Nikola Tesla - Free-Energy Devices

174 INVENTIONS OF NIKOLA TESLA.by able pioneers. Many have been carried away by the enthusiasmand passion to discover, but in their zeal to reach results, somehave been misled. Starting with the idea of producing electromagneticwaves, they turned their attention, perhaps, too muchto the study of electro-magnetic effects, and neglected the studyof electrostatic phenomena. Naturally, nearly every investigatoravailed himself of an apparatus similar to that used in earlierexperiments. But in those forms of apparatus, while the electromagneticinductive effects are enormous, the electrostatic effectsare excessively small.In the Hertz experiments, for instance, a high tension inductioncoil is short circuited by an arc, the resistance of which isvery small, the smaller, the more capacity is attached to the terminals;and the difference of potential at these isenormouslydiminished.On the other hand, when the discharge is not passingbetween the terminals, the static effects may be considerable,but only qualitatively so, not quantitatively, since their rise andfall is very sudden, and since their frequencyis small.In neithercase, therefore, are powerful electrostatic effects perceivable.Similar conditions exist when, as in some interesting experimentsof Dr. Lodge, Ley den jars are discharged disruptively.It hasbeen thought and I believe asserted that in such casesmost of the energyis radiated into space. In the light of theexperiments which I have described above, it will now not bethought so. I feel safe in asserting that in such cases 'most ofthe energy is partly taken up and converted into heat in the arcof the discharge and in the conducting and insulating material ofthe jar,some energy being, of course, given off by electrificationof the air ;but the amount of the directly radiated energy is verysmall.When a high tension induction coil, operated by currents alternatingonly 20,000 times a second, has its terminals closed througheven a very small jar, practically all the energy passes throughthe dielectric of the jar,which is heated, and the electrostaticeffects manifest themselves outwardly only to a very weak degree.Now the external circuit of a Leyden jar, that is,the arc and theconnections of the coatings, may be looked upon as a circuit generatingalternating currents of excessively high frequency andfairly high potential, which is closed through the coatings andthe dielectric between them, and from the above it is evidentthat the external electrostatic effects must be very small, even if a