Online fund-raising drive raises $900,000 for Tesla Museum

Nikola Tesla, the eccentric Serbian inventor who never quite got the credit he deserved for the R&D work he did in the early 20th century in the development of an astounding array of electrical technologies that included fluorescent lighting, wireless communications, robotics, and AC current, has a friend in Matthew Inman, creator of theoatmeal.com cartoon.

The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe wants to save one Tesla's most famous laboratories in Shoreham, N.Y., and Inman enlisted the help and generosity of his 700,000 friends on Facebook; 300,000 followers on Twitter; and 1 million followers on Google+ to mount a massive online fundraising drive, called, “Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum." Inman is using the IndieGoGo crowdfunding website to raise money to purchase the Tesla lab and developit into a museum, and to date has raised more than $900,000 for that purpose. You can learn more about the plans for the museum at www.teslasciencecenter.org, and can make a donation at www.indiegogo.com/teslamuseum. And if you are a Tesla fan, you simply have to check out Inman's comic strip on Tesla at www.theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla. Hilarious, if a bit raunchy.

Our thanks to Anthony Capkun, editor of Canada's Electrical Business magazine for giving us a heads-up on this project.