Electrical Genius Foresaw Atomic Age

Dr. Nikola Tesla Held Vacuum Tube To Be Among Best Of Many Inventions

Experiments With Alternate Currents Resulted In Series Of Great Lectures

By Adam Sudetic, Member, Lodge 519

DETROIT, Mich. — With his Polyphase, Multiphase, etc., system, his Turbines, Generators and Transformers, the late, great Dr. Nikola Tesla revolutionized America's modern industrial might as we know it today.

This alone would place him among the immortals. But he did not stop there. No, he went on to new discoveries and inventions and devoted his life to scientific research with one purpose in mind — to find ways and means to subdue the forces of Mother Nature for the benefit of suffering mankind.

And he always sought the cheapest way to accomplish this for the good of the common man who was not born to riches.

He went so far as to apply his discoveries to the treatment of ailing human beings. In fact, he devised apparatus for electro-therapeutic purposes. For this he used his High Frequency Oscillators, which are used to this day by medical science.

He lectured at meetings and gatherings of electrotherapeutic associations and instructed his listeners how to apply and use his discoveries and devices.

World Famed Lecturer

When Dr. Tesla completed his experiments with alternate currents of high potential and high frequency, there were invitations to lecture here and abroad.

He appeared at Columbia University in 1891; gave three lectures in 1892 before the London Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Royal Institution; gave five lectures in 1893 before the St. Louis, Mo., Electrical Engineers Society; etc.

These lectures were published under the title "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency," first by W. J. Johnston Company, Ltd., in 1892 and in 1904 by McGraw Publishing Company, New York.

The first work consisted of 146 pages, the latter of 162 pages. Both were abundantly illustrated.

Experiments With Atom

Dr. Tesla, however, considered the Vacuum Tube as one of his best inventions. Why? Perhaps because he disintegrated the atom in it.

He tells us in "Inventions" (July, 1934) that he "operated it with pressure ranging from four to eighteen million volts."

Today scientists use the word "split" instead of "disintegration" in referring to their experiments with something which is revolutionizing the world — the awesome atom.

Further, Dr. Tesla said in that same issue: "More recently I have designed an apparatus for 50 million volts which should produce many results of great scientific importance."

Possibility Now Fact

After disintegrating atoms in his potential Vacuum Tube, Dr. Tesla arrived at this conclusion: "That the process of disintegration is not accompanied by the liberation of such energy as might be expected from the present theories."

This, of course, means just one thing, to wit, that those theories have long since advanced and the frightful possibility of destroying the world with atomic and hydrogen weapons is now a deadly fact.

Of course Dr. Tesla knew what was coming and he quite often spoke out on the forthcoming horrors man would have to cope with when he mastered the atom.

Regardless of his doubts, based purely upon known theories at the time, one would have to agree with Dr. Tesla even in his doubts, if the enormous amount of invested capital is to be taken into serious consideration.

To build just one atomic power plant, according to various reports, requires anywhere from 75 to 150 millions of dollars. And no one can tell us precisely how long that "little ball," producing the heat, is going to last.

Some say it will last 30 years and then require replacement at additional great cost. Nor can anyone prove that atomic energy is inexhaustible.

(To Be Continued)