Such are the almost inconceivable inventions of Nikola Tesla. "Sometimes they call me a dreamer," says Tesla, "because I do not capitalize these inventions, start in manufacturing and make a big fortune. That is not what I care to do. I want to go further in this great mystery of wireless power, and if I am busy making money I cannot devote my best abilities to inventions that will be in use when the next generation is grown."
But let us try to fathom the mysteries of Tesla's scheme for the transmission of electric energy without wires. In the first place we must not try to think of it as being on the same basis as the radio, or Hertzian wireless telegraph, for, although the modern developments of the wireless telegraph take into consideration the central theory of Tesla's invention, they are not at all the same in their practical working.
Tesla's theory is based entirely on his discovery of what he calls stationary electrical earth waves which he sets in motion with his high potential magnifying transmitter, an electrical apparatus of tremendous power.
First, let us remember the three essential departments of Tesla's idea for world telegraphy, world telephony, and world transmission of power for commercial purposes.
Assuming that the power is created by Niagara or some other great waterfall—"white coal" as it is picturesquely called by many engineers—the first necessities are a transformer and a transmitter that will send the electrical energy, thus gathered, into the earth and air. The next necessity is a receiving instrument that will record the impulse, whether it be a voice, a telegraph click, or several million volts for driving factory wheels or lighting houses. Lastly, it is necessary to tune the currents so that millions of different impulses can be sent without causing confusion between them. In other words, there must be departments for sending, receiving and "individualizing."
To ask Doctor Tesla to tell us the whole story of this invention would be to ask him to tell us in detail the whole history of his life work—and that would take several volumes, for he is one of those men who have worked incessantly, day and night, sacrificing himself and overcoming his natural desire for leisure and amusement. It all started, Tesla explains, when he was a very small boy. He was troubled at that time with a strange habit. Whenever any one would mention a thing to him, a vision of the object immediately would come before his eyes. He declares that this was very troublesome, and that as he grew older he tried to overcome it, thinking it some strange malady. With an effort he learned how to banish the images by putting them from his mind. On inquiring into the cause of the visions, the young scientist's penetrating brain brought him to the conclusion that every time he saw a vision, some time previous he had seen something to remind him of the object. The tracing back of the cause of his vision so frequently caused it to become a mental habit, and he declares that for many years he has done it automatically, and that he has been able to trace the cause of nearly every impression, even including his dreams. Reflecting on these things, as a mature scientist, Tesla came to the conclusion that he was an automaton, responding automatically to impressions registered on his senses from the outside.
"Why couldn't I make a mechanical automaton that would represent me in every way, except thought?" he asked himself. The answer to the question which came only after years of study and experiment was the art of "telautomatics," which Tesla declares can be developed just as soon as the wireless transmission of power is an accomplished fact.
In the course of his research into the realm of high tension currents Tesla reached the stage where it was no longer safe nor convenient to experiment in the centres of population. Moreover, he desired to make a study of the action of lightning. Colorado, with its vast stretches of uninhabited plains and mountains, offered an ideal place for his laboratory, particularly because the high, dry climate of that state brings forth some of the worst electrical storms seen in the United States. Consequently, in the spring of 1899, Tesla built an experiment station on the plateau that extends from the front range of the Rocky Mountains to Colorado Springs, and began the experiments through which the secret with which he hopes to revolutionize the communication and transportation systems of the world, was revealed to him.
Besides his high power alternating current dynamo, Tesla set up an electrical oscillator with which he hoped to send out electrical waves, through the earth and air, that would prove to him the possibility of an extensive system of wireless communication, and telautomatic, or wireless control of airships, projectiles, steamships, etc. In his early experiments he used the oscillator at low tension, but as his success became more marked he increased the tension, until the oscillator was giving twelve million volts, and the current was alternating a hundred thousand times a second.
In regard to these high tension experiments in Colorado and elsewhere, Doctor Tesla said, "I have produced electrical oscillations which were of such intensity that when circulating through my arms and chest they have melted wires which have joined my hands, and still I have felt no inconvenience. I have energized, with such oscillations, a loop of heavy copper wire so powerfully that masses of metal placed within the loop were heated to a high temperature and melted, often with the violence of an explosion. And yet, into this space in which this terribly destructive turmoil was going on I have repeatedly thrust my head without feeling anything or experiencing injurious after effects."