What is a fiction element of Nikola Tesla?

Answer 1

Since Nikola Tesla was one of the brightest inventors of the late 19th to early 20th century, writers and storytellers have made references to him in works of fiction. This happens either because of his actual devices and historical importance, or to describe his ways of thinking and the ways he pictured a device in his head before starting work on it (as in the biographical drama The Secret of Nikola Tesla [1980], with Orson Welles as J. P. Morgan,) or to introduce fictional inventions with him as the inventor of seemingly impossible things (as in the movie The Prestige [2006] where a magician has Tesla build him an electrical device that can duplicate any object including the magician himself.)

As a fiction element (or an element in fiction,) the sort of fiction element Nikola Tesla would be is a character. More specifically, he would be a historical character. In a work of fiction, a historical character may be either fictionalized, or referenced factually as background information for other characters. A historical character may also be depicted in a history or documentary, which uses only historical photos and documents (such as the documentary film Nikola Tesla: The Genius Who Lit the World.)

A fictional element of Nikola Tesla (as distinct from a fiction element) is Unobtainium, an element which Tesla claims to have discovered in the plot of "Unobtainium 2012" a participatory drama festival in Dale, Texas, November 10th and 11th, 2012. (The fictional element Unobtainium has a long history going back to the 1950s, and is not usually associated with Tesla.)

Answer 2

A fictional element about Nikola Tesla is the idea that he had developed a working death ray or directed-energy weapon, which is a concept often portrayed in Science Fiction and conspiracy theories but has no factual basis in Tesla's actual work or inventions.