Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah (10 page)

 

Total Black Out

It was already evening and the lights were going on in Colorado Springs as Tesla gave the signal and Czito closed the switch. There was a crackling sound from the coils. The room was filled with an eerie blue light. The coils and the building itself sprouted needles of flames as the place filled with the smell of ozone.

A low rumble built to a roar of thunder that was so strong it could be heard 15 miles (24 km) away. Butterflies circled as if caught in a whirlpool and a horse half-a-mile away bolted. ‘I suppose the capacity of the body was sufficiently great to derive a rather strong current through the legs which would frighten the animal,' said Tesla.

Streamers of lightning shrouded the mast high above the roof of the lab. From the top came sparks a full 135 ft (41 m) in length. Suddenly there was silence. Below, Colorado Springs had been plunged into darkness. Tesla raced back to the lab to berate Czito ‘Why did you do that?' he shouted. ‘I did not tell you to open the switch. Close it again immediately.'

Czito pointed to the meters on the switchboard. The wires carrying power to the lab were dead. When they phoned the power station, Tesla grabbed the phone.

‘This is Nikola Tesla,' he said. ‘You have cut off my power! You must give me back my power immediately! You must not cut off my power.'

The power station worker on the other end of the phone explained that Tesla had short-circuited their generator and had totally wrecked the power station. The generator was on fire, but fortunately the powerhouse had a second, standby generator which was started up soon after. Tesla insisted that he be supplied with current from the reserve generator as soon as it was up and running. This was refused. In the future, he was told, he would be supplied by a generator operating independently from the one supplying the El Paso Electric Company's other customers. The generator would be the one Tesla had just burnt out. It was up to him to fix it.

Tesla left Colorado Springs – without paying his electricity bill – convinced that his experiments had been a success.

 

What Happened in Colorado Springs?

Tesla conducted experiments at Colorado Springs for nine months and though he kept a daily diary, it is not clear what the results of his experiments were. He had promised to transmit a wireless signal from Pike's Peak to Paris. He also aimed to transmit electricity without wires at high altitudes where the air was thinner and more conductive. He did succeed in lighting up the sky.

He transmitted extra-low-frequency signals from the surface of the earth to the ionosphere. Tesla then calculated that the resonant frequency of this area was approximately 8 Hz. It was not until the 1950s that this idea was taken seriously and researchers were surprised to discover that the resonant frequency of this space was indeed around 8 Hz.

He also found the earth to be ‘literally alive with electrical vibrations' and came to believe that lightning striking the ground set up powerful waves that moved from one side of the earth to the other. If the Earth was a great conductor, Tesla thought that he could transmit unlimited amounts of power through it with virtually no loss. To test this theory, he had attempted to become the first man to create electrical effects on the scale of lightning. And there were some reports that he transmitted a signal powerful enough to illuminate vacuum tubes planted in the ground several miles away. But this may be attributed to conductive properties of the ground locally at Colorado Springs.

 

PART THREE: IMPOSSIBLE IDEAS

Chapter 9 – Taking on Marconi

 

When I sent electrical waves from my laboratory in Colorado around the world, Mr Marconi was experimenting with my apparatus unsuccessfully at sea. Afterward, Mr Marconi came to America to lecture on the subject, stating that it was he who sent those signals around the globe. I went to hear him, and when he learned that I was present he became sick, postponed the lecture, and up to the present time has not delivered it.

Nikola Tesla

 

Marconi was in town when Tesla returned to New York to the comfort of the Waldorf-Astoria. He paid him a visit. ‘I remember him when he was coming to me asking me to explain the function of my transformer for transmission of power to great distances,' said Tesla. ‘Mr Marconi said, after all my explanations of the application of my principle, that it is impossible.'

‘Time will tell, Mr Marconi,' Tesla replied. Tesla was still trying to get interest in his Telautomatons. He proposed a ‘dirigible wireless torpedo' or small remote-controlled airships.

‘I have constructed such machines, and shown them in operation on frequent occasions,' said Tesla. ‘They have worked perfectly and everybody who saw them was amazed at their performance.'

He went to Washington
DC
, where he was again rebuffed. He still hoped that the US Navy or Coast Guard might buy his wireless transmitters, and planned to prove his system by transmitting a signal across the Atlantic. Westinghouse, though now in financial difficulties, fronted the money and an agent was sent to Britain to find a suitable site for a receiving station.

In 1900, Tesla filed three patents on wireless communication and reworked his plans for a transoceanic broadcasting system. He also set to work on an article for
Century
magazine. At the time he was under the influence of the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860). Robert Johnson begged him not to make the article too metaphysical. Tesla took no notice.

 

Life on Mars

As well as his scientific interests the article covered such arcane subjects as the evolution of the race, artificial intelligence, the possibility of future human beings living without eating, inorganic life forms and life on Mars. However, the magazine decided they had no alternative but to publish it anyway. It was a sensation, among his friends, at least. However, anonymous reviews in
Popular Science Monthly
and
Science
dismissed it as ‘science and fiction'.

Oblivious to criticism, Tesla followed up with an article in
Collier's
magazine called
Talking With the Planets
where he discusses the possibility of communicating with Martians. This brought renewed criticism, especially from those who had axes to grind. Meanwhile Tesla tried to get fresh funds out of Astor. They were not forthcoming. Astor was angry with Tesla. Instead of using the money he had given him before to perfect his fluorescent tube, Tesla had run off to Colorado Springs and spent it on his wireless experiments.

There were other problems on the emotional front. The son of his first – and, probably, only – love Anna turned up in New York, saying he wanted to be a boxer.
Tesla, a boxing fan
, encouraged him. Stanford White set up a bout, but the boy was knocked down and died soon after. Tesla, it was said, grieved for him as if he were his own son.

 

Finding a New Backer

Tesla moved in high circles. In the autumn of 1900, he was invited to attend the wedding of Louisa, the daughter of Wall Street magnet
J. Pierpont ‘J.P.' Morgan (1837 – 1913)
, along with the Astors and Teddy Roosevelt (1858 – 1919) who became US president the following year. He turned out with a top hat, white gloves and cane. Tesla always prided himself on his appearance and claimed to be one of the best-dressed men on Fifth Avenue. At the wedding, Louisa's younger sister Anne took a fancy to Tesla. She invited him to the Thanksgiving dinner at the Morgans' home where Tesla put on a show involving coloured lights, lightning and various wireless devices.

Morgan was a yachtsman and commodore of the New York Yacht Club. During the America's Cup, he offered Marconi $200,000 for his American patents, including the ‘Ocean Rights … if ever wireless telegraphy could communicate from England to New York'. But the deal fell through and Morgan opened negotiations with Tesla.

However, when they met, Morgan was not impressed. Already mired in controversy, Tesla was boastful and, aside from his early deal with Westinghouse, he had yet to show a profit on any of his inventions. Nevertheless Morgan agreed to give Tesla $150,000 to build a transatlantic transmitter with a 90-ft (27-m) tower in return for 51 per cent of the company and the patents. The lighting patents that Astor had an interest in were added to this later. Tesla took the opportunity to pay Westinghouse back the money he owed him for re-equipping his laboratory and the new venture was celebrated with a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria.

 

World Telegraphy Centre

Tesla bought a 200-acre (81-hectare) tract of land at Shoreham on Long Island Sound. It was named Wardenclyffe, after James S. Warden, the businessman who handled the deal. The plan was to expand from there an 1800-acre (728-hectare) ‘Radio City' which Stanford White set about designing. Travelling out to the site by train one morning, Tesla read an article in
Electrical Review
where Marconi admitted using a Tesla Coil in his wireless experiments.

Enraged, Tesla immediately scrapped plans to build a modest 90-ft (27-m) tower and started designing a 600-ft (183-m) edifice. When he grew tired of commuting from the city, Tesla would stay out on Stanford White's estate near Shoreham. When White's wife asked Tesla why he wandered around the garden at night, Tesla replied: ‘I never sleep.'

When Morgan got wind of Tesla's grandiose plans he fulminated. White quickly scaled things down.

 

Marconi's Miracle

Tesla's wireless ambitions were about to suffer another setback. Marconi had installed a power transmitter with a 200-foot (60 m) mast at Poldhu in Cornwall and was sending test transmissions to Crookhaven in Ireland, 200 miles (320 km) away, while the sister station was being built on Cape Cod, MA. Both were flattened by storms in September 1901.

The Poldhu station was rebuilt, but the aerial on the other side of the Atlantic was to be carried aloft by a kite from Signal Hill, Newfoundland. On 12 December 1901, it picked up a signal – three dots, the Morse code for the letter S, from Poldhu. The age of global communication had begun.

At first no one believed it. According to Tesla, Marconi had once told him that, because of the curvature of the Earth ‘wireless communication across the Atlantic was impossible because there was a wall of water several miles high between the two continents, which the rays could not traverse'.

On hearing the news, Otis Pond, an engineer then working for Tesla, said, ‘Looks as if Marconi got the jump on you.' Tesla replied, ‘Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.'

Thomas Martin was doubtful about Marconi's achievement, but after consulting with colleagues, he booked a banqueting hall in the Waldorf-Astoria for 13 January 1902 and invited 300 guests to celebrate Marconi's achievement. Tesla did not attend, having ducked out of the hotel before Marconi arrived. The dinner exacerbated the ill-will between Martin and Tesla, who was now preparing a new edition of
The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla
, this time without Martin's name on it.

According to
The New York Times
at the dinner: There were cheers when the toastmaster came to a letter from Nikola Tesla, who said he felt that ‘he could not rise to the occasion'. The letter went on:

I regret not being able to contribute to the pleasure of the evening, but I wish to join the members in heartily congratulating Mr Marconi on his brilliant results. He is a splendid worker, full of rare and subtle energies. May he prove to be one of those whose powers increase and whose mind feelers reach out farther with advancing years for the good of the world and honour of his country.

In his speech, Marconi pointed out that his wireless was already installed on over 70 ships – 37 in the British Royal Navy, 12 in the Italian Navy and the rest on liners belonging to Cunard, North German Lloyd and others. There were already 20 stations in operation on land in Great Britain and more in construction. He concluded by saying: ‘I have built very largely on the work of others … I may miss a few of them, but I would like to mention Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Professor Henry and Professor Hertz.'

There was no mention of Tesla, but he was not cowed. He wrote to Morgan saying that he had developed a machine that would produce ‘an electrical disturbance of sufficient intensity to be perceptible over the whole of the Earth … when I throw a switch, I shall send a greeting to the whole world and for this great triumph I shall ever be grateful to you.'

Not only would he take on the telegraph companies, but he threatened to destroy newspapers. Every customer of Tesla's wireless system would be able to print their own. However, Tesla was already running out of money and this would be his last communication with Morgan for 9 months.

 

The Wardenclyffe Tower

Though Tesla's experimental station was impressive, it was not as grand as he had planned. Morgan had only given him $150,000 when a more realistic sum would have been $1 million. The tower rose just 187 ft (57 m) in the air. On the top was a 57-ton steel sphere. Under the tower was a shaft that plunged 120 ft (36 m) into the ground. Sixteen iron pipes were driven down another 300 ft (91 m) so that currents could pass deep into the Earth. ‘In this system that I have invented,' Tesla said, ‘it is necessary for the machine to get a grip of the Earth, otherwise it cannot shake the Earth. It has to have a grip ... so that the whole of this globe can quiver.'

While Marconi was sending his messages through curved air, said the
Port Jefferson Echo
, Tesla proposed to send them through the Earth as well. But construction was already grinding to a halt when Marconi sent his transatlantic signal. He may have been using Tesla's patents, but his equipment was inexpensive by comparison. Then the stock market crashed and the cost of materials Tesla needed to complete Wardenclyffe doubled. Morgan would not stump up any more money, so Tesla went back to the manufacture of his oscillators that had proved so popular among his rivals, and to perfecting fluorescent lights. Money began to trickle in and he completed the cupola crowning the tower at Wardenclyffe.

At the end of July 1903, Tesla finally cranked up his magnifying transformer. The mushroom-shaped cupola became fully charged. Local villagers heard the rumble of thunder and a strange light appeared above Tesla's tower. This could be seen on the shores of Connecticut on the other side of Long Island Sound.

Soon after, creditors from Westinghouse came to cart away the heavy equipment and Tesla's tower fell silent. Unbowed, Tesla raised money from his uncles in the Balkans, then did the rounds of Wall Street financiers. In October 1903, Thomas Fortune Ryan (1851 – 1928) promised $100,000, but Morgan scuttled the venture. It seems that Tesla's boast of being able to transmit unlimited amounts of power over any distance was seen as a threat to the moguls of Wall Street. How were they going to charge for the electricity it generated? Tesla clearly intended to give power away for free. Even distributing information freely was a challenge to those who controlled major corporations. Tesla responded with an article published simultaneously in
Electrical World
and
Scientific American
:

The results attained by me have made my scheme of intelligence transmission, for which the name of ‘World Telegraphy' has been suggested, easily realizable. It constitutes a radical and fruitful departure from what has been done heretofore … It involves the employment of a number of plants, all of which are capable of transmitting individualized signals to the uttermost confines of the earth. Each of them will be preferably located near some important centre of civilization and the news it receives through any channel will be flashed to all points of the globe. A cheap and simple device, which might be carried in one's pocket, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, and it will record the world's news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hundred horsepower can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity, and it must needs immensely facilitate and cheapen the transmission of intelligence. The first of these central plants would have been already completed had it not been for unforeseen delays…

He said elsewhere that, if only Morgan would fund it, he would bring about world peace. But Morgan was adamant and Tesla sought refuge in Wardenclyffe, only venturing out to attend the funeral of Stanford White which, due to the scandalous circumstances, was shunned by most other New York socialites.

 

More Rivals Emerge

Marconi was not Tesla's only rival.
Lee De Forest
had now completed his doctorate in electrical engineering at Yale. In 1901, he sent wireless messages across the Hudson River. He speeded up transmission to 30 words a minute, which was about as fast as a Morse-code operator could send them. By 1904, he could send a signal from Buffalo to Cleveland, a distance of 180 miles (290 km). Then in 1908, he succeeded in bridging the Atlantic.