Tesla's Oscillator - The Most Interesting and Far Reaching of His Inventions

Tesla has done great things in scientific research, discovery and invention, contributing enormously to the saving and utilization of energy heretofore wasted. His creation of the system by which electrical power is transmitted by alternate currents effected a revolution in electrical apparatus, and the list of his important inventions is a long one. His process for producing light superior to the incandescent without the use of carbons is nearly ready for commercial application, and there is little or no doubt that the use of carbons will soon be disposed with altogether. One of the most interesting and far reaching of his inventions is the oscillator, which is referred to intelligibly In a recent article on Tesla's work in the New York Sun. The oscillator is for use In connection with the creation of electrical energy. It is estimated that nine-tenths of all the dynamos in the world are operated by steam power. Every step in the production of electricity by steam power is attended with waste and los8 of force and energy. The problem Tesla set out to solve was the saving of the 95 per cent of energy that was wasted. Actual tests showed that only 5 per cent of the energy used in making incandescent lights manifested itself as light. The 95 per cent was lost. There was loss in every step from the putting of the coal Into the furnace to the delivery of the electricity. Tesla has combined an engine and a dynamo. Steam is forced Into the engine at high pressure witch produces an extremely rapid vibration of n steel rod, and this rod or piston is so adapted to a set of magnets that the mechanical energy of the vibrations is converted into electricity. Fly wheels and governing balls and eccentrics and valves and all the rest of the complicated mechanism required for the purpose of control or regulation ara done away with.

The steam cylinder with its piston in the only thing that does the work about a steam engine. All the rest take energy, but produce nothing, so if they can be done away with the energy that it takes to run them is saved. Tesla's oscillator does away with them. The oscillator converts the energy of steam Into electricity directly. It would appear that this invention, If it does all that it promises, will revolutionize all business that requires energy in the form of steam or electric force to operate it. The machine does not take up one-tenth of the room needed by an ordinary engine and dynamo.

Probably the oscillator and the new system of lighting would both have been in use long ago had it not been for the destruction of Tesla's laboratory last year, says The Sun. He had these and other inventions very near completion. He had in his workshop the result of years of work. He had many models of machinery that he could not replace. All the work that had been done in making these things had to be done over again.