<story><title>Nikola Tesla invention from 100 years ago suddenly makes more sense today</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/nikola-tesla-invention-from-100-years-ago-suddenly-makes-more-sense-today/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danybittel</author><text>You may be exceptional.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, it often works &amp;#x2F; looks perfect in the head. But putting it to paper, it falls apart quickly. Imagine a bicycle, it is easy to imagine it accurately. Then draw it (or construct it), one usually struggles a lot. The step to materialize it, is where you need a lot of practice.&lt;p&gt;The worst are the the &amp;quot;idea&amp;quot; guys. They think they have already done all the work, and somebody else just needs to put it to paper. If you&amp;#x27;re that someone, expect lots of trial and error. He&amp;#x27;ll &amp;quot;know when he sees it&amp;quot;, but can&amp;#x27;t give directions.</text></item><item><author>mrtnmcc</author><text>Doesn&amp;#x27;t everyone do this? I remember at the age of five finally learning to control my falling dreams at night, to be able to freeze in the air and eventually fly (the Matrix scene definitely resonated later). This was the beginning of a continuous exercise of imagining things more and more exactly and controlling that imagination. Now as an engineer, I spend most of my time staring at a wall simulating and refining designs in my head. As Tesla notes, they are usually accurate. The most interesting cases however are when I can&amp;#x27;t quite be sure what will happen. Building those projects are some of the most exciting and often most valuable work.  Besides imagination, simulating on a computer is useful, but more to explain an imagined design to others. Occassionaly, when simulations scale to a certain level of parallel interaction (like neural networks), those simulations take on the character of reality which may defy imagination. At least until enough experimentation and observation develops intuition.</text></item><item><author>neither_color</author><text>If you want to get into the mind of Tesla a bit I highly recommend &amp;quot;My Inventions&amp;quot;, his sort of autobiography where he described how his mind worked. He spent a lot of time developing his imagination at a young age and &amp;quot;traveling&amp;quot; in his head. I was surprised to read that he would visualize entire designs in his imagination and then go through prototypes and iterations several times before bringing that idea into the physical world. 
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tfcbooks.com&amp;#x2F;e-books&amp;#x2F;my_inventions.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tfcbooks.com&amp;#x2F;e-books&amp;#x2F;my_inventions.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;My method is different.  I do not rush into actual work.  When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination.  I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.  It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop.  I even note if it is out of balance.  There is no difference whatever, the results are the same.  In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything.  When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain.  &lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>angrysaki</author><text>Drawings of bicycles from memory, rendered in 3D:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.behance.net&amp;#x2F;gallery&amp;#x2F;35437979&amp;#x2F;Velocipedia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.behance.net&amp;#x2F;gallery&amp;#x2F;35437979&amp;#x2F;Velocipedia&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Nikola Tesla invention from 100 years ago suddenly makes more sense today</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/nikola-tesla-invention-from-100-years-ago-suddenly-makes-more-sense-today/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danybittel</author><text>You may be exceptional.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, it often works &amp;#x2F; looks perfect in the head. But putting it to paper, it falls apart quickly. Imagine a bicycle, it is easy to imagine it accurately. Then draw it (or construct it), one usually struggles a lot. The step to materialize it, is where you need a lot of practice.&lt;p&gt;The worst are the the &amp;quot;idea&amp;quot; guys. They think they have already done all the work, and somebody else just needs to put it to paper. If you&amp;#x27;re that someone, expect lots of trial and error. He&amp;#x27;ll &amp;quot;know when he sees it&amp;quot;, but can&amp;#x27;t give directions.</text></item><item><author>mrtnmcc</author><text>Doesn&amp;#x27;t everyone do this? I remember at the age of five finally learning to control my falling dreams at night, to be able to freeze in the air and eventually fly (the Matrix scene definitely resonated later). This was the beginning of a continuous exercise of imagining things more and more exactly and controlling that imagination. Now as an engineer, I spend most of my time staring at a wall simulating and refining designs in my head. As Tesla notes, they are usually accurate. The most interesting cases however are when I can&amp;#x27;t quite be sure what will happen. Building those projects are some of the most exciting and often most valuable work.  Besides imagination, simulating on a computer is useful, but more to explain an imagined design to others. Occassionaly, when simulations scale to a certain level of parallel interaction (like neural networks), those simulations take on the character of reality which may defy imagination. At least until enough experimentation and observation develops intuition.</text></item><item><author>neither_color</author><text>If you want to get into the mind of Tesla a bit I highly recommend &amp;quot;My Inventions&amp;quot;, his sort of autobiography where he described how his mind worked. He spent a lot of time developing his imagination at a young age and &amp;quot;traveling&amp;quot; in his head. I was surprised to read that he would visualize entire designs in his imagination and then go through prototypes and iterations several times before bringing that idea into the physical world. 
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tfcbooks.com&amp;#x2F;e-books&amp;#x2F;my_inventions.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tfcbooks.com&amp;#x2F;e-books&amp;#x2F;my_inventions.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;My method is different.  I do not rush into actual work.  When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination.  I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.  It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop.  I even note if it is out of balance.  There is no difference whatever, the results are the same.  In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything.  When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain.  &lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mewpmewp2</author><text>I imagine it will vary widely depending on the complexity of something. The more complex something is the more likely you fail to predict some things accurately, so based on this conversation it&amp;#x27;s difficult to tell whether someone is exceptional or not, as exceptional would be when you are able to do more complex designs accurately than most other folks.</text></comment>