Power by Radio Predicted for Near Future

In an Exclusive Interview Nikola Tesla Tells of Developments to Take Place Within Next Five Years

 "What is the future of radio — in, say, five years? What are the chief changes that will take place?" The interviewer flung these questions pointblank at Nikola Tesla on the night of his seventy-first birthday late last week.

Oblivious to the surge and clatter of the Broadway theater crowd, then at its worst hundreds of feet below the hotel room in which Tesla was sitting, he answered rapidly and with conviction:

"First of all, wireless power transmission will be available. This means infinitely more than can be imagined, for it will revolutionize practically all phases of the present radio industry. A few central stations can then accomplish the work which under existing systems requires hundreds.

"When power can be efficiently transmitted wirelessly receiving sets can be simplified tremendously. They could be carried in one's pocket, and need not cost more than $5. Probably, however, from the standpoint of service and economy, receiving sets would be kept under the control of the broadcasting companies and rented like telephones the revenue derived being applied to maintenance and broadcasting service."

Power by Radio in Five Years

Alert and as enthusiastic as a man thirty years his junior, Tesla then continued to explain the intricacies of a world wireless system which would convert the earth into a huge brain, throbbing with both energy and intelligence. According to this pioneer investigator, it will be possible to transmit electrical energy efficiently without wires within five years.

As things stand, but an insignificant portion of the energy sent from a broadcasting station is available at the receiving sets — the remainder is dissipated. Therefore, amplifiers are required and sets become bulky and expensive. In a conservative estimate at least twenty times the power is consumed in the detectors and amplifier of the aggregate of the country's receiving sets as is utilized in the aggregate of transmitting stations. With radio power transmission, no local power would be required at the receiving end, energy being available at any intensity required direct from the transmitter.

Past the five-year period, but still in the near future, Tesla visualize automobiles and airplanes running without fuel, homes lighted and heated by electrical energy broadcast from distant transmitter, perfect television, a universal time service by cheap clocks both driven and synchronized by radio power, the local production of nitrates and fertilizer by electrically burning the nitrogen of the atmosphere, the illuminating of the oceans.

"There are millions of horsepower of water power in remote parts of the earth which will be converted into electricity and broadcast through a series of power transmitting stations. Αt each city or community will be central receiving and distributing stations from which the energy will be distributed to the individual homes through a wire system very similar to that in present use. Electricity can be transmitted efficiently and without difficulty without wires, on frequencies as low as 5,000 or 10,000 cycles.

"Incandescent lamps may then be supplanted by electrodeless vacuum or gas-filled tubes, built directly into the houses. These lamps give a diffused and beautiful light and their life is practically indefinite.

"Airplanes will be electrically motored and run without fuel, receiving energy wirelessly from a source that can never fail. A prospector, far from all traces of society, will be able to set up a little apparatus he carries in is pocket, cook and light his camp by radio power and get in complete visual and verbal touch with civilization. Farmers will be able to make fertilizer cheaply by electrically burning the nitrogen of the air. 

"The television of to-day is based on an optical illusion. The apparatus of the future will eliminate rotating mirrors and other moving parts and receive impressions as directly as the retina of the eye; there will be no time factor involved. But for such apparatus there must first be radio tower.

"Static and all forms of interference will be eliminated, so that innumerable transmitters and receivers may be operated without the little annoyances present-day apparatus is subject to. It is more than probable that the household's daily newspaper will be printed 'wirelessly' in the home during the night. Domestic management — the problems of heat, light and household mechanics — will be freed from all labor through beneficent wireless power."

One of Tesla's most unusual ambitions is the lighting of the oceans by electricity, using the sky alone as a lamp. He claimed that the Atlantic could be lighted sufficiently for the safety of mariners with a single station of but 10,000 horsepower, located at the Azores. 

That Tesla is an eligible prophet and power, one who in many cases personally materializes his own prophesies has been demonstrated time and again. Radio power, which is his chief devotion, he has demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally to his complete satisfaction: What remains is simply commercial adaptation.

Tesla's System Different

Tesla's system differs from all other present and proposed systems in that it does not employ Hertzian or similar free radiations. It is purely and simply a system of one-wire conduction ― eliminating the wire and substituting the earth in its place. The frequencies used would be considerably lower than present broadcasting frequencies and the aerial terminals would be so designed that no energy would escape in radiation.

The basic theory is this: an alternating current generator is connected between the earth and a properly de- signed and elevated capacity. When the generator is running the earth will throb with the pulsations of current over an area dependent upon the original potential. If, within this active area, a suitable receiving apparatus is set up, a large percentage of the energy can be recovered. Unlike Hertzian wave broadcasting, energy is not dissipated in the form of free waves, which, once loosed, are lost.

Tesla closed the interview in front of his hotel at 1 o'clock in the morning. He thought, he remarked, he had better get a little sleep, as he had to be up again for another hard day's work at 6:30.