Nikola Tesla - Free-Energy Devices

HIGH FREQUENCY AND HIGH POTENTIAL CURRENTS. 175recoil circuit be used. These conditions make itappear that withthe apparatus usually at hand, the observation of powerful electrostaticeffects was impossible, and what experience has beengained in that direction is only due to the great ability of theinvestigators.But powerful electrostatic eifects are a sitw qua -non of lightproduction on the lines indicated by theory. Electro-magneticeifects are primarily unavailable, for the reason that to producethe required effects we would have to pass current impulsesthrough a conductor, which, long before the required frequencyof the impulses could be reached, would cease to transmit them.On the other hand, electro-magnetic waves many times longerthan those of light, and producible by sudden discharge of a condenser,could not be utilized, it would seem, except we avail ourselvesof their effect upon conductors as in the present methods,which are wasteful. We could not affect by means of such wavesthe static molecular or atomic charges of a gas, cause them to vibrateand to emit light.Long transverse waves cannot, apparently,produce such effects, since excessively small electro-magneticdisturbances may pass readily through miles of air. Such darkwaves, unless they are of the length of true light waves, cannot,it would seem, excite luminous radiation in a Geissler tube, andthe luminous effects, which are producible by induction in a tubedevoid of electrodes, I am inclined to consider as being of an electrostaticnature.To produce such luminous effects, straight electrostatic thrustsare required; these, whatever be their frequency, may disturbthe molecular charges and produce light. Since current impulsesof the required frequency cannot pass through a conductor ofmeasurabledimensions, we must work with a gas, and then theproduction of powerful electrostatic effects becomes an imperativenecessity.It has occurred to me, however, that electrostatic effects are inmany ways available for the production of light. For instance,we may place a body of some refractory material in a closed, andpreferably more or less exhausted, globe, connect it to a source ofhigh, rapidly alternating potential, causing the molecules of thegas to strike it many times a second at enormous speeds, and inthis manner, with trillions of invisible hammers,itpound until itgets incandescent or we; may place a body in a very highly exhaustedglobe,in a non-striking vacuum, and, by employing very