The more you read about Nikola Tesla, the more you begin to suspect he might have been a magician instead of a scientist. He certainly had an innate understanding of electricity, and the experiments he performed were years ahead of his time.
In this picture, he's in his lab experimenting with something called a magnifying transmitter. It looks spectacular - but he can't even be bothered to look up from his notes for long enough to watch it. Perhaps he'd seen it all before!