Tesla Science Center Successfully Buys Wardenclyffe – Will Make It Into a Museum

An effort to raise money to buy Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe laboratory has been successful. The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, a non-profit group that has been pursuing the property for many years, confirmed that the Agfa Corporation agreed to sell the site to the Center. The Center will now begin developing designs for the renovation of the facility, which is badly in need of repair, and the creation of a world class “museum and educational memorial to Nikola Tesla, an eccentric genius who lit the world with alternating current but died penniless.”

Wardenclyffe was Tesla’s last great laboratory, and where he planned to begin his World Wireless System to transmit both communications (radio) and power without wires. The effort fell short due to design problems and the withdrawal of funding from financier J.P. Morgan. Tesla later came to his benefactor’s defense when others accused the wealthy financier of pulling funding because Tesla’s wireless electrical power ideas would not provide a profit for Morgan. In his autobiography, Tesla noted with respect to Morgan that “he carried out his generous promise to the letter and it would have been most unreasonable to expect from him anything more.” It was not lack of faith in his abilities by Morgan that would end Tesla’s work at Wardenclyffe, it was that “my project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time. But the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.”

A century later, Wardenclyffe could once again be the focal point for Tesla’s research. The acquisition by the Tesla Science Center and development of a museum and educational center is a fitting tribute to the man who helped bring us the electrical systems we all rely on today.

More on Tesla: Wizard of Electricity here.

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