the fantastic inventions of nikola tesla - Exopolitics Hong Kong

Fig 34. – TUBE WITH FILAMENT
RENDERED INCADESCENT IN AN
ELECTROSTATIC FIELD
Fig. 35. – CROOKES’ EXPERIMENT IN
ELECTROSTATIC FIELD
There is little chance to perfect a gas burner; not, perhaps, because human ingenuity has been bent upon that
problem for centuries without a radical departure having been made—though this argument is not devoid of
force— but because in a burner the higher vibrations can never be reached except by passing through all the low
ones. For how is a flame produced unless by a fall of lifted weights.? Such process cannot be maintained without
renewal, and renewal is repeated passing from low to high vibrations. One way only seems to be open to improve a
burner, and that n by trying to reach higher degrees of incandescence. Higher incandescence is equivalent to a
quicker vibration that means more light from the same material, and that again, means more economy. In this
direction some improvements have been made, but the progress is hampered by many limitations. Discarding, then,
the burner, there remain the three ways first mentioned, which are essentially electrical.
Suppose the light of the immediate future to be a solid rendered incandescent by electricity. Would it not seem that
it is better to employ a small button than a frail filament? From many considerations it certainly must be concluded
that a button is capable of a higher economy, assuming, of course, the difficulties connected with the operation of
such a lamp to be effectively overcome. But to light such a lamp we require a high potential and to get this
economically we must use high frequencies.
Such considerations apply even more to the production of light by the incandescence of a gas, or by phosphorescence.
In all cases we require high frequencies and high potentials. These thoughts occurred to me a long time ago.
Incidentally we gain, by the use of very high frequencies, many advantages, such as a higher economy in the light
production, the possibility of working with one lead, the possibility of doing away with the leading-in wire, etc.
The question is, how far can we go with frequencies? Ordinary conductors rapidly lose the facility of transmitting
electric impulses when the frequency is greatly increased. Assume the means for the production of impulses of very
great frequency brought to the utmost perfection, every one will naturally ask how to transmit them when the
necessity arises. In transmitting such impulses through conductors we must remember that we have to deal with
pressure and flow, in the ordinary interpretation of these terms. Let the pressure increase to an enormous value, and
let the flow correspondingly diminish, then such impulses—variations merely of pressure, as it were—can no doubt
be transmitted through a wire even if their frequency be many hundreds of millions per second. It would, of course,
be out of question to transmit such impulses through a wire immersed in a gaseous medium, even if the wire were
provided with a thick and excellent insulation for most of the energy would be lost in molecular bombardment and
consequent heating. The end of the wire connected to the source would be heated, and the remote end would
receive but a trifling part of the energy supplied. The prime necessity, then, if such electric impulses are to be used,
is to find means to reduce as much as possible the dissipation.