Tesla Says He Can Harness All The Wireless Currents

Make Them Operate Airships and Give You Wireless Phone to the Ends of the Earth — As Easy to Talk to Australia as to Hoboken.

BY AND BY YOU CAN TALK TO MEN IN AEROPLANES

Won't Need High Towers to Send or Receive the Electric Waves — Ambitious Programme of the Noted Inventor Soon to Be Completed, He Says.

Nikola Tesla, electrical scientist and Inventor, is planning to build a great electric power plant which will enable him to operate all the telephone, telegraph, lighting, traction and industrial systems of the earth by wireless currents. His plan also is so far-reaching that it takes in the operation of all aeroplanes and dirigibles and the keeping of them in telegraphic and telephonic touch with the earth at all times by the same method, no matter over what part of the earth they may be sailing or with what part of it they may desire to communicate. By this system, he says, all the wires which now are used to connect telegraph and telephone instruments and electric lights will be eliminated without changing in any degree the other features of the installations, and it will be easier then for a man in New York to step to a telephone and converse by wireless with a man in Melbourne, Australia, than it now is for him to, talk by wire across a room.

Tesla was interviewed yesterday in his office at No. 165 Broadway. He said that probably his utterances would be regarded by many persons as those of a visionary, but that time would vindicate them fully.

"Mr. Tesla, I understand you have perfected a system whereby it will be possible to telephone, say, from New York city to Melbourne, Australia, by wireless process without any change in the present installations made by the telegraph and telephone companies.

"I am glad to say that much is the case," Tesla replied. "I have worked persistently on the wireless transmission of energy since 1893, when I presented my paper on that subject before the National Electric Light Association In St. Louis and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The popular idea is that the wireless system of transmission is just one invention, but the fact is that it involves in its present state of perfection six fundamental discoveries, or inventions, in combination. They are as follows:

"First — The method and apparatus for transforming ordinary currents into electrical oscillations of great intensity.

"Second — The apparatus for intensifying those vibrations intensely, so they penetrate into the distance.

"Third — A receiving apparatus which collects and focuses energy which a transmitter supplies to large territory. For instance, if such receiver, properly constructed be placed in Ireland it will collect practically the entire energy conveyed to that country from the transmitter.

"Fourth — The method and apparatus for making the electrical impulses secret and non-interferable. That is to say, making It impossible to prevent their passage or to read them. The energy of the transmitter, which is collected by the receiver, only can be released by a sort of safety lock or combination.

"Fifth — The production of stationary waves. That is, waves which excite the entire earth and pass through it under a vibration much the same as though you were to draw a string tight and then strike it. With these waves the distance absolutely eliminated, at the effects are the same whether the receiver is thousands of miles away or close to the transmitter.

"Sixth — A number of Inventions which cannot very well be described in a short Interview, but which go together to make the system practically operative. 

"With a plant constructed under the observance of these principles it will be just as easy to telephone from here to Melbourne, Australia, as across a room, and there will be absolutely no distortion of the voice, such as is observable now in communication by wire. This is not a theory, but a fact absolutely demonstrated by my experiments, which have shown that the current passes without loss over the entire extent of the globe and through the globe. I already have carried the construction of such an installation very far and hope that I shall be able to complete it during the coming summer. From that moment every telegraphic, telephonic as well as every wireless station will be ever so much more valuable, as they will be able to receive messages from any part of the world. All this will be done without the slightest change in the existing equipment."

"Will it be necessary under your plan, Mr. Tesla, to build high towers on the shores of the countries using it, and also in interior points?" the inventor was asked.

"Not at all," Tesla replied. "In fact. large towers are comparatively ineffective. The tower I have built near Port Jefferson, LI., is only 187 feet high, but the plant will produce an effect which can be pushed up to a rate of 1,000,000,000 horsepower, which is more than all the wireless plants that have been put up so far together. This enormous activity I secured by the use of certain artifices on which I have also based my confidence that it will be possible to flash signals through interplanetary space. To a majority of people such a statement would appear visionary, but I have the utmost confidence that I shall be able to do so."

"How much capital, Mr. Tesla, is invested already on the strength of your inventions bearing on the production of electrical power?"

"In the first place, I do not call these inventions altogether mine," Tesla said. 

"I have merely laid the foundation. Great work has been done in perfecting my inventions by the staff of engineers of the Westinghouse and General Electric companies, so that at present there are hundreds of millions invested in enterprises in which my alternating system forms the underlying foundation. We have harnessed 6,000,000 horsepower water falls. There are probably enterprises, aggregating 20,000,000 more under consideration. The enormous importance of this water power, or the so-called 'white coal, a name given to water power, can be understood readily when it is borne in mind that one horsepower for twenty-four hours is equivalent to the average performance of twenty-four men. Therefore, the 6,000,000 horsepower which has been harnessed have virtually added to the world's population from the point of view of labor, 144,000,000, of workingmen, who consume no food and need no clothes."

"But what about the power other than that derived from the waterfalls?"

"I am happy to say that in this direction also I have been successful, having perfected a new reversible gas turbine of ideal simplicity and beauty, which will permit the harnessing of the waste of the steel and iron furnaces, in which we now are losing in the United States not less than 50,000,000 horsepower, I am just about to introduce that invention commercially."

Will this wireless system of yours permit of the transmission of electric power for purposes of operation?"

"Certainly," the inventor said. "In fact, had it not been for unfortunate circumstances long ago a plant of this kind would have been in operation. Just one single plant, of say 10,000-horsepower would be sufficient to drive several thousand flying machines, aeroplanes, and dirigibles anywhere in the world. While supplying them with wireless power it also would keep them in constant touch with the earth by wireless telephone and telegraph."

"What encourages you, Mr. Tesla, to think that by the application of your principle you will be able to flash interplanetary signals?"

"In my experiments in Colorado, where I discovered certain planetary disturbances, I attained with my transmitter activities which surpassed in power in many ways those of lightning. In my present plant I shall be able to reach a rate of energy delivery of about 1,000,000,000-horse- power. A simple calculation will convince any expert that with such an intensity and energy reaching a certain area of the planet Mars. It is ample to produce a perceptible effect in a delicate Instrument there.

"How will they flash back a signal?"

"I think they are flashing already, and waiting for us to answer their signals," Tesla replied, with a seriousness which showed that he believed confidently what he said about the inhabitants of Mars.