Nikola Tesla - Free-Energy Devices

HIGH FREQUENCY AND HIGH POTENTIAL VUlillENTt*. 179But it is likewise possible that we have to deal here with anincreased facility of losing the charge in very high vacuum, whenthe potential is rapidly alternating, in which case most of theheating would be directly due to the surging of the charges inthe heated bodies. Or else the observed fact may be largelyattributable to the effect of the points which I have mentionedabove, in consequence of which the blocks or filaments containedin the vacuum are equivalent to condensers of many timesgreater surface than that calculated from their geometrical dimension^.Scientific men still differ in opinion as to whether acharge should, or should not, be lost in a perfect vacuum, or inother words, whether ether or is, is not, a conductor. If theFIG. 116. FIG. 117.former were the case, then a thin filament enclosed in a perfectlyexhausted globe, and connected to a source of enormous, steadypotential, would be brought to incandescence.Various forms of lamps on the above described principle, withthe refractory bodies in the form of filaments, Fig. 116, or blocks,Fig. 117, have been constructed and operated by me, and investigationsare being carried on in this line. There is no difficulty inreaching such high degrees of incandescence that ordinary carbonis to all appearance melted and volatilized. If the vacuumcould be made absolutely perfect, such a lamp, although inoperativewith apparatus ordinarily used, would, if operated with cur-