THE WONDERS OF WIRELESS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 321, 22 February 1910, Page 3

THE WONDERS OF WIRELESS

ENORMOUS I'USmUKATIES. tesla, the wizard, .makes a prophecy. (Sydney Morning Herald.) ISevv lork, j)eceniber 12. In the world of wireless achievement no name stands higher than that of Nikola Tesin, the famous inventor, who has his' office hi New 1 oik—an oil'iee that is guarded almost a» jealously as the palace of the Czar of Russia. A quiet, reserved man, and, withal, one of the busiest men iu all the world, he but rarely submits to tne demands of the interviewer. Armed, however, with a letter ironi a friend of his, I succeeded iu reaching him, and 1 found him greatly interested in Australia and New Zealand—so much so, indeed, that he hopes to visit those countries at no verv distant date in connection with a great electric scheme he is just perfeetTn2', and which promises to revolutionise life. He iias discussed his plans with Sir Joseph Ward in this city. The other day, in the New York Press, there was-published a statement that Tesla was perfecting a system whereby it would be possible to telephone "from New York, city to Melbourne by wireless''process without any change in the present installations made by the telegraph and telephone companies; and it was with a view to obtaining some' details of this wonderful invention that I called upon him—and he gave me the details of it, and greater wonders yet. What the world will be like in another twenty years, or even in a decade, if all this* man's' prophecies be fulfilled, is almost unbelievable. Tesla looks the wizard he is. He is remarkably tall and thin, and he has a loner, oval-shaped head, with jet-black hair and moustache slightly tinged with grey, and his eyes are small and dark, but wonderfully bright. He speaks with a pronounced foreign accent. His mother was a Montenegrin, his father was of French descent.

Tesla is planning to build a great electric power plant which will enable him to operate all the telephones, telegraphs, lighting, traction, and industrial systems of the earth by wireless currents. His plan also is'so far-reach-ing that it takes in the operation of all aeroplanes and dirigibles', jind the keeping of them in telegraphic and telephonic touch with the earth at all times by the same method, no matter over what part of the earth they may be sailing, or with what part of it they may desire to communicate. By this system, he says, all the wires that are now used to connect telegraph and telephone instruments and electric light 9 will Tie eliminated without changing in any degree the other features of the installations', and it will be easier then for a man in New York to step to a telephone and converse by wireless with a man in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, or Wellington than it now is for him to talk by wire across a room. Nor is this all. It will be possible for a man living in Australia or New Zealand to purchase a small electrical device, capable of being carried in his pocket, whereby he may provide his house with all the lighting it requires, the power being transmitted all the way from the United States. The price of this apparatus will be very small, and the cost of lighting with power derived from Niagara falls will be much less than what it costs your citizens for lighting at present. "For it only costs ten dollars per year to produce one-horse-power at Niagara," says Tesla.

ENORMOUS ENERGY,

"So enormous," he added, "is the energy we can develop by means of my system —and I may say that Marconi, De Forest, and other eminent men in the sphere of electrical science ;re wording on my system that it vould be possible to cause a tremendous itaclysm on the earth with it. This wer can be transmitted through the t-obe in extraordinarily quick time, and I can calculate to the millionth part exactly the amount of power that will be available at any portion of the earth. I have already been transmitting energy to the coast of Western Australia, and I know to a fraction of a second how long it takes to get there. All that will be necessary for the lighting of your cities, or to provide electric power for any other purpose, even for airships when you have them out there, will be the elation of an inexpensive apparatus whic&\would receive the power we would send from Niagara and the"a I distribute it.

"I know," said Tesla, "that there are a great many people —and I have no doubt a large number in your own country, where the marvellous strides made in the harnessing of wireless currents are not as fully appreciated as they are in this part of the world—who will consider my words as those of a visionary, but I am convinced that time will fully vindicate them. I have worked persistently on the wireless transmission of energy since 1893. In that year I presented a paper on the subject before the National 'Electric Light Association in St. Louis and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It is popularly supposed that the wireless system of transmission is simply one invention, whereas it involves in its present state of perfection six fundamental discoveries, or inventions, in combination." These hi stated as follow:—

(1) The method and apparatus for transforming ordinary currents into electrical oscillations of great intensity. (2) The apparatus for intensifying those vibrations immensely, so that -they penetrate into the distance. (3) A receiving apparatus which collects and focuses energy which a transmitter supplies to a large territory. For instance, if such receiver, properly constructed, bo placed in Ireland, it will collect practically the entire energy conveyed to that country from the transmitter.

(4) The method and apparatus for making the electric impulses secret and non-interferable—that is to say, making it impossible to prevent their passage or to read them. The energy of the transmitter, which is collected by the receiver, can only be released by a sort of safety lock or combination, (5) The production of stationary waves—that is', waves which excite the entire envth and piss through it under

a vibrntifin much the simp as thi>u»h you w-n to :li-iw p sti-i-io- tiwht and thou sri'-'e -I. YTHi, tliru-o \vnvps the distil"pp is absolutely eliminntpd. ns the effects are the same whether the re-

[ceiver is thousands' of miles away or close to the transmitter. (U) A number of inventions whidi cannot well be described in a short interview, but which go -together to make the system practically operative. NOT A THEORY, BUT A FACT. "As 1 told the representative of the New York Press," he continued, "it will be just as easy, with a plant constructed under the observance of these prin- I ciples, to telephone from here to Mel- | bourne as across a room, and there will be absolutely no distortion of the voice such as is now observable in communication by wire. It is no theory, this, but a'fact, absolutely demonstrated by my experiments. These show that the current passes without loss over the entire extent of the globe, and through the globe. Already I have carried the construction of such, an installation very far, and I hope that I shall be able to complete it during the coming summer. From that moment every telegraphic and telephonic, as well' as every wireless station, will be ever so much more valuable, as they will be able to receive messages' from any part of the world. All this will be doiie without the slightest change in the existing equipment." Asked if it would be necessary under his plan to build high towers on the shores' of the countries using it, and also in the interior, Tesla replied: "Not at all. The fact is that large towers are comparatively ineffective. That i which I have built near Port Jefferson, L.1., is only ISTft high, but the plant will produce an effect which can he pushed up to a rate of not less than 1.000,000,000 horse-power, which is more tlian"all the wireless plants that have been put up so far all together. V secured this' enormous activity by the use of certain artifices, on which I have also based my confidence that it will be possible to flash signals through interplanetary space. A visionary, of course —until I do it. "Now, I do not call all these inventions mine. I have simply laid the foundation. In the perfecting of my inventions great work has been clone by the engineering staff of the Wes'tinghouse and General Electric Companies. So that at the present time there are hundreds of millions invested in enterprises in which my alternating system forms the underlying foundation. We have harnessed 6,000,000 horse-power waterfalls, and there are probably enterprises aggregating 20,000,000 more under consideration. When you bear in mind that one horse-power for twenty-four hours is equivalent to the average performance of twentyfour- men, you will realise the enormous importance of this water-power. To put it another way—the 6,000,000 horse-power wTSich we have harnessed has virtually added to the jwQrld's papulation from the point of | view of labor 144,000,000 of wurk.-ng | men who consume no food and need no clothes."' TESLA'S AIRSHIP. | Tesla then went on to refer to air- ! ships. One single plant, say, of 10,000 j horse-power, would, he said, suffice to drive several thousand flying-machines, 'aeroplanes, and dirigibles, anywhere in i the world. While supplying taem with i wireless power, it would also keep them in constant touch with the earth by j wireless telegraph and telephone. "Of I course," he said, "I have always 1 conI sidered aa the best solution of the ! problem of aerial flight the wireless l transmission of power, because it dis j penses with the necessity of carrying a ; heavy store of fuel, and makes the , cruising radius anything one likes. The only limitation would be the carrying 1 of food and provisions. I have perfected n. new scheme, purely mechanical, which i ••iftve possesses very great advantages over anything that has been done heretofore. I have produced a new kind of engine of great lightness and extraordinary simplicity, and have evolved new devices for lifting and propelling. A machine on thes'e new principles I have been designing during the past year, and I expect to begin construction very shortly. My machine will present absolutely no similarity to any machine 'at present in existence. It will be exjtremely small and perfectly reliable. ' There will be less danger in flying by i means of this machine than there is in I riding on an automobile, and it will re- | quire no skill or training such as' the I present aeroplanes do. Every proposition involved in this new flying-machine has been demonstrated by me in actual experiments, so that the design is now a very simple matter." "How much weight will it carry?" "Any weight you like. It is simply a question of size; and my -machines' will be so powerful for their iiize that even machines of great power will be small. It will be possible by the use of this new engine of mine to develop, say, (five horse-power for each lib of weight, I. while the best of the present engines I weigh something like iy g lb to 21b pel I horse-power."

SIGNALS TO MARS. Referring to interplanetary communication, Tesla said that in his experiments in Colerado, where he discovered certain planetary disturbances, he attained with his transmitter activities which surpassed in power in inar.y ways those of lightning. "In my present plant," he went on, "I shall be able to reach a rate of energy deliver;.- of about 1,000,000,000 horse-power. A simple calculation will convince any expert that such an intensity and energy reaching a certain area of the planet Mars is ample to produce a perceptible effect in a delicate instrument tlieve. Of course, we have not yet demonstrated in an absolutely certain manner that there is life on Mars, but Professor Lowell has conclusively shown that the conditions are favorable to the maintenance of some kind of life. Personally, my conviction is' strong that certain signals that I detected while experimenting with my wireless plant in Colerado in 1899 could not hr-j emanated from any other planet exc:- t Mars. My reasons are too technical to explain them popularly, but wher taken altogether they are very convincing. At any rate, w r e shall soon hn' e an instrument in operation on this globe with which it will be possible to flash a signal to Mars, and we certainly are able to take their signals if they, on the other hand, have perfected a similar scheme. I think I they are flashing already, and are waiting for us to answer their signals."

Tesla is convinced that Mars is inhabited by a race of people quite as intelligent as the people, of the earth, if not more so. "Man is not the only being in the Infinite gifted with a mind," he savs.

WONDERFUL FUTURE BEFORE US.

In conclusion, Tesla painted a picture

' of the future. "Man," said he, "is Irit ■just beginning to realise himself, but it would st.iyger the average man if I | woe to give nim a picture of the eartr 'as 1 see it ten, twenty, ami thirty years h.-iH-e. Tin v part that electricity is going to play in 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 I transmission of electrical energy without wires became a rational task of the engineer, and one surpassing all others iu importance. Its practical cor.suni'.mition means that energy will be available for the uses of man at any pom: of the globe, not in small amounts sucn as might be derived from the ambient medium by suitable machinery, but in quantities virtually unlimited, from waterfalls. Export of power will become the clmi 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 filter abode for 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. i "A ship containing an electric circuit adjusted or 'timed' exactly to electrical vibrations of the proper kind transmitted to it from a distant 'electrical oscillator' 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 Jiorse-power, 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 cables, and at incomparably 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." i ~