Lennard-Ray Photographs - Nikola Tesla's Successful Experiments

"I have been greatly disappointed," said Nikola Tesla, speaking today of his address before the Academy of Science on Tuesday evening, "that I entirely forgot to mention one of the most interesting and important facts in connection with the photographs I exhibited. How could I have forgotten anything so salient I do not know, but I did, and it has ever since much vexed me. I had been describing my discovery of the identity of the Lennard-ray and the Roentgen-ray, and when I showed the photographs I failed to say that most of them had been taken by means of the Lennard bulb. As you can see, the photographs are wonderfully clear, showing even the muscles of the subject, and of course are vital confirmation of my discovery of the identity of the Lennard with the Roentgen-ray. What I did was first to take Lennard's bulb and use it in connection with the ordinary transformer, the result being the same as in the experience of Lennard, namely, a failure to produce a light. But when I used it with my new transformer it proved perfectly effective, and enabled me to take these fine photographs."

Mr. Tesla exhibited to the members of the Academy the wonderful new apparatus which he called electrical oscillators, a novel kind of transformers based upon a discovery made by him six years ago which enabled him to produce from ordinary currents, direct or alternating, electrical vibrations of 1,500,000 per second. These vibrations were desirable for the attainment of many practical results, the most important being the improvement of electric lighting. This system is inefficient and expensive, and to produce the same or better results upon lines of economy requires enormous electrical vibrations, which Mr. Tesla has been able to secure by his new apparatus. These vibrations can be used in many other ways for the economical production of things necessary to mankind. Mr. Tesla said that they could, for instance, be used profitably in the manufacture of ozone and other chemical products and fertilizers. He said it furnished an ideal instrument for the production of the Roentgen rays. Its advent means the abolition of many devices of older design, particularly, Mr. Tesla said, of the use of the induction coil. A remarkable feature of the machine Mr. Tesla exhibited was that, although it can furnish any pressure desired, it contains no fine wire.

Coming to the subject of the Roentgen rays, Mr. Tesla announced that he had made two important discoveries. The first is a powerful source in an electric arc under certain conditions. The second is the demonstration in a peculiar way, which he described, of the deflection of the rays by a magnet. The discovery is particularly important in that this fact was needed to establish the identity of the Roentgen-ray and the ray discovered by Lennard in 1891. Through this discovery Lennard appears as the original discoverer of these rays, although in his address on Tuesday night Mr. Tesla said that he did not want to take from Prof. Roentgen the least bit of credit for his remarkable achievement in this line.

Mr. Tesla showed diagrams and designs tending to prove his theory that Roentgen-rays were formed by streams of minute electrified particles of matter projected from the bulb at an extreme velocity. This view is not in accordance with that adopted by the great majority of scientists, which is that the rays are formed by transverse vibration. Prof. Roentgen's theory is that they are formed by longitudinal vibration. Mr. Tesla promised that the tremendous vibration established by him would ultimately result in telegraphing without wires.