Nikola Tesla - Free-Energy Devices

120 INVENTIONS OF NIKOLA TKSLA.leading ideas and experiments can here be touched upon besides,;it is preferable that the lectures should be carefully gone over fortheir own sake, itbeing more than likely that each student willdiscover a new beauty or stimulus in them. Taking up thecourseof reasoning followed by Mr. Tesla in his first lecture, itwill be noted that he started out with the recognitionof the fact,which he has now experimentally demonstrated, that for the productionof light waves, primarily,electrostatic effects must be_^Jjrought into play, and continuedjrtudy has led him tpjtheLOpinionthat_all electrical and magnetic effects may be referred to ek-ctrostajtic_irLolecular _ forces. This opinion finds a singular confirmationin one of the most striking experiments which hedescribes, namely, the production of a veritable flame by theagitation of electrostatically chargedmolecules. It is of thehighest interest to observe that this result points out a way ofobtaining a flame which consumes no material and in which nochemical action whatever takes place. It also throws a light onthe nature of the ordinary flame, which Mr. Tesla believes to bedue to electrostatic molecular actions, which, if true, would leaddirectly to the idea that even chemical affinities might be electrostaticin their nature and that, as has already been suggested,molecular forces in general may be referable to one and the samecause. This singular phenomenon accounts in a plausible mannerfor the unexplained fact that buildings are frequently set onfire during thunder storms with'out having been at all struck by-\v lightning. Itmay also explain the total disappearance of shipsat sea.One of the striking proofs of the correctness of the ideas advancedby Mr. Tesla is the fact that, notwithstanding the employmentof the most powerful electromagnetic inductive effects, but.feeble luminosity is obtainable, and this only in close proximityto the source of disturbance; whereas, when the electrostaticeffectsare intensified, the same initial energy suffices to exciteluminosity at considerable distances from the source. That thereare only electrostatic effects active seems to be clearly proved byMr. Tesla's experiments with an induction coil operated withalternating currents of very high frequency. He shows howtubes may be made to glow brilliantlyat considerable distancesfrom any object when placed in a powerful, rapidly alternating,electrostatic field, and he describes many interesting phenomenaobserved in such a field. His experiments open up the possibility