WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 812, 15 February 1910, Page 4

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

INTER-PLANETARY COMMUNICATION.

TESLA’S BELIEF

Referring to inter-planetary communication, Tesla, the great inventor, said that in his experiments in Colorado, where he discovered certain planetary disturbances, he attained with his transmitter activities which surpassed in power in many ways those of lightning. “ In ray pre-ent plant,” he went on, ” I shall be able to reach a rate of energy delivery of about i ,000,000,000 hoise power. A simple calculation will convince any expert that such an intensity of energy reaching a certain area of the planet Mars is ample to produce a perceptible effect in a delicate instrument there. Personally, my conviction is strong that certain signals which I detected while experimenting with my wireless plant in Colorado in 1899 could not have emanated from any other planet except Mars. I think they are flashing, and are waiting for us to answer their signals.” In conclusion, Telsa painted a picture of the future. ‘‘ Man,” said he, “is just beginning to realise himselt, but it would stagger the average man if I were to give him a picture of the earth as I see it ten, twenty, and thirty years hence. The part that electricity is going to play iu human activities is simply enormous. From that moment when it was observed that, contrary to the established opinion, low and easily accessible strata of the atmosphere are capable of conducting electricity, the transmission of electrical energy without wires became a rational task of the engineer, and oue surpassing all others in importance. Its practical consummation that energy will be available for the uses of man at any point of the globe, not in small amounts, such as might be derived from the ambient medium by suitable machinery, but in quantities virtually unlimited, from waterfalls. Export of power will become the chief source of income for many happily-situated countries as the United States, Canada, Central and South America, Sweden, Switzerland, and New Zealand. Men will be able to settle down everywhere, fertilise and irrigate the soil with little effort, and convert barren deserts into gardens, and thus the entire globe can be transformed and made a fitter abode of mankind. It is highly probable that if there are, as I believe, intelligent beings on Mars, they have long ago realised this very idea, which would explain the changes on its surface noted by astronomers. “ A ship containing an electric circuit, adjusted or * tuned ’ exactly to electrical vibrations of the proper kind transmitted to it from a distant electrical oscilator, may be propelled and steered without any human agency, save that necessary to work the distant plant, I have produced electric oscillations, which were of such intensity that when circulating through my arms and chest, they melted wires which joined my hands, and still I felt no inconvenience. Some years ago I intimated my willingness to transmit through my body, with very rapidly vibrating electric currents, the entire electrical energy of the dynamos working at Niagara, then amounting to 50,000 horsepower, a power that has been greatly increased since then.”

“Not only is communication to any distance without wires possible —there is every reason to anticipate that most telegraphic messages across the oceans will be soon transmitted without cable, and at comparatively less expense than is now possible —but also the burning of the atmospheric nitrogen, the production of an efficient illuminant, and many other results of inestimable scientific and industrial value. But the world moves slowly, and new truths are difficult to see.’" —Exchange.