goldasthoughts

NIKOLA TESLA
A 20th Century Scientist ahead of his Time and a Scientist for All Time

Long ago I stumbled upon the incredible real life story of a scientist, inventor, Nikola Tesla. The term stumbled is apt as those not directly involved in electrical engineering are not likely to get the same information about Tesla as they would about another inventor in the same time frame Thomas A. Edison.
The Tesla story is worth exploring as it offers a lot of possibilities to the problems of the 21st century, even if they were shunned in the early 20th.
There are a few good books on Tesla and even one Docu-Drama in which Orson Wells plays Jay Pierpoint Morgan, the master capitalist banker/financer who could make many a business thrive or die. Due to the scarcity of understanding of what many don't know and what has been lost to date, this article needs to be read and passed around. If you want solutions to energy, autos that don't need petroleum products, this is one place to take a look.

Once while watching the TV game show Jeopardy years ago, teenage competitors with hands ready to press the trigger were running thru questions in the Great Inventors category. The question to one of the answers was “Who was Nikola Tesla”. Unfortunately, all three of the contestants drew a complete blank and the only response was the buzzer which signals, Oops guess no one knew that one eh?

In an effort to shed some light on an enigmatic individual we will look at a little of his background, what he has inspired and what could have been the result of Tesla's greatest success. This has particularly powerful implications even today when it comes to the use of energy sources other than petroleum.

Who was Tesla and what did he do?
Born in the small border town of Smiljan in what is now Croatia, Yugoslavia on July 10, 1856, young Nikky Tesla, was the fourth of five children. There were a few accidents and sickness for the frail looking Tesla. His early days were said to be marked by flashes of light, even so-called hallucinations. These experiences likely aided Tesla in his later ability to visualize and explore his inner mind to connect to a vision for many a solution to mankind's problems.

By 1875 he had been studying electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz where the theory of alternating current may have been first brought up. In 1878, he left Graz and vanished for awhile. There was even a rumour he drowned in a nearby town. Nikola would show up and get back into school in 1880 attending the Charles Ferdinand University in Prague for only one semester. Tesla's father died shortly after and Tesla left after only one semester.

He came to the United States in 1884 to work for the now internationally known inventor Thomas Alva Edison. Nikola Tesla was a slight, very lean and tall fellow with quiet demeanour and powerfully intense eyes. He came ready to work with large portfolio of ideas and eagerness.

Edison was intrigued by this young man from a strange sounding place, who had what he considered strange but interesting ideas. Edison made Tesla a deal, if he could redesign his rather inefficient motor and generators, get an improvement in their economy and service he would pay Tesla $50,000 dollars. These were 1884 dollars, which when tinkered with time and the devaluation of our American dollar would be equal to around 1.1 million 2007 dollars.

Tesla worked night and day and eventually came up with workable machinery which resulted in additional patents and prestige for Edison and nothing for Tesla. The obvious confrontation came in 1885, when Tesla asked for his cut. Edison responded “You just don't understand our American humour”. Tesla was making about $18 a week at the time and when Edison refused to pay, Tesla quit. Edison did try to keep him around, offered him a pay raise, $25 a week.

The ideas Tesla created were not done solely from tireless trial and error experiments which made Thomas Edison famous. One of Edison's favourite expressions was that his success was due to 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration. With Nikola Tesla, it was mostly the reverse. Tesla could spend hours meditating over a technical or scientific problem and then in a flash come up with a solution. Following just a few experiments the resolution of the problem and a new invention or concept was ready to go.

Tesla's main motivation was finding a way to achieve world peace through a series of inventions that would harness natural forces for all of mankind. While many beauty contestants today talk about achieving world peace, the dawn of the 20th century would present mankind with an opportunity to actually make it happen.

The number one method espoused by Edison of how to make and distribute electricity was called Direct Current or DC. It still exists today in very specialized applications. Tesla had another idea, one which he first attempted to give to Edison. The Genius of Menlo Park would have none of it, preferring his method only.

When Tesla resigned from Edison's employment he found others willing to back the concept that would lead to the rapid industrialization of America. It is known as Alternating Current or AC. Today, AC is used everywhere from radio's to radar, the power to your home, computer, just about everything consumers use. The discovery Tesla made was that by pulsing this slightly different electrical energy you could extend the range and efficiency of electrical power through wires without the need for costly terminals to boost the current. Wow! This AC was not only going to be a fraction of the cost of DC but more efficient too. This did not help his relationship with his former employer.

Edison was intent on commercializing his DC over Tesla's AC; the potential money at stake here was enormous. The problem with Edison's DC was it would require a generating or power station every block or two, while Tesla could power thousands of square blocks with one phased generating AC station.

By 1893, Tesla had been chosen by George Westinghouse to provide his new AC power for the Columbia Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Tesla would get $216,000 in royalties for his concept which helped him pursue his dreams further. One such invention was to be a way to communicate without wires. Tesla had the basic concept, theories and how-to ready to go, but this project was not his hot button. By this time many of his ideas had circulated and his notoriety was flaring brightly. One day, a young man named Guglielmo Marconi approached Tesla hoping to work with him and develop the idea that would later be known as the radio. Marconi would commercialize it; get credit and vast wealth from Tesla's idea for many years. When told of Marconi's radio invention Tesla was reported to have said, “Let him go ahead, he's using 17 of my patents”.

One thing is clear about Tesla's principal motivation is never all about money. His eccentric behaviour, visions for the future and even mentions about life elsewhere in the cosmos gave him that mad scientist garnishment to his name.

During the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis Edison truly made a spectacle out of himself in trying to make people believe Tesla's AC was a threat to humanity. Edison publicly executed dozens of dogs and a calf or two to death showing how AC can kill. Tesla counterattacked by grounding himself appropriately and passing that same kind of power thru his body harmlessly. This is truly quite a show and has been used as the basis for a stage show in Las Vegas, it is quite impressive. Unfortunately for the dogs the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was not up and kicking yet.

In Margaret Cheney's Master of Lightning, she claims before Edison would take his last breath, he is alledged to have admitted that one of his biggest mistakes was in trying to develop DC, rather than latching onto the vastly superior AC which Tesla had put in his lap.
Tesla believed in a theory known as Terrestrial Resonance which could lead to the transmission of power freely anywhere for anyone. In order to prove that he took himself and his accumulated fortune to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1899.
Tesla moved to Colorado to work with higher voltage, higher frequency experiments. Tesla was a person of note at this time and reporters sought him out to write about his plans. Those who interviewed him at the time stated the eccentric inventor was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. According to Tesla's diary a few other experiments concerned the ionosphere and the grounds telluric currents via transverse and longitudinal waves. Tesla would prove you could perform wireless transmission of energy and demonstrated this with his wireless electrical bulbs. Imagine being out in an open range and simply plugging in your light bulb by pushing it a few inches into the dirt, well, it worked.
The short story, Tesla proved the Earth was a conductor of energy and it could be tapped. The atmosphere could also be used to transmit any power necessary. The impact of this today would eliminate most of the archaic infrastructure we pay for now, keep in mind this was over 100 years ago.
While at Colorado Springs Tesla also believed he was picking up extraterrestrial communications via radio signals from another planet, Mars or? Today, the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) stands in a quiet testimonial to what many classified as the ravings of a mad scientist around 1899. Although SETI officially claims it has yet to make official contact, there are many on this planet who have already accumulated evidence to prove contact may have likely began thousands of years ago.
Today, the US government routinely experiments on the ionosphere in unknown and classified ways with the H.A.A.R.P. (High Altitude Armorial Research Project) in Gakona, Alaska. Acres of the antennas are arrayed to focus an effective Gigawat (or more) of energy into the upper atmosphere which could effectively manipulate weather. Many believe this device can trigger physiological effects in human beings as well. There has been some amazing research done on this topic and although it could be used to serve mankind, this like many other inventions is a double edged sword and has a dark side to it. This too was inspired by Nikola Tesla.
In 1900. J.P. Morgan, noted financier, banker and business maker of his day even put up 51% of the $150,000 dollars which began the project that could have changed human civilization forever. The first of the constructions was known as the Wardenclyffe Tower, located near Montauk in New York. This was to be the first of many strategically positioned on the Earth grid to make energy available in the atmosphere. This had enormous practical applications but not many for J.P. Morgan to make any real money. Eventually support would be pulled, workers were not paid and the tower which was nearly completed was sold for scrap. The newspapers of the day labelled it “Tesla's Million Dollar Folly”. Yet another example of why you can't always believe everything you read in the papers, then or now.
Tesla would eventually lay down 112 patents. His inventions, ideas and concepts included: fluorescent light bulbs, remote control boats and torpedoes, (which were rejected for us by the US Navy), the basics of the X-Ray, Radar, A beam of force, dubbed the teleforce or death ray weapon and many more. Tesla was reported to have described the effect of this beam on his 78th birthday, in an article in the NY Times on July 11, 1934. “[such a weapon would] send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending nation's border and will cause armies to drop dead in their tracks.”
This charged particle beam concept has been discussed in both fictional and scientific journals today and likely is still being experimented with, secretly of course.
Tesla resided in the Waldorf Astoria hotel for many years eventually selling off his AC patents and other electrical patents. His eccentric behaviour is said to climax into what may be known today as obsessive compulsive disorder OCD. Tesla was obsessed by the number 3, everything had to be done in 3's, he would walk around a building three times before entering, have three napkins available for every meal. He lived the last ten years of his life on the 33rd floor of the Waldorf in room 3327. A life long bachelor who became a vegetarian in his later years Tesla is believed to have died of heart failure, penniless on January 7, 1943.
It was not until after Tesla died that the Supreme Court actually credited Tesla with inventing the radio.
Eventually the SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction is now called a Tesla in his honour. Many others celebrate his genius with statues, electrical awards, books and articles like this around the world.
Other Tesla Inventions.
In 1991, a California inventor/engineer C.R. Jake Possell rediscovered several of Tesla's patents. One, a superior pumping device and another the famous Tesla bladeless turbine engine.

The bladeless turbine engine grew out of the contempt Tesla had for the internal or some say infernal combustion engine. Tesla said such an engine was, “wasteful, polluting, inefficient and complicated.” The answer was patented in 1916 (US Patent # 1,329,559). To compare this to today's modern auto engines, the smaller bladeless turbine had but one moving part and was 95% efficient as opposed to 20-33% efficiency expected for its internal combustion counterpart.

It was in 1906, on his 50th birthday, Tesla would first demonstrate this bladeless turbine. The turbine would run up to 200 hp (150kW) or 16,000 RPM. At the Waterside Power Station in New York 1910-11, several of his bladeless turbines were tested up to 5,000 hp. It is also rumoured that the military did secretly use them during WWII and destroyed them thereafter to keep them out of enemy hands. This would also not effect the less efficient but more profitable internal combustion engine usage which was the mainstay of civilization then and today.

Possell adds that Tesla's turbines can also withstand water and they could theoretically produce three times the horsepower of conventional jet engines. After constructing a working model in 1990 quiet inquiries came from aircraft manufacturers and Defence Department officials. This prompted Possell to say, “It will change the aeronautics industry.” This technology is obviously still being shelved today. Oddly enough the mainstream press, schools and science still holds onto methods of propulsion and energy that were outdated, or could have been had Tesla's ideas been adopted over 100 years ago.

If mankind is to have a chance at becoming what we could be, the greatness of men like Tesla needs to be taught and the stranglehold on making huge leaps in technology needs to be cut.

While stockholders and profit takers prefer the slowly incremental progress to huge leaps in technology it is clear that mankind faced a golden opportunity early in the 20th Century. We didn't pass then, whether we pass in the future will be up to you. Knowledge is power, never cease working to get more. This has nothing to do with the cliché, “what can I do about it”. This more about what can you learn today that will worth using tomorrow.