Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency: A Lecture Delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, LondonTesla, Nikola
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Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency: A Lecture Delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London
Tesla, Nikola
Electric currents, Alternating; Electric discharges; Incandescent lamps; Telegraph, Wireless
tend to diminish the self-induction, and then it would be necessary to
employ a much higher frequency and potential. Neither would be
advisable, for a higher potential would endanger the insulation of the
small primary coil, and a higher frequency would result in a
materially diminished torque.
It should be remarked that when such a motor with a closed secondary
is used, it is not at all easy to obtain rotation with excessive
frequencies, as the secondary cuts off almost completely the lines of
the primary--and this, of course, the more, the higher the
frequency--and allows the passage of but a minute current. In such a
case, unless the secondary is closed through a condenser, it is almost
essential, in order to produce rotation, to make the primary and
secondary coils overlap each other more or less.
But there is an additional feature of interest about this motor,
namely, it is not necessary to have even a single connection between
the motor and generator, except, perhaps, through the ground: for not
only is an insulated plate capable of giving off energy into space,
but it is likewise capable of deriving it from an alternating
electrostatic field, though in the latter case the available energy is
much smaller. In this instance one of the motor terminals is connected
to the insulated plate or body located within the alternating
electrostatic field, and the other terminal preferably to the ground.
It is quite possible, however, that such "no-wire" motors, as they
might be called, could be operated by conduction through the rarefied
air at considerable distances. Alternate currents, especially of high
frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly
rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied. To reach a
number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties
of a merely mechanical nature. There is no doubt that with the
enormous potentials obtainable by the use of high frequencies and oil
insulation luminous discharges might be passed through many miles of
rarefied air, and that, by thus directing the energy of many hundreds
or thousands of horse-power, motors or lamps might be operated at
considerable distances from stationary sources. But such schemes are
mentioned merely as possibilities. We shall have no need to transmit
power in this way. We shall have no need to _transmit_ power at all.
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power
obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men
have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason. It has been
expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and
new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power
from the earth; we find it among the subtile speculations of one of
your splendid mathematicians, and in many hints and statements of
thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is
this energy static or kinetic? If static our hopes are in vain; if
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