ExtraOrdinary Times - ExtraOrdinary Thoughts! Page 7

ences would profoundly affect the operational characteristics of his devices. As an example, Tesla made a point of stating that the use of soft steel manufactured with the Bessemer process instead of wrought iron (the then accepted practice) in his motors DOUBLED their performance.

Tesla was an advocate of aluminum. At the time, Tesla had felt believed that iron had reached its material limits with regard to its tensile strength, elasticity, hardness, and malleability. He did not expect progress to improve iron's magnetic qualities either. On the other hand, aluminum was just becoming commercially available. It was cheaper, lighter and had plenty of potential for innovation. It was the metal of the future.

Mass production of aluminum became possible with the advent of cheap electrical power. Buffalo (next to Niagara Falls) became the home of new industries like Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America) once Niagara Falls was harnessed with Tesla's alternating current system. The cost of aluminum plummeted and Tesla predicted the demise of copper since it was so expensive.

Today, copper prices are stratospheric. This primarily due to the industrialization of China and India. It is the harbinger of a new danger we face today... the depletion of our mineral resources. There are some independent researchers working on the problem even as we speak.

Superconductor

Cyrogenics was making an appearance under the tutelage of Dewar (inventor of thermos flask) and Linde (inventor of liquified air) in the late 1800s. Tesla was one of the first to recognize that subjecting wires to extreme cold reduced their inherent resistance. In that state they could carry more current with very little losses. At absolute zero (-459.67°F or 0°K) metals are superconducting with NO loss. This is illustrated by placing a magnet on a superconductor and watch it levitate. Tesla's research in this area resulted in two patents:

• US Patent 655,838 - Oct 23, 1900
  Method Insulating Electric Conductors 
  Method and practical application of insulation by freezing and solidification; Expounding on Faraday's hypothesis of freezing substances make them possess a higher dielectric level to insulate transmission conductors; Improvements in the method set out by Faraday; Method of insulating electrical conductors which consist in surrounding or supporting said conductors by a material which acquires insulating properties when frozen or solidified; Method of maintaining a conductor within a gaseous cooling agent by the continuous application of said agent; Trough or conduit with circulating cooling agents
   
• US Patent 685,012 Mar 21, 1900
  Means for Increasing the Intensity of Electrical Oscillations 
  A method for producing a "great increase in the intensity and duration of the (electrical) oscillations excited in a freely-vibrating or resonating circuit by maintaining the same at a low temperature". Producing increase intensity and duration of electric oscillations; Combination of a circuit to possess freely-vibrating excitations and of means for artificially cooling the circuit to a low temperature; Low temperature resonating circuit; Uses of electrical impulse oscillations; A circuit upon which oscillations are impressed, and which is adapted to vibrate freely, in combination with a receptacle containing an artificial refrigerant in which the circuit is immersed; Low resistance oscillators in a series of transmitting and receiving circuits in a system for the transmission of energy.