the fantastic inventions of nikola tesla - Exopolitics Hong Kong

I could excite vacuum tubes at considerable distance from a conductor connected to a properly constructed coil, and
that I could, by converting the oscillatory current of a condenser to a higher potential, establish electrostatic
alternating fields which acted through the whole extent of a room, lighting up a tube no matter where it was held in
space. I thought I recognized that I had made a step in advance, and I have persevered in this line; but I wish to say
that I share with all lovers of science and progress the one and only desire—to reach a result of utility to men in any
direction to which thought or experiment may lead me. I think that this departure is the right one, for I cannot see,
from the observation of the phenomena which manifest themselves as the frequency is increased, what there would
remain to act between two circuits conveying, for instance, impulses of several hundred millions per second, except
electrostatic forces. Even with such trifling frequencies the energy would be practically all potential, and my
conviction has grown strong that, to whatever kind of motion light may be due, it is produced by tremendous
electrostatic stresses vibrating with extreme rapidity.
Of all these phenomena observed with currents, or electric impulses, of high frequency, the most fascinating for an
audience are certainly those which are noted in an electrostatic field acting through considerable distance, and the
best an unskilled lecturer can do is to begin and finish with the exhibition of these singular effects. I take a tube in
the hand and move it about, and it is lighted wherever I may hold it; throughout space the invisible forces act. But I
may take another tube and it might not light, the vacuum being very high. I excite it by means of a disruptive
discharge coil, and now it will light in the electrostatic field. I may put it away for a few weeks or months, still it
retains the faculty of being excited. What change have I produced in the tube in the act of exciting it? If a motion
imparted to the atoms, it is difficult to perceive how it can persist so long without being arrested by frictional losses
; and if a strain exerted in the dielectric, such as a simple electrification would produce, it is easy to see how it may
persist indefinitely, but very difficult to understand why such a condition should aid the excitation when we have to
deal with potentials which are rapidly alternating. Since I have exhibited these phenomena for the first time, I have
obtained some other interesting effects. For instance, I have produced the incandescence of a button, filament, or
wire enclosed in a tube. To get to this result it was necessary to economize the energy which is obtained from the
field and direct most of it on the small body to be rendered incandescent. At the beginning the task appeared
difficult, but the experiences gathered permitted me to reach the result easily. In Fig. 34 and Fig. 35 two such tubes
are illustrated which are prepared for the occasion. In Fig. 34 a short tube T1, sealed to another long tube T, is provided
with a stem s, with a platinum wire sealed in the latter. A very thin lamp filament I is fastened to this wire,
and connection to the outside is made through a thin copper wire w. The tube is provided with outside and inside
coatings. C and d respectively, and is filled as far as the coatings reach with conducting, and the space above with
insulating powder. These coatings are merely used to enable me to perform two experiments with the tube—
namely, to produce the effect desired either by direct connection of the body of the experimenter or of another body
to the wire w, or by acting inductively through the glass. The stem a is provided with an aluminium tube a, for purposes
before explained, and only a small part of the filament reaches out of this tube. By holding the tube T1 anywhere
in the electrostatic field the filament is rendered incandescent.
A more interesting piece of apparatus is illustrated in Fig. 35. The construction is the same as before, only instead
of the lamp filament a small platinum wire p, sealed in a stem s, and bent above it in a circle, is connected to the
copper wire to, which is joined to an inside coating C A small stem st is provided with a needle, on the point of
which is arranged to rotate very freely a very light fan of mica v. To prevent the fan from falling out, a thin stem of
glass g is bent properly and fastened to the aluminium tube. When the glass tube is held anywhere in the
electrostatic field the platinum wire becomes incandescent, and the mica vanes are rotated very fast.
Intense phosphorescence may be excited in a bulb by merely connecting it to a plate within the field, and the plate
need not be any larger than an ordinary lamp shade. The phosphorescence excited with these currents is incomparably
more powerful than with ordinary apparatus. A small phosphorescent bulb, when attached to a wire connected
to a coil, emits sufficient light to allow reading ordinary print at a distance of five to six paces. It was of
interest to see how some of the phosphorescent bulbs of Professor Crookes would behave with these currents, and
he has had the kindness to lend me a few for the occasion. The effects produced are magnificent, especially by the
sulphide of calcium and sulphide of zinc. From the disruptive discharge coil they glow intensely merely by holding
them in the hand and connecting the body to the terminal of the coil.
To whatever results investigations of this kind may lead, their chief interest lies for the present in the possibilities
they offer for the production of an efficient illuminating device. In no branch of electric industry is an advance
more desired than in the manufacture of light. Every thinker, when considering the barbarous methods employed,
the deplorable losses incurred in our best systems of light production, must have asked himself, What is likely to be
the light of the future? Is it to be an incandescent solid, as in the present lamp, or an incandescent gas, or a
phosphorescent body, or something like a burner, but incomparably more efficient?