Nikola Tesla Books
IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA signals. Why not a final great achievement, 'wireless power', which would unite the earth? The attractions of this scheme were fairly obvious. Power would be transmitted anywhere in the world. It would be picked up using a simple receiver. Electrical energy could be beamed to large cities, remote settlements, distant islands, and even aeroplanes or ships at sea. The economic implications of a power system which had no need for wires or pylons stretched across fields, up mountains and over rivers were considerable. Broadcast power could throw the world into an economic revolution, with shifts in the traditional power and status of many nations. It was a terrific dream but could the whole thing really work? The next step was to study a paper written by Tesla in 1904 for a magazine called Electrical World and Engineer. In this his first experiments in power transmission were described. The article began with a description of Colorado Springs, the location of his new laboratory. The desert environment seems to have put him in good spirits: Various reasons not the least of which was the help proffered by my friend, Leonard E. Curtis, and the Colorado Springs Electric Company, determined me to select for my experimental investigations the large plateau, two thousand metres above sea-level, in the vicinity of that delightful resort, which I reached late in May, 1899. I had not been there but a few days when I congratulated myself on the happy choice and I began the task, for which I had long trained myself, with a grateful sense and full of inspiring hope. The perfect purity of the air, the unequalled beauty of the sky, the imposing sight of a high mountain range, the quiet and restfulness of the place - all around contributed to make the conditions for scientific observation ideal. To this was added the exhilarating influence of a glorious climate and a singular sharpening of the senses. In those regions the organs undergo perceptible physical change. The eyes assume an extraordinary limpidity, improving vision; the ears dry out and become more susceptible to sound. Objects can be clearly distinguished there at distances such that I prefer to have them told by someone else, and I have heard - this I can venture to vouch for the claps of thunder seven and eight hundred kilometers 45
