TESLA, THE WONDER WORKER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 107, 13 January 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

TESLA, THE WONDER WORKER.

ENGINEERING DREAM OF POWER REALISED.

T(in horse-power from a tiny engihe that a man could dangle from his little finger by a string! Five hundred horse-power in a package that a man could lift easily in one hand!

A thousand horse-power motor occupying hardly more space than the cardboard box in which your hatter sent your new hat home!

Marvellous! Wait until you hear the rest of it.

Suppose someone should discover a new mechanical principle—something as fundamental as Watt's discovery of the expansive power of steam—by the use of which it became possible to build a motor that would give ten horse-power for every pound of the engine's weight, a motor so simple that the veriest novice in mechanics could construct it, and so, elemental that it could not possibly get out of repair. Then suppose that this motor could be run forward or backward at will, that it could be used as either an engine or a pump, that it cost almost nothing to build as compared with any other known form of engine, that it utilised a larger percentage of the available power than any existing machine, and, finally, that it would operate with gas, steam, compressed air, or water, any one of them as its driving power. It does not take a mechanical expert to imagine THE LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES of such an engine. It takes very little effort to conjure up a picture of a new world of industry and transportation made possible by the invention of such a device. "Revolutionary" seems a mild term to apply to it. That, however, is the word the inventor uses in describing it—Nikola Tesla, the scientist whose electrical discoveries underlie all modern electrical power development, whose experiments and deductions made the wireless telegraph possible, and who now, in the mechanical field, has achieved a triumph even more far-reaching than anything accomplished in electricity. "I have accomplished what mechanical engineers have been dreaming about ever since the invention of steam power," says Dr. Tesla. "That is the perfect rotary engine. It happens that I have also produced an engine which will give at least twenty-five times as much power to a pound of weight as the lightest weight engine of any kind that has yet been produced. "In doing this I have made use of two properties which have always been known to be possessed by all fluids, but which have not heretofore been utilised. These properties are adhesion and viscosity. "Put a drop of water an a metal plate. The drop will roll off, but a certain amount of water will remain on the plate until it evaporates or is removed; by some absorptive means. The metal does not absorb any of the water, but the water adheres to it. The drop of water may change its shape, but until its particles are separated by some external power it remains intact. This tendency of all fluids to resist molecular separation is viscosity. It is especially noticeable in the heavier oils.

"It is these properties of adhesion and viscosity that cause the 'skin friction' that impedes a ship in its progress through the water or an aeroplane in going through the air. All fluids have these qualities—and you must keep in mind that air is a fluid, all gases are fluids, steam is fluid.

"Every known means of transmitting or developing power is through a fluid medium.

"Now, suppose we make this metal plate that I have spoken of circular in shape and mount it at its centre on a shaft, so that it can be revolved. Apply power to rotate the shaft, and what happens Now, whatever fluid the diw happens to be revolving in is agitated and dragged along in the direction of rotation, because the fluid tends to adhere to the disc and the viscosity causes the motion given to the adhering particles of the fluid to be transmitted to the whole mass." To illustrate this Dr. Tesla showed a small electric motor, and mounted on the shaft Were half a dozen flat discs, separated by perhaps a sixteenth of an inch from one another, each disc being less than that in thickness. He turned a switch and the motor began to buzz. A wave of cool air was immediately felt. "There we have a disc, or rather a series of discs, revolving in a fluid—the air," said the inventor. "You need no proof to tell you that the air is being agitated and propelled violently. If you will hold your hand over the centre of the discs—you see the centres have been cut away—you will feel the suction as air is drawn in to be expelled from the peripheries of the discs. "Now, suppose these revolving discs were enclosed in an air-tight case, so, constructed that the air could enter only at one point and be expelled only at another—we have then an air pump or a blower." At one side of another room was what seemed to be a zinc or aluminium tank, divided into two sections, one) above the other, while a pipe that ran along the wall above the upper division of the tank was connected with a little i aluminium case about the size and shape of a small alarm clock. A TINY ELECTRIC MOTOR was attached to a shaft that protruded from one side of the aluminium case. The lower division of the tank was filled with water. "Inside of this alumiuim case are several discs mounted on a shaft and immersed in a fluid, water," said Dr. Tesla. "From this lower tank the water has free access to the case enclosing the discs. This pipe leads from the periphery of the case. I turn the current on, the motor turns the discs, and as I open this valve in the pipe the water flows." He turned on the valve, and the water certainly did flow. Instantly a stream that would have filled a barrel in a very few minutes began to run out of the pipe into the upper part of the tank, and thence into the lower tank.

"This is only a top," said Dr. Tesla. "There are only half-a-dozen discs — 'runners,' I call them—each less than three inches in diameter, inside of that case. They are just like the discs shown on the first motor—no vanes, blades, or attachments of any kind. Just perfectly smooth, flat discs revolving, in their own planes, and pumping water because of the viscosity and adhesion of the fluid. One such pump, now in operation, with eight discs, eighteen indies in diameter, pumps four thousand gallons a minute to a heigh of 360 feet. "Suppose now we reversed the operation," continued the inventor. "You have seen the discs acting as a pump. Suppose we had water, or air pressure, or steam under pressure, or gas under pressure, and let it run into the case in which the discs are contained—what would happen? The discs would revolve, and any machinery attached to the shaft would be operated—you would convert the pump into an engine. "It is an engine that does all that engineers ever dream of an engine doing, and more. I have had a number of such engines in operation. In one of them the discs are only nine inches in diameter, and the whole working part is

two inches thick. With steam as the propulsive fluid it develops 100 horsepower, and could do twice a* much. I have an engine that will give 10 horse, power to the pound of weight. That is twenty-five times as powerful as the lightest weight engine in use to-day. The lightest gas engine used on aeroplanes weighs two and one-half pounds to the horse-power. With two and one-half pounds of weight I can develop 25 horse, power."