In the Footsteps of Genius Page 13

A historical moment of electrical engineering

“Deep in the background of my brain there lay a solution which, however, I was not yet in a position to express completely. One afternoon, which is now vivid in my memory, I was walking with a friend in the city park and reciting various verses to him. At that time I knew whole books by heart. One of them was Goethe’s Faust. The sun was setting, and I recalled the famous passage:

The sun recedes and the day dies,
And beyond it creates new life.
Ah, that I have no wings to spread,
To fly after you above the earthly sphere!
Lovely is the dream while the sun sets,
But a bodily wing does not easily sprout
Beside the light, nimble spiritual wing.

When I uttered those words in inspiration, the idea appeared to me like a flash of lightning, and the long-sought truth was revealed in a moment. With a stick I drew in the sand the plans which six years later I showed in my lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my friend understood them completely. The images which I saw were particularly sharp, clear, and had the solidity of stone or metal, to such an extent that I said to him: ‘Look at my motor here, watch how I shall set it turning in the opposite direction.’ I cannot more closely describe my excitement. Pygmalion could not have been more excited when he noticed that his statue was beginning to live. I would give a thousand secrets of nature which I might accidentally discover for this one which I tore from her.”

of great radial curvatures and at the corresponding mutual distance, so that even on small surfaces they ensure a sufficient electrical density for a discharge not to come about, even if the conductor is bare. The transformer is suitable for every frequency range, from several to many thousands of hertz, and can therefore be used for the production of currents of great amperage and small voltage or small amperage and enormous electromotive force. The maximum electrical charge depends on the curvature of the surface on which the elements are placed and on their own surfaces.”²³

With this apparatus Tesla considered that a current of a hundred million volts could be produced.

“The resonant transformer,” Tesla wrote further, “is precisely adapted to meet the requirements of the electrical constant and other peculiarities of the terrestrial globe, so that it will be very efficient for the wireless transmission of energy. In this way the significance of distance is completely eliminated.”²⁴

When the powerful apparatuses were finally set up and Tesla began the tests, the air space around the station looked as if the most powerful lightnings and thunders were confronting each other. During the night operation of the transmitter the whole area of some twenty kilo-