Nikola Tesla in popular culture


Nikola Tesla is portrayed in many forms of popular culture. The Serbian-American engineer has particularly been depicted in science fiction, a genre which is well suited to address his inventions; while often exaggerated, the fictionalized variants build mostly upon his own alleged claims or ideas. A popular, growing fixation among science fiction, comic book, and speculative history storytellers is to portray Tesla as a member of a secret society, along with other luminaries of science. The impacts of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla are a recurring theme in the steampunk genre of alternate technology science-fiction.

Board games

  • In the alternate World War I setting in the board game Tannhäuser, Nikola Tesla is a major figure in the Russian Matriarchy faction, where his inventions have not only been used to create deadly weaponry but also harness the power of otherworldly forces.

Books

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Allusions

Comics and graphic novels

Appearances

Allusions

Companies

Events and holidays

Nikola Tesla Day

Tesla's birthday, 10 July, is celebrated by some as World Tesla Day, Nikola Tesla Day, or simply, Tesla Day. Some organizations celebrate Tesla Day informally on 10 July. However, The Tesla Memorial Society wrote letters to several officials asking to commemorate 10 July as international Nikola Tesla Day.
Tesla's birthday is officially celebrated as a holiday in various parts of the world. In Serbia, 10 July is celebrated as the National Day of Science. In Croatia, it is called Nikola Tesla Day. In Niagara Falls, Canada, it is named as the Day of Nikola Tesla. In the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia, the local Association of Teachers also officially celebrate 10 July as the Day of Nikola Tesla though in practice, the celebrations last the seven days from 4 July to 10 July inclusive.
Google honored Tesla on his birthday on 10 July 2009 by displaying a Google Doodle in the Google search home page, that showed the G as a Tesla coil.
On 7 January 2021, the Tesla Science Foundation Serbia sent a petition to the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church proposing that the Synod consider the canonization of Nikola Tesla as an Orthodox saint with his birthday, 10 July as his feast day.
At Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe an annual Tesla Expo is held each year near the date of Nikola Tesla Day and celebrates with a STEM festival highlighting Tesla's accomplishments and impact on today's science and technology.

Film

Appearances

Allusions

Music

Allusions

  • The American rock band Tesla is named after Nikola Tesla since 1986. They have referenced his life and works a number of times, such as in their debut album Mechanical Resonance, their second album The Great Radio Controversy and the song "Edison's Medicine", from their 1991 album Psychotic Supper
  • Russian synthpop band Tesla Boy formed in 2008 is named after Tesla.
  • Yugoslav rock band Teška Industrija recorded the rock epic "Nikola Tesla" for their 1976 studio album Teška Industrija. In 2017, the band rerecorded the song with singer Goran Karan for the large Tesla exhibit held in Zagreb, Croatia.
  • "Tesla Girls" was a 1984 single by English band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
  • Tesla is the subject of the song "Tesla's Hotel Room" by the American duo The Handsome Family. The song is featured on the duo's 2006 album Last Days of Wonder.
  • American metal band The Human Abstract released the album Midheaven, which includes songs referring to Tesla and his struggles.
  • Some of lyrics from the 2011 album החבר אני by Israeli rock singer Rami Fortis was inspired by the life and works of Tesla. Fortis had dedicated the album to Tesla, and said his works inspired him.
  • The electronic dance album RISE by American electro-pop band Renaiszance is themed after The Inventor: The Story of Tesla graphic novel created by Ravé Mehta. The first single and "I Will Rise" are written to Tesla's story and use edgy electronic Tesla coil sounds and dubstep in the production. RISE was produced by Ravé Mehta and co-written with his sister and Renaiszance lead singer Radha Mehta.
  • Tesla is the subject of the song "Tesla" by the American rock band They Might Be Giants which appears on their 2013 album Nanobots, with lyrics covering his involvement in X-rays, AC power, radio, and neon lights. The song also references Tesla's death at the New Yorker Hotel.
  • Tesla featured in the official "My Demons" music video by the American electronic rock group Starset.
  • The Norwegian artist Sturle Dagsland released a single in 2013 entitled "Wardenclyffe Auquarium" with reference to Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower.

Online

  • In the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, in season 2, Tesla is depicted in a rap battle against Thomas Edison. Tesla is portrayed by Dante Cimadamore and his singing voice is provided by both Cimadamore and Nice Peter.
  • The Oatmeal, a website created by Matthew Inman, contains a comic explaining "Why Nikola Tesla Was The Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived".
  • In the animated series Super Science Friends, a fictional Nikola Tesla is one of the main characters and is voiced by Hayden Finkelshtain.
  • In online culture, Tesla's quote regarding the number 369 is thought to refer to the supposed natural vibration of the mind. The body opens counterclockwise, so the mind is also thought to operate in a counter-clockwise current. Some speculate attunement to this frequency may assist in helping their thoughts 'manifest' into their reality, though experts consider this to be pseudoscience.

Stage productions

A number of live theatrical plays based on Tesla's life have been produced and staged worldwide.

Opera

Television

Appearances

was a Yugoslav TV series in 1977 which featured Rade Šerbedžija as Tesla, as well as Mustafa Nadarević,, Izet Hajdarhodžić, Ljuba Tadić, Ivo Serdar, and a number of other nationally renowned actors.Tesla: Master of Lightning, a 2003 documentary by Robert Uth, featuring Stacy Keach as the voice of Tesla.

Allusions

Video games

  • Tesla's proposal of teleforce weapons and the destructive possibilities of massive electric arcs created by tesla coils have inspired many video game designers to incorporate Tesla weapons and armors.
  • The asymmetrical horror multiplayer game Identity V developed by Netease released a character named Luca Balsa who shares the same birthday as Tesla. In game, Balsa is characterized as a young and aspiring inventor working as an apprentice under Alva Lorenz, who shares his name with the middle name of Thomas Edison. The two worked together until they had an argument, resulting in Lorenz's accidental death and Balsa's imprisonment.

Appearances

  • In the Command & Conquer ''Red Alert series of video games, Nikola Tesla is a scientist working for the USSR, and "Tesla" is the name of the technology the Soviets use to generate power and for their lightning-based weapons. Perhaps the most widely known example is the Tesla Coil defense structure, capable of sending short electric arcs towards oncoming units, also in their arsenal are Tesla troopers, who carry portable tesla coil-based weaponry and tesla tanks, which have a large glowing blue sphere that ejects great bolts of electricity.
  • Nikola Tesla is also one of the characters in the game Martian Dreams, by Origin, which is part of the Worlds of Ultima series.
  • In Frostpunk, an alternate history Nikola Tesla is the founder and leader of Tesla City, a possible location to discover in-game. It appears that Tesla became an authoritarian dictator of his city, exiling many unfit individuals and attempting to shield his city from a perpetual winter using electricity, which ends up killing everyone inside Tesla City. Later, a group of exiles finds and kills him, before the player's scouts bury his body.
  • Tesla features in The Order: 1886, and aids the main character in the game set in an alternate history 1886.
  • Tesla is one of the main characters in the game Dark Void, where he is kept in an alternate universe, like a 'skin' between universes, to which one can travel through the Bermuda Triangle. He uses his great intelligence to create a huge spaceship called the Ark, kept in another, tropical Earth-like universe called the Void. The Ark can be used by others stranded in the alternate universe to defeat the post-singularity robotic AI that manifests itself as an army of anthropomorphic robots. After defeating the robotic menace, Tesla and the other protagonists return to the 'skin' universe, where Tesla stays to keep his youth and his inventions.
  • In the Rockstar Games 2018 title Red Dead Redemption 2, Tesla is paid homage to with a character called “Marko Dragic”. In the game, the player meets Dragic in the town of Saint Denis where he is convincing investors to invest in his work on electromagnetic waves, showing off a remotely controlled boat. A later mission entails the player helping Dragic set up a series of lightning rods, assisting Dragic in the activation of an automaton, and a return to the laboratory uncovers a deceased Marko Dragic, and awarding the player with the “Artificial Intelligence” achievement or trophy. Exploration into the mountain region will allow the player to find the automaton sitting on the edge of a mountain, regretting its transgressions.
  • Tesla is the protagonist of Tesla vs Lovecraft and fights monsters summoned by Lovecraft.
  • Tesla is an ally of the Assassin's order in the Assassin's Creed series.
  • In Fate/Grand Order, Tesla appears in the London Singularity and briefly in E Pluribus Unum Singularity as an Archer-class Servant. His Noble Phantasm, System Keraunos, is a powerful electromagnetic attack that deals extra damage against servants with Earth or Sky Attribute.
  • Zen Studios developed a Pinball#Computer [pinball simulation|virtual] pinball table about Tesla's work and experiments, which became one of the first four tables in its first pinball game, Zen Pinball, released in 2009. It went on to appear in the game's subsequent ports and is available as add-on content for the game's sequels. Nikolai Tesla himself, portrayed by a voice actor, is the table's unseen announcer.
  • Tesla appears in the 2019 adventure horror video game Close to the Sun, voice acted by Jannik Archer. Set in an alternate reality in 1897, he has created a company called Wardenclyffe, and has pulled ahead in a technology war against American inventor Thomas Edison.
  • In the 2020 game Iron Harvest, the mechs, or automachines as they are called, are inventions of Tesla, which he had created to improve Human quality of life, but instead they were used by the various world powers in the Great War. Dismayed that his inventions were used for war, he shut himself, and his personal Factory, away from the nations of the world. Tesla, and his Factory, play a major role throughout the game's campaign story.
  • Tesla appears as the original BLU team's engineer in Team Fortress 2''.

Allusions

  • The 2014 adventure game Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure deals with many of Tesla's inventions such as the Spirit Radio, Tesla's Egg, the Death Ray, and a recreation of the Wardenclyffe Tower. It also includes an organization called the "Tesla Legacy Society" dedicated to solving the problems of humanity through the works and inspiration of Tesla.

Banknotes and coins

Theme Parks