Scene Ideas

Stroking the cat as a young child, he asks his father about the resulting sparks. 'It's like lightning,' his father answers. 'Then is it God who strokes the earth?' Tesla asks.

How to handle his brother's death? His older brother was the talented one, from whom great things were expected. After Dane died, Tesla's remarkable achievements could never exceed what his older brother might have done.

Tesla worked for Edison fixing and improving Edison's DC generators. Edison declined to pay a promised bonus, dismissing it as a 'joke' not readily understood by a new immigrant. Tesla quit and, after a period of menial jobs, developed his plans for AC power generation, transmission and utilization. In time he partnered with Westinghouse, harnessed the power of Niagara and gave rise to the modern industrial world.

Tesla's invents a robotic boat, which he demonstrated to a huge crowd at the original Madison Square Garden. Any one of the inventions that made the demonstration possible would have secured the fame of the inventor. In this case Tesla invented wireless remote control, logic gate circuits and electromagnetic actuators. The response was a rapturous incomprehension.

He envisioned a day when robotic machines would fight wars making war obsolete. [Never understood his reasoning here.]

He experimented with what would become known as 'X-rays' for years--developing X-ray tubes and taking pictures of people's insides--including his own. He never publicized his work, corresponding with Wilhelm Rontgen, credited as the phenomenon's discoverer.

While living in the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel--on the current site of the Empire State Building--Tesla sent the first radio signals to a receiver located in a building on the corner of 27th Street and 6th Avenue.

Tesla took great joy in demonstrating his inventions to New York' gilded-age glitteratti--Mark Twain, Dvorak, Saran Bernhardt, Swami Vivekananda, JP Morgan, Paderewski, Stanford White and on and on.

On his death, the federal government confiscated some of his writings and they remain 'top secret' to this day.

Developing his 'Magnifying Transmitter' in Colorado Springs, CO, Tesla succeeded in delivering electricity wirelessly for significant distances [specifics needed]. The apparatus also acted as a radio transmitter/receiver. During the experiments he received, what he believed to be, signals from Mars--'proof' that intelligent beings lived there.