"Were we," remarks B. A. Behrend, distinguished author and
engineer, "to seize and to eliminate the results of Mr.
Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our
electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, and
our mills would be dead and idle."
Dr. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Nikola Tesla was born in
Croatia, which at that time, lay within Austro-Hungary. Tesla was
born "at the stroke of midnight" with lightning striking
during a summer storm. He was born in Smiljani near Gospić, Lika,
(the Krajina, a military district of Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in
Croatia). At the moment of his birth, the midwife commented, "He'll
be a child of the storm," to which his mother replied, "No,
of light." Tesla was baptized in the Old Slavonic Church
rite. His Baptism Certificate reports that he was born on June 28
(Julian calendar; July 10 in the Gregorian calendar), and christened
by the Serb orthodox priest, Toma Oklobd'ija. It is interesting to
note that he was a Serbian of Valachian descent.
Tesla was proud of his Croatian motherland and Serbian descent. When
his mother died in 1892, he paid a visit to Croatian capital Zagreb,
and gave a lecture about alternating current. On that occasion Tesla
said: "As a son of my homeland, I feel it is my duty to help
the city of Zagreb in every respect with my advice and work"
Nikola Tesla, besides being a great inventor and an outspoken
Serbian patriot, had sincerely adored free Serb states, Serbia and
Montenegro. He had never hidden his patriotic feelings, on the
contrary, he stressed them.
On
June 1st 1892, Tesla arrived in Belgrade due to a call for
assistance from the Belgrade municipality. Several thousand people
were there to greet him at the Belgrade train station. He addressed
the gathered crowd, who saluted him:
"There is something within me that might be illusion as it
is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be
fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf
of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled,
the most exiting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb.
Long live Serbdom!..." Tesla further said to the students
of Belgrade University: "As you can see and hear, I have
remained a Serb overseas where I have done some researches. You
should do so and by your knowledge and hard work you should
glorify Serbdom over the world."
One of Tesla's
proudest moments was when he was granted his United States
citizenship; he never lost his love of his homeland, however.
His
monument, carved by Ivan Mestrovic (who knew Tesla personally), can
be seen in Zagreb. Another monument, carved by Croatian sculptor
Frano Krsinic, can be seen on "Goat Island", near the former Tesla
Hydropower Plant on Niagara Falls, in the middle of the Niagara
River, between the United States and Canada boarders. It is
purposely left un-illuminated at night (for the effect, and,
to provoke thought of what the world would be like without Tesla's
contributions).
As I have
personally visited this monument, it leaves one with an eerie
feeling. One definitely feels a sense of sadness for Tesla, a man
that quite literally created our modern electrical world, now with a
simple statue staring out from an island in the middle of nowhere.
This picture to the right (click thumbnail for larger view) is from
a visit I recently took to Niagara Falls on the 4th of July, 2005. A
part of the Technical Museum in Zagreb is dedicated to Nikola Tesla.
Even today, so many years after Tesla's death in 1943, his numerous
manuscripts are still kept as "top secret" by the US Ministry of
Defense (see Margaret Cheney, "Tesla: Man Out of Time", Prentice
Hall, 1981). Let's dig a little deeper in the next several sections
of my site.
Nikola Tesla, an
American inventor and engineer, whose mastery of electricity came at
a time when electricity was changing American life. Tesla is the
unsung creator of the electric age, without whom our radio, auto
ignition, telephone, alternating current power generation,
alternating current transmission, radio, and television, would all
have been impossible. He discovered the rotating magnetic field, the
basis of most alternating-current machinery, and held more than 700
patents. His inventions make him one of the foremost pioneers in the
distribution of electric energy.
Born into a
family of Serbian origin, His father was Rev. Milutin Tesla, a
priest in the Serb Orthodox Church Metropolitanate of Sremski
Karlovci. His mother was Đuka Mandić, herself a daughter of a
Serbian Orthodox priest, who was talented in making home craft
tools. His godfather, Jovan Drenovac, was a captain in the army
protecting the Military Frontier. Tesla was one of five children,
having one brother and three sisters. His one older brother, Dane,
died when Nikola was five. In his autobiography ("My
Inventions"), Tesla tells of
the early workings of his mind in a description that we can only
regard with amazement. He began seeing flashes of light that
interfered with his physical vision. When a word was spoken, he
would envision the object so clearly that he had trouble
distinguishing between the imagined (spoken) object and the real. In
later years, he would build a machine in his mind, run it to see
where it was flawed, and make whatever repairs and adjustments were
needed, before he ever began his construction. At night and
in solitude, Tesla had an inner world of personal vision where he
made journeys to distant places, studies, carried on conversations
and met people that seemed as real to him as his outer world. By the
time he was a teenager he spoke four languages. At about age 17, he
found to his delight that he could create things in his mind,
picturing them as the finished product without models, drawings or
experiments. He invented such things as a low friction finless
waterwheel and a motor driven by June bugs. Again from "My
Inventions," we learn that Tesla engaged in reading many works, as
he stated, "At that age (24), I knew entire books by heart,
word for word. One of these was Goethe's Faust." The
relevance of this statement and his familiarity with Goethe's Faust
will come into play further in this writing.
He
trained to be an engineer, attending the Technical University at
Graz, Austria and the University of Prague. Beginning his studies in
physics and mathematics at Graz Polytechnic, he then took philosophy
at the University of Prague. After finishing the studies at the
Polytechnic Institute, doing two years of study in one, working 19
hours a day and sleeping only two, he suffered a complete nervous
breakdown. During the malady, he observed many phenomena, both
strange and unbelievable. His vision and hearing intensified
beyond any normal human capacity. He could sense objects in the
dark in the same way as a bat. It was a period in which his
sensitivities were so heightened that the flashes of light that he
had seen from the time he was a youth now filled the air around him
with tongues of living flame. Their intensity, instead of
diminishing, increased with time, and seemingly attained a
maximum when he was about twenty-five years old. His responses were
so keenly tuned that a word would become an image that he could feel
see and taste. It was during this time that he had one of his
most famous ideas; the rotating magnetic field and alternating
current induction motor. Bringing himself back to the world as
it is, Tesla began work as an electrical engineer with the Central
Telegraph Office in Budapest, Hungary in 1881 and the following
year, he went to work in Paris for the Continental Edison Company.
In 1883 he constructed, after work hours, his first induction motor.
He
sailed to America in 1884, arriving with four cents in his pocket.
He found immediate employment with Thomas Edison - who quickly
became a rival - Edison being an advocate of the inferior DC power
transmission system. For the remainder of his life, Tesla would
have, at times, difficulty getting his ideas and inventions funded
because most financiers were in Edison’s corner. Even later in his
life, many of his ideas and inventions could not get funding, and so
remained in notebooks, which are still examined to this day, by
engineers searching for clues from his brilliant scientific mind.
Edison and Tesla parted company within a year due to a false promise
made by Edison.
The story went like this; Tesla was told (by Edison) that if he
could repair all of the faulty and broken down motors and generators
in the Edison plant that he would receive $50,000.00 for his effort.
This Tesla did, and in record time, no less. At the completion of
the repair work, Tesla approached Edison for the monies that were
promised, at which time Edison replied that he was only "joking"
about the money. Tesla described the nature of the benefits from his
proposed modifications, and reminded Edison that he had worked
nearly a year to redesign them and that in doing so, gave the Edison
company several enormously profitable new patents in the process.
When Tesla inquired again about the $50,000, Edison replied to him,
"Tesla, you don't understand our American humor," and reneged
on his promise. Edison reportedly offered to raise Tesla's salary by
$10 per week as a compromise - at which rate it would have taken
almost 100 years to earn the money Edison had originally promised.
Tesla resigned on the spot. Tesla did not find it very amusing and
left his employ for good.
Perhaps the lowest point in his life was in 1884-85 after he left
Edison, and without recognition or a mentor, had to take manual
labor to survive. He was digging ditches at $2.00 a day when he met
Mr. A. K. Brown of the Western Union Telegraph Company who put up
some of his own money and interested a friend in joining him in
Tesla's project. Shortly thereafter, Tesla was commissioned with the
design of the AC generators installed at Niagara Falls.
Tesla and Edison have often been represented as rivals. They were
rivals, to a certain extent, in the battle between the alternating
and direct current in which Tesla championed the former. He won; the
great power plants at Niagara Falls and elsewhere are founded on the
Tesla system. Otherwise the two men were merely opposites. Edison
had a genius for practical inventions immediately applicable. Tesla,
whose inventions were far ahead of the time, aroused antagonisms
which delayed the fruition of his ideas for years. However, great
physicists like Kelvin and Crookes spoke of his inventions as
marvelous. "Tesla," said Professor A. E. Kennelly, of
Harvard University, when the Edison medal was presented to the
inventor, "set wheels going round all over the world. . . .
What he showed was a revelation to science and art unto all time."
In April 1887, he
established his own laboratory, where he experimented with
shadowgraphs similar to those involved in the discovery of x-rays.
In
1888 his discovery that a magnetic field could be made to rotate if
two coils at right angles are supplied with AC current 90 degrees
out of phase made possible the invention of the AC induction motor.
The major advantage of this motor being its brushless operation,
which many at the time was believed impossible.
By
1890, Tesla was a young, striking and desirable bachelor. Handsome,
magnetic and elegant, he was the "catch" of New York society, yet
remained unmarried and a misanthrope. He was wealthy, gifted,
accomplished and recognized. He wore his clothes well and was quiet
and modest. Many a designing matron with a marriageable daughter was
eager to capture him for her salon. Social leaders and businessmen
considered him a good contact and the intellectuals of his day found
him an inspiration. However, Tesla proved to be impervious, an
unattainable prize. Except at formal dinners he always dined alone,
and never under any circumstances would he dine with a woman at a
twosome dinner. At the Waldorf-Astoria and at the famous Delmonico's
restaurant, he had picked out particular discrete tables, which
were always reserved for him. In spite of all of the adulation that
was heaped upon him, Tesla had but one desire – to continue his
work. He lived the life of a celibate and a hermit. He enjoyed
poetry and the opera and though he was not a drinker, he appreciated
a glass of beer and advocated the limited consumption of liquor as
an elixir of life.
To
backtrack slightly, in May 1885, George Westinghouse purchased the
patents to his induction motor, his polyphase system of
alternating-current dynamos, transformers and motors and made this
the basis of the Westinghouse power system which still underlies the
modern electrical power industry today. When Westinghouse found that
they could not stay in business if they paid him his due of Twelve
Million Dollars, Tesla tore up the contract. Tesla did this, quite
simply, so people could have the benefit of financially attainable
electricity. Tesla made his first million before he was 40, but
gave up the royalties on his most profitable invention as a
humanitarian gesture. As a result, Westinghouse remained in
business (this action allowed Westinghouse and Tesla to complete
their exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and electrify the
entire exhibit area with AC power, built, designed, and installed by
Tesla - a feat remarkable, even by today's standards considering the
time frame allowed). This also prevented Tesla from becoming what
would have at that time been - the world's first billionaire.
Yes, Tesla's contracts with Westinghouse were of that much value.
The true wealth that Tesla gave up that day, upon tearing up of
those contracts, cannot be underestimated, nor valued appropriately
- to say several hundreds of billions of dollars would still be an
understatement.
The World's Fair Exposition cannot be emphasized enough in what it
accomplished for Tesla, and for the use of Alternating Current
Electricity. At the 1893 World's Fair, the World Columbian
Exposition, in Chicago, Illinois, celebrating the 400th anniversary
of Christopher Columbus' first voyage to America, an international
exposition was held, in which, for the first time, a building was
devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historic event and the
beginning of a revolution as Tesla and Westinghouse introduced
visitors to AC power by providing AC energy to illuminate the World
Columbian Exposition. The public at large observed firsthand the
qualities and abilities of AC power. All the exhibits were from
commercial enterprises. Edison, Brush, Western Electric, and
Westinghouse all had exhibits. General Electric Company (backed by
Edison and J.P. Morgan) proposed to power the electric fair with
direct current at the cost of one million dollars.
Westinghouse proposed, armed with Tesla's AC system, to illuminate
the exposition for half as much. Tesla's
high-frequency high-voltage lighting produced more efficient light
with less heat. A two-phase induction motor was driven by
current from the main generators to power the system. Edison tried
to prevent the use of his light bulbs with Tesla's system. GE banned
the use of Edison's lamps in Westinghouse's exhibits. Still,
Westinghouse's proposal was chosen over the inferior DC system to
power the fair. Westinghouse displayed several polyphase systems.
The exhibits included a switchboard, polyphase generators, step-up
and step-down transformers, transmission line, commercial size
induction motors, commercial size synchronous motors, and rotary
direct current converters (one of which was operating a railway
motor). The working-scale system allowed the public a view of a
system of polyphase power which could transmit long distances.
Meters and other auxiliary devices were also present.
Tesla displayed the first neon light tubes at the exposition,
demonstrating his phosphorescent lighting powered without wires by
high-frequency fields. Tesla's lighting inventions exposed to
high-frequency currents would bring the gases to incandescence.
Tesla displayed the first practical phosphorescent lamps (a
precursor to fluorescent lamps). His innovations in this type of
light emission were not regularly patented. Also in the exhibits
were Tesla's demonstrations, most notably the "Egg of Columbus".
This device explains the principles of the rotating magnetic field
and his induction motor. The Egg consisted of a polyphase field coil
underneath a plate with a copper egg positioned over the top. When
the sequence of the coils were energized, the magnetic field
arrangement inductively created a rotation on the egg and made it
stand up on end (appearing to resist gravity).
On August 25, 1893, Elisha Gray introduced Tesla for the delivery of
a lecture on mechanical and electrical oscillators. Tesla explained
his work for efficiently increasing the work at high frequency of
reciprocation. As Electrical Congress members listened, Tesla
delineated mechanisms which could produce oscillations of constant
periods irrespective of the pressure applied and irrespective of
frictional losses and loads. He explained the working means of
producing constant period electric currents (not resorting to spark
gaps or breaks) and how to produce these with reliable mechanisms.
The Exposition's illumination with electricity using Tesla's and
Westinghouse's alternate current removed any doubt of the utility of
the polyphase alternating current.
In
his work with the rotary magnetic fields, Tesla devised the system
for transmission of power over long distances. He partnered with
George Westinghouse to commercialize this system. Experts announced
proposals to harness the Niagara Falls for generating electricity.
Against General Electric and Edison's proposal, Tesla's AC system
won the international Niagara Falls Commission contract. The
commission was led by Lord Kelvin and backed by entrepreneurs (such
as J.P. Morgan, Lord Rothschild, and John Jacob Astor). Work began
in 1893 on the Niagara Falls generation project and Tesla's
technology was applied to generate electromagnetic energy from the
falls. Most doubted that the system would generate enough
electricity to power industry in Buffalo. Tesla was sure it would
work, saying that Niagara Falls had the ability to power the entire
eastern coast of the United States. On November 16, 1896, the
first transmission of electrical power between two cities was sent
from Niagara Falls to industries in Buffalo from the first
commercial two-phase power plants (known as hydroelectric
generators) at the Edward Dean Adams Station.
The hydroelectric generators were built by Westinghouse Electric
Corporation from Tesla's AC system patent designs. Tesla's system
designs alleviated the limitations of the previous DC methods.
The nameplates on the generators bear Tesla's name. He also set
the 60 hertz standard for North America. It took five years
to complete the whole facility. With the financial backing of George
Westinghouse, Tesla's AC replaced DC, enormously extending the range
and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution.
Tesla's Niagara Falls system marked the end of Edison's roadmap for
electrical transmission. Eventually, Edison's GE company converted
to the AC system. Tesla's contributions to the modern world
are widely regarded as more important and long-lasting, by some,
than those of his nemesis and one-time employer, Thomas Edison.
In
1915 he was severely disappointed when a report that he and Edison
were to share the Nobel Prize proved erroneous. Tesla was
the recipient of the Edison Medal in 1917, the highest honor
that the American Institute of Electrical Engineers could bestow.
When others claimed credit for the revolutionary ideas that came
from his extraordinary mind, he did not contest them.
Impractical in
financial matters, eccentric and compulsive, Tesla had few friends,
but those included Mark Twain,
John J. O’Neill, and Francis Marion Crawford. He never married, and
cited on at least one occasion that marriage wasn’t good for
inventors. He was driven by compulsions and had a progressive germ
phobia, washing his hands frequently and avoiding shaking hands and
measuring the volume of his food before he ate it. He liked a fresh
tablecloth with every meal. Always a fastidious dresser, Tesla wore
new gloves weekly and a new tie daily. He maintained the same weight
through his lifetime, 142 pounds, and always slept only four hours
per night; lying down resting a total of six hours, but sleeping no
more than four.
Famous writer/author Samuel
Clemens (under the pseudonym Mark Twain) often visited Tesla’s
laboratory at night. Tesla was very close to him and after
Twain’s death he spoke about him as if he were alive. Mark Twain and
Nikola Tesla were so close, one could easily write an entire book
just about their close friendship, alone. Twain was fascinated by
the enigmatic Tesla. I think Tesla simply enjoyed Twain's wry candor
and wit. The writer Mark Twain died in 1910, and his enigmatic novel
"Mysterious pilgrim" was published six years later. In this
novel, he told about an angel who left the heavens and came to Earth
to a small Austrian village. There he met a group of boys and
told them the secrets of the universe. If we recognize the little
Austrian village as Smilyany and the figure of the Angel as Tesla,
then an explanation of a very strange theory on human destiny and
cosmology will appear. This theory, expressed in this short story,
made it different from other stories of this writer (Mark Twain).
The Angel tells about the source of all people’s troubles and
misfortunes. It all comes from misunderstanding the true sense of
each minuscule events. Each of these events defines the future and
links the next series of events. As he considered it, people’s free
will is an illusion, since all is predetermined and will come to a
predictable result. This entirely coincides with Tesla’s idea of
a man as an “automaton of cosmic forces” and it is brought out
clearly by simple dramaturgic tools used by the brilliant writer,
Marc Twain. Finally, before Angel left his friends, he let them
in on the last magic secret, which would be terrible for them to
know, i.e. secret of Non-Existence. He said that all is only a
thought. There is nothing existent..."I am only a thought,
a lonely thought, which travels along the empty space of the
Universe." It makes one seriously wonder if Twain's highly
acute writer instincts and his book were not based on his good
friend, Nikola Tesla, after all. One can only guess, but I
personally think the book was written based on Tesla. Clemens and
Tesla...can you just imagine the conversations these two men must
have had together?!
The Inventions:
Nikola
Tesla Tesla
believed that alternating current was vastly superior to (Edison's)
direct current, but the problem was the lack of a practical motor.
Alternating current is practical because of the fact that it can be
altered, or converted, to suit a variety of situations. For example,
if the voltage is made quite high, then the current necessary for a
specific level of power is very low. This low current then becomes
very efficient when sending electrical power over very long wires.
(This is the reason why the power lines running across the
countryside are at very high voltages.) Tesla also worked with
radio-frequency electromagnetic waves, and, despite the claims made
by Marconi, actually did invent the idea of Radio as we know it
today. (There are numerous patents which bear this out. Even today,
many texts still credit Marconi with the invention of radio, despite
the Supreme Court decision which overruled the Marconi patent,
awarding it to Tesla. Unfortunately, this decision came two years
after Tesla's own death.) In working with radio waves, Tesla created
the Tesla coil as a means to generate and receive this form of
energy. Every time you start your automobile ( or virtually any type
of vehicle, for that matter) the device that provides "spark" to the
spark plug, thus enabling the engine to start, is a unit either
wholly or in part, a Tesla Coil.
Tesla postulated the ability to locate objects in the air or in the
ground by using radio waves. Today, we call it "RADAR", and when
used to peer into the human body, "MRI". Tesla also created radio
controlled devices., or "Teli-autonomotons". His work with special
gas filled lamps set the stage for the creation of fluorescent
lighting, and neon lights.
Tesla patented
dozens of devices ranging from speedometers to extremely efficient
electrical generators. One unique device was his
Tesla
Turbine or
bladeless boundary disk turbine.
Instead of using fan-type blades, Tesla's turbine utilized solid
disks of metal, and relied on what is called the "boundary layer
effect". His turbine ran on either compressed air or steam or
gasoline explosions, and was so efficient that a device held in the
hand could produce well over 10 horsepower!
One of the largest turbines that Tesla designed pumped out 10,000
Horse-power, and was about one fifth the size and weight of the
engines of its day. Today, this bladeless technology is being used
in a special type of non-clogging pump designed for the oil
industry. The turbine is awaiting commercial use, and public
acceptance., but developments are rapidly making it again seem
attractive. Frank Germano, Guy Letourneau, Tad Johnson and Martin
Dorantes, of International Turbine And Power, of Cody
Wyoming, USA, pioneered the design of a special Tesla-Type turbine
for the commercial power markets as recently as 1999. This turbine
can be run on any combustible fuel (propane, methane, gasoline,
diesel, hydrogen), steam, or even water under pressure. Currently,
in 2006, a newer, far more efficient engine has been design by
Germano (with the new company - Global Energy Technologies, Inc.)
based almost entirely on Tesla original bladeless disk turbine, and
incorporating several advantageous features of implosion, and
frequency/harmonic modulation pioneered by another contemporary
inventor - Viktor
Schauberger.
It has been said
that Tesla is the "Forgotten Father of Technology." It
is hard to believe that a man who gave the world so much, received
so little for his efforts. History books have been equally unkind.
In
many parts of this country, people still refer to the electric
utility as the 'Edison Company', even though they use the
Tesla-Westinghouse alternating current system, not Edison's direct
current. At the Niagara Falls power generating station, a small
statue of Tesla is purposely left un-illuminated at night. I have
visited this statue, and it is a quite stunning statement to witness
the statue in complete darkness, with the surrounding area ablaze
with lighting supplied from Tesla's own inventions.
Tesla also had a deep desire to provide wireless electricity across
the globe. First, there was the patent infringement issue, which
made millionaires of others, particularly the Marconi Company. But
Tesla maintained a single-minded focus on developing global wireless
communications and energy systems. Working in Colorado Springs in
1899, Tesla developed a transmitter to perfect a method by which
transmitted energy could be channeled through natural media.
In
Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tesla built a laboratory to develop
this. The Colorado Springs lab contained the largest Tesla Coil ever
built. Called the
Magnifying Transmitter, it was
capable of generating some 300,000 watts of power, and could produce
a bolt of lightning over 130 feet long. According to local accounts,
Tesla actually managed to successfully transmit about 30 to 50
thousand watts of power, without wires, using the Transmitter. There
are detailed accounts of these feats, below.
Two years later, 1901, working on Long Island at Wardenclyffe, he
set to work on his ultimate goal: construction of a "world
telegraphy center" that was to have a lab, a wireless transmitter
and production facilities for manufacturing oscillators and vacuum
tubes. Constructed on the "model city's" 1,800 acres would be homes,
stores and buildings to accommodate 2,500 workers... at least, that
was the dream. By that year's end, however, Marconi had usurped the
inventor by transmitting an overseas signal. That left Tesla at the
mercy of his financier, J.P. Morgan, who literally pulled the plug
on his vision. Morgan, at the time the prime force behind General
Electric Co., may have been unnerved by Tesla's claims that the
technology could transmit "unlimited power" by wireless means. The
word "free" did not translate well to Morgan. Again, the money flow
came to a halt.
Some Tesla devotees suspect he may have been a pioneer of the
transistor. "Inventors of the modern computer have repeatedly been
surprised, when seeking patents, to encounter Tesla's basic ones
already on file," noted Tesla historian Leland Anderson, a former EE
and a board member of the Wardenclyffe project. Indeed, two of
Tesla's patents from 1903 contain the basic principles of the
logical "AND" circuit element. Tesla went on to experiment with
actual wireless transmission of electrical power.
Despite his accomplishments, by 1915, at age 60, Tesla was living on
credit and drifting from one cheap hotel another, a victim of his
own poor business decisions, underdeveloped ideas and inability to
create another innovation as profound as the AC paradigm. In
1931, at the age of 75, Tesla received birthday greetings from Lee
de Forest and Albert Einstein. In his later years he spent most
of his time at the New York Public Library or feeding pigeons that
he called- “my sincere friends".
Concerning Albert Einstein's relativity theory, Tesla stated that '...the
relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present
proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious
countryman Boskovic, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding
other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of
excellent literature on a vast variety of subjects. Boskovic dealt
with relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum...',
(1936 unpublished interview, quoted in Anderson, L, ed. Nikola
Tesla: Lecture Before the New York Academy of Sciences: The Streams
of Lenard and Roentgen and Novel Apparatus for Their Production,
April 6, 1897, reconstructed 1994).
When he was eighty-one, Tesla stated he had completed a dynamic
theory of gravity. He stated that it was "worked out in
all details" and hoped to give to the world the theory soon.
The theory was, unfortunately, never published. At the time of his
announcement, it was considered by the scientific establishment to
exceed the bounds of reason. While Tesla had "worked out a dynamic
theory of gravity" that he soon hoped to give to the world, he died
before he publicized any details. Few details were revealed by Tesla
about his theory in the announcement. Tesla's critique in the
announcement was the opening clash between him and modern
experimental physics. Tesla may have viewed his principles in such a
manner as to not be in conflict with other modern theories (besides
Einstein's).
The bulk of the theory was developed between 1892 and 1894, during
the period that he was conducting experiments with high frequency
and high potential electromagnetism and patenting devices for their
utilization. It was completed, according to Tesla, by the end of the
1930s. Tesla's theory explained gravity using electrodynamics
consisting of transverse waves (to a lesser extent) and longitudinal
waves (for the majority). Tesla stated in 1925 that,
"There is no thing endowed with life - from man, who is
enslaving the elements, to the nimblest creature - in all this
world that does not sway in it's turn. Whenever action is born
from force, though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance is
upset and the universal motion results."
Tesla was critical of Einstein's (theory of) relativity work:
. . . . [a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes
people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar
clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king...., its
exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than
scientists... (New York Times, July 11, 1935, p23, c.8).
Tesla also stated that:
"I
hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have
no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has
not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties
we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say
that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent
to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to
subscribe to such a view." (New York Herald Tribune, September
11, 1932)
