Nikola Tesla Lectures

I desire to express my thanks to Professor Anthony for the help he has given me in this matter. I would also like to express my thanks to Mr. Pope and Mr. Martin for their aid. The notice was rather short, and I have not been able to treat the subject so extensively as I could have desired, my health not being in the best condition at present. I ask your kind indulgence, and I shall be very much gratified if the little I have done meets your approval. In the presence of the existing diversity of opinion regarding the relative merits of the alternate and continuous current systems, great...

There is no subject more captivating, more worthy of study, than nature. To understand this great mechanism, to discover the forces which are active, and the lams which govern them, is the highest aim of the intellect of man. Nature has stored up in the universe infinite energy. The eternal recipient and transmitter of this infinite energy is the ether. The recognition of the existence of ether, and of the functions it performs, is one of the most important results of modern scientific research. The mere abandoning of the idea of action at a distance, the assumption of a medium pervading all...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I cannot find words to express how deeply I feel the honor of addressing some of the foremost thinkers of the present time, and so many able scientific men, engineers and electricians, of the country greatest in scientific achievements. The results which I have the honor to present before such a gathering I cannot call my own. There are among you not a few who can lay better claim than myself on any feature of merit which this work may contain. I need not mention many names which are world-known — names of those among you who are recognized as the leaders in this...

INTRODUCTORY — SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EYE When we look at the world around us, on Nature, we are impressed with its beauty and grandeur. Each thing we perceive, though it may be vanishingly small, is in itself a world, that is, like the whole of the universe, matter and force governed by law, — a world, the contemplation of which fills us with feelings of wonder and irresistibly urges us to ceaseless thought and inquiry. But in all this vast world, of all objects our senses reveal to us, the most marvelous, the most appealing to our imagination, appears no doubt a highly developed organism, a...

Lecture given on August 25, 1983, in the hall adjoining the Agricultural Building at the Chicago World’s Fair. This lecture was not published and the manuscript was not preserved among Tesla’s papers. It was most probably destroyed, along with his other belongings, in the fire of March 13, 1895. Thanks to journalist and publicist T. C. Martin, a detailed overview of the lecture and Tesla’s experiments appeared in the press at the time.

This lecture is available in the Leland Anderson book, Nikola Tesla: Lecture Before the New York Academy of Sciences April 6, 1897: The Streams of Lenard and Roentgen and Novel Apparatus for Their Production .

Some theoretical possibilities offered by currents of very high frequency and observations which I casually made while pursuing experiments with alternating currents, as well as the stimulating influence of the work of Hertz and of views boldly put forth by Oliver Lodge, determined me some time during 1889 to enter a systematic investigation of high frequency phenomena, and the results soon reached were such as to justify further efforts towards providing the laboratory with efficient means for carrying on the research in this particular field, which has proved itself so fruitful since. As a...

Lecture given on May 13, 1899, at the Chicago Business Club. This lecture is preserved in an incomplete and unfinished form in the Archives of the Nikola Tesla Museum.

Experimental demonstrations in the Havemeyer Hall of Columbia University, New York on the evening of April 12, 1901.

Address at Meeting of New York Section of National Electric Light Association The meeting of the New York section of the National Electric Light Association was held at the Engineering Societies Building, New York City, on Monday evening, May 15, 1911. Chairman Williams presided. The report of Mr. Thomas, chairman of the Membership Committee, showed that the present membership of the section is approximately 1,300 and it is the aim of the committee to have the membership at least 1,500 by the time of the annual convention of the association, beginning May 29. Chairman Williams then outlined...