The Oatmeal Wants to Preserve History and You Can Help!

Have you heard of The Oatmeal? It’s a website created and run by Matthew Inman of Seattle, Washington. When he isn’t stating the pros and cons of living with your significant other or teaching the world better grammar, he is donating to charitable organizations. He has a loyal group of followers who will read anything he writes and buy anything he sells, but now, he needs the world’s help: to help build a Nikola Tesla museum.

For those who don’t know, Nikola Tesla was one of Thomas Edison’s assistants and one of the prime reasons light bulbs were invented. He made many contributions to the research of alternating currents, and his work helped the world of radio and wireless communications. In fact, one of Tesla’s final projects was to show that electrical energy could be shared without the use of power lines – unfortunately, his patents ran out and he could find no backers to help with the final costs of the project. Because of this, the laboratory went unused.

The land on which the Wardenclyffe Tower laboratory stands is now up for sale. It costs $1.6 million, and New York State has agreed to pay for half of the cost. Of course, there is another interested buyer who wishes to turn the land into retail space. In retaliation, The Oatmeal is calling for donations to raise the extra $850,000 necessary to save the land and turn it into not only a museum, but a national landmark in honor of Nikola Tesla’s work.

How can you help? Visit this page. It will tell you all you need to know and more about the project: how to donate, what you get by donating, and so on. Tesla may not be a household name like Edison or Albert Einstein, but he made a lot of important headway in the area of electrical science. Without him, we would not have a lot of the technology we enjoy today. Perhaps with a little help, a bit more of the past can be saved for the future to remember.