New Inventions by Tesla

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 the entertainment to be tendered by the Greater New York lighting companies on the occasion of the convention.

T. C. Martin then introduced Nikola Tesla, preceding the introduction by a statement that the membership of the N. E. L. A. on May 15 was over 8,100, a growth of over 5,000 in eighteen months. Mr. Martin referred to the occasion when Mr. Tesla gave a demonstration of his earlier inventions at the time of the St. Louis Convention in 1893.

Mr. Tesla said that some time ago he experienced the necessity of testing an invention he had perfected under conditions existing in a modern plant and he approached the officers of the New York Edison Company for facilities and received most cordial co-operation, for which he was greatly indebted. He introduced the subject by saying that the gift of invention and discovery is a great one, and that there is no enjoyment that he could picture in his mind so exquisite as the triumph which follows an original invention or discovery. But the world is not always ready to accept the dictum of the inventor, and doubters are plentiful, so that discoverers have often to swallow bitter pills, and he had received an ample share of bitterness as well as pleasure.

He then referred to the fact that in 1887 or 1888 he had brought out the rotating magnetic field. It was at a time when the world was not yet prepared to receive the idea and he had to stand many attacks, and when his patents were fought he had a great deal of trouble. Some went so far as to assert that he had never invented anything.

Mr. Tesla alluded to the discoveries of Hertz which startled the world. He had tried to repeat the Hertz experiments, worked on them for two or three years and had to give them up. He called on Hertz and told him of his doubts. Since that time he has satisfied himself that Hertz had seen true.

He mentioned the discovery by Roentgen in 1895. He had investigated the wonderful phenomenon which Roentgen investigated, and after long search finally ascertained the true nature of the rays and published the results in a series of papers in the Electrical Review, declaring we had to deal with a new matter which was never before studied, showing that the particles projected were smaller than atoms, that they were of various sizes, that they carried electrical charges and moved with great velocities.

Mr. Tesla further said that in dealing with electrical matters, there is one branch to which he had devoted a large portion of his life, and it is proper he should speak on that subject. He referred to the wireless transmission of energy. The problem presented itself to him as follows: If we can transmit energy through a closed circuit, we should also be able to transmit it through a single wire, and return being effected through the medium.

He exhibited diagrams illustrating the electrical scheme, as well as a mechanical analog, and showed in slides experiments made in 1899 in which incandescent lamps were lighted in this manner. He then exhibited other diagrams of his wireless system and produced a slide showing a lamp lighted by wireless energy. The lamp he declared could have been lighted if it had been placed at the antipodes. Dwelling on his wireless system in detail he said that it comprised five distinct inventions. The first of these was his transformer. To convey an idea of the wonderful effects which can be produced with that instrument a slide was produced illustrating an experiment performed very frequently in the years of 1892-96. Behind a screen was placed the primary of such a transformer and before the screen a bulb of about fourteen inches in diameter and containing a drop of mercury. The experimenter holds the bulb in the air and the induction from the primary is so strong that it evaporates the mercury and produces an extremely powerful light.

He next described his “magnifying transmitter” and showed several striking experiments with the same on the screen. One slide showed the transmitter used by him in Colorado on an immensely large scale. Streamers were visible extending from the center of the coil and measuring fully forty feet, the width of the same being sixty-five feet. The discharge is so powerful that it goes through the open roof, being carried up by the heat produced.

He next showed another effect of such a magnifying transmitter with a large ball, thirty-nine inches in diameter, which was placed just a little above the building, the roof of which was removable. Several of these streamers could be followed a hundred feet into the air; from a distance it looked as if the building was on fire and the roar could be heard for ten miles. He remarked that this was one of the most difficult experiments because of the great force it takes to reach the required density.

Mr. Tesla then referred to his third invention called the “art of individualization in which the nervous system of the human body was imitated in a crude way” (indicating diagram).

“I will not bother you with theories and details,” he said, “but can assure you that as long as the world exists, if all men were Faradays, they could never invent a scheme which would permit as accurate a transmission of messages or quantities of energy to a distance through a wire as has been found practicable without wire by this method; for in a wire transmission the secrecy is only the result of isolation in space, while in the wireless we get the benefit of combinations which are not practicable in a transmission through artificial channels. All the statements you read in the newspapers that wireless messages are interfered with, are because the workers in that field are laboring under delusions - they are transmitting messages by Hertz waves, and in this way no secrecy is possible.”

He then showed a picture of a machine exhibited in 1898, to which he first applied this art of individualization.

After stating that his fourth invention pertaining to the system was a peculiar receiver condensing the energy, he dwelt on his discovery of the stationary waves which was the last and most important. Before he could transmit energy without wire economically he found it absolutely necessary to learn how this great body, the planet, behaved, how the current would pass through the same and what are its constants, capacity, self-induction and resistance. As he could not find opportunity in the city for investigating he went to Colorado Springs and erected a laboratory for the purpose. Several views of the same were projected on the screen. One showed in the center of the building a coil fifty-one feet in diameter and many smaller ones within, which had been attuned to respond to higher harmonics.

Two Tesla Turbines, of 200-Horsepower Each, Coupled Together by Torsion Spring.

Another effect of the magnifying transmitter was next illustrated, showing a display with powerful streamers shooting out in all directions from a coil, as well as a ball of thirty-nine inches in diameter placed on the top.

Mr. Tesla then said: “I had not been in Colorado Springs but a few months when I made the most marvelous discovery I ever expect to make in my life. Before explaining it to you, let me say that I was not stirred at all by its practical value, though it was immense, but by its philosophical significance. You know that through ages past, man has always attempted to project in some way or other energy into space, but in all his attempts, no matter what agent he employed, he was hampered by the inexorable law of nature which says that every effect diminishes with the distance, generally as the square of the distance, and sometimes more rapidly. Now, the discovery I have made upset all that has gone before, for there was a means of projecting energy into space, absolutely without loss from any point of the globe to another, to the antipodes if desired. In fact, a force impressed at one point could be made to increase with the distance. I saw at once that distance was annihilated in all the three aspects; in the transmission of intelligence, in the transport of our bodies and materials, and in the transmission of the energies necessary for our existence. You can imagine how profoundly I was affected by this revelation. Technically, it meant that the earth, as a whole, had a certain period of vibration, and that by impressing electrical vibrations of the same period upon it, it could be thrown into oscillation of such nature that innumerable benefits could be derived from it. Let me tell you of but one application of the principle. Vessels could be equipped with simple devices enabling them to sail across the Pacific along the shortest routes and the captain of each vessel could tell the distance, from a point of reference, within a few feet. We do not today know the exact diameter of the globe. Astronomers have been unable to determine it within a thousand feet. By this discovery without any kind of surveying instrument or even without going out of the room, an electrician can determine the diameter of the globe within four feet. Thousands of such problems, which are of immense practical importance, can be solved and I have often thought that annihilation of distance is the only means of bringing about a quick understanding and universal peace between nations. It will remain for the future to decide whether I have seen truly or not.

“On my return from Colorado I completed plans to demonstrate these principles on a larger and commercial scale, my laboratory in Colorado being only constructed for purposes of scientific demonstration. Here are some views of my plant on Long Island, erected in 1901. This plant is nothing but what I have called a magnified transmitter which, when completed, will enable you to pick up any telephone and, without the slightest change in the stations, talk as clearly as though sitting on the other side of the table to any subscriber in the world. It will make no difference where he is located, and if desired the voice may be made to come out of the ground with such force that it could be heard for miles. The plant was put up originally for the purpose of serving as such a telephone exchange, but was to serve also for other important uses. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the effects, when you speak into the telephone there will be electrical energy at the rate of one billion horsepower sending your voice across the globe, and not only this, but the plant will be so organized that hundreds of people can talk at the same time to any part of the world without the slightest interference. Of course, you will have to take my word for it now, but I hope that I shall live to realize what I have begun. I will carry out my plans exactly as they were first made.

“My project was evidently far in advance of the times. Its progress was retarded and I was compelled to devote myself for a time to other inventions which appealed more to practical men. After years of careful thinking, I found that what the world needed most, and would most readily accept, was an efficient prime mover, a converter of heat into mechanical energy. This all the more as a new world is about to be explored, the world of waste. When you consider that in the manufacture of steel and iron in this country, some thirty million horsepower could be harnessed and a proportionate income derived from that power, all of which is wasted today, you can see what value a good convertor of thermal energy into mechanical energy would have.

“But to conceive that a prime mover is valuable and to get up one, are two different things. After some thought I finally came to the following argument: suppose a number of plates are moved through a fluid medium, the medium will, of course, be dragged along with the plates, and a certain frictional loss will be incurred. Inside the casing are arranged on a shaft a number of disks with openings and spokes and there are orifices of entrance on the sides to produce a perfect balance, and the usual arrangement of outlets. This system of disks being rotated, the water or air is sucked into the channel, is taken hold of and moves in a logarithmic spiral with very nearly the velocity of the system. It was perfectly well known that a fluid would be dragged by rotating surfaces, but somehow nobody realized the conditions for economic working, nor has any one properly grasped the principles which could be applied to propulsion. So it happens again that it is my good fortune to come to the rescue, and I have produced a highly economical way of compressing or pumping fluids.” Mr. Tesla then gave a practical demonstration of the working of the principle in a model pump.

“This is one of the early forms of blower which I constructed” (referring to diagram). “That was constructed three years ago. It is a two-stage blower. Far more important than the pump blower or compressor is the turbine. Here is a simple structure, a casing with two entrances, disks arranged on the shaft and outlets in the center for the escape. In this instance the power is applied to one of the openings and the fluid moves with decreasing velocity toward the center until its energy is exhausted and transferred to the shaft. If the theory is correct, I am able to take out the entire energy of steam in one single stage. In the present turbine, sixty-five per cent is the limit of efficiency; theoretically I should be able to get ninety-nine per cent of the total energy of the steam on the shaft in these turbines. These turbines are simple, they have a great torque, far better than other turbines, and a machine will develop ten horsepower for every pound of weight. This principle can also be applied to the gas turbine.”

Several slides showing two turbines coupled together were then projected on the screen and a new method of power measurement described. Mr. Tesla then dwelt on the advantages of these machines and showed a number which were constructed and in operation. They have no ducts, nozzles or such complications which cause so much trouble, and besides the machines are perfectly reversible, working with the same efficiency back or forth, making a valuable machine for driving boats, locomotives, automobiles, etc. The accompanying illustrations show two of these turbines.

“In this new invention we have a beautiful solution of many mechanical problems. We have a prime mover which is reversible, ideally simple, of enormous torque, incomparably greater than the turbine possesses, so I am looking for a revolution in mechanics from the application of this principle.”

Owing to the lateness of the hour, the other papers which were to have been presented at the meeting were laid over until the next meeting. The members of the Section and their guests were then entertained by an interesting vaudeville performance.