Science Run Mad

There seems to be just now, among the scientific gentlemen who devote their lives to advancing the art electrical, a revulsion against the dreams of the poppy which have been so much in evidence of late. In one notable instance, in which a standard electrical journal had indulged in a bit of mild criticism of the wildest of these dreams, and was threatened with a suit for libel, the editor stood on his rights. He announced, in very definite language, that he would no longer, as an electrician, consent to be even a quasi sponsor for insane vagaries, and would maintain his critical position, regardless of consequences.

It has been apparent for some time that unless the sober-minded technical electrician came to the rescue of their art, and repudiated the extravagant claims of some of the members of their guild who stand high in the profession, the name electrician would become a by-word and a reproach. For several years the more sensational daily journals have caught up these vagaries and vaporings, and, with detail and illustrations, have announced them to the world as veritable, accomplished scientific facts. Inasmuch as these idle dreams were not, in terms, repudiated by the technical press — doubtless out of regard for the large, not fully versed in technical matters, has accepted the statements as demonstrated facts. Perhaps one of the most startling of these announcements is one recently attributed to Nikola Tesla. It was stated, with all gravity, that the Hungarian had made a discovery which rendered the great navies of the world useless; that, by means of his new dirigible torpedo, he could blow up the largest fleet while it was still hull down to the operator. His plan was to operate a torpedo boat by means of a coherer, and the Hertzian waves, in such manner that the vessel of destruction would be directed against the fleet, and at the proper time the explosives would be energized by the same subtle force, thus placing the vessels of the fleet hors de combat, and drowning all the unfortunate sailor men, without allowing time for a bit of consolation from the chaplains. All this was to be accomplished without connecting wires, after the manner of Signor Marconi’s wireless telegraphy. But that was not the extent to which Dr. Hertz’s theory was to be applied. The distinguished Hungarian scientist went a step further and introduced the element of hypnotic suggestion. In the New York Sun of November 21st Mr. Tesla thus sums up this startling discovery. He is quoted as saying to the reporter:

“We shall be able, availing ourselves of this advance, to send a projectile at much greater distance. It will not be limited in any way by weight or amount of explosive charge. We shall be able to submerge it at command, to arrest it in its flight, and call it back and send it out again, and explode it at will — and more than this, it will never make a miss.” In several interviews, Mr. Tesla has also expanded the possibilities of his torpedo-boat, saying that “this power can be exerted at any distance by an agency of so delicate, so impalpable a quality, that I feel I am justified in predicting that the time will come when it can be called into action by the mere exercise of the human will.” When interrogated about this metaphysical invention, Mr. Tesla has reaffirmed his belief in its “possibility.”

It should perhaps be stated, for the benefit of the uninitiated, that a coherer, when reduced to its last analysis, is a homeopathic vial filled with iron filings. When influenced by Hertzian waves, under proper conditions, the filings “cohere,” acting after the manner of a relay, thus closing an electric, or, to put it more definitely, a magnetic circuit.

While it is obviously outside the province of a lay newspaper to dabble extensively in these mysteries of the electrical art, it is surely excusable to call attention to some of the evident dangers involved in this method of operating dangerous explosives by the human will. At first sight it would seem to have been more prudent for the discoverer to have maintained the process as a laboratory secret. If the process comes into general use, now that it has been made public, it is not unlikely to be abused by wicked and designing people. Under the specifications of Mr. Tesla’s device, it would require but a few days to “remove” every crowned head in Europe, and a month or two would suffice to depopulate every city on the globe. All that would be necessary to send the German emperor, for instance, to the New Jerusalem, whose prototype he has so recently visited, would be to quietly deposit a package of jovite or any other reasonably powerful explosive, near the castle at Potsdam. Then the regicide could repair to the privacy of a beer cellar in London; and, by the subtle operation of the human mind, energize the coherer in the package of explosives in Potsdam, and the stolid but well-meaning kaiser would be with his ancestors. In like manner populous communities could be swept from the face of the earth and many other disagreeable things accomplished, by means of the maliciously directed human will.

All things considered, perhaps we can get along with an occasional naval war for a few years and congratulate ourselves that the project is the outcome of an unbridled imagination; and an uncurbed imagination is closely akin to a condition sometimes diagnosed as lunacy.