Nikola Tesla - Free-Energy Devices

802 INVENTIONS OF NIKOLA TESLA.present, give me leave to so assume it would be my principalendeavor to impress these views upon their minds in this series ofexperiments.It might be sufficient for tins purpose to perform a simple andwell-known experiment. I might take a familiar appliance, aL3yden jar, charge it from a frictional machine, and then dischargeit. In explaining to you its permanent state when charged,and its transitory condition when discharging, calling your attentionto the forces which enter into play and to the various phenomenathey produce, and pointing out the relation of the forcesand phenomena, I might fully succeed in illustrating that modernidea. Xo doubt, to the thinker, this simple experiment wouldappeal as much as the most magnificent display. But this is tobe an experimental demonstration, and one which should possess,besides instructive, also entertaining features and as such, a simpleexperiment, such as the one cited, would not go very far towardsthe attainment of the lecturer's aim. I must therefore chooseanother way of illustrating, more spectacular certainly, but perhapsalso more instructive. Instead of the frictional machine andLeyden jar, I shall avail myself in these experiments, of an inductioncoil of peculiar properties, which was described in detail by mein a lecture before the London Institution of Electrical Engineers,in Feb., 1892. This induction coil is capable of yielding currents ofenormous potential differences, alternating with extreme rapidity."With this apparatus I shall endeavor to show you three distinctclasses of effects, or phenomena, and it is my desire that eachexperiment, while serving for the purposes of illustration, shouldat the same time teach us some novel truth, or show us somenovel aspect of this fascinating science. But before doing this,itseems proper and useful to dwell upon the apparatus employed,and method of obtaining the high potentials and high-frequencycurrents which are made use of in these experiments.ON THE APPARATUS AND METHOD OF CONVERSION.These high-frequency currents are obtained in a peculiar manner.The method employed was advanced by me about twoyears ago in an experimental lecture before the American Instituteof Electrical Engineers. A number of ways, as practiced inthe laboratory, of obtaining these currents either from continuousor low frequency alternating currents, is diagramatically indicatedin Fig. 165, which will be later described in detail. The general