Nikola Tesla and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) friendship

Nikola Tesla and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) friendship
Twain and Tesla became friends in the 1890s, thanks in part to Twain’s lifelong fascination with technology and new inventions. Visiting Tesla’s lab late one night, Twain posed for one of the first photographs to be lit by incandescent light.

In 1895, Tesla and photographer Edward Ringwood Hewett invited Twain back to the lab to pose for another photo, this one lit using an electrical device called a Crookes tube. When Tesla reviewed the resulting photographic negative, he found it splotchy and spotted and decided it was ruined.

It was only weeks later, after German scientist Wilhelm Röntigen announced his discovery of what he called “X-radiation” produced by Crookes tubes, that Tesla realized the photograph of Twain had been ruined by the X-ray shadows of the camera’s metal screws.

Know more:
http://www.teslasociety.com/famousfriends.htm
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-nikola-tesla

Image:
Mark Twain in Tesla's Laboratory at 35 South Fifth Avenue, 1895. 

#history   #marktwain   #nikolatesla