feature article - october 2008

Electrifying Discovery World show explores Nicola Tesla's creativity

SPARKS will start flying this month as Discovery World fills its theater with 20 million volts of electricity in a new show exploring the accomplishments of Nikola Tesla, called a "mad scientist" by contemporaries and "the patron saint of modern electricity" by historians.

"This is the kind of thing we do best," comments Paul Krajniak, executive director of Discovery World at 500 N. Harbor Dr. "Our goal is to bring out the Tesla in you, the audience, and stimulate your creativity and scientific abilities, just like Nikola Tesla."

Discovery World's staff developed the live, interactive presentation performed by professional actor Andy North. Tesla's pioneering development of alternating electrical current, X-rays, wireless power and radio transmission radar systems and robotics are brought to the stage through hands-on demonstrations and audience participation.

A native of Serbia, Tesla became a U.S. citizen in 1891. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago Tesla and industrialist George Westinghouse introduced visitors to AC power by using it to illuminate the exposition. Also on display at that celebrated exposition were Tesla's fluorescent lamps.

A controversial figure all of his life, Tesla died in 1943 at 86, and later that year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a contested Tesla patent that effectively recognized him as the inventor of radio.

Tesla also was known for his showmanship, presenting his innovations through public demonstrations that often shocked and surprised audiences. Appropriately, Discovery World's live shows demonstrate Tesla's principles and the outcome of his work in an equally entertaining fashion.

Krajniak points out that the Tesla show complements the recently opened Wisconsin Energy Foundation Energy and Ingenuity exhibit and the robotics of the popular Johnson Controls exhibit. "Unlike other museums, we want to show visitors the commercial applications of science and technology through a combination of exhibits, live demonstrations and classroom activities," he adds.

Previews of the Tesla show begin Oct. 1 in the Shel and Marianne Lubar Innovation Theater and will continue on Saturdays and Sundays. Discovery World, which also houses walk-through freshwater and saltwater aquariums, a virtual reality chamber and 300 other interactive exhibits, is open to the public from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.