In the Footsteps of Genius Page 12

been discussed, there has been talk of this phenomenon, which arises from the sending of strong radio signals of very low frequency; the journalists expertly discuss the so-called Tesla effect.

In the United States stories are spreading that the Soviet Union uses a gigantic Tesla magnetic transmitter with which they influence the weather conditions in the world, causing floods and the melting of glaciers. On the other hand, the great powers are accused of causing in a similar way disturbances in radio communications and of exerting an influence on brain waves, of breaking the sound barrier, and of influencing a whole series of other phenomena which cannot be explained in any other way.

From the standpoint of the new scientific advances, the attempts of the American scientist Robert Golka are exceptionally significant, who, already since 1968, as director of the “Tesla Project,” is seeking a solution for how to contain very hot gases in the process of fusion “together” without the use of a magnetic field.

Tesla wrote that on several occasions he succeeded in creating “ball lightning,” balls of incandescent gases, which lasted some ten seconds after he had switched off the coil with a voltage of 12 million volts. He devoted eight pages of his diary from Colorado Springs to the theoretical premises of this experiment. However, after his death this work was forgotten and was never further verified.

A hundred million volts

In 1968 Golka visited Belgrade and in the Nikola Tesla Museum found Tesla’s diary. On the basis of the notes he reconstructed a high-voltage apparatus and doubled its power.

How, in fact, did Tesla interpret his invention? In the magazine Electrical Experimenter he tried to give an explanation accessible to young readers (although we doubt that he succeeded in this).

“In the first place,” he wrote, “it is a resonant transformer with a secondary winding in which parts, with a high electrical charge, occupying a great space, are arranged along an ideal envelope