Nikola Tesla FBI Files - Page 152

Brigada, an avenue renamed after the war, but formerly known under the monarchy as Crown Street. The museum bears a plaque on a low wall, printed in the old Cyrillic alphabet.

        Here Tesla's English writings have been translated into Serbo-Croatian-except, as the archivist admits, for the "unimportant" material, which remains, just as he wrote it, in the language of his adopted country.

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The Legacy

The fact that Tesla's research notes and papers have not been easily available for western scientists has not, of course, meant that Teslian research is dead. On the contrary, the very mystery surrounding some of his unproved claims has served to goad numerous scientists into trying to duplicate his experiments. And since his aspirations were virtually limitless, there has always been a chance that the rewards of success would not be inconsiderable. But the single greatest stimulus to try to follow in Tesla's footsteps doubtless remains the example of the man himself-his stunning record of achievement and the enduring fascination of his mind. As one admiring German writer put it, "Tesla went beyond the borders of his exact science to foretell what lies in the future ... a modern Prometheus who dared reach for the stars...."¹

        Although a comprehensive summary of the state of Tesla-inspired research today would be beyond either the scope of this book or the intent of its author, no account of the inventor's life would be complete without at least some indication of what has become of a few of his major preoccupations. The record, as one might expect, is both mixed and incomplete, but it is no less impressive for that.

        To begin, then, with Tesla's experiments with ball lightning: He had no idea what ball lightning might be useful for when he first encountered it in his Colorado Springs research; to him it was a nuisance, but it demanded an explanation. And so he set about determining the mode of formation of the strange fireballs and learned to produce them artificially.

        The technical explanation runs like this: In the highly resonan, transformer secondary comprising his magnifying transmitter, the entire energy accumulated in the excited circuit, instead of requiring a quarter period for transformation from static to kinetic, could spend itself in less time, at hundreds of thousands of horsepower. Thus, for example, Tesla produced artificial fireballs by suddenly causing the impressed oscillations to be more rapid than free ones of the secondary.