Nikola Tesla FBI Files - Page 146

29 The Missing Papers In addition to his acknowledged achievements, Tesla left a legacy of riddles. To pose only three of the most major. Was his unrealized concept for the wireless transmission of energy through the Earth scientifically valid? What actually was he doing in his experimentation with death/disintegrator beam weapons? And what became of his unpatented research papers and other sensitive documents in the days immediately following his death? In the category of subquestions, what turn of affairs rekindled the Intense Interest of the U.S. Intelligence establishment in Tesia's work (as something surely did) in the late 1940's? Like Einstein he had been an outsider and, like Edison, a wide-ranging generalist. As he himself had said, he had the "boldness of ignorance." Where others stopped short, aware of what could not be done, he continued. The survival of such mutants and polymaths as Tesla tends to be discouraged by modern scientific guilds. Whether either he or Edison could have flourished in today's milieu is conjectural. The example set by Tesla has always been particularly inspiring to the lone runner. At the same time, however, his legacy to establishment science is profound for his research, although sometimes esoteric, was almost always sweeping in its potential to transform society His contribution was major rather than Incremental. His turbine failed in part because it would have required fundamental changes by whole Industries. Alternating current triumphed only after It had overcome the resistance of an entire industry But there was an unfortunate corollary to Tesla's lone battles with the scientific-industrial establishment. Since he was part of no group or institution, he had no colleagues with whom to discuss work In progress, no formal, accessible repository for his research notes and papers. He worked not just in private, but his love of flamboyant announcements to the press notwithstanding in secret. Thus any Inventions which he did not patent or give freely to the world were more or less shrouded in mystery. And, because of the handling of the 268 THE MISSING PAPERS 269 papers he left behind after his death, the range of his achievement continues to remain a partial mystery. if this has been frustrating to the scientists who have succeeded Tesla, it has at least been stimulating. After a period of obscurity, the one hundreth anniversary of his birth in July 1956 brought an international reawakening to the importance of the inventor's life and genius. Interest in his work, fired by a growing awareness of the riddies surrounding it, has been escalating ever since, almost as if he had been wborn in his true psychological age. He was honored by centennial celebrations in America and Europe. The American Institute of Electrical Engineers dedicated its fall meeting in Chicago to a review of his life and inventions. Commemorative programs were arranged by the Institute of Radio Engineers, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the Franklin Institute, and various universities, the Tesla Society playing an active role in such secognition. Permanent memorials in the form of scholarships and medals were proposed and exhibits presented by science museumIS. Special ceremonies were conducted at Niagara Falls, and a statue was later erected in his honor on Goat Island, a gift from the people of Yugoslavia. Chicago, reminded by attorney/author Elmer Gertz that it should be eternally grateful to him for having made the Columbian Exposition of 1893 the "wonder of the globe," dedicated a new public school to Tesla's memory The Inventor's old colleagues of the AIEE journeyed to Europe to attend more celebrations, statue unveilings, and dedications in his honor. The International Electrotechnical Commission in Munich took formal action, making his name an international scientific unit, the iesla joining such historic electrical symbols as farad, volt, ampere, and ohm,¹ As the exploration of space accelerated, so did interest in Tesla, especially from the standpoint of beam weaponry and microwave work. In America, Russia, Canada, and various other countries, projects in his name or derived from his pioneering, from weather control to nuclear fusion, began to attract scientific attention. Some were just the shoestring efforts of loners, their laboratories old Quoneet huts. Some were top secret and financed by enormous budgets. Tesla's year of secret experiments at Colorado Springs in 1899 provided the basic impetus for much of this new exploration. His Colorado Springs Notes," when they appeared in English in 1978 "This book may be ordered from Nolit, Tarazje, 27, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (about 146