Nikola Tesla, His Work and Unfulfilled Promises Page 10

power transmission are stated as follows: "The experiments have shown conclusively that, with two terminals maintained at an elevation of not more than 30,000 to 35,000 feet above the sea level, and with an electric pressure of 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 volts, the energy of thousands of horse power can be transmitted over distances which may be hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of miles." No data as to methods of ballooning or of supporting wires at this elevation are given. Instead, the article closes with a quotation from Goethe. This quotation, with its reference to fulfillment, furnishes a most strikingly complete and sarcastic, though evidently unconscious, comment on the whole ludicrous production.

A perusal of the article forces one to coincide with the verdict of "Marine Engineering," whose editor describes it ("Marine Engineering," July, 1900) as the "handiwork of a cerebrose individual — a bombastical genius who has illumined unknown fields of imaginative science with his intellectual searchlight, and is willing to permit the gaping world of ignorance or complaisance to peep in and wonder, the credulous editor drawing the curtain. This dazzling contribution to modern unscientific research reads like nothing so much as an essay on Christian Science, so profound is it in the ambiguous nothingness whereby it leads through the intricacies of incoherency into the climax of absolute asininity." Enough has been given to indicate the reason for the standing that is Tesla's to-day in the scientific world. Not even the brilliancy of suggestion and experiment contained in his early work, not even the persistent efforts of powerful friends, moved by their commercial interests to magnify and exalt the value of his patented inventions, could avert the discredit to his reputation as a scientist brought upon himself by his wild struggles for notoriety He has been condemned by his own extravagant boasts, never followed by the realization of their claims and often revealing a total misunderstanding of the very elements of physical laws. Tesla is still a young man, and those whose sympathetic expectation was aroused by his early work still hope that he will turn from the gaudy notoriety of the Sunday newspaper, and by conscientious work give at last one complete useful invention that may be honestly set to his credit, and that may make its influence felt on the progress of engineering science.