Here's an Invention

Carries Electricity Without Loss of Power.

NEED ONLY A VACUUM

EXHAUST THE AIR FROM THE TUBE WHICH CARRIES THE WIRES AND YOU HAVE WHAT EDISON HAS YEARNED FOR — UNTIL YOU WAKE UP.

“I’ve got the greatest thing in the world,” remarked a prosperous-looking individual, who walked into the office of one of the most prominent consulting engineers and electricians in the country the other day, as an Express reporter was sitting in the outer office.

“What is it?” asked the engineer.

“I’ll tell you,” responded the prosperous-looking man. “It’s an invention.” Here the engineer began to look bored, but he smiled politely and his visitor continued — “an invention that will revolutionize the business of transmitting electric power.”

Now if there is one thing that this particular engineer is more interested in or knows more about than anything else, it is this same subject of the transmission of electric power. He began to look a little more interested, and urged his visitor to tell him what the scheme was and also to inform him what he could do for him.

“Well, before I describe the invention,” said the prosperous man, “I’ll tell you what we’ve done. We’ve discovered a way to transmit power with absolutely no loss in transmission. Absolutely no loss! Do you realize what that means?”

“It means you’ll own the earth if you’ve got it,” remarked the engineer.

“Correct!” exclaimed the prosperous man. “As you so aptly put it, we’ll own the earth. You will notice I do not admit that there is any doubt about the proposition. We know what we have got. We have seen it work. There’s millions in it.”

“What tests have you made?” asked the engineer.

“Tests? Why, my dear sir, we have made the most exhaustive tests. We have built a mile of conduit, sir, and the most delicate instruments fail to detect the slightest loss of power in transmission. Oh, there is no question that the process works to perfection. Now, what I want you to do is to give us your opinion on it. Study the subject, give your opinion in writing, and we’ll pay you handsomely.”

“Well, tell me what your process is and I’ll see what I think of it,” said the engineer. “If I think you have a practicable thing, I’d like to see your experimental line in operation.”

“That’s the way I like to hear you talk, sir. Shows you are a conservative man, sir. I wouldn’t give a rap for the opinion of a man who jumps at conclusions, sir. Now I’ll tell you what this great invention consists of. It’s a vacuum. Nothing but a vacuum. You know a vacuum is the most perfect insulation, don’t you? Put a vacuum around a wire and the electricity can’t get away. Moisture can’t get at the wire. Air can’t get at it. Vacuum’ll keep the current on the wire, won’t it?”

The engineer allowed that a vacuum, if a good one, might be of value for insulating purposes.

“Well,” continued the prosperous-looking man, “we just take this vacuum idea and carry it to its ultimate conclusion, understand? To its last analysis, so to speak. It’s easy enough to surround a wire with a vacuum. All you’ve got to do is to put the wire in a tube and pump the air out of a tube, isn’t it? Well, suppose you pump away until you’ve got all the air out, you’ve got your wire insulated, haven’t you? Can’t lose any current, can you? But that’s all. You’ve got the resistance of the wire to deal with, and that’s where you lose energy. That is where our discovery comes in. We know why the resistance exists, and from that it’s easy to learn how to cure it.

“Take a copper wire. Copper’s made up of molecules, isn’t it? Molecules keep vibrating all the time, don’t they? Never stay still. Never remain in contact. You know all about that. Well, there must be something between those molecules, then, isn’t there? There is, and that something is air. That’s what the electricity don’t like. Can’t pass through the air. Now, suppose you take the air from out between the molecules, what happens? Molecules remain at rest, stay in contact, electricity goes through without any obstruction and there you are. No loss of current at all. Logical, isn’t it?”

The engineer was getting faint, but he found voice enough to admit that the theory was certainly ingenious.

“I knew you’d say so,” said the enthusiastic visitor. “Now, it only remains to extract the air. And that’s what we’ve done. Got an air-pump that’ll pump all the air out from between the molecules of a copper wire. We’ve done it. Done it on a mile of wire, sir. Took a mile and a furlong to cover a mile, because the wire shortened up when the molecules crowded together. That’s what we’ve done, sir, and I think you’ll agree with me that we’ve got the greatest invention of the ages, don’t you?”

The engineer gasped for breath and then diplomatically told the stranger that he would do a little figuring on the scheme to see how much money it would save in a year, and send a report in writing on the merits of the project. As the visitor bowed himself out, the engineer turned to The Express reporter and remarked:

“Did you get on to that? That’s only a sample. If there’s one crank comes to my office in a day, there are a dozen. Every one is crazy on electricity, and they all think they have invented the very thing that Edison and Tesla and all the rest have failed to obtain. It wouldn’t do for me to tell a man like that there was nothing in his wild project of pumping air out of the interstices between the molecules of a copper wire. He simply wouldn’t have believed me, and would have spent two or three hours trying to demonstrate that his invention was entirely practical. Consequently, I have to act as if I agreed with all they say, and I feel as if my reputation for idiocy would be of the highest if some of my fellow-workers were to overhear some of the remarkable conversations I have with crazy inventors.”