Nikola Tesla Prepares To Send Power Without Wires

Inventor, 80, Announces Solution of Problem He Worked on for 35 Years

Earth Will Carry Current

100-Million-Volt Plant To Be Built in Foreign Land

Dr. Nikola Tesla, whose discovery of the rotating magnetic field made possible the electric motor, chose his eightieth birthday yesterday to announce that he has completed his theoretical research on the problem, on which he has worked for thirty- five years, of transmitting power without wires. Within a year, he said, he hoped to see a plant established in an unnamed foreign country capable of sending electric power at 100,000,000 volts through the earth, instead of through the air.

He made the announcement at a luncheon for the press at the Hotel New Yorker, Thirty-fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, where he has lived for the last four years. While he boiled himself some milk in his own double-boiler, ate three Valencia oranges and cut a birthday cake, he talked of his struggle against skeptical scientific opinion, acute mental fatigue and indifferent financiers to perfect his latest discovery. 

Although he refused to specify the location of his proposed plant, he stated that a generator in Sweden could transmit power to England or New Zealand with equal ease Although there would be no loss in transmission, an 8 to 10 per cent loss would be expected, he said, in the coils of the sending and receiving apparatus. The final problem, which he has just solved, he added, was that of planning a generating plant where voltages in millions could be handled without great danger.

Dr. Tesla shifted the conversation frequently and willingly to his diet. "Two quarts of milk a day give me 1,040 protein. units, which is all I need," he said, "and the calories take care of themselves." He referred grudgingly to his birthday. A small bale of telegrams, topped by one from Prince Paul, Regent of his native Yugoslavia, was evidence that others had not forgotten it.

In Prague, Czechoslovakia, he admitted, a boulevard has been named for him, in honor of his eightieth anniversary. Yugoslavia awarded him the cross of the Order of the White Eagle, and held a national celebration of his birthday six weeks early in order that it might serve as a scientific festival in the schools.