of time and stars

No amount of praise is too much to bestow upon Edison for his vigorous pioneer work, but all he did was wrought in known and passing forms. What I contributed constitutes a new and lasting addition to human knowledge. Like his lamp, my induction motor may be discarded and forgotten in the continuous evolution of the arts, but my rotating field with its marvelous phenomena and manifestations of force will live as long as science itself.

NIKOLA TESLA New York, Nov. 5

NEW YORK WORLD, Nov. 29, 1929, p. 10, cols. 4,5

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

“My electrical eye comes as the result of years of study and experiment. Three stages mark its construction and the first two and most difficult have already been completed. I am certain that Man will soon possess this machine in completed form and will be able to see at will to any part of the earth. In planning its construction I have taken the human eye as a model and have followed the principles which nature used in developing the human eye. My mechanical eye will be one of a group of associated machines, just as the human eye is part of the body and can only function in cooperation with other parts of the body.”

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

Permit me to say on this occasion that if there exist to-day no facilities for wireless telegraphic and telephone communication between the most distant countries, it is merely because a series of misfortunes and obstacles have delayed the consummation of my labors, which might have been completed three years ago. In this connection I shall well remember the efforts of some, unwise enough to believe that they can gain an advantage by throwing sand in the eyes of the people and retarding the progress of invention. Should the first messages across the seas prove calamitous to them, it will be a punishment regrettable but fully deserved.

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

To the Editor of the New York Times:

You have called me an “inventor of some useful pieces of electrical apparatus”. It is not quite up to my aspirations, but I must resign myself to my prosaic fate. I cannot deny that you are right.

Nearly four million horse power of waterfalls are harnessed by my alternating current system of transmission, which is like saying that one hundred million men- untiring, consuming nothing, receiving no pay - are laboring to provide for one hundred million tons of coat annually. In this great city the elevated roads, the subways, the street railways are operated by my system, and the lamps and other electrical appliances get the current through machinery of my invention. And as in New York so all the world over where electricity is introduced. The telephone and incandescent lamp tilt specific and minor demands, electric power meets the many general and sterner necessities of life. Yes, I must admit, however reluctantly, the truth of your unflattering contention.

But the greater commercial importance of this invention of mine is not the only advantage I have over my celebrated predecessors in the realm of the useful, who have given us the telephone and the incandescent lamp. Permit me to remind you that I did not have, like Bell, such powerful help as the Reis telephone, which reproduced music and only needed a deft turn of an adjusting screw to repeat the human voice; or such vigorous assistance as Edison found in the incandescent lamps of King and Starr, which only needed to be made of high resistance. Not at all. I had to cut the path myself, and my hands are still sore. All the army of my opponents and detractors was ever able to drum up against me in a fanatic contest has simmered down to a short article by an Italian - Prof. Ferraris - dealing with an abstract and meaningless idea of a rotating magnetic pole and published years after my discovery, months even after my complete disclosure of the whole practically developed system in all its essential universally adopted features. It is a publication, pessimistic and discouraging, devoid of the discoverer’s virility and force, devoid of results, utterly wanting in the faith and devotion of the inventor, a defective and belated record of a good but feeble man whose only response to my whole-souled brother greeting was a plaintive cry of priority - a sad contrast to the strong and equanimous Schallenberger, a true American engineer, who stoically bore the pain that killed him.

A fundamental discovery or original invention is always useful, but it is often more than that. There are physicists and philosophers to whom the marvelous manifestations of my rotating magnetic field, the suggestive phenomena of rotation without visible connection, the ideal beauty of my induction motor with its contactless armature, mean quite as much as the thousands of millions of dollars’ invested in enterprises of which it is the foundation.

And this is true of all my discoveries, inventions, and scientific results, which I have since announced, for I have never invented what immediate necessity suggested, but what I found as most desirable to invent, irrespective of time. Let me tell you only of one - my “magnifying transmitter”, a machine with which I have passed a current of one hundred amperes around the globe, with which I can make the whole earth loudly repeat a word spoken in the telephone, with which I can easily bridge the gulf which separates us from Mars. Do you mean to say that my transmitter is nothing more than a “useful piece of electrical apparatus”?

I do not wish to enlarge on this for obvious reasons. To be compelled by taciturn admirers to dwell on my own achievements is hurting my delicate sensibilities, but as I observe your heroic and increasing efforts in praising your paper, while your distinguished confreres maintain on its merits a stolid silence, I feel that there is, at least, one man in New York able to appreciate the incongeniality of the correspondence. Allow me to ask you just one or two questions in regard to a work which I began in 1892, inspired by a high tribute from Lord Rayleigh at the Royal Institution, most difficult labor which I have carried on for years, encouraged by the sympathetic interest and approval of Hemholtz, Lord Kelvin, and my great friends. Sir William Crookes and Sir James Dewar, ridiculed by small men whose names I have seen displayed in vulgar and deceptive advertisements. I refer to my system of wireless transmission of energy.

The principles, which it involves, are eternal. We are on a conducting body, insulated in space, of definite and unchangeable dimensions and properties. It will never be possible to transmit electrical energy economically through this body and its environment except by essentially the same means and methods which I have discovered, and the system is so perfect now that it admits of but little improvement. Since I have accepted as true your opinion, which I hope will not be shared by posterity, would you mind telling a reason why this advance should not stand worthily beside the discoveries of Copernicus? Will you state why it should not be ever so much more important and valuable to the progress and welfare of man? 

We could still believe in the geocentric theory and yet advance virtually as we do. The work of the astronomer would suffer, for some of his deductions would rest on erroneous assumptions. But, after alt, we shall never know the intimate nature of things. So long as our perceptions are accurate our logic will be true. No one can estimate to what an extent the great knowledge he conveyed has been instrumental in developing the power of our minds and furthering discovery and invention. Yet, it has left all the pressing material problems confronting us unsolved.Now my wireless system offers practical solutions for all.

The aerial navigation, which now agitates the minds, is only one of its many and obvious applications equally consequential. The waterfalls of this country alone, its greatest wealth, are adequate to satisfy the wants of humanity for thousands of years to come. Their energy can be used with the same facility to dig the Panama Canal as to operate the Siberian Railway or to irrigate and fertilize the Sahara. The Anglo-Saxon race has a great past and present, but its real greatness is in the future, when the waterpower it owns or controls shall supply the necessities of the entire world.

As to universal peace - if there is nothing in the order of nature, which makes war indispensable to the safe and sane progress of man, if that Utopian existence is at all possible, it can be only attained through this very means, for all international friction can be traced to but one cause - the immense extension of the planet. My system of wireless transmission completely annihilates distance in all departments of human activity.

If this does not appeal to you sufficiently to recognize in me a discoverer of principles, do me, at least, the justice of calling me an “inventor of some beautiful pieces of electrical apparatus.”

NIKOLA TESLA, New York, June 21, 1907

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the incident, and see my .apparatus as though it were actually before me. My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me.

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

But the whole arrangement of the so-called waterways, as pictured by Lowell, would seem to have been designed. Personally I base my faith on the feeble planetary electrical disturbances which I discovered in the summer of 1899, and which, according to my investigations, could not have originated from the sun, the moon, or Venus. Further study since has satisfied me that they must have emanated from Mars. All doubt in this regard will be soon dispelled.

(Source: tesla-coil-builder.com)

Nikola Tesla, 1909

Tesla’s proposed arrangement of balloon stations for transmitting electricity without wires.

“From the inception of the wireless system,” he says, “I saw that this new art of applied electricity would be of greater benefit to the human race than any other scientific discovery, for it virtually eliminates distance. The majority of the ills from which humanity suffers are due to the immense extent of the terrestrial globe and the inability of individuals and nations to come into close contact.

“Wireless will achieve the closer contact through transmission of intelligence, transport of our bodies and materials and conveyance of energy.

“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

“We shall be able to witness and hear events—the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle—just as though we were present.

“When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized. Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance. Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence. Pictures are transmitted over wires—they were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago. When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train.”

(Source: tfcbooks.com)

When he was eighty-one, Tesla challenged Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, announcing he was working on a dynamic theory of gravity and argued that a field of force was a better concept and did away with the curvature of space. Unfortunately the theory was never published, but Tesla may have been developing a theory about gravity waves. This theory provides a basis for plasma cosmology.

(Source: corrosion-doctors.org)

Upon Edison’s death, most of the remarks made in his epitaph were kind, save those from Tesla, who said of his former employer: “He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene.”

(Source: damninteresting.com)

March 16. Went to Auburn with S[achs] in am. E[sther] and Mr. Roope came out at 1 p.m. Tried rocket at 2.30. It rose 41 feet & went 184 feet, in 2.5 secs., after the lower half of the nozzle burned off. Brought materials to lab… .

March 17, 1926. The first flight with a rocket using liquid propellants was made yesterday at Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn… .

Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until it cleared the frame, and then at express train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate.

On this day I climbed a tall cherry tree at the back of the barn … and as I looked toward the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet. I have several photographs of the tree, taken since, with the little ladder I made to climb it, leaning against it.

It seemed to me then that a weight whirling around a horizontal shaft, moving more rapidly above than below, could furnish lift by virtue of the greater centrifugal force at the top of the path.

I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended. Existence at last seemed very purposive.

“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage”

Suppose (I’m following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you.  Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself.  There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

“Show me,” you say.  I lead you to my garage.  You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.

“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.

“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely.  “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.

“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”

Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”

You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

“Good idea, but she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.”  And so on.  I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.

Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?  If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?  Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.  Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.  What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.  The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head.  You’d wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me.  The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind.  But then, why am I taking it so seriously?  Maybe I need help.  At the least, maybe I’ve seriously underestimated human fallibility.  Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded.  So you don’t outright reject the notion that there’s a fire-breathing dragon in my garage.  You merely put it on hold.  Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you’re prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you.  Surely it’s unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative — merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of “not proved.”

Imagine that things had gone otherwise.  The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch.  Your infrared detector reads off-scale.  The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you.  No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons — to say nothing about invisible ones — you must now acknowledge that there’s something here, and that in a preliminary way it’s consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it’s not just me.  Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you’re pretty sure don’t know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages — but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive.  All of us admit we’re disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence.  None of us is a lunatic.  We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on.  I’d rather it not be true, I tell you.  But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren’t myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported.  But they’re never made when a skeptic is looking.  An alternative explanation presents itself.  On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked.  Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon’s fiery breath.  But again, other possibilities exist.  We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons.  Such “evidence” — no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it — is far from compelling.  Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

The Dragon In My Garage, by Carl Sagan

GEORGE SMITH: When you look at what he did during that time, it’s difficult to believe that any one human being carried out this amount of novel mathematical and mathematical physics research.

NARRATOR: Finally, he submitted a 500-page draft of his masterpiece, the Principia Mathematica, to the Royal Society for publication.

GALE CHRISTIANSON: It is the greatest book of science ever written, bar none. It is the most magnificent work, it is the most all-encompassing work, it is the most daring book of any scientific treatise ever written.

(Source: pbs.org)