Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah by Nigel Cawthorne Page B
Authors: Nigel Cawthorne
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demonstrations of wireless transmission a full year before Guglielmo Marconi even began experimenting.
In 1896, Tesla received a letter from Sir William Preece (1834 â 1913) of the Imperial Post Office in London, asking Tesla for two wireless sets for trial. But Marconi was in London by then. He intervened, telling Preece that he had tried the Tesla system and it had not worked. Nevertheless, Tesla filed a patent for wireless transmission in September 1897.
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Conspiring with the Devil
In St Louis, Missouri, 4,000 copies of a small-circulation electrical journal were sold because it carried an article about Tesla. When Tesla came to town, 80 electrical utility wagons paraded down the street. The 4,000-seat Grand Music Entertainment Hall was filled to overcapacity as several thousand more packed in. Tickets were being sold by scalpers for between $3 and $5 ($80 and $130 at todayâs prices). Tesla did not disappoint, passing 200,000 volts through his body. He described the experiment in his published lecture:
I now set the coil to work and approach the free terminal with a metallic object held in my hand, this simply to avoid burns. As I approach the metallic object to a distance of 8 or 10 inches, a torrent of furious sparks breaks forth from the end of the secondary wire, which passes through the rubber column. The sparks cease when the metal in my hand touches the wire. My arm is now traversed by a powerful electric current, vibrating at about the rate of one million times a second. All around me the electrostatic force makes itself felt, and the air molecules and particles of dust flying about are acted upon and are hammering violently against my body.
So great is this agitation of the particles, that when the lights are turned out, you may see streams of feeble light appear on some parts of my body. When such a streamer breaks out on any part of the body, it produces a sensation like the pricking of a needle. Were the potentials sufficiently high and the frequency of the vibration rather low, the skin would probably be ruptured under the tremendous strain, and the blood would rush out with great force in the form of fine spray or jet so thin as to be invisible, just as oil will when placed on the positive terminal of a Holtz machine [electrostatic generator]. The breaking through of the skin though it may seem impossible at first, would perhaps occur, by reason of the tissues under the skin being incomparably better at conducting. This, at least, appears plausible, judging from some observations.
I can make these streams of light visible to all, by touching with the metallic object one of the terminals as before, and approaching my free hand to the brass sphere, which is connected to the second terminal of the coil. As the hand is approached, the air between it and the sphere, or in the immediate neighbourhood, is more violently agitated, and you see streams of light now break forth from my fingertips and from the whole hand. Were I to approach the hand closer, powerful sparks would jump from the brass sphere to my hand, which might be injurious. The streamers offer no particular inconvenience, except that in the ends of the fingertips a burning sensation is felt â¦
The streams of light which you have observed issuing from my hand are due to a potential of about 200,000 volts, alternating in rather irregular intervals, sometimes like a million times a second. A vibration of the same amplitude, but four times as fast, to maintain which over three million volts would be required, would be more than sufficient to envelop my body in a complete sheet of flame. But this flame would not burn me up; quite contrarily, the probability is, that I would not be injured in the least. Yet a hundredth part of that energy, otherwise directed; would be amply sufficient to kill a personâ¦
Waving various shaped tubes in the powerful electromagnetic field his oscillating transformer had produced, Tesla created
In 1896, Tesla received a letter from Sir William Preece (1834 â 1913) of the Imperial Post Office in London, asking Tesla for two wireless sets for trial. But Marconi was in London by then. He intervened, telling Preece that he had tried the Tesla system and it had not worked. Nevertheless, Tesla filed a patent for wireless transmission in September 1897.
Â
Conspiring with the Devil
In St Louis, Missouri, 4,000 copies of a small-circulation electrical journal were sold because it carried an article about Tesla. When Tesla came to town, 80 electrical utility wagons paraded down the street. The 4,000-seat Grand Music Entertainment Hall was filled to overcapacity as several thousand more packed in. Tickets were being sold by scalpers for between $3 and $5 ($80 and $130 at todayâs prices). Tesla did not disappoint, passing 200,000 volts through his body. He described the experiment in his published lecture:
I now set the coil to work and approach the free terminal with a metallic object held in my hand, this simply to avoid burns. As I approach the metallic object to a distance of 8 or 10 inches, a torrent of furious sparks breaks forth from the end of the secondary wire, which passes through the rubber column. The sparks cease when the metal in my hand touches the wire. My arm is now traversed by a powerful electric current, vibrating at about the rate of one million times a second. All around me the electrostatic force makes itself felt, and the air molecules and particles of dust flying about are acted upon and are hammering violently against my body.
So great is this agitation of the particles, that when the lights are turned out, you may see streams of feeble light appear on some parts of my body. When such a streamer breaks out on any part of the body, it produces a sensation like the pricking of a needle. Were the potentials sufficiently high and the frequency of the vibration rather low, the skin would probably be ruptured under the tremendous strain, and the blood would rush out with great force in the form of fine spray or jet so thin as to be invisible, just as oil will when placed on the positive terminal of a Holtz machine [electrostatic generator]. The breaking through of the skin though it may seem impossible at first, would perhaps occur, by reason of the tissues under the skin being incomparably better at conducting. This, at least, appears plausible, judging from some observations.
I can make these streams of light visible to all, by touching with the metallic object one of the terminals as before, and approaching my free hand to the brass sphere, which is connected to the second terminal of the coil. As the hand is approached, the air between it and the sphere, or in the immediate neighbourhood, is more violently agitated, and you see streams of light now break forth from my fingertips and from the whole hand. Were I to approach the hand closer, powerful sparks would jump from the brass sphere to my hand, which might be injurious. The streamers offer no particular inconvenience, except that in the ends of the fingertips a burning sensation is felt â¦
The streams of light which you have observed issuing from my hand are due to a potential of about 200,000 volts, alternating in rather irregular intervals, sometimes like a million times a second. A vibration of the same amplitude, but four times as fast, to maintain which over three million volts would be required, would be more than sufficient to envelop my body in a complete sheet of flame. But this flame would not burn me up; quite contrarily, the probability is, that I would not be injured in the least. Yet a hundredth part of that energy, otherwise directed; would be amply sufficient to kill a personâ¦
Waving various shaped tubes in the powerful electromagnetic field his oscillating transformer had produced, Tesla created
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