dollars, making Tesla a rich man.
旁白：1888年，西屋公司以数万美元买下了特斯拉的专利，让特斯拉成为了富翁。
The contract specified paying Tesla, as the inventor, a bonus: $2.50 for every horsepower of alternating current sold.
合同规定向发明者特斯拉支付奖金：每售出一马力交流电 2.5 美元。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: Tesla is someone who has the key technological, creative insight, and what he needs is someone to coach him and someone to fund him.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：特斯拉是一个拥有关键技术和创造性洞察力的人，他需要的是有人指导他和有人资助他。
Narrator: Tesla headed to Pittsburgh, where Westinghouse began building Tesla’s motor along with the dynamos and transformers that would make the long distance transmission of electricity possible.
旁白：特斯拉前往匹兹堡，西屋公司在那里开始制造特斯拉的电机以及发电机和变压器，使长距离电力传输成为可能。
But the struggle to make Tesla’s invention a commercial success was far from over.
但让特斯拉的发明取得商业成功的斗争还远未结束。
Westinghouse was competing for the market with Edison, and he was in trouble.
西屋公司正在与爱迪生争夺市场，他遇到了麻烦。
Electricity was a capital-intensive business, and his company was overextended.
电力是资本密集型行业，他的公司已经过度扩张。
His investors were worried.
他的投资者很担心。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Westinghouse goes to Tesla and says, "In order for your dream, your alternating current motor to succeed, I have to – I can’t pay you what I promised you in the contract.
萨曼莎·亨特（Samantha Hunt），作家：西屋公司对特斯拉说：“为了让你的梦想、你的交流电机成功，我必须——我无法支付我在合同中向你承诺的费用。
I’ll go out of business.
我要歇业了。
Narrator: Westinghouse asked Tesla to rescind the royalty clause in the contract.
旁白：西屋公司要求特斯拉撤销合同中的特许权使用费条款。
Without consulting a lawyer, without hesitating, Tesla agreed.
特斯拉没有咨询律师，就毫不犹豫地同意了。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Tesla does not try to negotiate, you know.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：你知道，特斯拉不会尝试谈判。
"Okay we’ll move it down from $2.50, I’ll take 10 cents on the dollar." No, he doesn’t negotiate at all; he simply tears up the contract.
“好吧，我们将价格从 2.50 美元下调，每 1 美元我拿 10 美分。”不，他根本不谈判；他根本不谈判。他干脆撕毁了合同。
Their contract was really very, very generous.
他们的合同真的非常非常慷慨。
$2.50 for every horsepower of electricity produced.
每产生一马力电力 2.50 美元。
It would have made Tesla one of the richest men in history.
这将使特斯拉成为历史上最富有的人之一。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: He was naïve and also tended to think he could break the state of the art any morning before breakfast.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier）：他很天真，而且还倾向于认为他可以在早餐前的任何早晨打破现有技术。
Narrator: Just months after relinquishing his royalties, Tesla appeared at Columbia University to demonstrate his new wonders, determined to astonish an audience of engineers along with a few influential investors.
旁白：在放弃版税几个月后，特斯拉出现在哥伦比亚大学展示他的新奇迹，决心让工程师观众以及一些有影响力的投资者感到惊讶。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: A lot of the reason for the demonstration was to get patronage.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：演示的很多原因是为了获得赞助。
It was really what scientists were doing in the time.
这确实是当时科学家们正在做的事情。
In the air was this American sensibility of show me.
空气中弥漫着美国式的情感。
Yeah you can write your fancy European words, you can write equations, you can publish in some journal that nobody reads.
是的，你可以写出你喜欢的欧洲文字，你可以写出方程式，你可以在一些没人读的期刊上发表。
I want to see it.
我想看看。
Show me.
给我看看。
Narrator: Tesla had begun to explore the possibility of transmitting energy without wires.
旁白：特斯拉开始探索无线传输能量的可能性。
"Here is a simple glass tube," he told his astonished audience.
“这是一个简单的玻璃管，”他告诉惊讶的观众。
"Wherever I move it in space, its soft, pleasing light persists with undiminished brightness."
“无论我在太空中将它移动到哪里，它发出的柔和、令人愉悦的光线都会始终保持不减的亮度。”
Harold Clark, Scientist: People were used to incandescent lamps, lamps with filaments, but this idea of a light bulb with no filament that could turn on with absolutely no connection to wire or to a battery?
哈罗德·克拉克（Harold Clark），科学家：人们已经习惯了白炽灯、带有灯丝的灯，但是这种没有灯丝的灯泡可以在完全不连接电线或电池的情况下打开的想法？
Narrator: The lamps were Tesla’s own invention, the forerunners of today’s fluorescent tubes.
旁白：这些灯是特斯拉自己的发明，是当今荧光灯管的先驱。
Incandescent bulbs glowed hot.
白炽灯泡发出炽热的光芒。
Tesla called his tubes "cold light."
特斯拉称他的灯管为“冷光”。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Cold light is a bulb with gasses in it and when electricity is nearby it lights up.
Jill Jonnes，历史学家：冷光是一种里面含有气体的灯泡，当附近有电时它就会亮起。
It’s also wireless.
它也是无线的。
You don’t have to have all kinds of wiring to make it work.
您不必拥有各种接线即可使其工作。
You just have to have ambient electricity.
你只需要有环境电力即可。
Narrator: Ambient electricity – an electric field was created by another Tesla invention.
旁白：环境电——特斯拉的另一项发明创造了电场。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: He invented this device called the Tesla coil, which enabled him to generate enormously high voltage.
彼得·费舍尔，物理学家：他发明了一种称为特斯拉线圈的装置，这使他能够产生极高的电压。
It could take low AC voltage and build up inside the coil an enormous amount of energy and then through a spark discharge release all of that energy very, very quickly.
它可以采用低交流电压并在线圈内部积聚大量能量，然后通过火花放电非常非常快地释放所有能量。
Narrator: As one reporter put it, Tesla acted "the part of a veritable magician."
旁白：正如一位记者所说，特斯拉扮演了“名副其实的魔术师的角色”。
Narrator: Like a good showman, Tesla wanted to leave his audience dumbfounded.
旁白：就像一个优秀的表演者一样，特斯拉想让他的观众目瞪口呆。
He stretched out his hand, and took hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity directly through his body.
他伸出手，数十万伏的电流直接穿过他的身体。
Harold Clark, Scientist: Tesla was apparently unhurt by the whole thing that was pretty amazing to people.
哈罗德·克拉克（Harold Clark），科学家：特斯拉显然没有受到这件事的伤害，这对人们来说是相当惊人的。
Of course, he knew the secret.
他当然知道这个秘密。
It’s called the skin effect.
这就是所谓的集肤效应。
His body was taking the electricity and it was literally running through his skin from his hand down to the ground and not entering the internal parts of his body where it really could do some…
他的身体正在吸收电流，电流实际上是通过他的皮肤从他的手流到地面，而不是进入他身体的内部，在那里它确实可以发挥作用……
some real damage.
一些真正的伤害。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: I’ve done things like that, and it hurts like hell.
物理学家彼得·费希尔（Peter Fisher）：我也做过类似的事情，而且非常痛苦。
Maybe Tesla was just hurting like crazy, but the real danger with electricity is if you grab something that’s at a high voltage it causes your muscles to contract and in particular your heart and so your heart can stop.
也许特斯拉只是疯了，但电的真正危险是，如果你抓住高压的东西，它会导致你的肌肉收缩，特别是你的心脏，这样你的心脏就会停止跳动。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: The boundary between gee whiz, gosh, bang, I can make magic happen, and the careful laboratory verification of results was not all that cleanly defined.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier）：天哪，天哪，砰，我可以让魔法发生，而实验室对结果的仔细验证并没有那么明确的界限。
At that time electricity is still somewhere between magic, science and business.
那时，电还处于魔法、科学和商业之间。
Narrator: Tesla concluded his three-hour lecture with a paean to electric energy, and its beneficent future as a servant of mankind.
旁白：特斯拉以对电能及其作为人类仆人的仁慈未来的赞歌结束了他三个小时的演讲。
"Everywhere is energy," he said.
“到处都是能量，”他说。
With the power derived from it, humanity will advance with great strides.
有了它所衍生的力量，人类将大步前进。
The magnificent possibilities expand our minds, strengthen our hopes, and fill our hearts with supreme delight."
宏伟的可能性拓展了我们的思维，增强了我们的希望，让我们的内心充满了无上的喜悦。”
Harold Clark, Scientist: Tesla was motivated by wonder and awe at nature.
哈罗德·克拉克（Harold Clark），科学家：特斯拉的动机是对大自然的惊奇和敬畏。
He really wasn’t in this to make money.
他确实不是为了赚钱。
He really felt that there should be a way, given how powerful nature is, to harness that power and then use it to relieve human suffering and toil.
他真心觉得，鉴于自然的力量有多大，应该有一种方法来利用这种力量，然后用它来减轻人类的痛苦和劳作。
Narrator: On May 1, 1893, as a great choir broke into song, President Grover Cleveland flicked a switch and 160,000 light bulbs lit up the evening sky over Chicago, opening the Columbian Exposition.
旁白：1893 年 5 月 1 日，当一支伟大的合唱团开始唱歌时，格罗弗·克利夫兰总统按下开关，160,000 个灯泡照亮了芝加哥上空的夜空，哥伦布博览会开幕。
The Exposition signaled the coming triumph of alternating current over direct current.
这次博览会标志着交流电即将战胜直流电。
Westinghouse had outfoxed Edison, winning the contract to wire the Exposition with alternating current.
西屋公司战胜了爱迪生，赢得了为博览会提供交流电的合同。
Twelve, seventy-five ton dynamos generated three times more energy than the entire city of Chicago.
十二台七十五吨发电机产生的能量是整个芝加哥市的三倍。
Six months later, Westinghouse went on to win a greater prize.
六个月后，西屋电气继续赢得了更大的奖项。
The contract to harness Niagara Falls to generate alternating current electricity.
利用尼亚加拉大瀑布发电的合同。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Tesla worked with the engineers, perfected all of these dynamos and motors and helped design everything.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：特斯拉与工程师合作，完善了所有这些发电机和电机，并帮助设计了一切。
The water powered the water wheels and that powered the generators and the generators sent out electricity.
水为水轮提供动力，水轮为发电机提供动力，发电机发出电力。
At that point DC was a technology that was defeated.
那时 DC 是一项被击败的技术。
Alternating current triumphed.
交流电取得了胜利。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: Before Tesla you would have to have thousands of little power plants at every mile.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作者：在特斯拉出现之前，每一英里都必须有数千个小型发电厂。
After Tesla from one power source, Niagara Falls, you could light up and power the entire northeast.
继特斯拉使用尼亚加拉大瀑布这一单一电源之后，你就可以照亮并为整个东北部地区供电。
Narrator: The modern world was born.
旁白：现代世界诞生了。
Alternating Current transformed daily life in the 20th century, and made Tesla famous.
交流电改变了 20 世纪的日常生活，并使特斯拉声名鹊起。
Tesla was all at once a celebrity, a new Edison.
特斯拉一下子成了名人，成为了新的爱迪生。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He was enormously famous, incredibly charming, mesmerizing, and funny.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他非常有名，非常有魅力，令人着迷，而且很有趣。
He speaks many languages, loves poetry.
他会说多种语言，热爱诗歌。
He’s just an all-around renaissance man that people are very drawn to.
他是一个全能的文艺复兴时期的人，人们非常喜欢他。
He’s very beloved of newspaper reporters because he could go on for hours on almost any topic and have something interesting and insightful to say.
他非常受报纸记者的喜爱，因为他几乎可以就任何话题持续几个小时，并说出一些有趣且富有洞察力的内容。
Narrator: Tesla was fond of luxury: he lived in the Astor House, the city’s first luxury hotel, and dined at Delmonico’s, the lavish restaurant of choice for fashionable New Yorkers.
旁白：特斯拉喜欢奢华：他住在纽约市第一家豪华酒店 Astor House，并在时尚纽约人首选的豪华餐厅 Delmonico’s 用餐。
Resplendent in his cutaway coat and striped dress pants, he was the darling of New York society, a regular at the glittering tables of the super rich…
穿着剖角外套和条纹正装裤的他光芒四射，是纽约上流社会的宠儿，是超级富豪闪闪发光的餐桌上的常客……
men like John Jacob Astor and JP Morgan.
像约翰·雅各布·阿斯特和摩根大通这样的人。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He needed to be supported.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他需要得到支持。
He needed to cultivate and persuade these very powerful industrialists that he was worthy of being invested in.
他需要培养并说服这些非常有实力的实业家，让他们相信他值得投资。
Narrator: 37 years old, Tesla devoted his prodigious energies to creating new inventions in his laboratory in lower Manhattan, where he passed long, solitary hours.
旁白：37 岁的特斯拉在曼哈顿下城的实验室里投入了巨大的精力来创造新发明，在那里他度过了漫长而孤独的时光。
And delighted in showing off his experiments to friends - artists, writers, society figures, the luminaries of his day, among them Mark Twain.
他很高兴向朋友们展示他的实验——艺术家、作家、社会人物、他那个时代的名人，其中包括马克·吐温。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: Stars of the Gilded Age came to his laboratory.
传记作家马克·塞弗：镀金时代的明星来到他的实验室。
And Tesla was a star among these stars.
特斯拉就是这些明星中的明星。
Narrator: Tesla continued inventing, securing patent after patent, yet he was peculiar, dogged by troubling, persistent obsessions.
旁白：特斯拉继续发明，获得了一个又一个的专利，但他很奇怪，被令人不安的、持续的痴迷所困扰。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He was enormously popular and celebrated, but he had a lot of odd phobias and routines.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他非常受欢迎和著名，但他有很多奇怪的恐惧症和惯例。
Everything that he does should be divided by three.
他所做的一切都应该除以三。
If he was staying in a hotel the room should be divisible by three.
如果他住在旅馆里，房间应该能被三整除。
Harold Clark, Scientist: In his younger days he would swim in the morning and he always did 27 laps because it was divisible by three.
哈罗德·克拉克（Harold Clark），科学家：年轻时，他会在早上游泳，而且总是游 27 圈，因为它可以被 3 整除。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: He would circle a block three times before entering a building.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作者：在进入建筑物之前，他会绕一个街区三圈。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: He had horrible germ phobia.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：他有可怕的细菌恐惧症。
He couldn’t stand the sight of women’s earrings.
他无法忍受看到女人的耳环。
He couldn’t stand the idea of touching human hair.
他无法忍受触摸人类头发的想法。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: I don’t like to use the term obsessive compulsive, but he was.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作者：我不喜欢使用强迫症这个词，但他是。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: He had a lot of restrictions keeping him away from actual humans.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：他受到很多限制，使他远离真正的人类。
Despite being a great humanitarian, Tesla had a lot of issues with humanity.
尽管特斯拉是一位伟大的人道主义者，但他也有很多人性问题。
Narrator: Tesla was a romantic, but romance had no place in his life.
旁白：特斯拉是一个浪漫的人，但浪漫在他的生活中没有地位。
"I do not think there is any thrill, he told a reporter, "like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success.
“我不认为有任何激动，”他告诉记者，“就像发明家看到大脑的某些创造取得成功时所感受到的那样。
Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."
这样的情绪会让一个人忘记食物、睡眠、朋友、爱情，一切。”
"It’s a pity too, for sometimes we feel so lonely."
“这也很遗憾，因为有时我们感到很孤独。”
In 1899, Tesla headed West.
1899年，特斯拉向西进军。
He had enormous ambitions, and they were growing too big for his New York laboratory.
他有着巨大的野心，但对于他的纽约实验室来说，这些野心已经变得太大了。
43 years old, once again, he imagined an invention that he believed would change the world.
43岁时，他再次想象出一项他相信会改变世界的发明。
He set up shop outside of the resort town of Colorado Springs, checked into the Alta Vista Hotel - room 207 - a number divisible by 3 - and went to work.
他在科罗拉多斯普林斯度假小镇外开设了一家商店，入住阿尔塔维斯塔酒店（Alta Vista Hotel）的 207 号房间（房间号可被 3 整除），然后开始工作。
In a laboratory built to his specifications on the outskirts of town, he conducted a series of experiments in great secrecy.
在城郊按照他的要求建造的实验室里，他秘密地进行了一系列实验。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He built this lab where he could generate huge amounts of electricity and built this huge fence around it saying, "Keep out."
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他建造了这个实验室，在那里他可以产生大量的电力，并在周围建造了巨大的栅栏，上面写着“请勿入内”。
And where did he get the money to do this?
他从哪里得到钱来做这件事？
By telling John Jacob Astor IV that he was now going to develop his cold light and the cold light was so superior to the Edison bulb and just think of the millions of light bulbs that were sold every year that would be displaced by the cold light.
通过告诉约翰·雅各布·阿斯特四世，他现在要开发冷光，而冷光比爱迪生灯泡优越得多，想想每年售出的数百万个灯泡将被冷光取代。
Narrator: But Tesla had no intention of profiting from a paltry thing like fluorescent lighting.
旁白：但特斯拉无意从荧光灯这样的微不足道的东西中获利。
He soon had his coils producing a million volts of electricity.
很快他的线圈就能产生一百万伏的电力。
Errant bolts set his laboratory on fire.
错误的螺栓导致他的实验室着火。
He drew so much power that he once plunged the entire town of Colorado Springs into darkness.
他汲取了如此多的力量，一度使整个科罗拉多斯普林斯镇陷入黑暗。
Using high voltages, Tesla theorized that he could transmit electricity vast distances by sending electric currents through the earth.
特斯拉的理论是，利用高电压，他可以通过地球发送电流来远距离传输电力。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: You have this Tesla Coil and there’s this enormous spark across the room.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：你有这个特斯拉线圈，房间里有巨大的火花。
That’s a current.
那是一个电流。
The current makes a magnetic field.
电流产生磁场。
That magnetic field spreads out.
那个磁场扩散开来。
If the current is large enough it can go miles, and light a bulb.
如果电流足够大，它可以行驶数英里并点亮灯泡。
Jane Alcorn, President, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe: He set up an experiment where he had some light bulbs in a field.
Jane Alcorn，沃登克利夫特斯拉科学中心主席：他在田野里放置了一些灯泡，进行了一项实验。
And they were surrounded in a 50-foot square of wire.
他们被50英尺见方的铁丝网包围着。
And he transmitted power so that an electrical field was created within that wire and the bulbs lit up.
他传输电力，从而在电线内产生电场，灯泡就亮了。
That was one of the things that led him to believe that he would be able to accomplish this on a wide scale.
这是让他相信他能够大规模实现这一目标的原因之一。
Narrator: At the end of eight months of experimentation, Tesla announced that he had proved that he could transmit electric power abundantly and cheaply anywhere on the planet.
旁白：八个月的实验结束后，特斯拉宣布他已经证明他可以在地球上任何地方大量且廉价地传输电力。
But he never produced the evidence to make his case.
但他从未拿出证据来证明自己的观点。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: This is where Tesla didn’t do so well.
物理学家 Peter Fisher：这就是特斯拉做得不太好的地方。
He really thought he was on to something.
他真的认为他正在做某事。
I think his picture was pretty much wrong.
我认为他的照片非常错误。
I think he fooled himself.
我认为他欺骗了自己。
Harold Clark, Scientist: The problem is a physics problem: the farther you get away from the source, the weaker and weaker the electricity gets.
哈罗德·克拉克，科学家：这个问题是一个物理问题：离电源越远，电流就越弱。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Tesla is of the school that once he believed he had some evidence for something he was very quick to promote it, expound it to the world and not at all interested in challenging it.
彼得·费舍尔，物理学家：特斯拉属于这样一种学派，一旦他相信自己掌握了某件事的一些证据，他就会很快地向世界推广它、向世界阐述它，并且完全没有兴趣挑战它。
Narrator: Tesla was damaging his credibility.
旁白：特斯拉正在损害他的信誉。
He tarnished it even further by claiming that late one night, he received signals from Mars.
他声称一天深夜他收到了来自火星的信号，这进一步玷污了它。
Harold Clark, Scientist: His instrumentation was doing some weird flipping around and he was claiming that it was communications from space.
哈罗德·克拉克，科学家：他的仪器正在做一些奇怪的翻转，他声称这是来自太空的通信。
It may have been gamma rays or cosmic rays, even radio waves.
它可能是伽马射线或宇宙射线，甚至无线电波。
The fact that he interpreted it as communication from alien beings or Martians made people begin to doubt him.
他将其解释为外星人或火星人的通讯，这一事实使人们开始怀疑他。
Narrator: His fertile imagination, so critical to his inventive powers, was betraying him.
旁白：他丰富的想象力对他的创造力至关重要，但却背叛了他。
That same year an Italian electrical engineer, Guglielmo Marconi, sent a wireless message across the English channel.
同年，意大利电气工程师古列尔莫·马可尼 (Guglielmo Marconi) 通过英吉利海峡发送了一条无线信息。
Tesla dismissed him.
特斯拉解雇了他。
Marconi possesses "more enterprise than knowledge…
马可尼拥有“更多的进取心而不是知识......
Let him continue.
让他继续。
He is using seventeen of my patents."
他正在使用我的十七项专利。”
In the year 1900, 44-year-old Nikola Tesla returned to New York City.
1900年，44岁的尼古拉·特斯拉回到纽约。
He had burned through $100,000 in 8 months in Colorado Springs.
他在科罗拉多斯普林斯的 8 个月内就烧掉了 10 万美元。
Now, he was looking for many hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
现在，他正在寻找更多数十万美元。
Jane Alcorn, President, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe: Without using wires, without using any other means of transmission than the Earth, he wanted to send electrical power and wireless messages around the globe.
Jane Alcorn，沃登克利夫特斯拉科学中心主席：不使用电线，不使用地球以外的任何其他传输方式，他想在全球范围内发送电力和无线信息。
And he believed he could do this based on the experiments he had conducted in Colorado Springs.
他相信根据他在科罗拉多斯普林斯进行的实验，他可以做到这一点。
Narrator: Settling into the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Tesla started looking for investors.
旁白：入驻豪华的华尔道夫酒店后，特斯拉开始寻找投资者。
But raising capital would not be easy.
但筹集资金并不容易。
Heedless, he was making more and more extravagant claims.
他漫不经心地提出越来越夸张的要求。
He repeated that he had received signals from Mars, and insisted that he had the apparatus to signal the Martians back.
他重复说他收到了来自火星的信号，并坚称他拥有向火星人发回信号的装置。
Jane Alcorn, President, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe: He also foresaw the transmission of pictures and sound, music, images and voices, real time.
Jane Alcorn，沃登克利夫特斯拉科学中心主席：他还预见到图像和声音、音乐、图像和声音的实时传输。
But for investors, you have to have something that seems a little more realistic and concrete.
但对于投资者来说，你必须有一些看起来更现实、更具体的东西。
How do you explain a vision?
你如何解释一个愿景？
Narrator: Tesla’s reputation as a scientist was on the line.
旁白：特斯拉作为科学家的声誉岌岌可危。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: At this point Tesla has not had a commercially successful invention in a number of years.
历史学家吉尔·琼斯：目前，特斯拉已经很多年没有在商业上取得成功的发明了。
And as he tries to get new people interested in investing in him they’re less than enthusiastic because they feel that he’s just going to take their money and vaporize it.
当他试图让新人有兴趣投资他时，他们并不那么热情，因为他们觉得他只会拿走他们的钱并将其蒸发。
Narrator: But JP Morgan, the most powerful financier in America, was intrigued.
旁白：但是美国最有实力的金融家摩根大通对此很感兴趣。
Tesla’s breakthrough with alternating current was worth millions.
特斯拉在交流电方面的突破价值数百万美元。
Morgan wanted to hear what the eccentric inventor was proposing now.
摩根想听听这位古怪的发明家现在提出了什么建议。
Tesla told him that he had designed a small tower to transmit wireless messages.
特斯拉告诉他，他设计了一座小塔来传输无线信息。
He kept secret his intention to transmit electric power wirelessly – to make unlimited electricity available free to anyone with an antenna.
他对无线传输电力的意图保密——让任何拥有天线的人免费获得无限的电力。
Jane Alcorn, President, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe: Tesla’s basic idea was to give energy for free for the betterment of humanity.
Jane Alcorn，沃登克利夫特斯拉科学中心主席：特斯拉的基本理念是免费提供能源，以造福人类。
But he wasn’t going to be able to sell this idea to Morgan.
但他无法将这个想法卖给摩根。
He was playing to what Morgan’s interests were.
他正在迎合摩根的利益。
Narrator: Morgan invested $150,000 towards what he thought would be the wireless transmission of messages.
旁白：摩根投资了 15 万美元用于他认为的无线信息传输。
But warned that $150,000 was his limit.
但警告说 15 万美元是他的极限。
With Morgan’s money, Tesla bought 200 acres on Long Island’s north shore.
特斯拉用摩根的钱在长岛北岸购买了 200 英亩土地。
He called it Wardenclyffe, after its former owner, and began building a transmission tower.
他以它的前主人的名字命名它为 Wardenclyffe，并开始建造一座输电塔。
Jane Alcorn, President, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe: He also intended to have a manufacturing facility.
Jane Alcorn，沃登克利夫特斯拉科学中心主席：他还打算拥有一个制造工厂。
But JP Morgan’s $150,000 was never going to complete what Tesla had in mind.
但摩根大通的 15 万美元永远无法完成特斯拉的设想。
And I’m sure that when he took that money he thought there’d be more following once he achieved some measure of success.
我确信，当他拿到这笔钱时，他认为一旦他取得了一定程度的成功，就会有更多的追随者。
Narrator: But a triumphant Guglielmo Marconi doomed Tesla’s dream.
旁白：但是胜利的古列尔莫·马可尼注定了特斯拉的梦想。
On December 12, 1901, Marconi sent the first wireless transmission across the Atlantic, based on Tesla’s patents.
1901 年 12 月 12 日，马可尼根据特斯拉的专利，首次跨越大西洋进行了无线传输。
Eight years later, Marconi would win the Nobel Prize for the invention of wireless telegraphy – radio.
八年后，马可尼因无线电报的发明而获得诺贝尔奖。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: And the minute JP Morgan sees that he’s done with Tesla.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），历史学家：当摩根大通意识到他已经不再对待特斯拉的时候。
So there’s no more money coming from JP Morgan.
因此，摩根大通不再提供资金。
So Tesla is in a very bad place.
所以特斯拉的处境非常糟糕。
This is where had he retained his royalties for alternating current he would have had all the money he needed to do whatever he wanted.
如果他在这里保留交流电的特许权使用费，他将拥有做任何他想做的事情所需的所有钱。
But he didn’t and he wrote just these ever more pathetic, pleading and insulting and bitter letters to Morgan.
但他没有，他只是给摩根写了这些更加可悲、恳求、侮辱和痛苦的信。
I mean, almost like what you would expect, you know, a crazy divorced person to write.
我的意思是，几乎就像你所期望的那样，你知道，一个疯狂的离婚者会写出什么。
Narrator: "Have you ever read the book of Job?" he wrote.
旁白：“你读过约伯记吗？”他写道。
"If you will put my mind in place of his body you will find my suffering accurately described.
“如果你把我的思想放在他的身体上，你会发现我的痛苦得到了准确的描述。
With $ 50,000 more Wardenclyffe is completed, and I have an immortal crown and an immense fortune.
又多了 5 万美元，Wardenclyffe 就完工了，我也有了不朽的王冠和巨额财富。
You are a big man, but your work is wrought in passing form, mine is immortal."
你是个大人物，但你的作品只是昙花一现，而我的作品却是不朽的。”
John Staudenmeier, Historian: Tesla didn’t know how to work with the JP Morgans of his era and what it would take to keep them on board.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：特斯拉不知道如何与他那个时代的摩根大通合作，也不知道如何才能留住他们。
He didn’t know how to think about his technology from the perspective of people that would fund it, finance it.
他不知道如何从资助它的人的角度来思考他的技术。
Part of creativity is understanding how you can fit it into the world of practice.
创造力的一部分是了解如何将其融入实践世界。
It was a big flaw in his life.
这是他人生中的一大缺陷。
Narrator: In the summer of 1903, just as he finished making his first experiments, Tesla ran out of money.
旁白：1903 年夏天，特斯拉刚完成第一个实验，就花光了钱。
Harold Clark, Scientist: His experiments on Long Island were never finished.
哈罗德·克拉克，科学家：他在长岛的实验从未完成。
But what he was trying to do there was pretty far out.
但他在那里想做的事情还很遥远。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Messages might have been possible, because to send a message you need a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of power.
物理学家彼得·费舍尔：消息本来是可能的，因为要发送消息，你需要非常非常小的能量。
But I don’t think there was any way that he was going to put sufficient power out of this thing so that he was going to be able to go even a mile.
但我不认为他能够从这件事上提供足够的力量，以便他能够走一英里。
The insight he demonstrated for the AC motor is true genius but his dream of powering things over vast distances really wasn’t workable and I’ve always been curious why he even though that was possible.
他对交流电机所展现的洞察力是真正的天才，但他远距离供电的梦想实际上是行不通的，我一直很好奇为什么他即使这是可能的。
Narrator: Still Tesla dreamed of Wardenclyffe, trying desperately for years to raise the money to resurrect his vision.
旁白：特斯拉仍然梦想着沃登克利夫，多年来拼命地筹集资金来复兴他的愿景。
"I will be able to transmit energy of any amount to any place," he said.
“我将能够将任何数量的能量传输到任何地方，”他说。
Tesla believed the tower would also be powerful enough to send signals to nearby planets, especially if there were any Martians out there to receive them.
特斯拉相信这座塔的威力也足以向附近的行星发送信号，特别是如果那里有火星人可以接收信号的话。
In 1916, his fortune dwindling, he relinquished the Wardenclyffe mortgage to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he had been living on credit for almost 20 years, running up a debt of $20,000.
1916 年，他的财富日渐减少，他放弃了 Wardenclyffe 的抵押贷款，转而入住华尔道夫酒店 (Waldorf Astoria Hotel)，在那里他已经靠赊账生活了近 20 年，欠下了 20,000 美元的债务。
The following year, to make the land easier to sell, the Waldorf had the tower dynamited.
第二年，为了让土地更容易出售，华尔道夫酒店炸毁了这座塔楼。
Tesla was 61.
特斯拉 61 岁。
He would spend the rest of his life imagining new inventions, and hoping to find someone to invest in them.
他将用余生想象新的发明，并希望找到有人投资这些发明。
Jill Jonnes, Historian: He consulted with various companies.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：他为多家公司提供咨询。
But he was a lonely, eccentric scientist who really was frustrated that his ideas had never been fully seen through.
但他是一位孤独、古怪的科学家，他对自己的想法从未被完全理解感到沮丧。
Marc Seifer, Biographer: His goal was to try and sell something so he could get the money, go back to Wardenclyffe and complete his baby, which was a world global system to transmit light, voice, pictures and power to all points of the globe.
马克·塞弗（Marc Seifer），传记作家：他的目标是尝试出售一些东西，这样他就能拿到钱，回到沃登克利夫并完成他的孩子，这是一个世界性的全球系统，可以将光、声音、图片和电力传输到全球各地。
He was trying to attach our technology to the wheelwork of nature - harnessing geothermal power, the tides, the wind, and sun.
他试图将我们的技术与自然的轮转结合起来——利用地热能、潮汐、风和太阳。
He did not want to sap the Earth of our natural resources.
他不想耗尽地球的自然资源。
He stands for the future.
他代表着未来。
Narrator: Tesla still commanded attention, but increasingly, his ideas were losing their mooring in reality.
旁白：特斯拉仍然引起人们的关注，但他的想法逐渐失去了现实的基础。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Science and science fiction meet in Nikola Tesla.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：科学与科幻小说在尼古拉·特斯拉身上相遇。
As time goes on his inventions start to take on more of the fantastic.
随着时间的推移，他的发明开始变得更加奇妙。
They are visions.
它们是愿景。
They take full flight.
他们全力飞行。
They unleash themselves from the strictures of reality.
他们将自己从现实的束缚中释放出来。
He starts to develop an idea about photographing thought, which is one of his most poetic and beautiful non-inventions in my book.
他开始发展出一种拍摄思想的想法，这是我书中他最富有诗意、最美丽的非发明之一。
He thinks, you know, thought is electrical energy and we record electricity all the time, why can’t we photograph thought?
他认为，你知道，思想是电能，我们一直在记录电力，为什么我们不能拍摄思想呢？
Narrator: Tesla had never cared about money.
旁白：特斯拉从来不关心钱。
Now, he had hardly any left.
现在，他已经所剩无几了。
Leaving behind a trail of debts, he moved from one hotel to another.
他留下了一串债务，从一家酒店搬到了另一家酒店。
His mind was drifting.
他的思绪飘忽不定。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Despite the fact Mark Twain is dead, Tesla is sending him packages to an address that no longer exists in New York City.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：尽管马克·吐温已经去世，特斯拉仍将包裹寄往纽约市不再存在的地址。
He’s living with ghosts.
他和鬼魂住在一起。
Narrator: His only friends were the pigeons in Bryant Park.
旁白：他唯一的朋友是布莱恩特公园里的鸽子。
"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years," he told a reporter.
“多年来，我一直在喂养数千只鸽子，”他告诉记者。
"One was different.
“一个是不同的。
It was a female.
那是一位女性。
I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me.
我爱那只鸽子就像男人爱女人一样，她也爱我。
As long as I had her, there was purpose to my life." The night his beloved pigeon died, he saw a light in her eyes he described as more intense than the most powerful lamps in his laboratory.
只要有她，我的生活就有目标。”他心爱的鸽子去世的那天晚上，他在她的眼睛里看到了一种光芒，他形容这种光芒比他实验室里最强大的灯还要强烈。
When that light went out, he said, a light went out inside of me.
他说，当那盏灯熄灭时，我内心的一盏灯也熄灭了。
Nikola Tesla died on January 7, 1943.
尼古拉·特斯拉于 1943 年 1 月 7 日去世。
He was 86 years old, alone in the New Yorker Hotel, room 3327 on the 33rd floor.
他86岁了，独自一人住在纽约客酒店33层3327房间。
Six months later the United States Supreme Court ruled that the patents to Marconi’s wireless device belonged to Tesla.
六个月后，美国最高法院裁定马可尼无线设备的专利属于特斯拉。
Tesla, not Marconi, invented radio.
无线电的发明者是特斯拉，而不是马可尼。
But by now, he was nearly forgotten.
但现在，他几乎被人遗忘了。
His coils were never commercially successful; his fluorescent lights never marketed; his wireless system never realized; his invention of radio never fully credited.
他的线圈从未在商业上取得成功；他的荧光灯从未上市；他的无线系统从未实现过；他的无线电发明从未得到充分的认可。
Even today, his achievements remain obscure.
即使在今天，他的成就仍然默默无闻。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: Alternating current electricity is not something you think about every time you put your hand on the light switch and turn on the lights.
作家萨曼莎·亨特：每次您把手放在电灯开关上并打开灯时，您不会想到交流电。
There’s not something that’s easy to say, "Ah, okay, there.
没有什么是容易说的，“啊，好吧，在那里。
There we are.
我们到了。
There’s the Tesla, that’s what he gave us."
这就是特斯拉，那是他给我们的。”
Harold Clark, Scientist: He established the basic framework for electrical generation and distribution that drives our economy today.
哈罗德·克拉克，科学家：他建立了推动我们当今经济发展的发电和配电的基本框架。
But he was moving down his own path.
但他正在沿着自己的道路前进。
He was pursuing a vision.
他正在追求一个愿景。
He didn’t necessarily always see the gaps that would have to be filled in order to get where he was going but he always believed that he could get there.
他不一定总能看到必须填补的空白才能到达他要去的地方，但他始终相信他可以到达那里。
Narrator: His imagination carried him beyond his time.
旁白：他的想象力使他超越了他的时代。
With over 200 patents, Tesla had an exhilarating sense of the future.
特斯拉拥有 200 多项专利，对未来有着令人振奋的感觉。
But a long road of invention had to be travelled before many of his ideas could be realized...
但在他的许多想法得以实现之前，还必须走过一条漫长的发明之路……
Jill Jonnes, Historian: Tesla resonates with our own time.
吉尔·琼斯，历史学家：特斯拉与我们这个时代产生共鸣。
Many of the things that he predicted are being brought to reality by the current generation.
他预言的许多事情正在被当代人变成现实。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: Wireless networking, cell phones ...
Peter Fisher，物理学家：无线网络、手机......
yeah I think that’s what brought Tesla back to us was that his dream came true.
是的，我认为让特斯拉回到我们身边的原因是他的梦想成真了。
Samantha Hunt, Writer: He was an artist.
萨曼莎·亨特，作家：他是一位艺术家。
He’s working with his dreams, he’s working with his visions.
他正在为他的梦想而努力，他正在为他的愿景而努力。
His medium is not pigment, his medium is not clay.
他的媒介不是颜料，他的媒介不是粘土。
Peter Fisher, Physicist: He was like a scientist with an artistic nature and many scientists are driven by that.
彼得·费舍尔，物理学家：他就像一位具有艺术天赋的科学家，许多科学家都受其驱动。
Absolutely!
绝对地！
Tesla really was a visionary.
特斯拉确实是一个有远见的人。
Enough of his stuff came true.
他的事情已经足够实现了。
Enough of his stuff came true.
他的事情已经足够实现了。
Join Robert Underwood Johnson, John Muir, Mark Twain, Stanford White, and Nikola Tesla for an imagined dinner party.
与罗伯特·安德伍德·约翰逊、约翰·缪尔、马克·吐温、斯坦福·怀特和尼古拉·特斯拉一起参加一场想象中的晚宴。
Wireless power seems cutting edge, but it was actually pioneered over 100 years ago by Nikola Tesla.
无线充电看似前沿，但实际上它是由尼古拉·特斯拉 (Nikola Tesla) 在 100 多年前开创的。
Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century.
尼古拉·特斯拉 (Nikola Tesla) 是一位天才工程师和孜孜不倦的发明家，他的技术彻底改变了 20 世纪的电气时代。
The word “inventor” conjures images of a far-off past.
“发明家”这个词让人想起遥远的过去。
Today, inventor Steve Hollinger keeps the spirit of innovation alive in his workshop.
如今，发明家 Steve Hollinger 在他的工作室中保持着创新精神。
A hundred years before the world went "wireless," Nikola Tesla invented his Tesla coil, and wirelessly lit up his inventions.
在世界进入“无线”之前一百年，尼古拉·特斯拉发明了他的特斯拉线圈，并无线点亮了他的发明。
At the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 160,000 light bulbs lit up the evening sky over Chicago.
1893 年芝加哥哥伦布博览会上，160,000 个灯泡照亮了芝加哥上空的夜空。
Alternating current transformed daily life in the 20th century, and made Tesla famous.
交流电改变了20世纪的日常生活，也让特斯拉名声大噪。
Nikola Tesla stunned audiences when he wirelessly lit up glass tubes filled with gas.
尼古拉·特斯拉以无线方式点亮充满气体的玻璃管，令观众惊叹不已。
He called it cold light.
他称之为冷光。
Harold Clark of the Liberty Science Center gives a demonstration of Nikola Tesla's wireless energy.
自由科学中心的哈罗德·克拉克演示了尼古拉·特斯拉的无线能源。
During the last part of the 19th century, George Westinghouse had made his fortune through his invention, the railroad air brake.
19 世纪末，乔治·威斯汀豪斯 (George Westinghouse) 通过发明铁路空气制动器而发家致富。
In Nikola Tesla's original contract with George Westinghouse, the inventor was promised a bonus of $2.50 for every horsepower of alternating current sold.
在尼古拉·特斯拉与乔治·威斯汀豪斯的原始合同中，发明家承诺每售出一马力的交流电可获得 2.5 美元的奖金。