Nikola Tesla Books
[Sec. 4.b. (1), cont.] continuous waves, as he did most frequently at power levels of 5% or less. Therefore, E INDUCED SQ. COIL = ωMIM = 2π 10⁶ x 0.68x10⁻⁶ x 50 ≈ 21 VOLTS. Although a value of Q for the square coil can be attempted, it is perhaps best to assume a minimum acceptable value of 10. Therefore, the resonant rise in the circuit is 21 volts x 10 = approximately 210 volts across the three bulbs. Incandescent bulbs at that time were manufactured commercially to operate on 50-60 volts or 110-120 volts. Therefore, from this rough calculation, it would appear that the three bulbs in series connection could indeed have been illuminated from proximity effects of induction alone. (2) Electric fire balls The narrative article by Tesla appearing in the March 5, 1904 issue of the Electrical World and Engineer referred to in Sec. 3.a., contains these interesting remarks: "Aided by the dryness and rarefaction of the air, the water evaporates as in a boiler, and static electricity is developed in abundance. Lightning discharges are, accordingly, very frequent and sometimes of inconceivable violence. On one occasion approximately twelve thousand discharges occurred in two hours, and all in a radius of certainly less than fifty kilometers [30 mi] from the laboratory. Many of them resembled gigantic trees of fire with the trunks up or down. I never saw fire balls, but as a compensation for my disappointment I succeeded later in determining the mode of their formation and producing them artificially." (Emphasis added) COMMENT: Researchers in the scientific community have been attempting to understand the nature of lightning fire balls for decades without success. The speculation that they might be useful in weapons application spurred millions of dollars in DOD funding. All the while, scientists pondered Tesla's claim in having produced them artificially and came to regard the claim with as much credibility as his claim of wireless power transmission. Then, in the Jul.-Aug.-Sept. 1988 issue of the TCBA News, Harry Goldman reproduced an unpublished chapter from Prodigal Genius in which John. J. O'Neill describes, as best he could from Tesla's remarks, how Tesla achieved it. On reading this, Kenneth and James Corum attempted to reconstruct the setup from O'Neill's language. Their success was described one year later in the TCBA News, in a paper presented at the 1990 Tesla Symposium in Colorado Springs, and the mechanism of their artificial pro- duction reported at the (international) Ball Lightning Conference held in Moscow, November 1989, and published in Soviet Physics – Uspekhi, April 1990, pp. 47-58. - 9 -
