INTELLIGENCE Not because you think you know everything without questioning, but rather you question everything you think you know.
But the people said to me
“Well, Tesla invented the wireless.
How did he do that?”
And I try to explain it.
I don't always succeed.
I’m going to try to explain,
how Tesla invented the wireless.
Years ago when you bought electric wire,
they wrapped it around a cardboard tube.
And sometimes the wire was broken.
So a man connected two terminals to the coil
to see if it was broken.
Of course it wasn't in most cases.
But if there was a coil nearby,
when you ran a current through the first coil,
it induced a current in the other one.
It didn't have to be connected.
That's where the wireless came from.
Man did not sit down
[and say] “I have to make a wireless.” How can you do that?
You can't possibly do that.
Or they say “Edison invented the electric light.
How did he do that?”
Well Edison was very curious.
He wanted to know
what kind of conduction different metals would have.
So he ran an electric current from a battery through a wire.
Some of the wire offered tremendous resistance,
and it would glow white hot.
And he said “Gee! – a source of light.”
And he bent it, like a letter ‘U’.
And he put it on a table, it fell over,
and burned some papers, and he put a glass over it,
to keep it from burning papers. That's the first electric light.
Nobody said “I have to make an electric light!” You can't do that!
That's a myth.
Nobody ever said-…
Well they say - they tell you -
that the Wright brothers made the first airplane.
They couldn’t possibly do that.
Other people before the Wright brothers
made airplanes with the wings too small;
didn't get off the ground.
When they made the wings too big, they flapped out, together.
And so, a lot of people got hurt jumping off rooftops.
And a man saw birds flying, a Frenchman.
He said “There’s no reason why I can't fly.”
And he made two wings, stuck his hands in them,
and he beat on the wings.
He said “Gee, I can fly!”
And he jumped off the Eiffel Tower, and he died.
And his brother-in-law wrote “Make wings larger next time.”
[Laughter]
There’s no way you know how large to make wings, on the first step.
You don't know how large to make a propeller.
Do you make it this big? You don't know.
So you put different size propellers on;
some work, some don't work.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Man builds upon other men,
and they take an idea so far, and keep adding to it,
and over the years, you have a movie camera.
Nobody ever sat down and said “I have to make a movie camera!”
You can't do that.