Tesla Grips the World

HIS WIRELESS TELEGRAPH PERFECTED AT LAST.

Already He Has Sent and Received Signals at a Distance of 20 miles — Instantaneous Communication with the Uttermost Parts of the Earth Without Wires the Possible Outcome.

At last Nikola Tesla has reached a point in his investigation of the possibility of telegraphing without wires to make a positive announcement of his achievements. It has been one of his dreams for years. He has worked at the problem long and anxiously. But his talk has always been guarded and indefinite. He spoke of the possibility that the thing might be done and once, a few months ago, he went so far as to call it a probability. He was more positive and sanguine then than ever before, but still he was not ready to talk of achievements. But at last the work has reached a stage where the modest attitude of uncertainty and hope gives way to positiveness and assurance, and the definite announcement of success is made. Mr. Tesla declares that he has produced electrical devices with which he can actually send and receive messages by a system which can be so applied as to make it possible for an operator in New York to communicate with ease and certainty with the people of any part of the earth, and perhaps, even with those of the stars, if any of these are inhabited.

"The machines which I have completed," Mr. Tesla said yesterday, "will carry messages through the earth for a distance of twenty miles or so. I have sent and received signals with them, and I feel confident that I am not mistaken in saying that the problem upon which I have spent many days and nights is solved. Of course it is possible that I am mistaken. I have made mistakes before, but not many. I shall at once make machines which I expect will enable me to telegraph to any part of the earth as readily as I can within a limited distance by means of the ones I have.

"If I have a machine which will throw a stone from here to there," continued Mr. Tesla, pointing from the floor at his feet to the door of his laboratory, "then I do not need to doubt that I can make one which will throw the stone fifty miles if I can control the necessary power."

Mr. Tesla was not ready to explain in detail the devices which he uses for telegraphing without wires but he talked freely about the principles which were involved and made it clear that the results were obtained by the use of some form of his electrical oscillator, recently patented. As long ago, he said, as when he was putting up telephone wires in Budapest he observed that electrical impulses were carried long distances without the intervention of wires. There was a telegraph cable one and a half or two miles away over which messages were being sent by the Morse code, and at times he could read these messages through the telephone. This set him to investigating the electrical condition of the air. He became satisfied that the messages were conveyed to the telephone wires by induction.

In 1890 he announced his belief that by means of electrical impulses of an extremely high rate, never yet attained at that time, bright light might be obtained from Crookes tubes, and in 1891 he made this announcement in London.

"I believed at that time that telegraphing might be conducted through the earth without wires," he said yesterday, "but I was afraid to say so for fear I should be laughed at and discredited by the older and abler men who were the leaders in electrical science."

It was not until 1893, when he appeared before the National Electrical Lighting Association at St. Louis, that he first declared his belief in the possibility of telegraphing over the whole earth without wires. Then he explained the general method which he believed would make this possible, if he could get a machine which should be able to disturb the static electricity of the earth. In that year he had an electrical exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago and among his visitors was Prof. Helmholz.

"I spoke of my project to Prof. Helmholz," Mr. Tesla said yesterday, "and told him how I thought it might be accomplished. 'Yes, it is possible,' he said, 'but it would take much power.' I was very much pleased with this admission by this great master, and gratified that he did not condemn the idea, as many of my co-workers had done. I did not tell him then that I had already solved that part of the problem."

The solution to which Mr. Tesla referred was brought about through the work which he had done in developing his electrical oscillator, which he was working upon particularly in connection with the production of light from the Crookes tubes. The energy of the electric current, like that of flowing water, is displayed only when the current is interrupted. A familiar example of this may be seen in the common medical battery where the current flowing from one pole to the other may be passed through the most sensitive parts of the body, and yet not be felt. Pass the same current through a Ruhmkorff coil, interrupting the secondary current by the vibrations of the commutator, and it will twist up the muscles of the strongest man and make him powerless. 

Before Tesla's time interruptions of this sort had been produced only by mechanical means and could number only a few hundred a second. His electrical oscillator acts upon the principle of a bell, where a single stroke of the hammer sets the metal vibrating with a rapidity commensurate with its bulk, and these vibrations can be continued indefinitely by repeated strokes of the hammer at slow intervals. Mr. Tesla now makes oscillators which will interrupt the current millions of times in a second. In explaining the theory upon which his new devices for telegraphing over the whole earth works, Mr. Tesla used a simple simile.

"Suppose the whole earth," he said, "to be like a hollow rubber ball filled with water, and at one place I have a tube attached to this, with a plunger in the tube. If I press upon the plunger the water in the tube it be driven into the rubber ball, and as the water is practically incompressible, every part of the surface of the ball will be expanded. If I withdraw the plunger, the water follows it and every part of the ball will contract. Now, if I pierce the surface of the ball several times and set tubes and plungers at each place the plungers in these will vibrate up and down in answer to every movement which I may produce in the plunger of the first tube. If I were to produce an explosion in the centre of the body of water in the ball, this would set up a series of vibrations in the whole body. If I could then set the plunger in one of the tubes to vibrating in consonance with the vibrations of the water, in a little while and with the use of a very little energy I could burst the whole thing asunder."

This, Mr. Tesla said, would explain in a rude way how he proposed to set the whole of the static electricity of the earth in motion, for telegraphic purposes, by taking advantage of the incompressibility and elasticity of the electric fluid. Then he told of some of the interesting results which he had accomplished in studying the theory and effect of vibrations. In one case he set a steel ring, four inches thick, vibrating, and by repeated but gentle continuations of the vibrations burst the ring. In another case he took a steel bar an inch in diameter, set it vibrating, and kept it going until its internal disturbance was so great that first a section of the rod broke loose from one end and flew off and then another section flew off from the other end.

In applying these principles to the telegraphic purpose Mr. Tesla had first to work out the theory and then to make instruments which would set up the proper vibrations and others again which would catch and record them.

"I have perfected my machines and got excellent results," Mr. Tesla said yesterday. "I have thought of this system of telegraphing not as a mere commercial matter, but as a means of bringing the nations of the earth closer together. I conceive that the use of this system will not do away with the use of telegraph wires, but will on the other hand make more work for them. It is true that millions of my machines might be used without those of one lot interfering with those of another lot, but the manner in which I conceive that the system should be used is this: Have a machine at each commercial or political centre and send out from each place, under an international agreement, all the political, financial, or other news, to be read at every other part of the world at the same moment. The news could be distributed then over the wire lines or otherwise. Financial panics and even wars might be done away with if this were done."

Mr. Tesla says the transmission of signals is not the only result which may be achieved by his new scheme.

"This was what I at first thought," he said, "but from the results of my experiments I am now hopeful that I shall be able to substantiate another thing — the transmission of power from place to place."

If it were proved possible to transmit power without wires, and to considerable distances, it would solve the greatest problem which now constricts the use of electricity for many purposes.

"If ever we are able to communicate with the stars it would be by this method," Mr. Tesla declared.

When asked what the effect of electrical storms would be on his system, Mr. Tesla said they would undoubtedly interfere more or less with the working of the instruments locally.

Before the interview with him ended he made a statement regarding his Crookes tubes lighting system which will interest many persons.

The system is now a commercial possibility," he declared. "I don't like the word 'commercial,'" he added,  but what I mean is that I have succeeded in bringing down the cost of the light so that it will compare favorably with other means of lighting."

Mr. Tesla took up one of the many lighting tubes which were lying about and, starting the current through one of his oscillators, held the tube near the poles. The tube was shaped like a gridiron and was about eight inches square. As it drew near the electric arc of, the oscillator it began to glow, and when it was close by it was all ablaze with a pure light.

"If it were night," Mr. Tesla said, "this light would diffuse itself over this whole room, so that you could read anywhere, although the candle power of the light is low."

His lights would be supplied by wires running across each room, but they could be produced without any connection with the wires if desired. Another form of tube, he said, gave a light many times more brilliant than the arc electric light, and this was suitable for such things as searchlights.