No subject to which I have ever
devoted myself has called for such concentration
of mind, and strained to so dangerous a
degree the finest fibres of my brain, as
the systems of which the Magnifying
transmitter is the foundation. I put all the
intensity and vigour of youth in the
development of the rotating field
discoveries, but those early labours were
of a different character. Although
strenuous in the extreme, they did not
involve that keen and exhausting
discernment which had to be exercised in
attacking the many problems of the
wireless.
Despite my rare physical endurance
at that period, the abused nerves finally
rebelled and I suffered a complete
collapse, just as the consummation of the
long and difficult task was almost in
sight. Without doubt I would have paid a
greater penalty later, and very likely my
career would have been prematurely
terminated, had not providence equipped me
with a safety device, which seemed to
improve with advancing years and
unfailingly comes to play when my forces are at
an end. So long as it operates I am safe
from danger, due to overwork, which
threatens other inventors, and
incidentally, I need no vacations which are
indispensable to most people. When I am all
but used up, I simply do as the
darkies who "naturally fall asleep while
white folks worry."
To venture a theory out of my
sphere, the body probably accumulates little by
little a definite quantity of some toxic
agent and I sink into a nearly
lethargic state which lasts half an hour to
the minute. Upon awakening I have
the sensation as though the events
immediately preceding had occurred very long
ago, and if I attempt to continue the
interrupted train of thought I feel
veritable nausea. Involuntarily, I then
turn to other and am surprised at the
freshness of the mind and ease with which I
overcome obstacles that had baffled
me before. After weeks or months, my
passion for the temporarily abandoned
invention returns and I invariably find
answers to all the vexing questions,
with scarcely any effort. In this
connection, I will tell of an extraordinary
experience which may be of interest to
students of psychology.
I had produced a striking
phenomenon with my grounded transmitter and was
endeavouring to ascertain its true
significance in relation to the currents
propagated through the earth. It seemed a
hopeless undertaking, and for more
than a year I worked unremittingly, but in
vain. This profound study so entirely
absorbed me, that I became forgetful of
everything else, even of my undermined
health. At last, as I was at the point of
breaking down, nature applied the
preservative inducing lethal sleep.
Regaining my senses, I realised with
consternation that I was unable to
visualise scenes from my life except those of
infancy, the very first ones that had
entered my consciousness. Curiously
enough, these appeared before my vision
with startling distinctness and afforded
me welcome relief. Night after night, when
retiring, I would think of them and
more and more of my previous existence was
revealed. The image of my mother was
always the principal figure in the
spectacle that slowly unfolded, and a
consuming desire to see her again gradually
took possession of me. This feeling
grew so strong that I resolved to drop all
work and satisfy my longing, but I
found it too hard to break away from the
laboratory, and several months elapsed
during which I had succeeded in reviving
all the impressions of my past life, up
to the spring of 1892. In the next picture
that came out of the mist of
oblivion, I saw myself at the Hotel de la
Paix in Paris, just coming to from one
of my peculiar sleeping spells, which had
been caused by prolonged exertion of
the brain. Imagine the pain and distress I
felt, when it flashed upon my mind
that a dispatch was handed to me at that
very moment, bearing the sad news that
my mother was dying. I remembered how I
made the long journey home without an
hour of rest and how she passed away after
weeks of agony.
It was especially remarkable that
during all this period of partially
obliterated memory, I was fully alive to
everything touching on the subject of
my research. I could recall the smallest
detail and the least insignificant
observations in my experiments and even
recite pages of text and complex
mathematical formulae.
My belief is firm in a law of
compensation. The true rewards are ever in
proportion to the labour and sacrifices
made. This is one of the reasons why I
feel certain that of all my inventions, the
magnifying Transmitter will prove
most important and valuable to future
generations. I am prompted to this
prediction, not so much by thoughts of the
commercial and industrial revolution
which it will surely bring about, but of
the humanitation consequences of the
many achievements it makes possible.
Considerations of mere utility weigh little
in the balance against the higher benefits
of civilisation. We are confronted
with portentous problems which can not be
solved just by providing for our
material existence, however abundantly. On
the contrary, progress in this
direction is fraught with hazards and
perils not less menacing than those born
from want and suffering. If we were to
release the energy of atoms or discover
some other way of developing cheap and
unlimited power at any point on the
globe, this accomplishment, instead of
being a blessing, might bring disaster to
mankind in giving rise to dissension and
anarchy, which would ultimately result
in the enthronement of the hated regime of
force. The greatest good will come
from technical improvements tending to
unification and harmony, and my wireless
transmitter is preeminently such. By its
means, the human voice and likeness
will be reproduced everywhere and factories
driven thousands of miles from
waterfalls furnishing power. Aerial
machines will be propelled around the earth
without a stop and the sun's energy
controlled to create lakes and rivers for
motive purposes and transformation of arid
deserts into fertile land. Its
introduction for telegraphic, telephonic
and similar uses, will automatically
cut out the statics and all other
interferences which at present, impose narrow
limits to the application of the wireless.
This is a timely topic on which a few
words might not be
amiss.
During the past decade a number of
people have arrogantly claimed that they had
succeeded in doing away with this
impediment. I have carefully examined all of
the arrangements described and tested most
of them long before they were
publicly disclosed, but the finding was
uniformly negative. Recent official
statement from the U.S. Navy may, perhaps,
have taught some beguilable news
editors how to appraise these announcements
at their real worth. As a rule, the
attempts are based on theories so
fallacious, that whenever they come to my
notice, I can not help thinking in a light
vein. Quite recently a new discovery
was heralded, with a deafening flourish of
trumpets, but it proved another case
of a mountain bringing forth a mouse. This
reminds me of an exciting incident
which took place a year ago, when I was
conducting my experiments with currents
of high frequency.
Steve Brodie had just jumped off
the Brooklyn Bridge. The feat has been
vulgarised since by imitators, but the
first report electrified New York. I was
very impressionable then and frequently
spoke of the daring printer. On a hot
afternoon I felt the necessity of
refreshing myself and stepped into one of the
popular thirty thousand institutions of
this great city, where a delicious
twelve per cent beverage was served, which
can now be had only by making a trip
to the poor and devastated countries of
Europe. The attendance was large and not
over-distinguished and a matter was
discussed which gave me an admirable opening
for the careless remark, "This is what I
said when I jumped off the bridge." No
sooner had I uttered these words, than I
felt like the companion of Timothens,
in the poem of Schiller. In an instant
there was pandemonium and a dozen voices
cried, "It is Brodie!" I threw a quarter on
the counter and bolted for the door,
but the crowd was at my heels with
yells, "Stop, Steeve!", which must have
been misunderstood, for many persons tried
to hold me up as I ran frantically
for my haven of refuge. By darting around
corners I fortunately managed, through
the medium of a fire escape, to reach the
laboratory, where I threw off my coat,
camouflaged myself as a hard-working
blacksmith and started the forge. But these
precautions proved unnecessary, as I had
eluded my pursuers. For many years
afterward, at night, when imagination turns
into spectres the trifling troubles
of the day, I often thought, as I tossed on
the bed, what my fate would have
been, had the mob caught me and found out
that I was not Steve Brodie!
Now the engineer who lately gave
an account before a technical body of a novel
remedy against statics based on a
"heretofore unknown law of nature," seems to
have been as reckless as myself when he
contended that these disturbances
propagate up and down, while those of a
transmitter proceed along the earth. It
would mean that a condenser as this globe,
with its gaseous envelope, could be
charged and discharged in a manner quite
contrary to the fundamental teachings
propounded in every elemental text book of
physics. Such a supposition would
have been condemned as erroneous, even in
Franklin's time, for the facts bearing
on this were then well known and the
identity between atmospheric electricity
and that developed by machines was fully
established. Obviously, natural and
artificial disturbances propagate through
the earth and the air in exactly the
same way, and both set up electromotive
forces in the horizontal, as well as
vertical sense. Interference can not be
overcome by any such methods as were
proposed. The truth is this: In the air the
potential increases at the rate of
about fifty volts per foot of elevation,
owing to which there may be a
difference of pressure amounting to twenty,
or even forty thousand volts between
the upper and lower ends of the antenna.
The masses of the charged atmosphere
are constantly in motion and give up
electricity to the conductor, not
continuously, but rather disruptively, this
producing a grinding noise in a
sensitive telephonic receiver. The higher
the terminal and the greater the space
encompast by the wires, the more pronounced
is the effect, but it must be
understood that it is purely local and has
little to do with the real trouble.
In 1900, while perfecting my
wireless system, one form of apparatus compressed
four antennae. These were carefully
calibrated in the same frequency and
connected in multiple with the object of
magnifying the action in receiving from
any direction. When I desired to ascertain
the origin of the transmitted
impulse, each diagonally situated pair was
put in series with a primary coil
energising the detector circuit. In the
former case, the sound was loud in the
telephone; in the latter it ceased, as
expected, the two antennae neutralising
each other, but the true statics manifested
themselves in both instances and I
had to devise special preventives embodying
different principles. By employing
receivers connected to two points of the
ground, as suggested by me long ago,
this trouble caused by the charged air,
which is very serious in the structures
as now built, is nullified and besides, the
liability of all kinds of
interference is reduced to about one-half because of the directional
character
of the
circuit. This was perfectly self-evident, but came as a revelation
to
some
simple-minded wireless folks whose experience was confined to forms
of
apparatus that
could have been improved with an axe, and they have been
disposing of the bear's skin
before killing him. If it were true that strays
performed such antics, it would be easy to
get rid of them by receiving without
aerials. But, as a matter of fact, a wire
buried in the ground which, conforming
to this view, should be be absolutely
immune, is more susceptible to certain
extraneous impulses than one placed
vertically in the air. To state it fairly, a
slight progress has been made, but not by
virtue of any particular method or
device. It was achieved simply by
discerning the enormous structures, which are
bad enough for transmission but wholly
unsuitable for reception and adopting a
more appropriate type of receiver. As I
have said before, to dispose of this
difficulty for good, a radical change must
be made in the system and the sooner
this is done the better.
It would be calamitous, indeed, if
at this time when the art is in its infancy
and the vast majority, not excepting even
experts, have no conception of its
ultimate possibilities, a measure would be
rushed through the legislature making
it a government monopoly. This was proposed
a few weeks ago by Secretary Daniels
and no doubt that distinguished official
has made his appeal to the Senate and
House of Representatives with sincere
conviction. But universal evidence
unmistakably shows that the best results
are always obtained in healthful
commercial competition. there are, however,
exceptional reasons why wireless
should be given the fullest freedom of
development. In the first place, it
offers prospects immeasurably greater and
more vital to betterment of human life
than any other invention or discovery in
the history of man. Then again, it must
be understood that this wonderful art has
been, in its entirety, evolved here
and can be called "American" with more
right and propriety than the telephone,
the incandescent lamp or the
aeroplane.
Enterprising press agents and
stock jobbers have been so successful in spreading
misinformation, that even so excellent a
periodical as the *Scientific
American*, accords the chief credit to a
foreign country. The Germans, of
course, gave us the Hertz waves and the
Russian, English, French and Italian
experts were quick in using them for
signalling purposes. It was an obvious
application of the new agent and
accomplished with the old classical and
unimproved induction coil, scarcely
anything more than another kind of
heliography. The radius of transmission was
very limited, the result attained of
little value, and the Hertz oscillations,
as a means for conveying intelligence,
could have been advantageously replaced by
sound waves, which I advocated in
1891. Moreover, all of these attempts were
made three years after the basic
principles of the wireless system, which is
universally employed today, and its
potent instrumentalities had been clearly
described and developed in America.
No trace of those Hertzian
appliances and methods remains today. We have
proceeded in the very opposite direction
and what has been done is the product
of the brains and efforts of citizens of
this country. The fundamental patents
have expired and the opportunities are open
to all. The chief argument of the
Secretary is based on interference.
According to his statement, reported in the
New York Herald of July 29th, signals from
a powerful station can be intercepted
in every village in the world. In view of
this fact, which was demonstrated in
my experiments in 1900, it would be of
little use to impose restrictions in the
United States.
As throwing light on this point, I
may mention that only recently an odd looking
gentleman called on me with the object of
enlisting my services in the
construction of world transmitters in some
distant land. "We have no money," he
said, "but carloads of solid gold, and we
will give you a liberal amount." I
told him that I wanted to see first what
will be done with my inventions in
America, and this ended the interview. But
I am satisfied that some dark forces
are at work, and as time goes on the
maintenance of continuous communication
will be rendered more difficult. The only
remedy is a system immune against
interruption. It has been perfected, it
exists, and all that is necessary is to
put it in operation.
The terrible conflict is still
uppermost in the minds and perhaps the greatest
importance will be attached to the
magnifying Transmitter as a machine for
attack and defence, more particularly in
connection with TELAUTAMATICS. This
invention is a logical outcome of
observations begun in my boyhood and continued
throughout my life. When the first results
were published, the Electrical Review
stated editorially that it would become one
of the "most potent factors in the
advance of civilisation of mankind." The
time is not distant when this
prediction will be fulfilled. In 1898 and
1900, it was offered by me to the
Government and might have been adopted,
were I one of those who would go to
Alexander's shepherd when they want a
favour from Alexander!
At that time I really thought that
it would abolish war, because of its
unlimited destructiveness and exclusion of
the personal element of combat. But
while I have not lost faith in its
potentialities, my views have changed since.
War can not be avoided until the physical
cause for its recurrence is removed
and this, in the last analysis, is the vast
extent of the planet on which we
live. Only though annihilation of distance
in every respect, as the conveyance
of intelligence, transport of passengers
and supplies and transmission of energy
will conditions be brought about some day,
insuring permanency of friendly
relations. What we now want most is closer
contact and better understanding
between individuals and communities all
over the earth and the elimination of
that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of
national egoism and pride, which is
always prone to plunge the world into
primeval barbarism and strife. No league
or parliamentary act of any kind will ever
prevent such a calamity. These are
only new devices for putting the weak at
the mercy of the strong.
I have expressed myself in this
regard fourteen years ago, when a combination of
a few leading governments, a sort of Holy
alliance, was advocated by the late
Andrew Carnegie, who may be fairly
considered as the father of this idea, having
given to it more publicity and impetus than
anybody else prior to the efforts of
the President. While it can not be denied
that such aspects might be of material
advantage to some less fortunate peoples,
it can not attain the chief objective
sought. Peace can only come as a natural
consequence of universal enlightenment
and merging of races, and we are still far
from this blissful realisation,
because few indeed, will admit the reality
that God made man in His image in
which case all earth men are alike. There
is in fact but one race, of many
colours. Christ is but one person, yet he
is of all people, so why do some
people think themselves better than some
other people?
As I view the world of today, in
the light of the gigantic struggle we have
witnessed, I am filled with conviction that
the interests of humanity would be
best served if the United States remained
true to its traditions, true to God
whom it pretends to believe, and kept out
of "entangling alliances." Situated as
it is, geographically remote from the
theatres of impending conflicts, without
incentive to territorial aggrandisement,
with inexhaustible resources and
immense population thoroughly imbued with
the spirit of liberty and right, this
country is placed in a unique and
privileged position. It is thus able to exert,
independently, its colossal strength and
moral force to the benefit of all, more
judiciously and effectively, than as a
member of a league.
I have dwelt on the circumstances
of my early life and told of an affliction
which compelled me to unremitting exercise
of imagination and self-observation.
This mental activity, at first involuntary
under the pressure of illness and
suffering, gradually became second nature
and led me finally to recognise that I
was but an automaton devoid of free will in
thought and action and merely
responsible to the forces of the
environment. Our bodies are of such complexity
of structure, the motions we perform are so
numerous and involved and the
external impressions on our sense organs to
such a degree delicate and elusive,
that it is hard for the average person to
grasp this fact. Yet nothing is more
convincing to the trained investigator than
the mechanistic theory of life which
had been, in a measure, understood and
propounded by Descartes three hundred
years ago. In his time many important
functions of our organisms were unknown
and especially with respect to the nature
of light and the construction and
operation of the eye, philosophers were in
the dark.
In recent years the progress of
scientific research in these fields has been
such as to leave no room for a doubt in
regard to this view on which many works
have been published. One of its ablest and
most eloquent exponents is, perhaps,
Felix le Dantec, formerly assistant of
Pasteur. Professor Jacques Loeb has
performed remarkable experiments in
heliotropism, clearly establishing the
controlling power of light in lower forms
of organisms and his latest book,
"Forced Movements," is revelatory. But
while men of science accept this theory
simply as any other that is recognised, to
me it is a truth which I hourly
demonstrate by every act and thought of
mine. The consciousness of the external
impression prompting me to any kind of
exertion, physical or mental, is ever
present in my mind. Only on very rare
occasions, when I was in a state of
exceptional concentration, have I found
difficulty in locating the original
impulse. The by far greater number of human
beings are never aware of what is
passing around and within them and millions
fall victims of disease and die
prematurely just on this account. The
commonest, every-day occurrences appear to
them mysterious and inexplicable. One may
feel a sudden wave of sadness and rack
his brain for an explanation, when he might
have noticed that it was caused by a
cloud cutting off the rays of the sun. He
may see the image of a friend dear to
him under conditions which he construes as
very peculiar, when only shortly
before he has passed him in the street or
seen his photograph somewhere. When he
loses a collar button, he fusses and swears
for an hour, being unable to
visualise his previous actions and locate
the object directly. Deficient
observation is merely a form of ignorance
and responsible for the many morbid
notions and foolish ideas prevailing. There
is not more than one out of every
ten persons who does not believe in
telepathy and other psychic manifestations,
spiritualism and communion with the dead,
and who would refuse to listen to
willing or unwilling
deceivers?
Just to illustrate how deeply
rooted this tendency has become even among the
clear-headed American population, I may
mention a comical incident. Shortly
before the war, when the exhibition of my
turbines in this city elicited
widespread comment in the technical papers,
I anticipated that there would be a
scramble among manufacturers to get hold of
the invention and I had particular
designs on that man from Detroit who has an
uncanny faculty for accumulating
millions. So confident was I, that he would
turn up some day, that I declared
this as certain to my secretary and
assistants. Sure enough, one fine morning a
body of engineers from the Ford Motor
Company presented themselves with the
request of discussing with me an important
project. "Didn't I tell you?," I
remarked triumphantly to my employees, and
one of them said, "You are amazing,
Mr. Tesla. Everything comes out exactly as
you predict."
As soon as these hard-headed men
were seated, I of course, immediately began to
extol the wonderful features of my turbine,
when the spokesman interrupted me
and said, "We know all about this, but we
are on a special errand. We have
formed a psychological society for the
investigation of psychic phenomena and we
want you to join us in this undertaking." I
suppose these engineers never knew
how near they came to being fired out of my
office.
Ever since I was told by some of
the greatest men of the time, leaders in
science whose names are immortal, that I am
possessed of an unusual mind, I bent
all my thinking faculties on the solution
of great problems regardless of
sacrifice. For many years I endeavoured to
solve the enigma of death, and
watched eagerly for every kind of spiritual
indication. But only once in the
course of my existence have I had an
experience which momentarily impressed me
as supernatural. It was at the time of my
mother's death.
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. Two or three months
before, I was in London in company
with my late friend, Sir William Crookes,
when spiritualism was discussed and I
was under the full sway of these thoughts.
I might not have paid attention to
other men, but was susceptible to his
arguments as it was his epochal work on
radiant matter, which I had read as a
student, that made me embrace the
electrical career. I reflected that the
conditions for a look into the beyond
were most favourable, for my mother was a
woman of genius and particularly
excelling in the powers of intuition.
During the whole night every fibre in my
brain was strained in expectancy, but
nothing happened until early in the
morning, when I fell in a sleep, or perhaps
a swoon, and saw a cloud carrying
angelic figures of marvellous 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 a
certitude, which no words can express, came
upon me that my mother had just died. And
that was true. I was unable to
understand the tremendous weight of the
painful knowledge I received in advance,
and wrote a letter to Sir William Crookes
while still under the domination of
these impressions and in poor bodily
health. When I recovered, I sought for a
long time the external cause of this
strange manifestation and, to my great
relief, I succeeded after many months of
fruitless effort.
I had seen the painting of a
celebrated artist, representing allegorically one
of the seasons in the form of a cloud with
a group of angels which seemed to
actually float in the air, and this had
struck me forcefully. It was exactly the
same that appeared in my dream, with the
exception of my mother's likeness. The
music came from the choir in the church
nearby at the early mass of Easter
morning, explaining everything
satisfactorily in conformity with scientific
facts.
This occurred long ago, and I have
never had the faintest reason since to change
my views on psychical and spiritual
phenomena, for which there is no foundation.
The belief in these is the natural
outgrowth of intellectual development.
Religious dogmas are no longer accepted in
their orthodox meaning, but every
individual clings to faith in a supreme
power of some kind.
We all must have an ideal to
govern our conduct and insure contentment, but it
is immaterial whether it be one of creed,
art, science, or anything else, so
long as it fulfils the function of a
dematerialising force. It is essential to
the peaceful existence of humanity as a
whole that one common conception should
prevail. While I have failed to obtain any
evidence in support of the
contentions of psychologists and spiritualists, I have proved to my
complete
satisfaction the automatism of life, not only through continuous
observations of
individual actions, but even more conclusively through certain
generalisations.
these amount to a discovery which I consider of the greatest moment to
human
society, and
on which I shall briefly dwell.
I got the first inkling of this
astonishing truth when I was still a very young
man, but for many years I interpreted what
I noted simply as coincidences.
Namely, whenever either myself or a person
to whom I was attached, or a cause to
which I was devoted, was hurt by others in
a particular way, which might be best
popularly characterised as the most unfair
imaginable, I experienced a singular
and undefinable pain which, for the want of
a better term, I have qualified as
"cosmic" and shortly thereafter, and
invariably, those who had inflicted it came
to grief. After many such cases I confided
this to a number of friends, who had
the opportunity to convince themselves of
the theory of which I have gradually
formulated and which may be stated in the
following few words: Our bodies are of
similar construction and exposed to the
same external forces. This results in
likeness of response and concordance of the
general activities on which all our
social and other rules and laws are based.
We are automata entirely controlled
by the forces of the medium, being tossed
about like corks on the surface of the
water, but mistaking the resultant of the
impulses from the outside for the free
will. The movements and other actions we
perform are always life preservative
and though seemingly quite independent from
one another, we are connected by
invisible links. So long as the organism is
in perfect order, it responds
accurately to the agents that prompt it,
but the moment that there is some
derangement in any individual, his
self-preservative power is impaired.
Everybody understands, of course,
that if one becomes deaf, has his eyes
weakened, or his limbs injured, the chances
for his continued existence are
lessened. But this is also true, and
perhaps more so, of certain defects in the
brain which drive the automaton, more or
less, of that vital quality and cause
it to rush into destruction. A very
sensitive and observant being, with his
highly developed mechanism all intact, and
acting with precision in obedience to
the changing conditions of the environment,
is endowed with a transcending
mechanical sense, enabling him to evade
perils too subtle to be directly
perceived. When he comes in contact with
others whose controlling organs are
radically faulty, that sense asserts itself
and he feels the "cosmic" pain.
The truth of this has been borne
out in hundreds of instances and I am inviting
other students of nature to devote
attention to this subject, believing that
through combined systematic effort, results
of incalculable value to the world
will be attained. The idea of constructing
an automaton, to bear out my theory,
presented itself to me early, but I did not
begin active work until 1895, when I
started my wireless investigations. During
the succeeding two or three years, a
number of automatic mechanisms, to be
actuated from a distance, were constructed
by me and exhibited to visitors in my
laboratory.
In 1896, however, I designed a
complete machine capable of a multitude of
operations, but the consummation of my
labours was delayed until late in 1897.
This machine was illustrated and
described in my article in the Century Magazine
of June, 1900; and other periodicals of
that time and when first shown in the
beginning of 1898, it created a sensation
such as no other invention of mine has
ever produced. In November, 1898, a basic
patent on the novel art was granted to
me, but only after the Examiner-in-Chief
had come to New York and witnessed the
performance, for what I claimed seemed
unbelievable. I remember that when later
I called on an official in Washington, with
a view of offering the invention to
the Government, he burst out in laughter
upon my telling him what I had
accomplished. Nobody thought then that
there was the faintest prospect of
perfecting such a device. It is unfortunate
that in this patent, following the
advice of my attorneys, I indicated the
control as being affected through the
medium of a single circuit and a well-known
form of detector, for the reason
that I had not yet secured protection on my
methods and apparatus for
individualisation. As a matter of fact, my boats were controlled
through the
joint
action of several circuits and interference of every kind was
excluded.
Most generally, I employed
receiving circuits in the form of loops, including
condensers, because the discharges of my
high-tension transmitter ionised the
air in the (laboratory) so that even a very
small aerial would draw electricity
from the surrounding atmosphere for
hours.
Just to give an idea, I found, for
instance, that a bulb twelve inches in
diameter, highly exhausted, and with one
single terminal to which a short wire
was attached, would deliver well on to one
thousand successive flashes before
all charge of the air in the laboratory was
neutralised. The loop form of
receiver was not sensitive to such a
disturbance and it is curious to note that
it is becoming popular at this late date.
In reality, it collects much less
energy than the aerials or a long grounded
wire, but it so happens that it does
away with a number of defects inherent to
the present wireless devices.
In demonstrating my invention
before audiences, the visitors were requested to
ask questions, however involved, and the
automaton would answer them by signs.
This was considered magic at the time, but
was extremely simple, for it was
myself who gave the replies by means of the
device.
At the same period, another larger
telautomatic boat was constructed, a
photograph of which was shown in the
October 1919 number of the Electrical
Experimenter. It was controlled by loops,
having several turns placed in the
hull, which was made entirely water-tight
and capable of submergence. The
apparatus was similar to that used in the
first with the exception of certain
special features I introduced as, for
example, incandescent lamps which afforded
a visible evidence of the proper
functioning of the machine. These automata,
controlled within the range of vision of
the operator, were, however, the first
and rather crude steps in the evolution of
the art of Telautomatics as I had
conceived it.
The next logical improvement was
its application to automatic mechanisms beyond
the limits of vision and at great distances
from the centre of control, and I
have ever since advocated their employment
as instruments of warfare in
preference to guns. The importance of this
now seems to be recognised, if I am
to judge from casual announcements through
the press, of achievements which are
said to be extraordinary but contain no
merit of novelty, whatever. In an
imperfect manner it is practicable, with
the existing wireless plants, to launch
an aeroplane, have it follow a certain
approximate course, and perform some
operation at a distance of many hundreds of
miles. A machine of this kind can
also be mechanically controlled in several
ways and I have no doubt that it may
prove of some usefulness in war. But there
are to my best knowledge, no
instrumentalities in existence today with
which such an object could be
accomplished in a precise manner. I have
devoted years of study to this matter
and have evolved means, making such and
greater wonders easily realisable.
As stated on a previous occasion,
when I was a student at college I conceived a
flying machine quite unlike the present
ones. The underlying principle was
sound, but could not be carried into
practice for want of a prime-mover of
sufficiently great activity. In recent
years, I have successfully solved this
problem and am now planning aerial machines
devoid of sustaining planes,
ailerons, propellers, and other external
attachments, which will be capable of
immense speeds and are very likely to
furnish powerful arguments for peace in
the near future. Such a machine, sustained
and propelled *entirely by reaction,
is shown on one of the pages of my
lectures, and is supposed to be controlled
either mechanically, or by wireless energy.
By installing proper plants, it will
be practicable to project a missile of this
kind into the air and drop it
almost on the very spot designated, which
may be thousands of miles away.
But we are not going to stop at
this. Telautomats will be ultimately produced,
capable of acting as if possessed of their
own intelligence, and their advent
will create a revolution. As early as 1898,
I proposed to representatives of a
large manufacturing concern the
construction and public exhibition of an
automobile carriage which, left to itself,
would perform a great variety of
operations involving something akin to
judgment. But my proposal was deemed
chimerical at the time and nothing came of
it.
At present, many of the ablest
minds are trying to devise expedients for
preventing a repetition of the awful
conflict which is only theoretically ended
and the duration and main issues of which I
have correctly predicted in an
article printed in the SUN of December 20,
1914. The proposed League is not a
remedy but, on the contrary, in the opinion
of a number of competent men, may
bring about results just the
opposite.
It is particularly regrettable
that a punitive policy was adopted in framing the
terms of peace, because a few years hence,
it will be possible for nations to
fight without armies, ships or guns, by
weapons far more terrible, to the
destructive action and range of which there
is virtually no limit. Any city, at
a distance, whatsoever, from the enemy, can
be destroyed by him and no power on
earth can stop him from doing so. If we
want to avert an impending calamity and
a state of things which may transform the
globe into an inferno, we should push
the development of flying machines and
wireless transmission of energy without
an instant's delay and with all the power
and resources of the nation.
