10
THE ROYAL SOCIETY (1892)

The lecture given by Mr. Tesla…will live long in the imagination of every person…that heard him, opening as it did, to many of them, for the first time, apparently limitless possibilities in the applications and control of electricity. Seldom has there been such a gathering of all the foremost electrical authorities of the day, on the tiptoe of expectation.

ELECTRICAL REVIEW1

The rapid progress in the field of electromagnetic radiation, opened up by the findings of Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and especially Hertz, induced in Tesla a mania to complete as many patents as he could. Summoning his prodigious powers of self-denial, depriving himself of sleep, and exerting the full potential of his will, Tesla unfurled his creations as fast as he could. It was at this time that the grand vision arose of wireless transmission of electrical power, and he simply abhorred the thought that someone else should invent it before he could. Thus, he began to build ever more powerful coils while at the same time continuing his numerous experiments in high-intensity lighting, ozone production, converting AC to DC, and wireless communication.

In February 1891, Tesla applied for the first of three portentous patents for the conversion and distribution of electrical energy.2 This invention, which was finalized after his return from Europe, was the mechanical oscillator, a completely unique, multipurpose device. Unlike the Hertz spark-gap apparatus, which produced slow, rhythmic discharges, the Tesla oscillator supplied a smooth, continuous current which could not only generate hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of volts but could also be tuned to specific frequencies. Over his lifetime, Tesla said, “I developed not less than fifty types of these transformers…each complete in every detail.”3

The device was, in essence, a small engine, with almost no moving parts. The “work-performing piston was not connected with anything else but was perfectly free to vibrate at an enormous rate. In this machine,” Tesla proclaimed, “I succeeded in doing away with all packings, valves and lubrication [although the utilization of oil was intrinsic to its design.]…By combining this engine with a dynamo…I produced a highly efficient generator…[which propagated] an unvarying rate of oscillation.”4 Since the current was so “absolutely steady and uniform…one could keep the time of day with the machine.”5 In fact, the inventor also used the oscillator as a clock.

In June 1891, Tesla came upon an article by Prof. J. J. Thomson. This British scientist, whose work would lead him to a Nobel Prize as the discoverer of the electron, was in the process of directing electrical beams from cathode-ray tubes so as to study the structure of electromagnetic energy. These investigations prompted a vigorous exchange in the electrical journals between these two men6 and inspired Tesla to “return with renewed zeal to my own experiments. Soon my efforts were centered upon producing in a small space the most intense inductive action.”7 Tesla would describe these exciting results to Thomson in person, six months later, during the lectures he gave in London.

That same year, Tesla took out two more patents on AC motors which he owed Westinghouse; he also took out a patent on an electrical meter and a condenser, and two on incandescent lighting.

On January 8, 1892, T. C. Martin, Josh Wetzler, and George Sheep sent Tesla an invitation “to dine, and spend an evening…before your journey to Europe.”8 Tesla’s glass blower, David Hiergesell, provided all of the tubes necessary for the trip. Sailing on the sixteenth, Tesla arrived in London on the twenty-sixth. Sir William Preece provided a horse and carriage for the young inventor and invited Tesla to stay at his house.9 Tesla’s plan was to speak before the Institution of Electrical Engineers a week later “and leave immediately for Paris” to lecture before the Société Française des Electriciens.

It must have been gratifying that Preece took an interest, as he was part of the old guard. Twenty-two years Tesla’s senior and one of the patriarchs of the British scientific community, Preece was an amiable gentleman, with a full rich beard, high forehead, wire-rimmed glasses, and an air of self-assurance. As head of the government’s Postal Telegraph Office, Preece had worked with telegraphy as far back as 1860 and had brought Bell’s telephone, along with Bell himself, to the British Isles in the mid-1870s. He had also been associated with Edison since 1877, having coined the term “Edison effect” after visiting the wizard in 1884 to study his work with vacuum lamps and a peculiar “effect” whereby electronic particles flowed through space from the negative pole to the positive. Using this device as a voltage regulator Preece returned to England to show his colleagues, especialy Ambrose Fleming.10

After a few days of enjoyable company and a tour of London, Tesla relaxed, and on Wednesday, February 3, his discourse, entitled Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency, was presented.

“For a full two hours, Mr. Tesla kept his audience spellbound. Before such colleagues as J. J. Thomson, Oliver Heaviside, Silvanus P. Thompson, Joseph Swan, Sir John Ambrose Fleming, Sir James Dewar, Sir William Preece, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, and Lord Kelvin, Tesla proclaimed the driving force of his motivation: ‘Is there, I ask, can there be, a more interesting study than that of alternating current?’…We observe how th[is] energy…tak[es] the many forms of heat, light, mechanical energy, and…even chemical affinity…All of these observations fascinate us…Each day we go to our work…in the hope that someone, no matter who, may find a solution [to] one of the pending problems,—and each succeeding day we return to our task with renewed ardor; and even if we are unsuccessful, our work has not been in vain, for in these strivings…we have found hours of untold pleasure, and we have directed our energies to the benefit of mankind.”11

“Any feature of merit which this work may contain,” Tesla humbly stated, “was derived from the work of a number of scientists who are present today, not a few who can lay better claim than myself.” Looking about the room and, with a gleam in his eye, Tesla continued.12 “One at least I must mention…It is a name associated with the most beautiful invention ever made: it is Crookes!…I believe that the origin [of my advances]…was that fascinating little book [on radiant energy] which I read many years ago.”13

Firing up his great coil, amid erupting thunderbolts, Tesla spoke as if a sorcerer; he announced that with his knowledge he had the ability to make animate that which was inert. “With wonder and delight…[we note] the effects of strange forces which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct energy at will…We see the mass of iron and wires behave as though…endowed with life.”14

Lamps suddenly burst forth in a variety of “magnificent colors of phosphorescent light.” Tesla touched a wire, and sparks ejaculated from its end; he created sheets of luminescence, directed electrical “streams upon small surfaces,” lit wireless tubes simply by picking them up, and “erased” them by “holding a wire from a distant terminal” [i.e., grounding the effect] or by grasping the tube with both hands, thereby “render[ing] dark” the area in between and pulling his hands apart in a steady stroke. And just as easily, he would rotate the tube in the “direction of axis of the coil” and reignite the glow.15

His theories on the relationship of wavelength to the structure and manufacture of light and his displays of wireless fluorescent tubes prompted one viewer to postulate that the future mode of lighting a dwelling might occur by actually “rendering the whole mass of the air in the room softly and beautifully phosphorescent.”16

Tesla unveiled the first true radio tube in this second month of 1892, in the presence of all of the key forefathers of the invention of the wireless. In order to obtain the most perfect vacuum possible, the adept had extracted the air from a bulb that was contained inside another vacuum tube. Within this inner chamber, Tesla generated a beam of light “devoid of any inertia.” By producing extremely high frequencies, he created an electric “brush” that was so sensitive that it responded even to the “stiffening of the muscles in a person’s arm!” This brush tended to “circle away” from an approaching person, but always in a clockwise direction. Noting that the ray was extremely “susceptible to magnetic influences,” Tesla speculated that its direction of rotation was probably affected by the geomagnetic torque of the earth. He further expected that this brush would rotate counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Only a magnet could get the stream of light to reverse its direction of rotation. “I am firmly convinced,” Tesla stated, “that such a brush, when we learn how to produce it properly, may be the means of transmitting intelligence to a distance without wires.”17

“Of all these phenomena,” Tesla began, in the next phase, “the most fascinating for an audience are certainly those which are noted in an electrostatic field acting through a considerable distance. By properly constructing a coil,” he continued, “I have found that I could excite vacuum tubes no matter where they were held in the room.”18

Referring to the work of J. J. Thomson and J. A. Fleming on the creation of a luminous thread within a vacuum tube, Tesla went on to discuss different methods of exciting vacuum tubes by altering the wavelength or the length of the tube.

Setting up a fan as an analog and discussing the research of Preece, Hertz, and Lodge on the radiation of electromagnetic energy into the earth and space, Tesla then displayed “no wire” motors: “It is not necessary to have even a single connection between the motor and generator,” he announced, “except, perhaps, through the ground…[or] through the rarefied air…There is no doubt that with enormous potentials…luminous discharges might be passed through many miles of rarefied air, and that, by thus directing the energy of many hundreds of horse power, motors or lamps might be operated at considerable distances from stationary sources.”19

Based on research conducted the year before, which had been prompted by the work of J. J. Thomson in propagating streams of electrical energy, Tesla expanded upon his high-intensity button lamp, a device that could dematerialize or “vaporize” matter. This arrangement, as we shall see, is precisely the configuration required to create laser beams. Most likely, Tesla displayed actual laser beams at this time. However, neither he nor the other scientists present at the time recognized the unique importance of the directed ray, as it was part of a combination of other lighting effects which resulted in the disintegration of the material that was being bombarded.

There are two types of standard lasers which correspond to Tesla’s work: (1) a ruby laser, which reflects energy back to its source, which in turn stimulates more atoms into emitting special radiation, and (2) a gas laser, which consists of a tube filled with helium and neon. High voltage is applied across two electrodes near the ends of the tube, causing a discharge to take place. In both instances, the excited atoms are contained in an enclosure and then reflected into one specific direction. They differ from ordinary flashlights not only because they emit a uniform wavelength of light but also because there is a pausing (metastable) state before the light is emitted.20

Tesla worked with lamps constructed in exactly these ways. The first he called a button lamp; the second, an exhausted or phosphorescent tube. Their prime function was as efficient illumination devices. Their secondary functions were as laboratory apparatus for a variety of experiments. In one tube filled with “rarefied gas…once the glass fibre is heated, the discharge breaks through its entire length instantaneously.”21 Another bulb “was painted on one side with a phosphorescent powder or mixture and threw a dazzling light, far beyond that yielded by any ordinary phosphorescence.”22

“A common experiment [of mine]…was to pass through a coil energy at a rate of several thousand horsepower, put a piece of thick tinfoil on a stick, and approach it to that coil. The tinfoil would…not only melt, but…it would be evaporated and the whole process took place in so small an interval of time that it was like a cannon shot…That was a striking experiment.”23

Tesla also constructed a type of button lamp which could disintegrate any material, including zirconia and diamonds, the hardest substances known to exist. The lamp was, in essence, a globe coated inside with a reflective material (like the Leyden jar) and a “button” of any substance, most often carbon, which was highly polished and attached to a source of power. Once electrified, the button would radiate energy which would bounce off the interior of the globe and back onto itself, thereby intensifying a “bombardment” effect. In this way the button would be “vaporized.”24

Tesla next described precisely the invention of the ruby laser, over five decades before its reappearance in the middle of the twentieth century. The description is quite explicit:

In an exhausted bulb we can concentrate any amount of energy upon a minute button…[of] zirconia…[which] glowed with a most intense light, and the stream of particles projected out…was of a vivid white…Magnificent light effects were noted, of which it would be difficult to give an adequate idea…To illustrate the effect observed with a ruby drop…at first one may see a narrow funnel of white light projected against the top of the globe where it produces an irregularly outlined phosphorescent patch…In this manner, an intensely phosphorescent, sharply defined line [emphasis added] corresponding to the outline of the drop [fused ruby] is produced, which spreads slowly over the globe as the drop gets larger…A more perfect result used in some of these bulbs [involves]…the construction of a zinc sheet, performing the double office of intensifier and reflector.25

The inventor’s talk ended with the speculation that with improvements in the construction of long-distance cables, per his suggestions, telephony across the Atlantic would soon be possible. It is significant to note that at this moment he did not yet envision wireless transmission of voice, but rather wireless transmission of intelligence (i.e., Morse code), light, and power. His discussions with Preece, however, on the existence of earth currents was beginning to take hold, and shortly afterward, Tesla began to conceptualize the idea of transmitting voice and even pictures by means of wireless.

“It has been my chief aim in presenting these results to point out phenomena or features of novelty,” Tesla concluded, “and to advance ideas which I am hopeful will serve as starting points of new departures. It has been my chief desire this evening to entertain you with some novel experiments. Your applause, so frequently and generously accorded, has told me that I have succeeded.”26

At the end of the lecture “Mr. Tesla tantalizingly informed his listeners that he had shown them but one-third of what he was prepared to do, and the whole audience…remained in their seats, unwilling to disperse, insisting upon more, and Mr. Tesla had to deliver a supplementary lecture…It may be stated, as Mr. Tesla mentioned but which hardly seems to be realized, that practically the whole of the experiments shown were new, and had never been shown before, and were not merely a repetition of those given in…America.”27

Having seen the inventor handle such enormous voltages “so unconcernedly,” many of the attendees mumbled surprise among themselves and gathered the courage to inquire how Tesla “dared to take the current through his body.”

“It was the result of a long debate in my mind,” Tesla replied, “but though calculation and reason, I concluded that such currents ought not to be dangerous to life any more than the vibrations of light are dangerous…Consider a thin diaphragm in a water-pipe with to and fro piston strikes of considerable amplitude, the diaphragm will be ruptured at once,” the inventor explained by analogy. “With reduced strokes of the same total energy, the diaphragm will be less liable to rupture, until, with a vibratory impulse of many thousands per second, no actual current flows, and the diaphragm is in no danger of rupture. So with the vibratory current.” In other words, Tesla had increased the frequency, or alterations per second, but reduced the amplitude or power greatly. The wizard thereupon fired up the coil once again, sending tens of thousands of volts through (or around) his body and illuminated two fluorescent tubes which he held dramatically in each hand. “As you can, see,” Tesla added, “I am very much alive.”

“That we can see,” one member responded, “but is there no pain?”

“A spark, or course, passes through my hands, and may puncture the skin, and sometimes I receive an occasional burn, but that is all; and even this can be avoided if I hold a conductor of suitable size in my hand and then take hold of the current.”

“In spite of your reasons,” another concluded with a shake of his head, “your speculation resembles to me the feelings that a man must have before plunging off the Brooklyn Bridge.”28

In listening to Tesla’s statement that he had only shown part of what he had prepared, the perspicacious Professor Dewar, inventor of the Dewar flask, or everyday hot or cold thermos, took the inventor at face value and realized that there was more information to impart. The wizard had simply run out of time. As a member of the board of the Royal Institution, also situated in London, Dewar knew that there were many dignitaries who missed the grand event, especially Lord Rayleigh, so he set himself the task of persuading Tesla to present an encore the following evening.

After the talk Dewar escorted Tesla on a tour of the Royal Institution, where he displayed the work of his predecessors, especially Michael Faraday’s apparatus. “Why not stay for one more performance?” Dewar inquired.

“I must go to Paris,” Tesla insisted, keeping foremost in his mind his desire to limit the time of his visits at each stop so that he could return to the States as quickly as possible.

“How often do you think you will have the chance to visit the laboratories of such men as Crookes or Kelvin?” Dewar asked in his Scottish brogue. At the same time, he invited Tesla to visit his own lab, where he was creating extremely low temperatures that approached absolute zero and conducting pioneer studies of electromagnetic effects in such environments as liquid oxygen.29 “You’ve already lived in Paris. Now see London!”

“I was a man of firm resolve,” Tesla admitted later, “but succumbed easily to the forceful arguments of the great Scotchman. He pushed me into a chair and poured out half a glass of wonderful brown fluid which sparkled in all sorts of iridescent colors and tasted like nectar.”

“Now,” Dewar declared with a twinkle in his eye and a grin that brought one of reciprocation on the face of his captive, “you are sitting in Faraday’s chair and you are enjoying whiskey he used to drink.”

“In both aspects,” Tesla recalled, “it was an enviable experience. The next evening I gave a demonstration before the Royal Institution.”30

At the culmination of the lecture, much of which, again, was new material not presented the previous evening (but integrated into the above discussion), Tesla presented Lord Kelvin with one of his Tesla coils,31 and Lord Rayleigh took over the lectern for the conclusion. Tesla recalled, “He said that I possessed a particular gift of discovery and that I should concentrate upon one big idea.”32

Coming from this “ideal man of science,” one who had worked out mathematical equations concerning the wavelength of light and who had also calculated the atomic weights of many of the elements, this suggestion made a great impression. A new sense of destiny swirled through Tesla as he began to realize that he would have to figure out a way to surpass his earlier discoveries in AC.

The next day, Tesla received an invitation from Ambrose Fleming to visit his lab at University College on the weekend. Fleming had been successful in setting up “oscillatory discharges with a Spottiswoode Coil as the primary and Leyden jars as the secondary,” and he wanted to show Tesla his results.33 Having been a consultant to Edison in connection with the lighting industry, Fleming would four years hence work with Marconi in the development of the wireless and a few years after that, come to invent the rectifier, a device for converting the incoming electromagnetic waves of AC into DC upon entering the receiving apparatus.34 Having attended both lectures, Fleming “congratulated [Tesla] heartily on your grand success. After th[is] no one can doubt your qualifications as a magician of the first order.” The English aristocrat concluded by dubbing Tesla a member of the new fictitious “Order of the Flaming Sword.”

Tesla had sparked the imagination of his British colleagues, and rapidly a number of them began to replicate his work and make their own advances. At Sir William Crookes’s lab, Tesla constructed a coil as a gift and taught Crookes how to build Tesla coils on his own, but Crookes complained: “The phosphorescence through my body when I hold one terminal is decidedly inferior to that given with the little one [that you made for me].”35

As was his custom, Tesla toiled incessantly until the eclectic Crookes forced him to take a break, and at night, after dinner, the two scientists sat back and prognosticated. Topics ranged from discussions of the ramifications of their own research and potential future of the field to religion, Tesla’s homeland, and metaphysics.

Twirling an elongated waxed mustache that fanned out like the tail feathers of a bird of paradise, the bearded mentor revealed that he had experimented in wireless communication before even Hertz began his investigations in 1889. Crookes discussed the possibility that electrical waves would be able to penetrate solid objects, such as walls, and he argued against Kelvin’s suggestion that the life force and electricity were at some level identical. “Nevertheless, electricity has an important influence upon vital phenomena, and is in turn set in action by the living being, animal or vegetable.” Here Crookes was referring to various species, such as electric eels, iridescent sea slugs, and lightning bugs. Further speculation caused the two men to discuss the possibility that electricity could be utilized to purify water and treat “sewage and industrial waste.”

“Perhaps,” Crookes suggested, “proper frequencies could be generated to electrify gardens so as to stimulate growth and make crops unappealing to destructive insects.”

Expanding on the work of Rayleigh, Crookes discussed with Tesla the possibility of setting up millions of separate wavelengths so as to ensure secrecy in communication between two wireless operators. They also reviewed the work of Helmholtz on the structure of the physical eye, noting that receptors on the retina are “sensitive to one set of wavelengths [i.e., visible light], and silent to others.” In the same way, a receiving device for accepting electromagnetic signals might also be so constructed to receive certain transmissions and not others.

“Another point at which the practical electrician should aim,” Crookes said in response to one of Tesla’s more dauntless speculations, “is in the control of weather.” Such goals as the elimination of fog or the ghastly “perennial drizzle” that plagued the island and creation of great amounts of rain scheduled for specific days were also discussed.36

And if this were not enough, Crookes also introduced Tesla to a vigorous discussion of his experiments in mental telepathy, spiritualism, and even human levitation. As a member of the Society of Psychical Research and later president, Crookes was in good company. Other scientists who would rise to the helm of the psychic society included Oliver Lodge, J. J. Thomson, and Lord Rayleigh.37 Crookes straightforwardly presented a plethora of convincing evidence, including drawings by receivers that matched those created by senders, photographs from seances of ectoplasmic materializations generated by the clairvoyant Florence Cook, and eyewitness accounts of levitation by himself and his wife.38

Those statements were enough to raise the eyebrows of anyone, and they served to rattle Tesla’s worldview. As a staunch materialist, up to that time Tesla had absolutely no belief in any aspect of the field of psychic research, including relatively tame occurrences, such as thought transference. But with Crookes’s documentation and the support of other members of the cognoscenti, especially Lodge, and with Tesla already exhausted from the strain of his severe schedule, the Serb’s mind began to spin. He would drop off in the middle of conversations and subsequently frightened his host. The reality that he had constructed and the world of superstition he thought he had left behind when he emigrated from the Old World swarmed through his brain like a hive of bumblebees and shattered mightily his worldview.

The pressure Tesla was under caused Crookes to offer some friendly advice in a letter. “I hope you will get away to the mountains of your native land as soon as you can. You are suffering from over work, and if you do not take care of yourself you will break down. Don’t answer this letter or see any one but take the first train.” Ending the letter on a waggish note, Crookes added, “I am thinking of [going] myself, but I am only thinking of going as far as Hastings.”39 Tesla wanted to take his advice, but he had to address the Paris society first.

Tesla crossed the English Channel during the second week of February and booked a room at the Hotel de la Paix. At his upcoming lecture “before a joint conference of the Société de Physique and the Société International des Electriciens,” which was held on February 19,40 the inventor sought out the well-known French physician Dr. d’Arsenoval, a pioneer in the field of diathermy. Tesla said later:

When…Dr. d’Arsenoval declared that he had made the same discovery [concerning the physical effects caused by sending extremely high frequency through the body], a heated controversy relative to priority was started. The French, eager to honor their countryman, made him a member of the Academy, ignoring entirely my earlier publication. Resolved to take steps for vindicating my claim, I…met [with] Dr. d’Arsenoval. His personal charm disarmed me completely and I abandoned my intention, content to rest on the record. It shows that my disclosure antedated his and also that he used my apparatus in his demonstrations. The final judgement is left to posterity.

Since the beginning, the growth of the new art [of electrotherapy]…and industry has been phenomenal, some manufacturers turning out daily hundreds of sets. Many millions are now in use throughout the world. The currents furnished by them have proved an ideal tonic for the human nerve system. They promote heart action and digestion, induce healthful sleep, rid the skin of destructive exudations and cure colds and fever by the warmth they create. They vivify atrophied or paralyzed parts of the body, allay all kinds off suffering and save annually thousands of lives. Leaders in the profession have assured me that I have done more for humanity by this medical treatment than all my other discoveries and inventions.41

(More recently, a number of researchers, particularly Dr. Robert O. Becker of Syracuse University, have utilized electrical currents to help heal bones that have difficulty knitting. Having studied regeneration capabilities of such reptiles as salamanders whose tails he amputated, Becker has discovered that these animals generate a particular electrical frequency which serves somehow as a field for promoting the total regrowth of the missing appendage. By “artificially duplicating” the signal, Becker reports, “we have been able to produce partial limb regeneration in [mammals such as] rats by a similar technique, and some clinical applications are under study in human beings at this time.”42)

The Paris lecture ignited “the French papers…[with Tesla’s] brilliant experiments. No man in our age has achieved such a universal scientific reputation in a single stride as this gifted young electrical engineer,” the Electrical Review reported.43

Tesla met with a number of dignitaries while in Paris, including Prince Albert of Belgium, who was interested in supplying his country with a more economical means of distributing electric power; Monsieur Luka, of the Helios Company of Cologne, with whom Tesla sold his AC motor patents for use in Germany;44 and André Blondel, an important theoretician in advanced theories with alternating currents.

Forty years later, Blondel recalled “with immense interest and admiration” the Paris conference and congratulated Tesla on the elegant simplicity with which he advanced his concepts in alternating current well beyond the work of his French colleague Deprez and his Italian neighbor Ferraris.45

Shortly after the lecture and in a state of “oblivion” associated by “my peculiar sleeping spells, which had been caused by prolonged exertion of the brain,” Tesla received a dispatch at the hotel informing him that his mother was dying. “I remembered how I made the long journey home without an hour of rest.”46 Greeted in Gospić by his three sisters, all of whom were married to Serbian priests, and by his Uncle Petar, the regional bishop, Tesla was in a terrible state. Entering the bedroom, he found his mother in “agony.”

During this time, Tesla suffered from a peculiar malady similar to amnesia; where he claimed to have lost all memory of his earlier life. He also said that he slowly regained this information before his return to the States. One aspect of this episode which is noteworthy is that it occurred over a long period of time, beginning at the close of 1891, and culminating with his mother’s death in April 1892. Tesla said that although he could not remember historical occurrences, he had no trouble thinking about the details of his research including “passages of text” from his writings “and complex mathematical formulae.”47 Simultaneously, Tesla also experienced a psychic event which “momentarily impressed me as supernatural. I had become completely exhausted by pain and long vigilance, and one night was carried to a building about two blocks from our home. As I lay helpless there, I thought that if my mother died while I was away from her bedside she would surely give me a sign.”48

Having been influenced by “my…friend Sir William Crookes, when spiritualism was discussed,” Tesla lay in anticipation. “During the whole night every fiber in my brain was strained in expectancy, but nothing happened until early in the morning. [Awakening in] a swoon, [I] saw a cloud carrying angelic figures of marvelous beauty, one of whom gazed upon me lovingly and gradually assumed the features of my mother. The appearance slowly floated across the room and vanished, and I was awakened by an indescribably sweet song of many voices. In that instant [or] certitude, [I knew] that my mother had just died. And that was true.”49

Surprised and perhaps even frightened by the clairvoyant vision, Tesla wrote to Crookes for advice. For months, and maybe even for years after, the inventor “sought…the external cause of this strange manifestation.” Note how Tesla assumes a priori that the cause came from “outside” as opposed to “inside,” that is, from the unconscious. Although he readily accepted the concept of wireless communication, in no way was Tesla capable of allowing for the possibility that the human brain could also act as a receiver of mental vibrations. The idea of telepathy, or spiritualism, for that matter, was a true threat to the paradigm he was operating from, and so Tesla manufactured a physical mechanism as the cause of his noetic experience:

“To my great relief,” Tesla wrote, “I succeeded after many months of fruitless effort” in solving the conundrum. The vision of the angels rising up, Tesla attributed to the memory of an ethereal painting of the same subject which he had gazed on prior to the experience, and the sound of the serenading voices, he linked to a nearby church choir that was singing for an Easter mass.50 Whether or not Tesla’s mother died on a Sunday morning is not known. But what is clear is that this analysis greatly relieved the tension Tesla was under, for it supported, once again, a materialistic viewpoint.

A question which remains, however, is whether or not Tesla’s excesses in work-related endeavors is enough to explain his onset of amnesia? One theoretician speculated that the enormous voltages that Tesla passed through his body may have contributed to the problem.51 From a psychoanalytic point of view, one could speculate that Tesla was repressing, that is, unconsciously, but purposefully forgetting events that he did not want to remember. Possible unwanted memories included the way he felt as a child after his exalted brother died and the recent eradication of the royalty clause with the Westinghouse Corporation.

After the death of his mother, Tesla stayed on in Gospić for six weeks to recuperate. On the positive side, it enabled the lone son to reconfirm emotional ties to his family; it also provided Tesla with probably the only extended vacation he would ever take.

He traveled to Plaski to visit his sister Marica, to Varazdin to see his uncle Pajo, and to Zagreb to lecture at the university. He sojourned to Budapest to confer with Ganz & Company, as they were in the midst of constructing a substantial 1,000-horsepower alternator. He also met with a delegation of Serbian scientists who accompanied him down to Belgrade, where an audience was arranged with the king. Young Alexander I conferred upon Tesla a special title of Grand Officer of the Order of St. Sava, and the official plaque was shipped to him a few months later after his return to the States.52 Tesla also visited the great Serbian poet Jovan Zmaj Jovanovich,53 and he attended an assembly where he was honored by the mayor.

In front of a welcoming committee, Zmaj read his poem “Pozdrav Nikoli Tesli,” and then Tesla took the podium. “There is something in me which is only perhaps illusory,” Tesla began, “[It is] like that which often comes to young, enthusiastic persons; but if I were to be sufficiently fortunate to bring about at least some of my ideas it would be for the benefit of all humanity.” Referring back to Zmaj’s poem, Tesla concluded with a message that would deeply touch the hearts of his people. “If these hopes become one day a reality, my greatest joy would spring from the fact that this work would be the work of a Serb.”54

On his return leg, Tesla made a special trip through Prussia to see the eminent patriarch Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz, in Berlin, and his most famous student, Heinrich Hertz, in Bonn. A bearded, youthful man with soft features, a high forehead, and elongated face, Hertz had gained the world’s attention by performing the first significant experiments in wireless, many of which Tesla replicated or expanded upon.

In attempts to clarify the findings of James Clerk Maxwell on the nature of electromagnetic phenomena and its relationship to light and the structure of the ether, in 1886, Hertz constructed “flat double-wound spiral coils” which he used in induction experiments in attempts to measure the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Hertz, like Tesla shortly after him, displayed resonance effects between primary and secondary circuits and “established the existence of standing waves with their characteristic nodes and troughs in a long straight wire.” He was also able to measure the wavelength of the waves in the wire.55 Hertz, however, differed markedly with Tesla in terms of his interpretation of the meaning of Maxwell’s equations and his subsequent conceptualization of the structure of the ether.

Deriving his clarifications more from theory than from actual experimentation, Hertz had created an elegant mathematical interpretation of Maxwell’s equations, but at the expense of some aspects of Maxwell’s theory, most notably vector (a quantity that has magnitude and direction) and scalar (a quantity that has magnitude, but no direction, such as a point or field) potentials. In duplicating Hertz’s work, Tesla postulated that these components should not have been eliminated.56 What he tried to tell Hertz, and what he wrote a few months later, was that electromagnetic waves might “more appropriately [be] called electric sound-waves or sound-waves of electrified air.”57

“When Dr. Heinrich Hertz undertook his experiments from 1887 to 1889,” Tesla told an interviewer, “his object was to demonstrate a theory postulating a medium filling all space called the ether, which was structureless, of inconceivable tenuity…and yet possessed of [great] rigidity. He obtained certain results and the whole world acclaimed them as an experimental verification of that cherished theory, but in reality what he observed tended to prove just its fallacy.

“I had maintained for many years before that such a medium as supposed could not exist, and that we must rather accept the view that all space is filled with a gaseous substance. On repeating the Hertz experiments with much improved and very powerful apparatus, I satisfied myself that what he had observed was nothing else but effects of longitudinal waves in a gaseous medium, that is to say, waves propagated by alternating compression and expansion [emphasis added]. He had observed waves in much of the nature of sound waves in the air,” not transverse electromagnetic waves, as generally supposed.58

Tesla tried to open a dialogue by noting that his experiments tended to contradict the polished mathematical results Hertz had achieved, but Hertz rebuked him. “He seemed disappointed to such a degree,” Tesla recalled, “that I regretted my trip and parted from him sorrowfully.”59

Having replicated Hertz’s experiments, Tesla tried to show the German professor that his own oscillator could produce a much more efficient frequency for transmitting wireless impulses. Tesla already had his eye on the idea of transmitting power through the ambient medium, and the Hertzian paradigm virtually disallowed this possibility. But egos clashed, as one Weltanschauung threatened the other, and Hertz would never come to realize that his device was obsolete. Perhaps this was to Hertz’s advantage, for even to this day wireless frequencies are referred to as Hertzian waves, when, in fact, they are really Tesla’s, as they are produced by high-frequency continuous-wave oscillators, not by the primitive Hertzian interrupted spark-gap apparatus.60

During the voyage home, Tesla walked the deck of the ship and pondered an incident that occurred to him during a hike he had taken in the mountains during the trip. Having witnessed an oncoming thunderstorm, he had noted that the rain was delayed until a flash of lightning was perceived. This “observation” confirmed Tesla’s speculations, with Martin and Crookes, that weather control was possible because it was the production of large amounts of electricity, in Tesla’s eyes, that caused the downpour.

Revealing a megalomaniacal streak, Tesla recalled his thoughts that day in the Alps:

Here was a stupendous possibility of achievement. If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed. The sun raises the water of the oceans and the winds drive it to distant regions where it remains in a state of most delicate balance. If it were in our power to upset it when and wherever desired, this mighty life-sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers and provide motive power in unlimited amounts…It seemed a hopeless undertaking, but I made up my mind to try it, and immediately upon my return to the United States in the summer of 1892, work was begun…for the successful transmission of energy without wires.61