Nikola Tesla Books
CHAPTER FOUR trical transmission systems there were several files on such inventions as a water fountain with 'an unlimited field of use in private dwellings, hotels, theatres, concert halls, hospitals, aquaria and, particularly, in squares, gardens and parks in which it may be carried out on a large scale so as to afford a magnificent spectacle far more captivating and stimulating to the public than the insignificant displays now in use. There were others for a new type of flying machine, designated a âhelicopter plane', a new type of ship's log, a form of fluid propulsion and... but why go on? Tesla was clearly a man of immensely fertile imagination and inventive genius. I could so easily lose my way in this mass of patents and inventions. My real task, however, remained. I had to investigate his proposal to broadcast electrical energy without wires. As I replaced the patents in two large cardboard boxes, I scanned at random the diagrams on the photocopied pages. It suddenly came to me that all along Tesla had been obsessed with the idea of 'wireless' power. Take, for example, that paper on radiant energy. While other scientists had wondered about the exact nature of the cathode rays, Tesla immediately saw them in practical terms: since they had the effect of producing electrical charges in matter, he argued, why not use them in place of wires to transmit electrical information? I hunted through his patents for other hints of his preoccupation with wireless transmission. On November 8, 1898, I discovered, he had been awarded a patent for a 'Method of an Apparatus for Controlling Mechanisms of Moving Vessels or Vehicles' - remote controlled boats, no less. Tesla had provided drawings of a boat that could be steered at high speed by remote control. He pointed out that previous attempts at remote electrical control made use of wires from ship to shore to carry the electrical messages necessary to control the ship. He proposed something entirely novel: I require no intermediate wires, cables, or other form of electrical or mechanical connection with the object save the natural media in space. I accomplish, nevertheless, similar results and in a much more practicable manner by producing waves, impulses, or radiations which 42
