Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (68 page)
Read Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla Online
Authors: Marc Seifer
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Science & Technology
Just as electricity is available throughout the electrical circuits that run through the transmission lines that circumscribe our planet, electricity would also be available throughout the entire electromagnetic grid of the earth itself. In the same way electricity is not utilized by conventional means until a plug is placed in a socket and a switch turned on, electricity would also not be utilized in the Tesla system until it too was connected up to a wireless instrument and that instrument was turned on. Electricity by the Tesla system would not be wasted by being diffused, no more so than electricity is wasted by present means, such as with wireless car telephones or by being made available through transformers and high-tension wires that run from transmission pole to transmission pole.
12
It appears that the tower could at this point serve in a variety of ways. For instance, intelligible signals (wireless telephone) could be transmitted to any region of the globe. Power also could be provided by the same mechanism, probably within a confined region of each tower, to thousands of specific machines after they sent a coded request impulse or simply to another tower not located by a power source. And this second tower, situated in a remote area, could be connected to home appliances and telephones by way of conventional wires or by wireless. If two transmitters were utilized and separated by many miles, vector waves could more easily place impulses in desired locations.
13
Referring to Figure 1: A power source (such as coal or water) would generate energy into a transformer comprising both a secondary (tuned to the wavelength of light) and primary coil. The secondary coil in the transmitting tower would be the inside thinner one, which is longer and has more turns. The generated frequency would be lowered when induced into the thicker primary, which has fewer turns and is shorter. The transmitter would then pump the energy into the natural medium, broadcasting it via earth or air (i.e., two different ways). According to Tesla:
An Additional CriticismAt the receiving station, a transformer of similar construction is employed; but in this case, the longer coil [of many turns]…constitutes the primary, and the shorter coil [of fewer turns]…the secondary…It is to be noted that the phenomenon here involved in the transmission of electrical energy is one of true conduction and not to be confounded with the phenomena of electrical radiation.
14
E. Kornhauser, a professor of electrical engineering at Brown University, in reviewing this section, is doubtful that this form of power transmission
could be effectively achieved because the earth is not an efficient conductor (e.g., as compared to a copper wire). Concerning the possibility of creating wireless communication that could circumscribe the planet, Kornhauser conceded it was possible. He stated that the navy had unsuccessfully tried to institute a world radar system utilizing extremely low frequencies. Project Seafarer, as it was named, purportedly could have set up communication even with submarines deep underwater at any point of the globe. However, the plan was scrapped, it appears, mainly because of the potential to markedly disturb existing radio and television frequencies and fear of damage to the environment.
Figure 1. The sending and receiving magnifying transmitters are built essentially the same way. The length and size of the tower and transformer is in a harmonic relationship to the electromagnetic properties of the earth. It has a multipurpose function. Standing waves generated in resonant relationship to known Earth currents could be used as carrier frequencies for transmitting electrical power.
The efficiency of Tesla’s radio receiving tubes was also questioned by Kornhauser, who thought it was doubtful that they would have been efficient enough as it would take another fifteen years before radio tubes of any merit came into being. Kornhauser did say, however, that the modern AM radio broadcasting stations use the earth as their primary means of transmitting their impulses. FM and television also use the earth, but the atmosphere in these instances is the more important medium for impulse transmission.
PPENDIX
B
THE TUNGUSKA INCIDENT
A question often asked is whether Tesla had anything to do with the massive explosion which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia in June of 1908. As no meteor or crater was found, a rumor stemming from Andrija Puharich, picked up by Tad Wise in his Tesla novel suggested that Tesla used Wardenclyffe to deliver the charge. Since the tower became disoperational in 1903, I saw no reason to include the incident in the first edition of
Wizard.
However, because the story was repeated on TV, rumors have persisted. Roy Gallant estimates in his book
The Day the Sky Split Apart
that the Tunguska explosion devastated a forty square mile area, and released energy 2,000 times greater than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima! Tesla expert James Corum allowed that if Tesla had the capability of releasing just 1% of the earth’s magnetic charge,
in theory,
he could have produced comparable results. However, both Corum and the author are in agreeement that Tesla not only did not do this, but further, Wardenclyffe simply had nowhere near that kind of capability. As Gallant suggests, the Tunguska explosion was probably caused by a comet or asteroid, which barely missed the earth by skipping along its atmosphere two or three miles above the site.
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NYHT New York Herald Tribune
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NYT New York Times
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PACE Planetary Association for Clean Energy
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TdB Titus deBobula
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ET Elihu Thomson
GSV George Sylvester Viereck
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