Shock Rock.

The Perot Museum Is Building a Singing Tesla Coil To Dazzle Your Eyes and Ears Alike.

Yesterday, to celebrate what would've been electrical innovator Nikola Tesla's 157th birthday, the Perot Museum dropped a pretty sweet reveal, announcing that they're building a freakin' singing Tesla coil.

According to the folks at the new museum, this new coil will use “modern solid state technology to modulate the power input controlling the amount of electrical discharge.” Also: “The power modulation can be varied to produce electrical discharges that give off sound waves 'tuned' to specific musical notes.”

I'm not completely sure what that all means, but it sounds awesome. Also awesome? The Perot Museum will be debuting the singing Tesla coil during a live show in their auditorium space in “the coming months.” Beyond that, the Perot folks really don't have too much more information to share on the matter.

Still, it sounds like the project should be cool enough to do the history-book-shafted Tesla some justice.

For the unfamiliar: Tesla researched electrical distribution systems at around the same time as Thomas Edison, and his ideas helped shaped a number of modern electronic concepts — among them radio, x-ray radiation, remote control technology, wireless communication and solar energy. The guy even once built a device that was able to illuminate a light bulb from up to a mile away, which is just insane, really.

These days, the Tesla coil stands as his most lasting invention. Considering the crazy visual spectacle those can provide, that's perhaps justifiable. But seriously: A Tesla coil with music? That's just incredible.

Below, some proof to back up that belief in the form of twin singing Tesla coils performing the theme from Super Mario Bros. at a 2007 event called the Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon in Wisconsin.

Cover photo via WikiCommons.