Who was this unknown pioneer? Some people reckon that it was this astonishing visionary who invented wireless, remote control, robotics and a form of X-ray photography using high frequency radio waves. A patent which he took out in the U.S.A. in 1890 ultimately led to the design of the humble ignition coil which energises billions and billions of spark plugs in all the motor cars of the world. His American patents fill a book two inches thick. His name was Nicola Tesla (1856-1943).
Nicola Tesla was born in a small village in Croatia which at that time formed part of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it is a northern province of Yugoslavia, a state created after the 1914-1918 war. Tesla studied at the Graz Technical University and later in Budapest. Early in his studies he had the idea that a way had to be found to run electric motors directly from A.C. generators. His professor in Graz had assured him categorically that this was not possible. But young Tesla was not convinced. When he went to Budapest he got a job in the Central Telegraph Office, and one evening in 1882, as he was sitting on a bench in the City Park he had an inspiration which ultimately led to the solution of the problem.
Tesla remembered a poem by the German poet Goethe about the sun which supports life on the earth and when the day is over moves on to give life to the other side of the globe. He picked up a twig and began to scratch a drawing on the soil in front of him. He drew four coils arranged symmetrically round the circumference of a circle. In the centre he drew a rotor or armature. As each coil in turn was energised it attracted the rotor towards it and the rotary motion was established. When he constructed the first practical models he used eight, sixteen and even more coils. The simple drawing on the ground led to the design of the first induction motor driven directly by A.C.electricity.
Tesla emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1884. During the first year he filed no less than 30 patents mostly in relation to the generation and distribution of A.C. mains electricity. He designed and built his 'A.C. Polyphase System' which generated three-phase alternating current at 25 Hz. One particular unit delivered 422 amperes at 12,000 volts. The beauty of this system was that the voltage could be stepped down using transformers for local use, or stepped up to many thousands of volts for transmission over long distances through relatively thin conductors. Edison's generating stations were incapable of any such thing.
Tesla signed a lucrative contract with the famous railway engineer George Westinghouse, the inventor of the Westinghouse Air Brake which is used by most railways all over the world to the present day. Their generating station was put into service in 1895 and was called the Niagara Falls Electricity Generating Company. It supplied power for the Westinghouse network of trains and also for an industrial complex in Buffalo, New York.
After ten years Tesla began to experiment with high frequencies. The Tesla Coil which he had patented in 1890 was capable of raising voltages to unheard of levels such as 300,000 volts. Edison, who was still generating D.C., claimed A.C. was dangerous and to prove it contracted with the government to produce the first electric chair using A.C. for the execution of murderers condemned to death. When it was first used it was a ghastly flop. The condemned man moaned and groaned and foamed at the mouth. After four minutes of repeated application of the A.C.voltage smoke began to come out of his back. It was obvious that the victim had suffered a horribly drawn-out death.
Tesla said he could prove that A.C. was not dangerous. He gave a demonstration of high voltage electricity flowing harmlessly over his body. But in reality, he cheated, because he had used a frequency of 10,000 cycles (10 kHz) at extremely low current and because of the skin effect suffered no harm.
One of Tesla's patents related to a system of lighting using glass tubes filled with fluorine (not neon) excited by H.F.voltages. His workshop was lit by this method. Several years before Wilhelm Roentgen demonstrated his system of X-rays Tesla had been taking photographs of the bones in his hand and his foot from up to 40 feet away using H.F.currents.
More astonishing still is the fact that in 1893, two years before Marconi demonstrated his system of wireless signaling, Tesla had built a model boat in which he combined power to drive it with radio control and robotics. He put the small boat in a lake in Madison Square Gardens in New York. Standing on the shore with a control box, he invited onlookers to suggest movements. He was able to make the boat go forwards and backwards and round in circles. We all know how model cars and aircraft are controlled by radio today, but when Tesla did it a century ago the motor car had not been invented, and the only method by which man could cover long distances was on horseback!
Many people believe that a modification of Tesla's 'Magnifying Transmitter' was used by the Soviet Union when suddenly one day in October 1976 they produced an amazing noise which blotted out all radio transmissions between 6 and 20 MHz. (The Woodpecker) The B.B.C., the N.B.C. and most broadcasting and telecommunication organisations of the world complained to Moscow (the noise had persisted continuously for 10 hours on the first day), but all the Russians would say in reply was that they were carrying out an experiment. At first nobody seemed to know what they were doing because it was obviously not intended as another form of jamming of foreign broadcasts, an old Russian custom as we all know.