Nikola Tesla Patents
464 3 tical advantages are in this respect secured. Furthermore, since in most cases the amount of energy conveyed to the distant circuit is but a minute fraction of the total energy emanating from the source, it is necessary for the attainment of the best results that, whatever the character of the receiver and the nature of the disturbances, as much as possible of the energy conveyed should be made available for the operation of the receiver, and, with this object in view, I have heretofore, among other means, employed a receiving circuit of high self-induction and very small resistance and of a period such as to vibrate in synchronism with the disturbances, whereby a number of separate impulses from the source were made to co-operate, thus magnifying the effect exerted upon, and insuring the action of, the receiving device. By these means decided advantages have been secured in many instances, but very often the improvement is either not applicable at all, or, if so, the gain is very slight. Evidently, when the source is one producing a continuous pressure or delivering impulses of long duration, it is impracticable to magnify the effects in this manner, and when, on the other hand, it is one furnishing short impulses of extreme rapidity of succession, the advantage obtained in this way is insignificant owing to the radiation and the unavoidable frictional waste in the receiving circuit. These losses reduce greatly both the intensity and the number of the co-operative impulses, and, since the initial intensity of each of these is necessarily limited, only an insignificant amount of energy is thus made available for a single operation of the receiver. As this 4This page retyped from microfilm for better readability - Ed.
