Nikola Tesla's Experiments - Denies The He Announced Completion of His Wireless Telegraphy Tests

Nikola Tesla this morning denied the report that he had announced the completion of his discovery of a method of telegraphy without wires. Occasional reports of the progress of the work had been published from time to time, he said. His experiments had been repeatedly shown in strict confidence to some of his personal friends, but the publication of them in any detail must have been a violation of confidence. As a matter of fact, no experiments were made at the laboratory yesterday. The inventor, however, was willing to give some account of his work up to the present time.

"In a lecture delivered about four years ago," he said, "before the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis — that was in March, 1893 — I explained a certain scheme for producing electrical disturbances with the object of transmitting intelligible messages, and even power, from place to place without the use of any wires.

"The principle is this: An electrical oscillator is connected by one of its terminals to earth and another is led to an insulated object of considerable bulk. This object should preferably be at a great height where the air is less dense and transmits more easily the disturbance.

"Such an apparatus is then exactly what in mechanics would be a suction pump. Periodically it draws electricity out and forces it again into the earth, thereby altering rhythmically the electrostatic potential in the earth as well as in the air.

"This scheme I had, as a matter of fact, conceived many years before. But I had previously lacked the courage to present it to the scientific world. At the time of the St. Louis lecture I had already seen such results that I gathered courage enough to announce the project seriously.

"Shortly afterward, on my return to this city, I actually, demonstrated by means of an improved apparatus that I was indeed able to create a disturbance in the manner described in the lecture.

"In my pleasure and excitement at this success I could not refrain from showing the first experiments to a few intimate friends. When later my laboratory burned down and the first instrument with which I had succeeded in my demonstration, and which I valued above any other, was destroyed, it was no small consolation to me that a few men whom I hold in high esteem had seen the first evidence of my success. They were my friends. Of course, all the experiments that I have made to this day have been shown only in confidence and with the. express understanding that no popular publication should be made of them until I had acquainted the scientific world with my results.

"It appeared several years ago that the result I aimed at would be very difficult, if not impossible, to attain. The method, nevertheless, as I have outlined it, is simple, involving merely the use of a properly constructed oscillator connected with the ground and with an elevated object; also a sensitive and properly adjusted receiver at a distance, similarly connected with the ground and with an object at a considerable height. For the purposes of this receiver I consider a balloon most suitable.

"These disturbances with which I am experimenting are produced by methods and devices which I have been perfecting more recently, and from present results I do not consider it at all impracticable to obtain, if such were desired, electric sparks a mile in length. They could be readily secured by apparatus designed on these novel lines. I now obtain sparks as long as eight feet, and can produce local disturbances. What I affirm is that the disturbances in this city may be made perceptible in London or throughout the world.

"The voltage is very high, beyond computation. For a wild guess I should place the voltage at 50,000,000. I have stood in the course of the sparks, but I consider them dangerous.

"Scientific results are what I have been chiefly interested in. But there are many possibilities of turning the methods to practical use. For instance, if I wished to make a fortune I should have only to take out patents on methods for exploding torpedoes or powder magazines at a distance by means of electrical disturbances produced in this manner. But to dispel popular and erroneous opinions on this point it is appropriate to say that whereas it is perfectly possible to ignite an explosive by a suitably arranged apparatus at a distance, yet this fact will not revolutionize warfare. The enemy could avail himself of similar methods with like results."