Anand Kumar Sethi

The European Edisons

Volta, Tesla, and Tigerstedt

Anand Kumar Sethi

New Delhi, India

ISBN 978-1-137-49220-3     e-ISBN 978-1-137-49222-7

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-49222-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943545

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

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“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others…I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. I never did a day’s work in my life, it was all fun.”

“We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles yet!”

—Thomas Alva Edison

Preface

It is often said that the most difficult part of writing a book is the preface, and even more so when the author wishes to dedicate the book to someone very special. In writing this book I was faced with the same difficulty. How do you really decide this issue? One interacts with so many people over the years—family, teachers, colleagues, and business acquaintances from different countries, to many of whom one feels a profound debt of gratitude and appreciation.

The title of this work betrays the book’s focus: Europeans. While visiting places in Europe, I have many times experienced déjà vu moments. Could there be a cosmic connection to Europe then? I don’t know! All I can say is that following a complicated surgical procedure at a London Hospital an eminent surgeon asserted that my ailment and DNA are typical of Macedonians. Well, Alexander the Great and his Macedonians did conquer the northern part of India, my home country, and several of them stayed behind and settled in India!

Over the years I have been fortunate to have had Europeans as some of my best and most trusted friends. For many years I have been a colleague as well as a business partner of some excellent and competent Europeans with no rancour or friction in the relationships. I would go so far as to say that in many ways our thought processes and tastes—whether in music, travel, science, technology, or food and drinking—have been extraordinarily similar. We have had many wonderful moments together at work, at times of family celebrations and on joyous occasions.

My European experiences over the years have indeed been most satisfying and fulfilling. They range from Grenchen, the epicentre of the Swiss horological industry, to a decrepit old television factory in Soviet-era Lithuania, a soul-less, nameless fibre optic centre of excellence in Soviet Russia, and to a business lecture before an audience of eminent Finnish managers at a Helsinki sauna club (au naturel).

It is thus without any hesitation that I dedicate this book to all my European friends, colleagues, and the many professionals that I have had the privilege to work with. However, I would not be doing justice to one particular individual if I did not single out his name here. As the section of this book on the Finnish inventor and technologist (I use this word specifically to differentiate him from ‘scientist’) Eric Tigerstedt will show, it has been quite a challenge to obtain authentic information on this great man. He seemed to have almost completely dropped out of public memory, even in his native Finland.

It was thus extremely fortuitous that a very dear Finnish friend, Matti Kerppola, managed to track down the late Eric Tigerstedt’s nephew, Dr. Peter Tigerstedt, in the beautiful part of Finland known as Mustila. Peter Tigerstedt has indeed been most generous with his time, sharing all the information he had on his uncle. He also arranged for us a visit to the Tekniikan Museo (Museum of Technology) in Helsinki and a meeting with researchers there who are engaged in collecting materials for the archives of Eric Tigerstedt. For all of this and for the wonderful time we had in Mustila, a very special dedication goes to Dr. Peter Tigerstedt.

Anand Kumar Sethi

New Delhi, India

Introduction

It is widely accepted that modern science originated in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period now popularly referred to as the Scientific Revolution. It was a time of considerable ferment on the continent. Well accepted old doctrines, religious as well as scientific, for the first time came under serious attack. Just as John Calvin and Martin Luther had challenged the religious dogma of the Catholic Church, the publication in the 1540s of the works of Andreas Vesalius (on human anatomy) and Nicolaus Copernicus (on Earth’s orbiting the Sun) shook the very core of established religious belief and the stranglehold of the church on the temporal and non-temporal foundations of society, especially the centrality of Earth (geocentricity) and humans in the universe.

Matters came to a head when Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar and a philosopher-mathematician, proposed in the late 1590s his ‘cosmological theory’ that went beyond even what Copernicus had stated. He put forth the idea that the stars were just distant suns with their own ‘exoplanets’. Further, he postulated that the Universe was infinite and the belief of the church that the Earth was at its centre was totally incorrect.

For his troubles, Bruno was tried and convicted of the greatest heresy and burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600—a year now accepted as the birth date of modern science. (The term ‘scientist’ in the English language, however, had to wait until the nineteenth century, when it was first used by William Whewell).

Subsequent to Bruno’s challenge many so-called natural philosophers of old ‘came out of the closet’, as it were, and became emboldened enough to postulate modern scientific concepts. They repudiated the established theories of Plato and Aristotle, which for long had been endorsed by the church and the papacy.

The stranglehold of the Catholic Church now came under serious attack. On the religious side, the Protestant Reformation had taken hold. Scientific thinkers and writers dared to speak out openly. In 1607, the (possibly apocryphal) tale of a long-forgotten early-sixteenth-century German historical figure called Faust inspired Christopher Marlowe to write his book The Tragical History of Dr Faustus . Just as Faustus is tempted by the ‘devil’ in the form of Mephistopheles, Marlowe sees the emerging world as being tempted by science and scientific enquiry.

One of these bold and brave men of science was the redoubtable Galileo Galilei. Galileo, sometimes referred to as the father of modern science, challenged geocentrism and strongly advocated Copernicus’s concept of heliocentrism . In 1615, he was charged, tried and found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition. Galileo sadly spent the last 9 years of his life under house arrest.

Nevertheless, in the subsequent years of the seventeenth century and in the following eighteenth century, which may be looked upon as the beginning of a scientific revolution or the Age of Enlightenment, a whole galaxy of extraordinary natural philosophers, or men of science, emerged in Europe. These included such greats as Newton, Huygens, Volta, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, Pascal and manyothers.

The nineteenth century, at least in continental Europe, ushered in the Romantic Age, with a drift away from the disciplined objectivity that had become pervasive in the eighteenth century. The German poet Goethe revived the tale of Faustus as the opera Faust at a time when continental Europe felt that rationalist thinking had perhaps gone too far. In this opera, the Devil (Satan) offers Faust all knowledge in exchange for his soul. Goethe and his opera would, as we will read later in this book, go on to inspire one of the greatest scientific minds in world history.

Despite the romanticism of continental Europe of the time, the nineteenth century saw major advances in the sciences, including in biology, physics and chemistry. Notable amongst scientists of that time were Humphry Davy, Alfred Nobel, Charles Darwin, Joseph Priestley, James Clerk Maxwell, Han Christian Oersted and, of course, the great Nikola Tesla.

Yet, one cannot help but notice that despite all the extraordinary scientists and their brilliant work, for some reason the natural philosophers (scientists) from continental Europe had not been quite so successful at converting their discoveries into industrial technologies, unlike their British and American counterparts.

Was this because of some lingering Faustian effects or church control? Were the Napoleonic Wars to blame? Were there inherent deficiencies or total absence of a proper patent protection and reward system in continental Europe, in contrast to that in Britain and, even more so, in America? Did the Reformation give rise to a unique entrepreneurial class based on some Protestant work ethic?

It is not the purpose of this book to analyze the previously stated factors. Suffice it to say that Britain and the United States clearly ushered in their own Industrial Revolutions earlier than continental Europe. In addition, many continental European engineers, scientists and inventors sent papers, articles and details of their works to British institutions, such as the Royal Society, to internationalize their credentials. It is also recorded that some of them actually sought to collaborate with their British and American peers to advance their work.

One other aspect emerged during the research and writing of my previous work. At least four of the European scientists and inventors had a clear link to Thomas Alva Edison, the great American inventor who had well over 1000 patents to his name. All four left extraordinary legacies to the world. Three connections were direct, viz. those of Tesla, Marconi and Tigerstedt. Each had in some way worked with or been in close contact with Edison.

The fourth link, that of Volta, was indirect—through common work on gas and electric lights, batteries and, in the present context, through the Edison Volta prize of the European Physical Society. We also know that Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the Volta Prize by Napoleon’s government of France in 1880. He used the money to establish the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, Bell and his associates set up the Volta Graphophone Company. A partnership offer in the firm was made to Edison, who declined and instead set up his own Edison Phonograph Company in 1887.

The preceding discussion, then, presents the germination of the concept for this book and its title. It would be fair to ask why Marconi has not been included in this book. I deliberated quite a bit on this issue. Of course, we know that Edison and Marconi had been close friends. The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company bought Edison’s patent for wireless telegraphy by induction. Yes, Marconi (along with Karl Ferdinand Braun) had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909. We also know that Marconi was a student of Tesla in the study of radio transmission theory, and Tesla praised Marconi as ‘a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using 17 of my patents’.

At the same time, recall that in 1943, the US Supreme Court would overturn Marconi’s patent for the radio and award it to Tesla. Also, as an Indian, it is difficult for me to overlook Marconi’s alleged subterfuge in connection with the development of the mercury coherer receiver by Jagadish Chandra Bose.

Lastly on the subject of Marconi and the radio, notwithstanding the claims of Tesla and Bose, I do believe sometimes that the Russian, Alexander Stepanovitch Popov had a working radio as early as 1894. The Russians firmly believe this as did my Professor (of Russian origin) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Clearly thus Marconi was best left out of this book.

Not that long ago, Volta and Tesla would not have been household names amongst average people. Yet today, these two have become somewhat iconic thanks in large measure to their names being associated with branded battery operated and hybrid cars. Of course, you cannot have an electric car without a good battery!

Now, as this book will show, the battery links Volta with Edison. Recall that Henry Ford once asked his good friend Edison to make a decent battery for his cars. Speaking of cars, in the past few years the names of Tesla and Volta have been linked with so-called green cars. Further, a prize of US 5 million from the annual XPRIZE (started by Peter Diamandis) was awarded a few years ago to EDISON2, a Virginia-based company, for its design of a car that could travel in excess of 40 km/L of fuel.

Thanks to the Internet Tesla has emerged as the darling of the ‘chattering crowds’ with blogs and posts hailing him whilst demonizing Edison. Of course, it helps to have the world’s leading tennis player (in 2015), Novak Djokovic, a Serb like Tesla, proclaim to the world, as if he were a publicist, “I am inspired most by science and by Nikola Tesla…He is the pride of our country. And he is somebody that I look up to as a guide through life!”

What about Eric Tigerstedt? If you said ‘Tigerstedt who?’ perhaps you would not quite be branded an uninformed bumpkin! To my utter horror I have even had high-level Finnish politicians, diplomats and company executives give a blank look at the mention of the name of possibly the greatest Finnish inventor, engineer and technologist in history. And yet this extraordinary person, who died tragically at the young age of 38, left behind a legacy of some 400 patents critically important to the development of electronics, telecommunications, radar and cinematography.

The tragedy of Eric Tigerstedt, apart from his ill health, was that he was almost a stateless person. With his German patents lost when poor Finland went to the opposing side in World War 1, he moved to Denmark, Finland and finally the USA to find more satisfying outlets to his great talent. To me personally, it is very satisfying to see a revival of sorts and recognition of the works of Eric Tigerstedt, in large part due to the Tekniikan Museo (Technical Museum) of Helsinki (a special word of thanks to Emilia Vasti, Marjo Mikkola, Riina Linna and their colleagues), with the help of Eric’s nephew, Dr. Peter Tigerstedt, who has so lovingly collected and saved his uncle’s old letters, documentation, drawings and other items and curates something of a mini museum on the Tigerstedt family estate of Mustila in Finland: a just and fitting tribute to a person now rightly known as ‘Suomen Edison’ (the Finnish Edison).

Contents

1 Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta

2 Nikola (Nicolae) Tesla

3 Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt

Appendix A: Patents of Nikola Tesla

Appendix B: List of Patents of Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt

Bibliography

Index

© The Author(s) 2016

Anand Kumar SethiThe European Edisons10.1057/978-1-137-49222-7_1

1. Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta

18 February, 1745–5 March 1827

Anand Kumar Sethi^1

(1)

New Delhi, India

Volta

‘The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning; facts can destroy our ratiocination—not vice versa.’

–Alessandro Volta

Lake Como (Lago di Como in Italian) in Lombardy, Italy, not far from Milan, has been a popular resort and tourist destination since Roman times. Many international celebrities have or have had homes on the shores of this beautiful lake. It is also famous for the capture and assassination in 1945 of Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci by Partisans at Dongo on its north-western shore.

The town of Como on the southern shore, from which the lake derives its name, has scientific history associated with it as it was the home town of Pliny the Elder (the author of Naturalis Historia, a 37-volume compendium of ancient science) and of Pliny the Younger. However, the distinction of being the greatest and most famous son of Como must go to Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, acknowledged as one of the greatest scientists of all time, whose discoveries, works and experiments have had a profound influence on the world as we know it today. It is not surprising, then, that the town of Como has a town square, a street and a school named after him and a great museum housing a collection of his works.

Alessandro Volta (referred to henceforth as Volta) was born in 1745 into a noble family of Lombardy. The accepted norm and practice of the day was for the local nobility to be deeply involved in religious matters. In many cases, the nobility, such as Volta’s family, even became part of the Church or, at the very least, members of societies closely associated with it. This enabled the combination of Church and nobility to maintain control over all major matters concerning local society, including cultural, social, educational and economic.

By the time Volta was ready to go to high school, Como had many monasteries and other religious institutions. Given the nexus between Church and nobility, it is not surprising that as a teenager Volta became a boarder at a Jesuit educational institution and was enrolled for a short period in one of the local seminaries. With almost all teachers at these institutions being priests, it may be safely assumed that any basic education in physics or natural philosophy received by Volta would have been influenced by the beliefs of the Church of the time.

It would also perhaps be safe to assume that Volta would have been familiar with the works of Pliny the Elder, who, as stated, was also from Como. In his compendium Naturalis Historia, first printed in 1499, Pliny covered topics ranging from geography, zoology and botany to mining and mineralogy. However, since Pliny himself does not seem to have been a natural philosopher, there is very little chance that Volta’s endeavours during his lifetime would in any way have been influenced by Pliny the Elder.

What is known and recorded is the influence another student at a Jesuit institution in Como had on Volta. This was Giulio Cesare Gattoni. Volta befriended Gattoni during their student days in Como. Gattoni had an inclination towards the study of science and electric phenomena, which was quite the rage during what would come to be called the Age of Enlightenment.

In 1764, Gattoni rented a building (part of the still-standing Porta Nuova Tower) from the municipality of Como to establish a laboratory and library, where Volta was a frequent visitor. In 1768, Gattoni set up the first lightning rod in his Como laboratory. It is thus almost certain that Volta’s friendship with Gattoni and the visits to and the use of his laboratory sparked in Volta a deep interest in the field of electricity.

But possibly the most important influence on the young Volta and his experimentation in the field of electricity was another Italian priest turned natural philosopher/scientist, Giambatista Beccaria.[1] Beccaria had experimented with electricity and written papers and books on the subject. He was also a contemporary as well as a correspondent of the great Benjamin Franklin, another pioneer in the field of electricity.

It was the Age of Enlightenment. Electricity as a field of study was all the vogue. Some of the greatest minds, including von Guericke, Gray, Dufay, Musschenbroek, Nollet, Benjamin Franklin, Delor, Dalibard and Beccaria were considered pioneers in the field. In 1763, Volta, at the very young age of 17, no doubt impressed by all he had read about electricity, wrote a letter to Beccaria (then holding the Chair of Physics at Turin University) about his thoughts on electricity. Sadly, Beccaria did not deign to reply.

Volta was quite an avid correspondent and prolific letter writer. He wrote to many scientific personalities of the day in addition to Beccaria. He sent letters, papers and notes to the French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet. Later he would correspond with Professor Carlo Barletti of the University of Pavia, the Italian physicist Giovani Aldini, Joseph Priestley, Joseph Banks of the Royal Society in London and several others in Europe and Britain. Of course, it helped that Volta was fluent in several languages, with a very good knowledge of Latin, French, English, German, Dutch and Spanish, in addition to his native Italian.

In 1765, Volta used Gattoni’s laboratory for his own experiments. In the same year, at the age of 20, Volta wrote possibly his first scientific paper, on static electricity produced by rubbing two different substances. Again corresponding with Beccaria, Volta this time received an encouraging response. In 1769 he published a treatise in Latin entitled On the attractive force of the electric fire, in the form of a letter to Beccaria, who from then on became a sort of mentor to Volta.[2]

At about this time, it appears, Volta started to question blind superstition about commonly observed phenomena. He started to write his scientific thoughts, strangely, in the form of poetry. This might have been out of due caution as the administration in Lombardy changed between Austria and France and then back again to Austria. Further, of course, Volta had to be wary of the sensitivities of the Church, to which many of his kinfolk belonged, and because he had studied in a Church-affiliated school.

In his first known work of poetry, ‘Volta ascribes to the science of electricity a key role in the portrait of the age of reason….If (Benjamin) Franklin had rebutted Lucretius on the cause of lightning, Volta clearly saw Franklin’s electrical explanation of lightning as yet another step in the Lucretian fight for freeing humanity from superstition.’[3]

With a series of successful experiments and innovations, and with his relentless exchange of letters with renowned natural philosophers and men of science of the time, Volta soon acquired a reputation as a man of science with good credentials in the developing domain of electricity. This, coupled with the backing of some of his mentors as well as other influential contacts in the world of academia, Volta’s appointment in 1774 as superintendent in the regional secondary educational system.

Volta’s Electrophorus

Volta, was fascinated reading about the works of Aepinus (Franz Maria), also known as Epino, a German scientist who in his 1759 book Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetism (An Attempt at the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism) describes what today we would call a parallel plate capacitor.[4]

In 1775 Volta publicly announced (in a letter sent to Joseph Priestley) the development of his own version of a device that would store electric charge. He used the principle of electrostatic induction, or ‘influence’ (as Volta described it), rather than the known version of generating electrostatic charge by rubbing two materials together. He called it the electrophorus.

Volta’s so-called perpetual electrophorus comprised a sort of cake of resin placed between two metallic discs. First, the bottom metallic disc is rubbed by wool to give its upper surface a negative charge. When the upper metallic disc is brought close to the bottom disc, its lower surface acquires a positive charge by the process of induction. The negative charge on the other side is drained off by the simple expedient of an ‘earthing’ connection. The remaining induced positive charge on the upper disc is now usable to, for example, charge a Leyden jar.

After discharging the positive charge from the upper metallic disc, it may be recharged following the same process, over and over again. As a result the device came to be known as Volta’s perpetual electrophorus. It has been described as ‘the most intriguing electrical device since the Leyden jar’.[5]

It is believed that Volta’s development of the electrophorus was also greatly influenced by the works of Joseph Priestley. Volta had experimented first with a wood disc (instead of the resin disc), but on reading Priestley’s History of Electricity, he noted that this approach had already been tried. He switched to using baked cardboard with some success and wrote a letter to Priestley describing his work.

Priestley wrote back promptly to say, ‘The idea of your machine made of cardboard impressed me. That is why I had it built for me, and I was much surprised to see its effects.’[6]

Volta experimented with many dielectrics, vitreous as well as resinous. These included silk, glass and resin before settling on the latter, which turned out to be the most efficient solution at that time. It must be stated here that Volta was not the inventor of the electrophorus or its equivalent. We have already mentioned Aepinus. But Johan Carl Wilcke, a Swedish professor, and several others had also developed such devices. However, Volta was the first to come up with a so-called influence electrophorus.[7]

Credit must be given to Volta for having come up with an ingeniously simple but robust machine that could easily be reproduced in numbers, so much so that building a simple electrophorus is a popular physics laboratory and hobby lesson in many schools worldwide today.

In its fundamental form, Volta’s electrophorus may be seen as an electrostatic charge generator which in its time was seen as a replacement for the Leyden jar. Today, as stated earlier, it may be viewed as primarily a laboratory teaching device on the subject of electrostatic charge. Yet, it was a precursor to several interesting applications using efficient but simple electrostatic charge generators.

Such electrostatic generators also find applications in, for example, economical electrostatic non-permanent bonding using static electricity, food sterilization and some medical laboratory applications. Edward Nairne, British scientist and inventor (who, along with Isaac Newton, invented the rubber eraser), developed a version of the electrophorus shortly after Volta. This contraption was reportedly used for treatment of ‘nervous disorders’. Apparently, the device was used to deliver a controlled electric shock to a patient suffering from a mental ailment. At the time of writing (in 2015), one such machine is actually being offered for sale on an antiques Web site.[8]

Even in modern times, a review of the literature suggests that an electrophorus is used for various other medical treatment of patients. Walter John Turrell, in his book on electrotherapy, writes, ‘There is much evidence to show that the raising of blood pressure, due to the stimulation of the afferent nerves of the skin [when a charge is applied from an electrophorus machine] is the primary and main effect of the static charge. For instance, it has been recognized for many years that this form of treatment is especially indicated for cases of neurasthenia with low blood pressure, that it is also indicated as a general stimulant or tonic when the patient is exhausted by prolonged pain, anxiety, or overwork, or where sleeplessness has resulted from either of these causes.’[9]

The electrophorus has other interesting connections. Derivatives of the electrophorus and its technology have found application in spray painting, the removal of soot from chimneys, photocopiers and inkjet printers. Tesla, as we will read in Chap. 2 of this book, also used one in his experiments for his patent on radiant energy.

The so-called electric eel fish (Electrophorus electricus) is famous for its ability to generate a powerful electric shock. This aspect of ‘animal electricity’ developed into an interesting field of study and, as we will see subsequently in the book, into an intellectual conflict between Volta and Luigi Galvani.[10]

But one phenomenon that is definitely not a legacy of Volta is the human electrophorus. This is the term used for humans who (would) have a small integrated circuit or microchip implanted inside them. The chip can then be interrogated by sensors for different applications such as automatic identification. Here the term electrophorus is used as a direct derivative of the Greek electro (amber) and phorus (wear/put on).[11]

Joseph Priestley responded a year later to Volta’s letter of 1775 announcing the making of his so-called influence electrophorus. The reply was most encouraging indeed. Priestley wrote: ‘I have very lately received the printed sequel of your letter to me, and also another letter containing a concise account of your discovery. It is indeed a very curious one, and the study and application of it will, I doubt not, contribute greatly to improve the science of Electricity, and must do you the greatest honour with all who know the real value of it.’[12]

With such a sound endorsement by one of the greatest scientific minds of the time, Volta soon became famous and a popular speaker on the European scientific circuit. Volta was now clearly destined for bigger and greater things!

By 1779 Volta had been appointed Professor at the famous University of Pavia. He now began further investigations, not only in his field of specialization, electricity, but also into aspects of chemistry, about which we will read subsequently in this book.

Condensatore (Micro-electroscope): Forerunner of the Condenser/Capacitor

In 1780 Volta started work on his next electrical project. Note that Volta appears to have been more of a practical inventor and engineer than a theoretical physicist. For this he came under criticism from many so-called natural philosophers of the time, more than likely out of jealousy for someone who could actually demonstrate his works.

Following the development of his electrophorus, Volta continued his experiments on electrical charge using many different materials and under different ambient conditions. He wanted to determine all the conditions under which materials would either obtain a charge or lose an acquired charge—what makes some materials conductors, others semiconductors and still others insulators. Most importantly, he wanted to resolve the paradox of why a flat conductor retains some electricity longer when resting on a partly dried surface rather than on a well dried table—‘enough to pique the curiosity’, as Volta put it.[13]

Volta postulated that electric charge was prevalent more than was believed till then. It was just that in many cases the amount of charge was too small to be felt or detected in conventional ways. Thus arose a requirement of being able to detect very weak electrical charges, such as those on large surface areas that make contact with each other, or those electrical charges commonly available in the atmosphere or in gases. What was required, Volta felt, was some means of amplifying the ‘tension’ so that it could be detected. What was required was a better and more sensitive electroscope.

Electroscopes had been known ever since the scientist William Gilbert made one in 1600. Subsequent improvements were made on this basic instrument over the years by the likes of John Canton and Abraham Bennet, both, like Gilbert, from Britain. Volta’s version of the electroscope used his fundamental electrophorus design as described in what follows.

Two flat metallic plates are separated by a thin dielectric, such as a layer of varnish or a marble disc. The bottom metallic plate (the collecting plate) stays fixed while the upper plate (the condensing plate) may be moved. The upper plate has a glass rod attached. The collecting plate is connected to a conventional leaf electroscope inside a glass jar. One may visualize this as a parallel plate condenser sitting on top of an old fashioned leaf electroscope.

The collecting plate is charged by an electrified rod, whilst the condensing plate is kept grounded by the touch of a human finger. If the lower plate is given a negative charge, then the upper plate acquires a positive charge which is equal and opposite. When the finger and the source of charge are removed, the leaves inside the glass jar diverge. However, in this case, the divergence of the leaves is different from that of the case where a charge would be directly applied without the presence of the capacitor attachment. In Volta’s electroscope, the capacitor (condensatore) indicates the ‘potential’ and not just simple charge. In effect, in Volta’s electroscope, there is actually a charge amplification process.

The Volta electroscope can be used, for example, to determine levels of charge in water vapour or in burning coal. A possibly critical application in the modern world is in the measurement of charge left over by cosmic radiation or by ionic radiation, such as in ionization chambers. When any source of radioactivity is close by, the air around gets ionized, leading to the conduction of electricity, which can be sensed by an instrument based on the principles of the Volta micro-electroscope.

Some words of caution are appropriate here. Some people would lead the gullible to believe that the electroscope is usable as a metal detector to find that odd gold nugget or something. It must be emphasized that the electroscope can only discern charge or, in some configurations, potential; it certainly is not a prospector’s tool. Some sellers on the Internet advertise what they call ‘gold-finding devices’ as electroscopes. This is patently incorrect!

Volta’s Discovery of Methane

Sometime in 1776, Father Carlo Giuseppe Campi, a friend of Volta’s as well as a frequent correspondent with Benjamin Franklin, noticed some sort of inflammable air near a marshy area of a lake near Colombano in Italy and suggested to Volta that he explore this phenomena. Unable at that time to travel, Volta surmised that a similar phenomenon may well be found in the swampy areas of other lakes. On a fishing trip to Lake Maggiore (in the Piedmont and Lombardy area of Italy), Volta decided to study the swampy area of this lake near the town of Angera.[14]

Volta noticed the presence of bubbles rising from the bottom of the swamp. The number of bubbles seemed to increase when the bottom of the swampy area was stirred. He analysed a sample of this gas and found it to be inflammable. He surmised that the flammable gas originated from the decay of organic plant and vegetable matter that had settled in the marshes.[15]

Volta termed this gas inflammable air native of marshes.[16] He had discovered methane, a colourless and odourless hydrocarbon, which we know today as the main component of natural gas, so important to our modern world. It finds applications in the heating of homes, cooking and in illumination and electricity. Later in this chapter we will discuss in detail the importance of methane to modern society. Also importantly, the discovery of methane would lead to several very interesting devices made by Volta.

The Eudiometer

In 1777, with Volta’s discovery of methane, there arose the need for proper and reliable testing of gases. This involved testing gases, for example, for their flammability. There was also a need to study the chemical effects of electricity on gases. Just 2 years before, another Italian scientist, Professor Marsilio Landriani, had invented an instrument to determine the ‘healthiness’ of air. He published his work under the Italian title ‘Ricerche fisiche intorno alla slubrità dell’aria’, translated into English as ‘Physical researches on the salubrity of air’. Volta converted Landriani’s invention into a usable device. It came to be known as the eudiometer (derived from the Greek ‘eudio’ meaning clear, referring to air).[17] The science of eudiometry evolved as the measurement of change in the volume of a gas mixture following a physical or chemical change.

The basic Volta eudiometer is comprised of a glass cylinder (with a metallic scale containing graduations) fitted into a metallic (brass) socket which has at its bottom a valve (or cock) that may be opened or closed as desired allowing flow into or out of a hollow pedestal base. On the top of the glass cylinder is a near identical configuration with a valve (or cock) fitting into another hollow basin. A glass tube with graduations is sealed at one end, whilst the other, open end can be screwed into a fixture in the upper basin. Just below the upper valve (or cock) is a small cylindrical opening into which an insulated metal wire is inserted with its end able to be connected to a source of electrical charge.

The whole assembly is inserted into a cistern filled with enough water that the level rises to just beyond the lower valve, which is then shut. Water is then poured into the upper basin until it and the glass cylinder are full of water. The glass tube is also filled with water. Ensuring, using a finger to block the open end of the tube, that no air displaces any water, the glass tube is screwed into the fitting inside the upper basin. The upper valve is also now closed.

A known volume of sample (of gas) to be analysed, contained in a test-tube-like glass measure with a retractable lid, is then attached to the lower pedestal. The lid is retracted, allowing the gas to enter the glass cylinder on top as soon as the lower valve is opened. With the introduction of an electric spark through the insulated wire, the oxygen and hydrogen combine to form condensate steam. When the upper valve is opened, the residue rises into the upper graduated glass tube, enabling measurements.

The eudiometer enabled fairly accurate measurements of the amounts of various types of gas. One of the applications was in the analysis of gas in human blood. In addition to the analysis of gases, the eudiometer can also be used to determine the outcomes of chemical reactions. Versions of the Volta eudiometer today also find applications in measurements related to biogas and in cell biology. Fundamental life forms, including plants, depend on a variety of chemical reactions occurring in cells of organisms. The use of eudiometers makes it possible to determine, for example, the yeast metabolism of various types of sugar, such as maltose, lactose and sucrose.[18]

The Electric Pistole and the Volta Lamp

Volta believed that it should be entirely possible to ignite a sample of methane using an electric discharge from his electrophorus. Accordingly, he collected some methane in a device formed in the shape of a pistol, one end of which was plugged by a cork stopper. On applying an electric discharge to the gas inside the pistol, there was a loud explosion and the cork stopper shot out of the pistol barrel.

Over a period of time Volta experimented with different configurations of the pistol. He also experimented to determine which gas combinations would produce the biggest noise upon ignition. From his experiments Volta concluded that methane carried even more energy than hydrogen.

Volta, in a letter to Father Carlo Giuseppe Campi (who had first asked Volta to study this gas), wrote: ‘No, sir, no air is more combustible than the air from marshy soil. In the first place, we can deduce this from the extraordinary number of small explosions we can get from it. But a surer indication is that it transmits the property of flammability to the ordinary air with which it comes into contact, and in this respect it far surpasses other combustible air.’[19]

Volta further suggested that this device may be used as a ‘perpetual lamp’ (Volta lamp) instead of oil, which was in common use at the time. As we will read subsequently in this chapter, Volta would go on to invent the glowing copper wire electric light, which was the precursor to Thomas Alva Edison’s electric incandescent bulb in 1879, nearly 80 years after Volta’s work on the Volta lamp. It is also reasonably easy to see the connection between Volta’s work on the electric pistol and what would later become the technology for one of the world’s most enduring inventions—the internal combustion engine, and its use in automobiles.

What now seems incredible is that the far-thinking Volta believed that his so-called pistol could be adapted into a long-distance communication device. He suggested putting up an electric signal wire line between Milan and his native Como. An electric discharge introduced into the wire at Como could detonate an electric pistol in Milan. A series of such discharges and triggers to the pistol could constitute a sort of alphanumeric code. Thus, as early as 1777, Volta had the basic concept of what would later become the electric telegraph.

Some years later, in 1801, the Treaty of Lunéville (between France and Austria) had been signed, and Napoleon Bonaparte (though oddly still called the First Consul) had brought most of continental Europe (including Como and Pavia) under the control of France. Shortly thereafter Napoleon gave an audience to Volta in Paris; it is believed that Napoleon was very keen to award and honour Volta. Napoleon was extremely curious and enthusiastic about the military applications of Volta’s work, including that of the electric pistol.[20] Volta indeed received honours, but any direct military applications of his works are not recorded.

Volta’s Electrometer

As noted earlier, and as confirmed by the quotation ascribed to Volta at the beginning of this chapter, Volta believed more in the practical side of the electricity business than propounding theories with equations, charts and graphs. This approach meant that Volta needed to do thorough experimentation and make new working devices that he could publicly demonstrate. With his increasing work related to electrical charge and electricity, there was clearly a need to be able to make reasonably accurate measurements of charge and potential—using good-quality electrometers.

Electrometers, of various sensitivities, accuracies and usefulness, were known largely owing to the work of Benjamin Franklin related to atmospheric electricity. Most notable were the electrometers developed in 1766 by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, a professor in Geneva, by William Henley in 1772 and by Tiberius Cavallo in 1779.[21]

Volta’s straw electrometer[22] replaced the conventional gold leaves in electrometers with two fine electrical straws suspended in a glass bottle from a metal plate that formed the base of the electrophorus. When an electric charge is applied to a movable upper plate of the electrometer and the plate is raised, the divergence of the straws increases. The degree of divergence (related to the quantum of the electrical charge) is read off from the graduated scale located on one face of the electrometer.

Volta also made his own version of the absolute electrometer.[23] The device was comprised of a balance, one side of which was a flat round plate. Below this plate was a larger flat plate in parallel that was grounded or ‘earthed’. Between the two plates was an arrangement of physical stops that could be inserted at measurable distances, where the movement of the upper round disc could be stopped.

When a charge is applied to the upper plate, it moves towards the lower grounded plate but may be halted at one of the stops or the bottom most stop at some two inches from the bottom plate. On the other side of the balance, weights could be added until the upper plate can be drawn away from the requisite stop, giving the correlation between a weight and electrical charge.

Modern forms of electrometers are used to measure ultra-low levels of current not ordinarily measurable by digital multimeters and similar instruments. Versions of electrometers are today also used, for example, in the measurement of dosage rates in medical radiotherapy.[24]

Volta and Atmospheric Electricity

Having constructed reliable condensatores and high-accuracy electrometers, Volta was now in a position to take up further study of atmospheric electricity, a subject that had interested and fascinated him ever since he read about the work of Benjamin Franklin on the subject.

Volta was able to establish that surface water when turned into vapour carries electrical charge into the atmosphere. The colder temperature of the upper atmosphere condenses this vapour, releasing electricity. The electrical charge builds up and remains in the atmosphere until, by a process of conduction (artificial or natural lighting), it can return to Earth. Volta further showed that, in almost all cases, atmospheric electricity has a positive charge.[25]

Volta also conducted some interesting studies on the formation of hailstones. When the upper reaches of clouds receive direct rays from the Sun, evaporation occurs. This evaporation induces a major drop in temperature, causing raindrops to freeze. The frozen raindrops become hail, which is why hailstones mainly occur during daylight.

Volta further postulated that during thunderstorms, clouds arrange themselves in layers but with opposing charges. The large-scale opposing charges are what cause the lightning discharges and the thunder of the storms. The different electric charges enable a process whereby the hailstones are attracted to each other for some duration, coalescing into larger size stones. The hailstones stay high in the atmosphere until repelling charges or their sheer weight forces them to drop to the ground.[26]

Volta: Galvani and Animal Electricity

In 1786, a professor of anatomy in Naples, Italy, Domenico Cotugno, was dissecting a live rat in his laboratory. When the tip of his metallic cutting blade accidentally touched one of the rat’s nerves, Cotugno reportedly felt an electric shock.

It was not until 3 years later that the implications of this episode could be properly investigated. In a similar incident, one of the anatomy students of the illustrious Prof. Luigi Galvani of Bologna was working on a bunch of skinned frogs positioned next to an electrostatic machine. When the student touched the nerve of a frog’s leg with a scalpel, the leg twitched violently. It was immediately suspected that this behaviour had something to do with electricity.

Galvani decided to study this phenomenon further. He used the scalpel with an electrical charge and without a charge to stimulate the nerves of frogs. Except when he used the scalpel alone, there was always a very definite, perceptible twitch. Similar experiments were repeated on other animals, warm- as well as cold-blooded.

Galvani arrived at the conclusion that the reaction of the animal’s muscles was somehow due to a hitherto unknown ‘animal electrical fluid’ inherent in organs of animals. It was called galvanic fluid. The process came to be called galvanism. Galvani further postulated that this fluid is produced in the brain and the nerves then carry it to the various muscles of the animal, with the nerves acting as basic conductors. In 1791, when Galvani published his findings, natural scientists, including Volta, were left quite nonplussed.

The following year, in 1792, Volta began to have serious reservations about Galvani’s theories regarding animal electricity. On further investigation, Volta showed that the so-called animal electricity acted only on the nerves of animals. Further, he postulated that any real animal electricity also needed to ‘flow’ from the nerves to the muscles. Volta observed that Galvani’s animal electricity did not necessarily discharge from the nerves to the muscles or from one part of a muscle to another. Volta showed that even a brief stimulation of the nerve would affect the muscle. In short, Galvani’s so-called electric fluid or animal electricity affected only the nerve and nothing else in the animal.

It was Volta’s considered opinion that ‘It is therefore the metals that apparently cause the electricity to flow, which means that they are not simply deferents, as at other times, but proper movers and exciters of electricity, a discovery of major importance.’[27]

Volta, in 1794, demonstrated that two different metals and a piece of cardboard soaked in saline water or brine, when connected in a circuit, could produce electricity. Volta went on to show that it was not just metals but also other items with traces of metal and even coal that exhibit electric characteristics. He stated that ‘All the magic, and do allow me the term, belongs to the class of metals and to some vegetable and animal coals having some affinity with these metals.’[28]

Volta’s further studies established that some metals were more effective than others at enabling the conduction of electrical charge and stimulation. At the top of his list of ‘movers of electricity’ or conductors was zinc, followed by tin, lead, iron, copper and so on, with graphite and charcoal being at the bottom. This list serves as the basis of what we know today as the electrochemical series. If two of these were joined, they would produce a more significant electrical effect the further apart they were in the series.

Nevertheless, Volta’s studies on animal electricity, especially those relating to so-called torpedo fish and the electric eel, would turn out to have a profound influence on modern-day electricity. Volta, much like John Walsh and others before him, noted that the electric fish had multiple flat disc-shaped electrocyte cells stacked one on top of the other. Each of these cells was able to deliver an electric charge.[29]

When the electric fish senses a predator, a neuron signal reaches the electrocyte cells, enabling the pumping out of positive sodium and potassium ions, resulting in an electric organ discharge. It is this stacking of cells that gave Volta the idea of how to create a much larger charge from an otherwise smaller one.

It is important to note here that Volta’s work on animal electricity, though started as a result of Galvani’s postulations, was not an end in itself. From his work in the field emerged the very basis of his most important and vital invention about which we will read subsequently in this chapter.

It is important, however, to note here that in the middle of the nineteenth century, the studies and works of Carlo Matteuci and Giuseppe Moruzzi on electric fish, electric eels and other animals would contradict, to some extent, the findings of both Galvani and Volta as far as animal electricity is concerned.

Yet the experiments in animal electricity of Galvani as well as Volta today may well be recognized as the forerunner of bioelectric experimentation leading to the medical science of neurostimulation. Transcranial brain stimulation is now used for the treatment of depression, chronic pain, neurological disorders and more. Other such applications in the form of neuro modulation are in use in specialized hospitals and clinics for the treatment of, for example, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder, gastrointestinal and many more disorders.

There are, of course, others who tend to link the animal electricity experiments of Galvani and Volta with a somewhat more macabre aspect. This relates to the creation of the monster in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. There are even academic papers written on this topic. Whether or not Shelley really read through reports of the works of Galvani and Volta has not been established. Clearly, however, her monster is not a result of established science but a figment of her rather vivid imagination!

Volta and the Battery

Volta experimented with a variety of metals on his list of the electrochemical series. He noted, for example, that when silver was kept next to tin, charge flowed from the former to the latter. Further, if the conductors were moist and the circuit was complete, the flow of charge was continuous and in the same direction. If the circuit was broken and the metals insulated, positive charge would build up in one metal and a negative charge in the other. The more the metals were dissimilar and towards the ends of his electrochemical series the greater the charge produced. Yet he needed a development that would substantially increase the total quantum of charge.

Recalling the large stack of electrocyte cells in electric fish, Volta set out to simulate this by the stacking up of a set of metallic discs—a pile. In an experiment done in 1794, he piled up in a cup (crown of cups) alternate discs of silver (sometimes copper) and zinc separated by cardboard soaked in brine. When the top and bottom ends of the pile were connected to a piece of wire, a reasonable amount of electricity flowed through the wire as well as through the pile. The world now had one of its most significant inventions of all times—a battery in the form of what came to be called the voltaic pile.

By increasing the number of alternate discs in his pile, Volta demonstrated a clear increase in the total amount of electricity produced. As Volta himself put it in 1799: ‘This is the great step I took, a step that soon led me to the construction of the new shock giving apparatus which was the cause of so much amazement for all the physicists.’[30]

Volta took about 2 years perfecting his voltaic pile, which was capable of giving continuous charge, using different combinations of metal placed in different cylindrical forms. One was even made into a sort of cartridge—the world’s first portable battery (later taken to Paris to be shown to Napoleon Bonaparte).

In the spring of 1800, Volta was confident enough to present his extraordinary invention to his peer group, the world’s scientists. In a communication dated 20 March 1800 to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, London, Volta wrote: ‘…I have obtained some striking results in pursuing my experiments on electricity excited by the mere mutual contacts of different kinds of metal, and even by that of other conductors, also different from each other…The principle of these results, which comprehends nearly all the rest, is the construction of an apparatus having a resemblance in its effects to the Leyden flask, or, rather, to an electric battery weakly charged acting incessantly, which should charge itself after each explosion; and, in a word, which should have an inexhaustible charge…’[31]

If Galvani’s work on animal electricity left scientists nonplussed, this was something much bigger. Faraday called it ‘a magnificent instrument of philosophical research’. George Sarton remarked that ‘the “creativity” of the voltaic battery was, however, unsurpassed by the telescope and microscope. It opened to man a new and incomparable source of energy’.[32]

Later, John Heilbronn would note that the voltaic pile was ‘the last great discovery made with the instruments, concepts, and methods of the eighteenth century electricians. It opened up a limitless field which included electrochemistry and above all electromagnetism, the study of which transformed our civilization’.[33]

With the availability of the voltaic pile, other scientists of the time now had the means to expand their own scientific horizons. For example, Sir Humphry Davy used a large pile battery in his experiments to discover sodium and potassium. He also used an even larger battery to have a pair of charcoal electrodes emit very bright incandescence, the forerunner of the electric light.

The voltaic pile enabled William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle in their experiments to decompose water into oxygen and hydrogen and to determine their real volumetric ratios. Small wonder, then, that Francois Arago, a colleague of Volta’s, in his eulogy to the great scientist said of the voltaic pile that ‘it was the most marvelous instrument created by the mind of man, not excluding even the telescope or the steam engine’.[34] Needless to say, the unit of electric force, the volt, as we commonly know it today, was named after Alessandro Volta.

Immediately following the announcement of Volta’s new device at a meeting of the Royal Society, London, many scientists started to make their own versions of the battery. Some, particularly William Nicholson, even doubted the operating fundamentals of Volta’s pile. Efforts were made to show that the operation of the pile was actually electrochemical in nature until Volta was able to clearly demonstrate the availability of an electrical charge simply by putting two different metals together without a layer of brine-soaked cardboard.

There were also controversies about the intended name and use of the voltaic pile. The term battery finally emerged by consensus, even though it implied a military link with use in weapons systems. It may be stated here that it was never Volta’s intention to find a military application for the battery, even though Napoleon Bonaparte seems to have egged him on in that direction.

It can be asserted that Volta’s priority was the use of his battery in medical applications. In his communication to the Royal Society in London, Volta describes the ability to stimulate the eyes, ears, nose and tongue by appropriate positioning of the electrodes. Further, Volta studied the onset of pain in relation to the application of electric stimuli. In a paper related to neuroscience, it is stated that Volta identified two types of pain that ‘correspond to the two classes of pain sensations that we now know to be carried respectively by fast, myelinated nerve fibres, and slow, unmyelinated nerve fibres thus partly anticipating Johannes Muller’s law of specific nervous energies’.[35]

Volta: Semiconducting and Dielectrics

It is of course well known that the first recorded observation of a semiconductor action was made by Michael Faraday in 1833. However, what is not that well known is that the literature generally concedes that the term ‘semiconducting’ was first used by Alessandro Volta. As we saw earlier in this chapter, as early as 1782 Volta had categorized materials on the basis of their electrical conductivity, hence their classification as metals, semiconductors and insulators. In fact the actual terminology used by Volta in describing this category of materials was ‘materials of a semiconducting nature’.[36]

Further, as we noted in the case of the initial construction of Volta’s electrophorus, the material on top of the metal base plate was comprised of a resin material, such as a ‘cake’ of wax. In modern times we recognize this as the material commonly called a dielectric. It is thus clear that Volta was working with dielectrics as early as 1775.[37]

The Legacy of Alessandro Volta

Volta’s name, as is well known, goes well beyond his own works, inventions and discoveries. It has been and is used for products, places and things including, in random order and randomly selected, graphics processors (from NVIDIA), a crater on the Moon, pharmaceutical devices (Ciba-Geigy), bath and body products (Volta Market, Philadelphia), flashlights (Brendan Keim), the old Graphophone, a minor planet discovered in 1995, handicrafts (Uno Alla Volta), cars (Toyota) and of course batteries of all descriptions as well as many other items.

Numerous companies and commercial entities around the world are named after the great man. These include, for example, Volta Data Centers (UK), Volta Labs Inc. (Canada), Volta Finance Ltd. (Guernsey), Volta Co. (Russia, making analytical instruments), Volta Beltings (India), Volta Industries LLC (Arizona, USA), INVOLTA Data Centers (Idaho, USA), Volta Industries (Hawaii, USA), Volta Dies and Molds (Pakistan), Volta Automotive Industries (Israel) and many more. Unquestionably, then, the name Volta sells! It is also a name that comes readily to mind when talking of the greatest scientists in history.

Thomas Alva Edison had 1093 patents to his name, singly or jointly. He made money off his works. Alessandro Volta had no patents to his name (even though Venice and parts of old Italy had a sort of patent protection system as early as 1450). Others made money, particularly after his demise, piggy-backing on his work.[38]

As Pancaldi writes, ‘There is no evidence, however, that Volta ever considered the idea of patenting his battery. The circumstances deserve attention because, although the step was rare among natural philosophers ca. 1800, and all the more so among university professors like Volta, the practice of protecting a new device with a patent was well known in the same circle Volta was at home in.’[39]

We do know that Volta had his roots in nobility and was connected to the Church. It is possible that he deemed making money from his works ‘ignoble’. His desire that humanity freely use his inventions was of primary importance for him. Clearly, then, Volta was a scientist, quite satisfied by the acclaim he received from his peers and society at large on the publication of his papers and their presentation. The honours and praise he received from the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte were just a bonus richly deserved, not sought.

Volta’s legacy comes down to us not just as a highly usable and saleable name with an aura attached but manifests itself in many products and technologies that derive from his years of work. Most important, of course, in the current context are methane and the battery. However, it may be stressed again that Volta was, during his lifetime, very keen that some of his work should directly benefit humanity in the sphere of medicine. It is therefore gratifying to note that some of this has actually come to pass. Sadly, the world at large is not quite as familiar with this aspect as with the battery.

His work on the electrophorus introduced us to semiconducting and dielectrics. The pistol, much to the disappointment of Napoleon Bonaparte, was not quite the debut of a new generation of military weapons but was certainly the forerunner of illumination, subsequently brightening many homes, offices and factories, albeit in a different form and shape.

Methane

Methane, a derivative of spent anaerobic microbes, is a key component of natural gas. This particular discovery of Volta, although not quite as vital as his invention of the battery, is still of major importance. We have seen how Volta used it for his pistol. We have also noted its use as a precursor for illumination.

In addition to being available from marshes and wetlands, as noted by Volta, methane is also produced by termites, by anaerobic digestion in marine life and planktons, by methane hydrates in ocean sediments and in polar areas. Methane is also produced from fossil fuels and coal mining, rice cultivation, biomass burning, waste management and landfills.

Common domestic livestock also give out significant amounts of methane (as do humans in much lesser proportions). In the rumen of livestock, microbial (microorganisms called methanogenic archaea) fermentation transforms the ‘feed’ into digestible products. However, this fermentation process produces methane as a by-product, which is then expelled from the body into the air and atmosphere around us. It is believed that the share of methane emissions from livestock is a significant 18 % of total methane emissions. In a year the amount of methane a healthy dairy cow produces is the equivalent of the greenhouse gas produced by a car driven approximately 20,000 kilometers.

Over the years methane has been widely used for heating, cooking food, generating electrical power and producing steam. Compressed methane gas may be used to power automobiles and vehicles in much the same way as liquefied natural gas, although it is more commonly used as a biofuel. Methane can also be used as a feedstock for the production of chemicals such as methanol and gases such as hydrogen.

Fair Oaks Farm in the US state of Indiana, one of the largest dairy operations in the USA, uses the manure produced at the farm to convert it into methane in a special digester. The methane is then converted into electricity. Any unused methane is compressed to provide the fuel for the farm’s milk delivery fleet of over 40 vehicles, saving an estimated two million gallons of diesel annually.[40]

Methane-based natural gas has several advantages. It is cheaper than other fossil fuels and cheaper than electricity when used for domestic appliances. It is also the cheapest fuel base for producing hydrogen. The gas burns without emitting any soot or sulphur dioxide. It is available in many parts of the world. A great advantage is that it is easily transported by tanker or pipeline.

Yet methane has its drawbacks. It is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, some 30 times more so than carbon dioxide. Furthermore, it is dangerous. It is flammable and can ignite, potentially causing great damage, especially when mixed with air. Explosions in mines are a common example.

On balance, then, methane-based gases are deemed to be extremely promising going forward, provided, of course, the negative aspects can be properly controlled. Consider, for example, methane derived as biogas from the anaerobic digestion of waste. This is a very good source of ‘alternative energy’. In such an application it also helps in removing a greenhouse gas, methane, from our atmosphere.

Several commercially viable companies are able to provide solutions for the conversion of potentially methane-generating waste into energy. One of these, an Indian company called Biotech Renewable Energy Pvt. Ltd., received an Ashden Award, considered to be a sort of Green Oscar. In the words of the managing director of this company, ‘Producing energy from waste is an obvious double-boon since it removes the threat of health hazards from the huge quantity of organic waste and also supplies bio-gas which can be used in the kitchen as fuel and turned into electricity for small, medium and large units.’[41]

Biogas (containing some 60 % methane) or so-called landfill gas may also be purified into 100 % methane for delivery through gas pipelines. Purification may be carried out by one of several technologies, such as the use of membranes or a liquid solvent in an absorption process.

It is now deemed commercially viable to convert landfill gas into compressed natural gas. Even a small landfill with, say, 250 standard cubic feet per minute (SCFM) of 50 % methane content could substitute over 1000 gal. of the most commonly available diesel fuel (type 2). It is also now feasible to convert landfill gas into methanol, ethanol and fuel cells. Further details of the capture and use of methane may be obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site.[42]

One of the companies that has done extensive work on generating electricity from biogas based engines is the venerable General Electric (GE). Its Jenbacher Gas Engine Division, with its principal location at Jenbach, Austria, is a major manufacturer of gas-fueled reciprocating engines, packaged generating sets and cogeneration units for power generation. The corporation’s own report describes its activities as ‘The ultimate combination of Volta’s visions of gas and electric power. There are hundreds of Jenbachers around the world, operating on every continent (minus Antarctica). They generate heat and electricity from natural gas and also methane-rich biogas produced from garbage, sewage sludge, cheese whey, whisky mash and even discarded school lunches.’[43] This is possibly the ultimate tribute to the genius that was Volta!

Coal Bed Methane

Coal bed methane (CBM) is a natural gas that is stored (or, to be more technical, adsorbed) in deeply buried coal seams. It is of very high quality and needs no or very minimal processing. Commercial usage of CBM is well established in the USA, Australia and the UK and with significant projects under way in countries such as India and China.

Initially, the production of CBM was initiated as an effort to improve the safety of coal mining. Nowadays it is considered a clean fuel because it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases from the mining of coal and decreases atmospheric pollution. CBM is very similar to other good sources of natural gas, with about 95 % pure methane. Because it does not normally contain any hydrogen sulphide or heavy hydrocarbons such as butane or propane, it ranks as more environmentally friendly than coal, oil and conventional natural gas.

A recent report published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the environmental benefits of CBM. The report says that ‘electricity generated from shale gas and CBM produces around half the carbon emissions of coal-fired electricity’.[44]

To extract CBM, a metallic sheathed hole is drilled into a suitable coal seam, usually at depths of a few hundred metres below the surface. The methane is contained in solution and held in place by hydraulic pressure, so a large water pump is used to lower the hydraulic pressure within the coal seam, with the freed methane coming up the tubing to be fed to a compressor stage of a gas pipeline for onward transmission.

As of this writing, China and the USA have agreed on a major collaborative effort in CBM-based projects under the aegis of the second US–China Strategic & Economic Dialogue. A total of 15 projects, all based in China, are in the pipeline, with China United Coal-Bed Methane Corporation collaborating with Chevron (4 projects), Greka Energy (5 projects), Far East Energy (3 projects), and one each with Mid-American Energy Holdings, Orion Energy International and Asian American Gas, Inc.

Methane on Mars: The Final Frontier?

Over the past several years, many scientific teams around the world have devoted considerable effort to studying the possibility of the existence of methane on Mars. Studies have involved terrestrial telescopes as well as satellite-based probes launched by the USA, Russia, the European Space Agency and India’s Mars Orbital Mission. Similar attempts with satellites made by Japan and China unfortunately were not quite so successful.

Why this great curiosity? It is all about the hunt for conclusive evidence that methane exists on Mars. Firstly, that would establish that life in some form or other either existed or still exists on Mars. Secondly, and somewhat futuristically, if methane is found in substantial quantities on Mars, it may provide a means for refuelling required for further interplanetary expeditions, manned and unmanned, with Mars being used as a staging post.

In a very interesting article late last year, The Economist stated the following: ‘For ‘planetologists’, methane is exciting. At the least, its presence suggests Mars is more geologically interesting than some had feared. At best it could be evidence that, somewhere on the orb, alien bacteria are eking a living—in other words, there really are Martians, albeit primitive ones.’[45]

Unfortunately, in September 2013, NASA reported that its Curiosity rover probe found no methane on Mars after six different samples were analysed. Yet in a dramatic statement in December 2014, it was announced that ‘NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic chemicals in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill.’[46] , [47]

Several scientists believe that the 2014 findings may just be the result of a meteorite strike nearby on Mars generating fresh methane. It looks as if we will have to wait till October 2016 to get more precise results—when the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a joint probe of Europe and Russia, arrives on Mars.

Batteries

The invention of the battery undoubtedly has been one of the most significant influences on life in our times. It led to the development and use of a multitude of products and appliances that have enriched our lives and improved the productivity of society. It gave rise to or enabled the telegraph, telephones, radio communications, numerous portable devices from the flashlight and transistor radios to today’s ubiquitous mobile phones, laptops, tablets, watches, cameras, music players and many other devices.

Batteries, in various forms and technologies, today provide us with the power back-up needed for critical applications, such as in hospitals and telecommunication hubs. They are the crux of the global effort to develop clean energy solutions, especially ones based on solar energy. They are also play critical role in efforts to promote so-called green vehicles, doing away with the use of polluting petroleum-based fuels. They also provide the power for mission-critical applications of satellites and space probes.

It was the battery that enabled the division of water into its elements, hydrogen and oxygen. It was the battery that led to the branch of science called electrochemistry. Not to be forgotten, of course, is the fact that it was the battery that facilitated the development of electrotherapy. Thus, to paraphrase The Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and Samuel Morse’s excited first message on his telegraph, ‘What Hath Volta Wrought’!

Despite the many other inventions and developments by Volta, it is of course the battery for which he is rightly most famous. That the unit of charge, voltage, is named after him is ample evidence to that. As noted earlier, it was in 1800 that Volta formally announced to the world his development of the voltaic pile. For the next three decades many renowned scientists, including Sir Humphry Davy, John Daniell, Michael Faraday and William Grove, experimented with different versions and formats of Volta’s pile.

However, it was only in 1859 that Gaston Plante, a French physicist, invented the first lead acid battery, a rechargeable battery, often called the wet cell. It was to be another 9 years before Georges Leclanché invented his version of the wet cell—an electrolyte of ammonium chloride with a manganese dioxide-cum-carbon cathode and a zinc anode. Unfortunately, Leclanché’s cell suffered from several shortcomings. It ran out of charge quite rapidly, and it was fragile and prone to breakage. Yet it would become the forerunner of what we today call the ubiquitous dry cell battery.

The development of the first dry cell battery is credited to the German scientist Dr Carl Gassner of Mainz, who patented (US Patent 373,064) his battery in 1887. In this battery, zinc in the form of a small pot would, in addition to being the cathode, contain other elements as well. The electrolyte was in the form of a paste made of ammonium chloride. The whole unit was then sealed at the top.

In 1896, National Carbon Company (NCC) of the USA, which until then sold Leclanché wet cells, introduced to the broader market the first commercially manufactured sealed 6-in. 1.5 V battery. In the next few years this company would significantly expand its operations and market share. It also acquired several other manufacturers of carbon and carbon-based products.[48]

In 1906 NCC bought a 50 % share in American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company, the producers of the first battery-powered torches (dubbed Eveready). The new entity, American Ever Ready Co., was merged into NCC. In 1917, the Union Carbide Company acquired NCC.

At about the time NCC was introducing its dry cell batteries to the market in 1899, a Swedish scientist named Waldemar Jungner was working on his own version of a rechargeable battery using nickel for the cathode and cadmium for the anode. Unfortunately, the high costs of the raw material and short working life restricted the success of this battery. It was not until 1932 that the German duo of Sabine Schlecht and Hartmut Ackermann invented the sintered pole plate, which substantially improved longevity as well as load current capabilities.

Thomas Alva Edison and the Battery[49]

The great Edison is, of course, universally recognized and honoured for his 1000+ inventions. What is not so well known is Edison’s five decades of work on battery technology. As early as 1877, Edison was already working on primary cells meant for signalling applications in railways.

Edison had been involved in the development and manufacture of a version of a type of battery called the Lalande cell. It had zinc and copper oxide electrodes and a highly alkaline sodium hydroxide electrolyte. He soon found this type of battery unsatisfactory. The zinc electrodes could not be used in a rechargeable type cell. The copper electrode also did not perform well enough.

Edison’s primary target for the development of his battery was, incredibly enough, for an electric powered automobile whose application required that the battery be rechargeable. By 1901 Edison had modified this battery into a rechargeable one using a nickel–iron configuration, for which he received a patent.[50]

Unfortunately, the ingredients for the battery were not readily available in the required purity and quantity. Edison tried to improvise, making the material in his own factories, but ultimately by 1904 this version of the Edison battery had to be withdrawn—a tragedy of epic proportions as Henry Ford and the automobile industry went on to base their car engines on the increasing availability of low-cost petroleum—an environmental disaster from which the world is still trying to recover!

A newly designed battery was introduced in 1908 and continued to be manufactured until 1960, when the McGraw-Edison Company (as it became known) was sold to the Electric Storage Battery Company of Philadelphia. In the 1900s Edison licensed his battery technology developments to the Deutsche Edison Accumulator Company in Germany. This company would later become famous under the name Varta.[51]

For almost six decades the nickel cadmium dry cell battery was the only real option available for portable applications. By the late twentieth century, environmentalists as well as governments started to raise concerns about the use and, more importantly, disposal of nickel cadmium batteries. These types of batteries could contain as much as 15 % cadmium, a very toxic heavy metal, classified as hazardous waste when thrown away. Newer battery materials were clearly required.

Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries represented an alternative. NiMH is similar to nickel cadmium; it has a higher energy density and is much more environmentally friendly. Research on this battery variant had started in the 1970s. Unfortunately, these batteries suffered from a limited lifespan and a limited discharge current. Over the years the performance of NiMH batteries has improved considerably; however, their fundamental limitations persist.

It is well known that lithium has the lowest density amongst metals. It also has the best electrochemical potential and the best energy-to-weight ratio. Clearly, it is an ideal material for use in batteries. Work on lithium-based batteries started as early as 1912, but it was only in the 1970s that the first non-rechargeable versions became commercially available.

The first attempts, in the 1980s, at making a rechargeable lithium-based battery failed, primarily owing to the fundamental instability of lithium. These gave rise to safety issues during storage and usage. In 1991, the Japanese company Sony introduced to the market a rechargeable battery substituting metallic lithium with the much safer lithium in ion form. In 1997, the lithium-ion polymer battery was introduced in which the electrolyte is a dry solid composite polymer, with the electrodes and separators being sort of stuck together. This design gives a much safer and rugged battery and is easier to manufacture. The lithium-ion polymer battery has for some time now been widely used in portable electronic equipment such as mobile telephones as the battery technology of choice.

Over the years, lithium batteries have been developed using different chemistries and anode/cathode materials. Examples include lithium /manganese dioxide, lithium /polycarbon monofluoride, lithium /carbon fluoride, lithium /sulphur dioxide and lithium/thionyl chloride. All have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Over the past few years the consumer electronic, electromedical, automobile and other sectors have placed ever increasing demands on critical battery specifications and performance criteria. This has led researchers and industry to respond accordingly. The 3 January 2015 issue of The Economist carried an article titled ‘A whiff of brimstone’. It says: ‘Build a better battery, to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the world will beat a path to your door. For consumer goods, from computers to cars, “better” means better than lithium-ion.’[52]

The article goes on to mention several academic and research teams that are working on lithium-sulphur batteries, achieving as much as a quintupling of performance. A recent trial of the European aerospace company Airbus Industrie’s Zephyr solar-powered aircraft had solar cells arrayed on its wings feeding into lithium-sulphur rechargeable batteries capable of storing electrical charges for up to 350 Watt-hours per kilogram.[53]

A team at Stanford University under Dr Yi Cui is working on an advanced two-dimensional material to sheath highly reactive lithium anodes in graphene. This stops the growth of lithium dendrite crystals on anodes, which could lead to fires from short circuits, as happened on a Boeing 787 in 2013.[54]

The US $100 billion plus global battery market, though, is in the midst of a major technology revolution led largely by the requirements of providing cheap clean and distributed energy (e.g. DC micro grids) virtually around the clock as well as the need to replace fossil fuels in the transportation sector. According to a Bloomberg report, ‘Today’s nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion offerings aren’t up to the task. They can’t run a home for more than a few hours or most cars for more than 160km. At about $400 per kilowatt-hour, they’re double the price analysts say will unleash widespread green power.’[55]

This situation is about to change, and possibly rapidly. Many researchers, new start-ups and existing companies are rapidly gearing up to meet the challenge. According to the Bloomberg report cited previously, ‘They’ve invested more than $ 5 billion in the past decade, racing to get technologies to market. They’re betting new batteries can hold enough clean energy to run a car, home, or campus; store power from wind or solar farms; and make dirty electricity grids greener by replacing generators and reducing the need for more fossil fuel plants.’

In Britain the famous innovative vacuum cleaner company Dyson has invested in a start-up launched at the University of Michigan. The company, Sakti3 ( sakti3.com ) is working on the development of lithium-based solid-state batteries using totally solid electrodes. This technology is supposed to make the batteries much safer and give improved performance. The initial prototypes ‘have reached a record energy density of 1,143 Watt-hours per liter—more than double the energy density of today’s best lithium-ion batteries’.[56]

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company Ambri ( www.ambri.com ) is a start-up based on technology developed at MIT. According to the company’s Web site, its product is inexpensive because of the use of earth-abundant materials. It is also designed to have a long lifetime—some 10,000 charges and working life of at least 10 years. According to the company, its ‘technology is distinct from all other storage options on the market or in development today. It’s the only battery where all three active components are in liquid form when the battery operates’. The battery is supposed to be modular, allowing for easy manufacture as well as easy transportability.

Another company that is at the cutting edge of development of a lithium-sulphur battery is Aquion, named for its application of aqueous-ion chemistry. This company, established by Dr Jay Whitacre of Carnegie Mellon University with strong venture capital support, has come out with a 28.6 kW-h battery that is able to provide power for 8 h or so to a large home or small hospital.

Hany Etouni has set up a company called Seeo that produces lithium polymer batteries using technology developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These batteries of ‘rolled packets of lithium polymer cells are the size of a briefcase and hold two to three times the energy per weight of today’s liquid lithium battery’.[57]

At the time of writing many other entities in different countries are chasing the goal of a battery good enough that ‘the world will beat a path to their door’. Needless to say, the market leaders, Panasonic of Japan and LG Chem of South Korea, are themselves making strenuous efforts to stay at the top of the heap.

However, it is the attempts at developing the ideal battery for electric cars that have of late been attracting the most media attention. Although the battery-propelled so-called green electric car has indeed attracted a fan following (leading to a revival of interest in some of the associated names, including Volta and Tesla), the fact is even in an advanced market such as the USA, sales of electric cars were just around 0.5 % of the over 16 million new cars and trucks sold in 2015. The principal issue with battery-powered vehicles is the need to at least double their driving range (a target of between 400 and 550 km between charges) at economical prices.

While LG Chem, Panasonic and a joint venture between Nissan and Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC) are almost ready with advanced batteries that give a much higher energy density and longer ranges between charges, it is Tesla Motors’ quest for the optimum battery that is hogging all the headlines.

Late in 2014, the first reports emerged of a collaboration between Tesla Motors and Panasonic to build a US $5 billion ‘giga’ battery factory.[58] In an article (‘Tesla’s electric man’) appearing in The Economist Technology Quarterly on 6 December 2014, the person behind the effort, JB Straubel, describes the new design as being substantially different from the large-format batteries being used by the others. Tesla’s batteries are comprised of thousands of individual lithium-ion cells mounted inside a battery pack. The cells are interconnected and reportedly all have cobalt in some form, usually cobalt oxide. There is a provision for a liquid cooling system to prevent any accidents or fires. The economies of scale of the so-called gigafactory at Reno, Nevada, are projected to substantially reduce the costs of these batteries.

The article cited earlier goes on to say this: ‘Not all the cells made by the gigafactory are destined for vehicles. Some will end up in the company’s Superchargers, allowing Tesla [the motor company] to cope with sudden bursts of demand should multiple vehicles need to recharge at once. Others will be used at Tesla’s assembly plants to store energy when it is cheap, typically at night, and release it when the price rises.’ Prophetically, the article further states: ‘The use of batteries to store renewable power may provide Tesla with its biggest opportunity in the years ahead.’

And then, literally as a Nikola Tesla ‘lightning bolt from the blue’ on 1 May 2015 Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors unveiled the game-changing Powerwall battery.[59] A rechargeable lithium-ion battery capable of being mounted on a wall that would come in 7 or 10 kW-h versions at a starting price of only US $ 3000. For power utilities the battery assembly will come in 100 kW-h blocks that can be pooled together to give a battery back-up from 500 kW-h anywhere up to 10 MW-h.

Within the first week of the announcement of the Powerwall battery, Tesla Motors had order bookings of US $800 million. At this rate, it is clearly in the lead to be the quickest product to reach the US $1 billion sales mark. According to the company’s announcement, these batteries would use nickel, manganese and cobalt oxide for the cathodes. Even on the conservative estimate of the requirement of 10,000 metric tonnes of cobalt per annum, the leading African suppliers(Republics of Congo and Zambia) of the material must be absolutely delighted at their future prospects!

At the launch event of the battery, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, said, ‘Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy. We are talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.’[60]

With the availability of the Powerwall battery, solar-cell-based power units finally have the opportunity to provide viable solutions, especially in the form of direct current (DC) micro grids. It will now also be feasible to set up so-called net zero-energy areas and have a future with off-grid personal power.

Whilst the world at large will perhaps cheer at the prospect of Edison’s DC finally getting its sweet revenge over Tesla’s alternating current grids, it cheering the loudest should be Africa, a geographical area with abundant solar and wind resources but woefully short of electrical power. According to an article by Christine Mungai, sub-Saharan Africa has more people living without access to electricity than any other region.[61]

Christine Mungai further goes on to state that ‘With the Powerwall currently able to supply five hours of power, an enterprising African engineer could hook up several together, scaling up the battery’s capacity to provide continuous power to homes or commercial centres. The battery could also finally break Africa’s dependance on fuel guzzling generators. In 2012, the cost of fuel for backup generators used by businesses and households is estimated to have been at least $5bn.’[62]

The Battery in Medical Applications

We noted earlier in this chapter that it was Volta’s earnest desire to use his invention of the voltaic pile battery in medical applications for the benefit of humanity. It would undoubtedly have given Volta enormous joy to know that presently lithium and other batteries are widely used in a range of medical applications.[63]

Starting with their use in early models of heart pacemakers, lithium batteries power ‘glucose monitors, automatic defibrillators, surgical saws, drills, robotic inspection systems, RFID asset tracking tags, infusion pumps, bone growth simulators, blood oxygen meters, cauterizers, and other medical devices’.[64]

Needless to say, batteries and electrotherapy have a known history. Volta himself is reported to have said, ‘I have found the use of galvanism especially effective in rheumatic diseases, paralysis and weakened vision.’ The article goes on to say that ‘It is shown that electrotherapy has been used for the treatment of pain, gout, and rheumatic disorders.’[65]

Several medical devices and products using names connected with Volta have been on the market for some years, some possibly bordering on quackery. For example, there have been Volta pendants, the Voltakreuz, a Volta electric brush and other products, mainly for alleviating rheumatism. A Philadelphia-based manufacturer called the Volta Company had a Volta powder that it claimed could eliminate excess uric acid from the body.

Of late, a new fad seems to have emerged that credits its origins to Volta. It is called transcranial direction current stimulation (tDCS). Simply stated, this is a form of brain stimulation using a small current discharge from batteries. It is believed to provide a boost to the productivity of the human brain and induce a state of calm similar to that from meditation.[66] Others claim that it may also be used to medicate ailments such as depression and chronic pain, as well as motor, sensory and neurological disorders. Several commercially made devices running on standard 9 V batteries are now available on the market.

Battery-Powered Aircraft

Of late, a lithium-ion-battery-equipped solar-powered aircraft, the Solar Impulse 2, has been making the headlines. At the time of writing, this aircraft, flown by two Swiss pilots, is attempting to fly round the world, having flown fairly trouble free from Abu Dhabi to Japan. A substantial delay happened in Japan because of bad weather, which prevented the flight to Hawaii. Unfortunately, during the crossing of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, the lithium-ion batteries overheated and caused major damage to the batteries. The crossing over from Hawaii to the US West Coast consequently had to be postponed by several months.

But the battery-equipped Solar Impulse 2 has not been the only aircraft with batteries. Early in July 2015 a Frenchman named Hughes Duval made a round trip crossing of the English Channel from Calais in a double-engine electric plane, the Cri-Cri. A few days later, a battery-operated electric aircraft designed and built by Airbus negotiated the crossing of the English Channel. This aircraft, dubbed the E-Fan, took off and landed on its own, whereas the Cri-Cri is believed to have been towed up for take-off.

Of course, battery-powered drones (unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) have been around for a few years now, including in active military service in different parts of the world. It may be noted that drones are pilotless aircraft, unlike the aforementioned manned electric aircraft.

Battery + Methane

Undoubtedly what would have pleased Volta most is the very recent use in a single application of the two items for which he is best known—methane and the battery. For years, mountaineering expeditions have attempted to climb Mount Everest from the Nepalese side. These expeditions leave behind many kilograms of waste and garbage at what has been termed the ‘world’s highest garbage dump’. The solid waste is, of course, collected and hauled away. However, many items can and should be recycled or otherwise properly disposed of.

But the waste, understandably, is also comprised of huge quantities of faecal matter whose handling has so far defied a proper solution. It is reported that ‘Each year, porters haul down some 12,000 kilograms of poop from base camps at Everest and the nearby Pumori, Lhotse, and Nuptse mountains...The waste is currently delivered on foot to Gorak Shep, the nearest village to Everest...The porters drop the poop into unlined pits, leaving the raw excrement to slowly dehydrate and break down in the open air, which, at such high altitudes, can take years.[67]

The solution seemed logical—use a specially designed bioreactor to derive methane from the huge amounts of faecal matter. The methane could then be used as fuel. The problem, of course, was that such a biogas reactor would not operate properly at that high altitude and at the low ambient temperatures. A seemingly simple piece of engineering was employed by an enterprising group. This was to heat the contents of the digester using a heater powered by an array of solar cells and a high-performance battery bank.[68] Volta would have been very proud!

Footnotes

1

‘Beccaria, Giambatista’; J.L. Heilbron, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 1, Gillespie C. ed. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970.

2

Deeds and Indices Epistolary of Alessandro Volta, Vols. I & II, Milan, 1974–1976.

3

Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, Giuliano Pancaldi, Princeton University Press, 2003.

4

Alessandro Volta nella Gloria e nell’intimata, C. Volpati, Treves, Milan, 1927.

5

Ibid, p. 3.

6

Ibid, p. 4.

7

‘Volta’; John L. Heilbron, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 13:69–82.

8

www.collectmedicalantiques.com.

9

The Principles of Electrotherapy, and Their Practical Application, Walter John Turrell, and H. Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, London; 1922.

10

‘The Ambitious Frog: The Galvani—Volta controversy on animals’, Marcello Pera; Princeton Legacy Library, 2014.

11

‘Innovative Automatic Identification and location based services—from bar codes to hip implants’, Katina Michael & M.G. Michael, University of Woolongong, Australia; Information Science Reference, Hershey, NY.

12

“Beccaria and Franklin”, John H. Lienhard, University of Houston, College of Engineering; www.uh.edu/emgines/epi2208.htm.

13

‘Volta and Galvani—new electricity from old’; Samuel Devons, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, 1976.

14

www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Alessandro_Giuseppe_Antonio_Anastasio_Volta.

15

‘Volta: a pioneer in electrochemistry’; http://www.alessandrovolta.info/life_and_works_8.html.

16

http://www.brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/museum/esim.asp?c=100145.

17

‘Eudiometer’. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms.

18

‘A compendium of the course of medical instruction in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania’; p. 119, Volta’s Eudiometer, Robert Hare; 3rd edition, J.G. Auner, Philadelphia, 1836.

19

‘Volta’s pistol’, Thomas B. Greenslade Jr., Rittenhouse I, 55–57, 1987.

20

Ibid 5, Chapter 5, page 171.

21

Electricity and Magnetism: A Historical Perspective, Brian Scott Baigrie, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, USA, 2007.

22

The 17th and 18th Centuries: Dictionary of World Biography; Vol. 4, Frank N. Magill, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2013.

23

‘Alessandro Volta—Italian physicist and inventor’; www.1902encyclopedia.com/V/VOL/alessandro-volta.html .

24

Handbook of Radiotherapy Physics: Theory and Practice; edited by P. Mayles, A. Nahurn, J. C. Rosenwald; CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 12 June 2007.

25

‘Volta’s Life and Works’; www.alessandrovolta.info/life_and_works_8.html .

26

Ibid, p. 25.

27

Ibid, p. 25.

28

Ibid, p. 25.

29

‘Electric fish research in the nineteenth century, following in the footsteps of Carlo Matteuci and Giuseppe Moruzzi’; M. Piccolino, Centre of Neurosciences of the University of Ferrara, Italy, Archives Italiennes de Biologie 149(Suppl.): 10–17, 2011.

30

Ibid, p. 25.

31

Ibid, p. 5.

32

Ibid, p. 3.

33

Ibid, p. 3.

34

Ibid, p. 25.

35

‘Volta’s Battery, Animal Electricity, and Frankenstein’; Richard C. Sha, American University, Washington D.C., www.academia.edu/423264/Voltas_Battery_Animal_Electricity_and_Frankenstein .

36

‘Early history of the physics and chemistry of semiconductors—from doubts to facts in a hundred years’; G. Busch, European Journal of Physics, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 254–263, 1989.

37

Semiconductors and the Information Revolution: magic Crystals That Made IT Happen; John W. Orton, Academic Press, 2009.

38

‘The Origin of Patents’; M. Frumkin, Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, p. 143.

39

Ibid, p. 5.

40

‘Dairy farming—from moo to you’, The Economist, 5 Sept. 2015.

41

Dr. A. Sajidas quoted in ‘Waste to Wealth’; Business India, 21 July–3 August 2014.

42

www.epa.gov./climatestudents/solutions/technologies/methane capture and use.

43

http://www.gereports.com/post/81395373232/gas-from-iron-gut-powers-homes-farms.

44

http//www.worldcoal.com/cbm/22072014.

45

‘Planetary Science: Curiouser and curiouser”; The Economist, 20 December 2014.

46

www.nasa.gov/press/2013/september/nasa-curiosity-rover-detects-no-methane-on-mars.

47

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science@NASAHeadline News 2014.

48

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History; http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=NCC.

49

‘Thomas Alva Edison: battery developer, entrepreneur, and factory manager’; Alvin J. Salkind, Rutgers University School of Engineering. https://www.electrochem.org/dl/ma/201/pdfs/0247.pdf.

50

Ibid, p. 42.

51

Ibid, p. 42.

52

‘A whiff of brimstone’, The Economist, 3 January 2015.

53

‘Pseudo satellites: the west wind blows afresh’; The Economist, 30 August 2014.

54

‘Battery technology: caging the Li-ion’; The Economist, 13 September 2014.

55

‘The $5 billion race to build a better battery’, Christopher Martin. As published in The Economic Times, New Delhi, 15 April 2015.

56

‘Secretive company claims battery breakthrough’; Scientific American, 20 August 2014. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/secretive-company-claims-battery-breakthrough.

57

Ibid, p. 48.

58

‘Tesla, Panasonic team up for “Giga” battery factory’, Mark Anderson; IEEE Spectrum; 1 August 2014. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/tesla-panasonic-team-up-for-giga-battery-factory.

59

‘Tesla’s Elon Musk unveils batteries for home business utilities’; Mint, Delhi, India, Friday 1 May 2015.

60

‘Power play: agile power systems will let every home and business generate, store, and share electricity’, Jean Kumagal; IEEE Spectrum, June 2014.

61

‘Tesla’s low-cost renewable battery could revolutionise Africa’s energy supply’, Christine Mungai; Mail & Guardian Africa, Monday 11 May 2015.

62

Ibid, p. 54.

63

‘Lithium Batteries for Medical Applications’, Dr Thomas Dittrich, Tadiran Batteries GmbH. www.tadiranbatteries.de/pdf/applications/lithium-batteries-for-medical-applications.pdf.

64

‘History of electro therapy’, Licht S., ‘Therapeutic electricity and ultraviolet radiation’; as quoted in ‘The history of electrotherapy of pain’—A. Helmstadter, ‘PHARMAZIE 58 (2003), Dept. of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.

65

Ibid, p. 57.

66

‘Brain Stimulation—Hacking your brain’; The Economist Technology Quarterly, 7 March 2015.

67

‘Waste-to-energy at the roof of the world’; IEEE Spectrum, May 2015.

68

Ibid, p. 59.

© The Author(s) 2016

Anand Kumar SethiThe European Edisons10.1057/978-1-137-49222-7_2

2. Nikola (Nicolae) Tesla

10 July 1856–7 January 1943

Anand Kumar Sethi^1

(1)

New Delhi, India

Nikola Tesla

“Each day we go to our work in the hope of discovering”.—Nikola Tesla.

“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs.”—Nikola Tesla in his autobiography, My Inventions (1919)[1]

On the corner of 40th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan in New York City, is a street sign proclaiming the dedication of that corner to arguably one of the greatest inventors and ‘electrical engineers’ the world has known. There is a plaque in his honour at the Hotel New Yorker, where he died in Room 3327, as well as one at The Engineer’s Club at Bryant Park Place on 40th Street in Manhattan.

There are other statues and memorials in several other locations around the world. There is a statue in Palo Alto, California, at the very heart of what is known as Silicon Valley; the statue was erected in December 2014, financed by a crowd funding programme which raised over $125,000. Interestingly this statue also contains a time capsule which will be opened in the year 2045.

Nikola (a.k.a. Nicolae) Tesla has over time been described variously as a genius, nut case, mad scientist, enigma, mentally ill, wizard, snob, cult hero, possibly autistic, ‘the greatest geek who ever lived’ and many more such appellations.

John J O’Neill, Science Editor at the New York Herald Tribune in 1931, described Tesla as a ‘superman—unquestionably one of the world’s greatest geniuses’.

According to the Tesla Memorial Society of New York, ‘Nikola Tesla symbolizes a unifying force and inspiration for all nations in the name of peace and science. He was a true visionary far ahead of his contemporaries in the field of scientific development. New York State as well as many other states in the USA proclaimed July 10, Tesla’s birthday—Nikola Tesla Day.’.[2]

Tesla was reportedly born near midnight on 10 July 1856 in the small town of Smiljan, in the Lika region of Croatia. It is said that at the time of his birth there was lightning and thunder with a summer storm raging. Whether this had anything to do with his future scientific career in the field of electricity is of course open to question. More than likely he inherited appropriate genes from his mother, who was a sort of ‘inventor’ in household gadgets. Tesla’s father was a Serbian priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church and apparently not a man of science.

Tesla’s initial schooling was in the small Croatian town of Gospich. Subsequently, in 1870, he went on to high school in Carlstadt (Karlovac). It was here in the high school (‘Gimnazije Karlovac’) in Carlstadt that he seems to have developed a very keen interest in mathematics and physics under the influence of an indulgent teacher. Records show that Tesla was very fond of all the laboratory experiments relating to electricity and magnetism.

Perhaps his being born during a lightning storm did have something to do with his interest in electricity. In a fascinating book, Tesla is reported to have said the following about a formative episode at the tender age of three: ‘It was dusk of the evening and I felt impelled to stroke [his cat] Macak’s back. Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the place.’[3] His father then explained to him that what Nikola had seen was ‘static electricity’.

Tesla’s family wished him to become a priest like his father. Unfortunately, shortly after finishing school, he was laid low for many months by a debilitating attack of cholera, which nearly took his life. Ill health and strange maladies were to affect Tesla throughout his life. In his own words, ‘In my boyhood I suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong flashes of light, which marred the sight of real objects and interfered with my thoughts and action.’.[4]

During his protracted illness, Tesla was allowed to read books and other material, which he did gladly and prodigiously. He read books on all kinds of subjects, from literature to the sciences. But, incredibly, it was the writings of a great American author that had the most profound effect on him. In Tesla’s own words, ‘One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my helpless state. The books and writings were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed.’

Seeing his varied interests and hoping for Tesla’s complete recovery, his father promised to send him to the best possible engineering college. Tesla applied and was granted admission to the Polytechnic in Graz, Austria, on a scholarship. By all accounts he was a very hard-working and brilliant student.

However, during his second year at the Polytechnic in Graz, Tesla came into conflict with one of his professors. The issue that set it off had to do with non-functioning ‘brushes’ on a direct current (d.c.) electricity–based ‘dynamo’ that had a wire wound armature and a commutator. Tesla insisted that motors could be designed to operate without brushes and a commutator—an almost delusionary view at that time and a thought that would repeatedly play on his mind until later in life when he had found a solution to this vexing issue. Tesla was to say of this theory of his, ‘The images that I saw were to me real and perfectly tangible.’.[5]

The conflict with his teacher cost Tesla his scholarship. Perhaps in reaction or because he now needed the money, Tesla took to gambling in a big way. As a consequence, Tesla lost the money for his tuition as well as lifestyle. Unable now to properly study for his examinations, Tesla had to leave the Polytechnic, never to graduate. Worse, he drifted from his family and had to take up odd jobs just to sustain himself.

Later, an attempt to get formally admitted into Charles Ferdinand University in Prague was also unsuccessful. Tesla did, however, manage to attend some of the technical courses at Charles Ferdinand University but received no academic credits for them. But it was here in Prague that he ‘made a decided advance, which consisted of detaching the “commutator” from the machine and studying the phenomena in this new aspect, but still without result.’.[6]

Tesla somehow managed to secure a position as an engineer with a newly formed telephone company, the Budapest Telephone Exchange in Hungary. This was courtesy of some members of his family who happened to know the owner, Ferenc Puskas. Interestingly, Ferenc Puskas’ brother, Theodore Puskas, was a friend and business partner in Hungary of Thomas Edison.

In Budapest, while working for the telephone company, Volta suffered a terrible nervous breakdown. His father had recently passed away. According to Tesla, ‘I could hear the ticking of a watch with three rooms between me and the timepiece. The sun’s rays, when periodically intercepted, would cause blows of such force on my brain that they would stun me.’ Tesla was now quite ill, and doctors, family and friends did not expect him to recover.

It was then suggested to Tesla that he take long walks, that the exercise and fresh air would do him some good. One day while walking in a city park at sunset, Tesla started to recite poetry. The following lines (translated into English from the original German) from one of his favorite pieces of literature, Goethe’s Faust, had come to him:

The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;

It yonder hastes; new fields of life exploring;

Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil,

Upon its track to follow, follow soaring![7]

Tesla says: ‘As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand, the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion [most likely his close friend and colleague Anthony Szigety] understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of stone, so much so that I told him, “See my motor here; watch me reverse it”.’.[8]

Tesla finally had his solution! The matter had been troubling his mind and health ever since his run-in with the professor at the Polytechnic in Graz—he had finally arrived at the concept of the rotating magnetic field alternating current (a.c.) induction motor, which did not require the use of messy commutators and brushes, a technological concept that would become the greatest legacy to this world from one who would be recognized as one of the greatest engineers of all time!

No wonder Tesla exulted with passion: ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it sublime? Isn’t it simple? I have solved the problem. Now I can die happy. But I must live, I must return to work and build the motor so I can give it to the world. No more will men be slaves to hard tasks. My motor will set them free, it will do the work of the world.’[9]

From that point on Tesla conceptualized new forms of his induction motor, even while working at the telephone company in Budapest. He later wrote, ‘In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name, and which are used under many other names all over the world.’[10]

Providentially, at about that time, Ferenc Puskas sold his telephone company in Budapest and relocated to Paris. Ferenc Puskas (his brother being Edison’s European partner and co-promoter) had very kindly arranged for a position for Tesla to work with Edison’s subsidiary company, European Edison, in Ivry-Sur-Seine in Paris. So it was that Tesla, at the young age of 27 years, found himself working in Paris under one of Edison’s most trusted men, Charles Bachelor.

In Paris, Tesla met his first Americans. His initiation into the American way of ‘doing business’ included an offer by an American colleague of forming a joint stock company to promote Tesla’s invention of the new motor—a business concept that was way beyond Tesla’s imagination, honed on European ways of doing things. Tesla kept busy travelling in France and Germany looking after technical service issues relating to the direct current (d.c.)–based power stations for electrical lighting being set up by the European Edison Company.

It was a somewhat unfortunate and disastrous episode involving a European Edison Company installation at the Strasbourg (then under German control) railway station that gave Tesla his next moment of great joy and achievement. When the newly installed lighting system at the station was switched on at its inauguration in the presence of Emperor William 1, instead of the glow of the newly installed Edison Bulbs, a huge explosion took place blowing out an entire wall. Tesla, thanks to his technical knowledge and familiarity with the German language, was deputed to go and ‘fix’ the installation.

While working for his company on the repair and restoration of the dynamo and shoddy wiring that caused the short circuit and explosion, Tesla seized the opportunity in his spare time to have a small induction motor of his design constructed at a workshop near the Strasbourg railway station.

It would, however, be a few months before Tesla could claim, ‘I finally had the satisfaction of seeing the rotation effected by alternating currents of different phase, and without sliding contacts or ‘commutator’, as I had conceived a year before. It was an exquisite pleasure but not to compare with the delirium of joy following the first revelation.’[11]

By now Tesla had sort of grasped the American concept of doing business—setting up a joint stock company to make money off inventions. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, neither his newfound admirers and contacts in Strasbourg nor any of his Parisian friends were now interested in his proposal to set up a new company for manufacturing his revolutionary a.c. induction motor. Worse, he was given neither a bonus nor any other award for his successful work at Strasbourg. He felt very dejected.

It was Charles Bachelor, his supervisor at Continental Edison, who suggested to Tesla that he relocate to the USA to help out at the head office. Tesla was provided with a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison. Tesla then ‘determined to try my fortunes in the Land of Golden Promise’.[12]

Tesla almost did not make it. His wallet, tickets, valise and documents were stolen at the railway station in Paris even before he could board the train to the port. How he managed not only to get on the train without a ticket or money and further on board a ship is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, Tesla writes, ‘I managed to embark for New York with the remnants of my belongings, some poems and articles I had written, and a package of calculations relating to solutions of an unsolvable integral and my flying machine.’[13]

On 6 June 1884, Tesla entered the USA through Manhattan, New York’s Castle Garden immigration centre, with all of four cents in his pocket. While walking north to the address of a contact he had received, Tesla encountered a person in front of a store looking perplexed at an electric motor which had apparently broken down. Tesla offered his services and fixed the motor. He was rewarded with a tip of $20, a most sizeable sum for the time, especially for someone who had just a few cents in his pocket. What a great welcome to the ‘the Land of Golden Promise’!

A few days later, as required, Tesla presented himself at the headquarters of the Edison Company on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. It was to be his very first meeting with the great Thomas Edison. Tesla noted: ‘The meeting with Edison was a memorable event in my life. I was amazed at this wonderful man who, without early advantages and scientific training, had accomplished so much.’[14]

Over the ensuing weeks and months, Tesla toiled hard, working almost impossible hours, many times overnight. He managed to repair the broken-down electrical system of the USS Oregon. He also designed many new and efficient types of standard motor. Edison described him as ‘Our Parisian, a good man’. His supervisor went to the extent of ‘promising’ him a $50,000 bonus for his hard work and productivity. Alas, this turned out to be just a joke. It was for Tesla the European simpleton’s introduction to American humour! Nevertheless, Tesla, not taking this joke too kindly, resigned his position at Edison’s company.

It was then that some people approached Tesla to become involved in a company for installing arc lighting in parts of New York and New Jersey. The new company would carry his name. Here, he believed, was an opportunity towards finally furthering the prospects of his beloved a.c. induction motor. In pursuit of this objective, the Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing Company was established.

Within a few months Tesla’s arc lights were ready to be used in factories and for city lighting. The company’s first major project was to set up arc lights in the city of Rahway, New Jersey. The company proudly announced in the media: ‘We are now prepared to furnish the most perfect automatic, self-regulating system of electrical arc lighting yet produced.’[15]

Unfortunately, his potential backers were only interested in the lights, not Tesla’s motor. Not only did his partners discourage any thoughts of manufacturing motors, they went so far as to oust Tesla from the company itself—which had his name in it! The naive Tesla once again found himself without gainful employment, finding work as a common labourer and factory hand. His reputation was now in tatters!

Tesla had earlier tried in vain to interest Edison in his a.c. induction motor. Tesla cited the then important technical issue of the very limited geographical reach of a d.c.-based system. He also advised Edison of the need to go beyond just lighting and to provide power for other industrial machinery. Edison was just not interested. According to Edison, ‘There was no future to it (a.c.) and anyone who dabbled in that field was just wasting his time; and besides it (a.c.) was a deadly current whereas direct current was safe.’[16] The so-called war of the currents was about to begin!

Fortunately for Tesla, he received his first patent (US Patent 334,823) on 26 January 1886. This was for a commutator for dynamo-electric machines. The description on the patent document alludes to some elements to prevent sparking on dynamo electric machines. On 9 February 1886, he received his next patent. This one (US Patent 335,786) was for an electric arc lamp with carbon controlled by electromagnets or solenoids and a clutch mechanism. The description says that this invention corrects earlier design flaws common in the industry.[17]

These two patents received by Tesla helped immensely in restoring somewhat his technical reputation. He might have been out of money, but at least now he had acquired so-called intellectual property.

Interestingly, neither of the first two patents related to Tesla’s main interest, the a.c. induction motor. It was not until 22 March, another four patents later, that Tesla finally received a related patent for an a.c. motor: a synchronous motor (US Patent 359,748).[18]

It was not until 1 May 1888 that Tesla finally applied for and received a patent (US Patent 381,968) that he had been conceptualizing and working on all these years. The patent citation reads as follows: ‘Mode and plan of operating electric motors by progressive shifting…field magnet…armature…electrical conversion…economical …transmission of energy…simple construction…easier construction…rotating magnetic field principles.’[19]

The date, 1 May 1888, of Patent 381,968 is significant, as we will see later. Early in 1887 Tesla was introduced to Alfred S Brown, a senior engineer at the Western Union Telegraph Company. Brown was quite impressed with Tesla’s technical knowledge as well as his passion for the induction motor. Brown in turn introduced Tesla to Charles Peck, an experienced lawyer and investor.

Now Peck, like many others, was not quite convinced of the need to promote an entirely new electrical system—something quite radically different from what the great and successful Edison had brought to market, the direct current (d.c. system). Tesla somehow had to convince a very sceptical Charles Peck. He solved the problem by demonstrating the electrical equivalent of Columbus’ egg.

‘A rotating field magnet was fastened under the top board of a wooden table and Mr. Tesla provided a copper plated egg and several brass balls and pivoted iron discs for convincing his prospective associates. He placed the egg on the table and to their astonishment it stood on end, but when they found it was rapidly spinning their stupefaction was complete.’[20]

Tesla now had his first genuine and serious investors. Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887, with a third of the shares going to each. Tesla set up his longed-for laboratory at Liberty Street, not far from Wall Street, in Manhattan.

Reflecting back on patent 381,968 from 1 May 1888, we may reasonably conjecture that Tesla may have deliberately delayed filing any patent application for a motor working on his rotating magnetic field concept until he had a proper and inviolable business deal. He no doubt wanted to avoid any chance of his designs and technologies being leaked out before he had in place a fool-proof mechanism to make money off of them.

In 1888, an editor of a then-leading engineering publication, Electrical World, arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his alternating current motor in front of a technical audience at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now called the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Some engineers working for the Westinghouse Electrical & Manufacturing Company who attended the demonstration wrote a very favourable report on Tesla’s development to their company’s owner, George Westinghouse.

As a consequence, in July 1888, a licensing deal for Tesla’s polyphase induction motor and transformer was entered into with the Westinghouse Electrical & Manufacturing Company. A fee of $60,000 by way of cash and shares would be paid to Tesla in addition to a royalty of $2.50 per horsepower produced by each a.c. motor installed. Further, Tesla would act as a consultant to Westinghouse at the princely sum of $2000 per month. Literary luminary Mark Twain (also a source of solace to an ill Tesla in his youth), on seeing the drawings and descriptions of Tesla’s motor, remarked that this may perhaps have a greater impact on society than even the telephone. However, with the Edison camp actively promoting the use of direct current (d.c.), the so-called war of the currents was now well and truly joined!

Author’s note: This chapter is about Tesla, his work and his legacy today. While the whole alternating current versus direct current face-off during the late 1880s through the 1890s and, consequently, the Edison versus Tesla (plus Westinghouse) controversy were meaningful and significant, it would be wise to only briefly refer to this so-called war of currents. There is enough and more in the public domain on this topic. Ironically, Tesla was honoured with the seventh annual Edison medal at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on 18 May 1917!

Until such time as the Westinghouse team took out a license on Tesla’s work, Edison had a near monopoly on area lighting in the New York area using his incandescent bulbs and his direct current (d.c.) electrical system. The arrival on the scene of the alternating current (a.c.) system clearly had Edison and his team somewhat rattled.

The d.c. system had limitations in terms of geographical reach, being limited to just a few kilometers. Yet Edison strongly believed that his system was the much safer of the two. He even vilified the a.c. system for being the ideal one for use in life-terminating electric chairs.

On the other hand, Westinghouse was looking well beyond the then prevalent application of electricity for local area lighting. The big money and fame was in getting electricity from hydro sources, such as Niagara Falls, and transporting it many miles to major industrial areas and other cities.

In pursuit of this aim, Westinghouse was prepared to commit major resources to land showpiece contracts like the lighting of the Chicago World’s Fair. Westinghouse made low, and at times uneconomic, bids for the big projects, such as the one at Niagara Falls, primarily to build up a portfolio of projects and, of course, to be one up on Edison.

At the time it was Tesla’s a.c. system that prevailed despite its technical shortcomings. Tesla’s induction motor could only operate at a fixed frequency. Further, it was unsuitable for traction applications. Yet, as it turned out, it was the idealistic Tesla who would be the main financial loser.

Westinghouse was running short on finances owing to uneconomic operations, coupled with the crash of the stock market on Wall Street—which meant a lack of additional financial backers. Tesla, in a moment of sheer madness, renounced his patent rights were given to Westin ghouse as Chairman of the Company. He did not want the royalties owed to him to be the reason for the failure in the marketplace of his beloved a.c. system.

‘Mr. Westinghouse’, said Tesla, drawing himself up to his full height of six feet two inches and beaming down on the Pittsburgh magnate who was himself a big man, ‘you have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead and pay me when others lacked courage; you supported me when your own engineers lacked vision to see the big things ahead that you and I saw; you have stood by me as a friend. The benefits that will come to civilization from my polyphase system mean more to me than the money involved. Mr. Westinghouse, you will save your company so that you can develop my inventions. Here is your contract and here is my contract—I will tear both of them to pieces and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties.’[21]

Tesla had given up literally hundreds of millions of dollars in that one instant. His first biographer and friend John J. O’Neill estimated the amount to be at least $17.5 million. Tesla was that much of an idealist!

Incredibly and inexcusably, the Westinghouse group, having in later days become a hugely success industrial conglomerate, did not come to Tesla’s aid when he was alone, friendless, desperately short of money and in poor health. It was only as late as 1934, just 9 years before Tesla’s death, that the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company started extending him a small monthly stipend of $125 in addition to paying the room charges for his stay at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan.

The further irony of it all is that while in those days the alternating current system prevailed, today it is Edison’s d.c. system which is making a huge comeback, especially in the form of direct current distributed power and micro grids to power all the modern computers, tablets, mobile phones etc.—all running on direct current!

From the time of signing the initial contract with Westinghouse in 1888 till 1890, after he had returned from Europe, Tesla’s work was still predominantly related to alternating current motors and their parts and accessories. During this period he received another 30 patents, including one for the electric motor that he has been often been photographed with. This was US patent 416,194, described as the classic ‘alternating current…electro-magnetic motors…induction motor operation…field and armature magnets of equal strength or magnetic quality…field and armature cores of equal mass....coils containing equal amounts of copper’.[22]

From 1891 onwards until 1899 Tesla worked on many new technologies and products, some of them quite different from his initial work on alternating current, as the 46 patents that he received during that period clearly show. However, it was in the period after 1899, until his last patent in 1928 (covering a total of 24 US patents), that Tesla really dabbled in esoteric technologies and inventions, as we will see in the paragraphs to follow.

Sadly, though, in 1895 there was a big fire in Tesla’s laboratory in New York. Most of his notes, photographs, drawings and equipment were destroyed in the fire. It is therefore most likely that we today do not know about all the technologies and inventions Tesla had been working on in his New York laboratory!

Some of Tesla’s rather audacious experiments were carried out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he arrived in 1899 and stayed through till early 1900. This endeavour in Colorado Springs was backed by a friend and patent lawyer, Leonard Curtis, along with John Jacob Astor, the famous businessman and owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (currently owned by a Chinese insurance company) in Manhattan.

If Nikola Tesla’s work at Colorado Springs was audacious, his subsequent work, which Tesla intended to carry out at what was referred to as the Wardenclyffe Tower (also known as the Tesla Tower) in Shoreham, New York, may be considered outrageous! The proposed work at Wardenclyffe was, for that time and age, sheer science fiction.

From the time of his last patent in 1928 Tesla continued to work on technologies and inventions but tragically did not bother to register them and apply for patents. This may possibly be, as we will read later, because some of the ideas were close to being bizarre.

In the last few years of his life, Tesla became a sort of recluse, largely staying at his hotel room, although he did write the odd paper or article for select journals and magazines. Most of his friends and contemporaries, including the likes of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and the Indian philosopher and man of religion Swami Vivekananda, had by then passed on. Tesla had become a sad, poor loner!

Remarkably, on his 75th birthday, Time magazine honoured Tesla by putting him on its cover. Tesla is recorded as then having said, ‘I have been leading a secluded life, one of continuous, concentrated thought and deep meditation. Naturally enough I have accumulated a great number of ideas. The question is whether my physical powers will be adequate to working them out and giving them to the world.’[23]

Sadly, though, Tesla in his later days, most unfortunately, became a proponent of eugenics and the bizarre need to ‘purify the human race’, much in the mold of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In a 1935 issue of Liberty magazine, Tesla, amongst other predictions, had the following to say: ‘The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct, several European countries and a number of states of the American Union sterilize the criminal and the insane. This is not sufficient. The trend of opinion among ‘eugenists’ [sic] is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.’[24] What a letdown for those who believed that Tesla was a demigod!

Interestingly, Thomas Edison had quite the contrary view on eugenics. It was not a Tesla versus Edison face-off as in the case of the war of currents. Edison, it appears, was indeed quite opposed to the very concept of eugenics. In fact, Edison actively participated in the movement to lampoon eugenics, linking it with germ fighting. Edison actually had an anti-eugenics farcical movie made in 1914 with the title Wood B. Wedd and the Microbes’.[25]

Tesla passed away on 7 January 1943. By then, he had to his credit a recorded 111 US patents and at least another 19 global patents, in addition to many great inventions and technologies. Tesla left the world an extraordinary, though at times controversial, legacy.

Let us now describe some of the most significant of Tesla’s work and inventions.

Tesla’s Rotating Magnetic Field and the Polyphase A.C. Motor

As noted earlier, prior to Tesla’s work on the then conventional dynamo machines, alternating currents were generated by means of a somewhat unreliable mechanism called a commutator, which according to Tesla was the source of most of the problems related to the dynamo. In Tesla’s own words, ‘In view simply of this fact, alternating currents would commend themselves as a more direct application of electrical energy, and the employment of continuous currents would only be justified if we had dynamos which would primarily generate, and motors which would be directly actuated by such currents.’[26]

Tesla’s technology was the concept of the rotating magnetic field. Such a magnetic field arises out of the superimposition of two or more magnetic fields of identical frequencies but having a phase shift between them. Following from this principle, a symmetric magnetic field for a three-phase system can be produced by three stationary wound coils at a 120° phase difference between them. A rotor or permanent magnet housed inside thus ‘sees’ a constant magnetic field and will rotate to align itself with the external magnetic field in a synchronous manner. This is the underlying principle of Tesla’s alternating current motor.

The basic Tesla a.c. motor contained two or more coils which were independent conductor circuits but connected to the generator for the conversion of electrical energy into rotary mechanical motion. However, Tesla later made several modifications to this basic polyphase system. Firstly, he showed that two or more of the circuits of his basic system may share a single return current path.

Tesla also devised systems whereby desired speeds could be obtained in motors working on alternating currents of different phases. He also devised a system where by regulating or reversing the direction of current he could vary the speeds of his polyphase motors.

More importantly, Tesla addressed the issue of being able to ‘self-start’ a synchronous motor. This he achieved in a rather unique way of creating a phase difference in the currents through the coils of the field magnets through a ‘switching on and off’ of a dead resistance in one circuit and an inductive resistance in the other.

Hitherto we have noted Tesla’s work on polyphase motors. However, for practical reasons an a.c. motor for day-to-day use needed to be able to run on a simple single-phase (i.e. with one live phase and a neutral return path) connection. Tesla achieved this through the simple expedient of obtaining the requisite motor movement ‘torque’ by changing the angle of the lamination of the magnetic cores rather than depending on the phase shift between magnetic fields (US Patent 405858).

Another significant development made by Tesla was the use of a condenser in the armature circuit of a motor. Using a condenser Tesla was able to obtain the desired phase shift. In a.c. motors the armature coil has an inductive resistance value, which periodically changes, affecting the optimum performance. The use of the condenser in the armature circuit neutralizes this self-inductance effect, greatly enhancing the efficiency and output of the motor (US Patent 455,067).

Between his first patent on the a.c. motor filed in May 1888 and the one filed in June 1891, the one cited earlier, for the use of a condenser in the armature circuit Tesla received another 35 patents related to motors. These included motors with built-in current lag capability, motors with the capability to transform from a torque type to a synchronizing type, motors where a difference in phase may be obtained by magnetic shielding, motors with circuits of different resistance, motors with equal magnetic energies in field and armature, motors based on the difference in phase of the magnetization of the inner and outer parts of an iron core and many other innovations.

According to the Tesla Society, ‘The rotating magnetic field is a fundamental principle of physics and one of the greatest discoveries of all times.’[27] So ubiquitous have the technology and use of alternating current motors become, with large amounts of information about it available in the public domain, that it is beyond the scope of this book to go into further detail of this technology.

Suffice it to say that there are reams of material on the subject available to interested readers. These publications include a compendium of Tesla’s own notes on the subject and, perhaps even more interesting, a larger compilation brought out by Barnes & Noble.[28] Later in this chapter, however, we will discuss some of the latest technologies and developments in the field of motors, which we record as part of Tesla’s legacy.

The Tesla Coil (Coil) and Illumination Lamps

The Tesla coil is one of Tesla’s most famous inventions, dating back to 1891. It is essentially a very high-frequency transformer with an air core. The input to the transformer is from standard mains electricity, being 110 V, 60 Hz a.c. in the USA. The windings (primary and secondary) of the transformer are loosely coupled. Both windings are attached to appropriate capacitors, in effect forming an inductance cum capacitor (LC) resonant circuit, each oscillating at the same radio frequency.

As the energy transfers from the primary side to the secondary, the voltage at the secondary side starts to increase rapidly. With the rapid change in the magnetic flux from the primary side owing to the LC circuit, the induced voltage per turn on the secondary side dramatically changes following Faraday’s law of induction.

Tesla was able to achieve extremely high voltages, of the order of millions of volts, from some of his coils. There is a famous photograph of Tesla sitting in a room whilst one of his giant coils generated 100 million volts, resulting in massive sparks flying all around him.

When Tesla first showed his so-called coil to an audience, many felt that this was just gimmickry with no practical applications. Tesla, however, demonstrated the use of his coil in many different and interesting applications such as in X-rays, electrotherapy and telegraphy, in addition to lighting. Though we will read more about the coil related to Tesla’s legacy, it may be pertinent to point out here the hitherto unknown application of the coil in high-frequency electric lighting, superior in many ways to Edison’s incandescent bulbs. Tesla’s invention, it may be noted, also led the way to the subsequent development of high-frequency, high-efficiency lighting ballasts.

As a derivative of his work on the coil, Tesla could also show that using electrical resonance made it feasible to eliminate one of the two lead wires carrying electricity to a load. This he termed ‘the transmission of electrical energy through one wire with no return’. Using this principle, Tesla designed a light bulb which he called the ‘carbon button lamp’. Although much more efficient than Edison’s incandescent bulb, Tesla’s carbon button lamp did not catch on. This was largely due to the fact that the efficiencies of this lamp properly manifested at higher voltages, 500 or so volts, whereas the biggest market share in the market were at the low voltage end, mainly for domestic use. Further, these lamps could have affected the health of people situated close to them. The high voltages of Tesla’s lamp generated radiation and ‘ozonized’ the surrounding air.

Tesla termed his work related to the coilthe ‘study of high frequency and high potential currents’. Most of this work was done in the early 1890s, which he eloquently described and demonstrated to his technical peers in packed lecture halls in the USA, UK and France. Whilst the photographs of Tesla sitting in a room with high-voltage sparks flying all around and through him seemed more like publicity stunts, there was clearly a motive behind this work: it was primarily to develop alternate, unique and possibly more efficient lighting systems.

On 23 June 1891, Tesla received his US Patent 454,622 for an ‘apparatus devised for the purpose of converting and supplying electrical energy in a form suited for the production of certain novel electrical phenomena, which require currents of higher frequency and potential. It specifies an energy storage capacitor and discharge mechanism on the primary side of a radio frequency transformer.’[29]

Just a week later, on 30 June 1891, he received his US Patent 455,069 for an ‘incandescent lamp consisting of two isolated refractory conductors contained in a non-striking vacuum and adapted to produce light by incandescence...globe or receiver exhausted to the non-striking point with two mounted isolated bodies (or metal wires) of refractory conducting material to emit light and sealed in…terminal to connect with an electrical energy source…refractory conducting material not to be rendered incandescent coated or covered with insulation’.[30]

Technical and obfuscating jargon aside, what Tesla had demonstrated was that he could produce illumination in a glass globe or bulb without the need for a glowing filament inside connected to electric wires. He could achieve the illumination just by the use of an induction effect resulting from his coil. He had succeeded in illuminating a glass tube without actually attaching live electric wires to any filament inside.

According to Tesla, the phenomenon he had demonstrated was based on electrostatic induction on and through ‘ether’. As he put it, ‘Nature has stored up in the universe infinite energy. The eternal recipient and transmitter of this infinite energy is the ‘ether’. We are now confident that electric and magnetic phenomena are attributable to ether, and we are perhaps justified in saying that the effects of static electricity are effects of ether under strain, and those of dynamic electricity and electro-magnetism effects of ether in motion.”.[31]

Tesla’s words seem to indicate that he was almost certainly influenced by his meetings with the Indian sage Swami Vivekananda, from whom he seems to have picked up the Vedic concept of Prana and luminiferous ether, the very basics of the existence of matter.[32]

This demonstration of being able to wirelessly illuminate a glass tube was for Tesla the beginning of one of his greatest desires—the wireless transmission of energy. What is not clear is whether Tesla was trying to be one up on Edison and his incandescent bulb, a repeat of the battle of the currents. Recall that Edison obtained his patents for improvements to the incandescent bulb in 1879 and 1880, just a few months before Tesla’s own work in the field of lighting and illumination.

Tesla and Ozone

In 1785, a Dutch physicist, Martinus van Marum, discovered what would later become known as ozone. However, it was the German scientist Christian Frederick Schonbein who in 1840 first synthesized and named ozone. The very first practical ozone generators were developed by the famous German Werner von Siemens in 1857.

But it was Nikola Tesla who first incorporated a company, in 1900, specifically for the production of ozone generators principally meant for use in medical therapy. This company, the Tesla Ozone Company, was a result of Tesla’s US Patent 568,177 from September 1896 for a device ‘that primarily provides a simple, cheap, and effective apparatus for the production of ozone or such gases, obtained by the action of high tension electrical discharges’ (related to US Patent 462,418 from 3 November 1891).[33]

A reading of the description attached to the patent reveals that the corona discharge ozone generator device patent was simply an extension of Tesla’s previous work on the Tesla coil. The patent description reads as follows: ‘Apparatus devised for the purpose of converting and supplying electrical energy in a form suited for the production of certain novel electrical phenomena which require currents of high frequency and potential’. Clearly Tesla’s coil, generating very high frequencies and voltages, with sparks flying all around, could convert ambient air into ozone, a phenomenon now well recognized and explained.

According to www.teslauniverse.com, “His customers were naturopaths and allopathic doctors who welcomed this powerful therapy into their practices. Breathing of ozone bubbled through olive oil and other oils was widely practiced at this time, and the Sears catalog of 1904 offered a unit for this purpose using eucalyptus, pine and spearmint oils.’ Tesla in fact was able to produce a gel by bubbling ozone through a container of olive oil. The gel apparently was very popularly recommended by physicians of that time.

The early Tesla ozone generators were based on the standard corona discharge principle. In such an ozone generator, a tube with a cathode (either hot or cold) is surrounded by an anode made of metal. The strong corona discharge between the electrodes acts on the ambient air to produce ozone. Unfortunately, the high current flow at the anode would very often lead to the formation of a ‘hot spot’ on the anode, leading to a short circuit and, consequently, a ‘burn out’. Not a very reliable piece of equipment!

In a modification of the ozone generator, Tesla decided to make use of an electrostatic discharge. The discharge was transmitted through inert gases encased in glass tubing. A cold plasma field was produced which was then used to convert the oxygen in the ambient air into ozone. The use of the cold plasma field eliminated the earlier burn-out problem, making the modified equipment much more reliable.

Tesla, X-rays and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

The world acknowledges that William Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895. Yet, in 1894, consequent to unexplained damages to some of Tesla’s photograph slides in his laboratory, Tesla started to investigate the mysterious rays that may have caused the visible damages. Tesla constructed a special vacuum tube comprising only a single electrode which when excited by a high-voltage Tesla coil emitted electrons that could be suitably accelerated. Tesla noted that the source of the mysterious rays were the points where the accelerated electrons impinged on the glass of the anode-less tube. Hence, as early as 1894, Tesla had actually experimented with what would become known as X-rays.

Tesla built an elaborate cooling mechanism for this tube of his to prevent overheating. He then ventured to take a photograph of Mark Twain with this contraption. Not surprisingly, the resultant image was not that of Mark Twain but just the metal screw used for adjusting the focal length of the makeshift camera. This would be the first X-ray image produced in the USA.

Later on, Tesla would refine this development into a device that he called the shadowgraph.[34] What else he might have achieved in the field of X-rays can only be conjectured. Unfortunately, as we saw earlier, all related notes, photographs and drawings of that period perished in the unfortunate fire in his laboratory in 1895. Sheer bad luck or arson? At any rate, Roentgen, not Tesla, went on to receive the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his work on X-rays.

Yet today Nikola Tesla is best known for the linkage of his name to another, more modern form of imaging. This is what’s known as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We have seen that Tesla discovered the principle of the rotating magnetic field in 1882.

Since practical MRI machines use a rotating magnetic field, in 1956 the International Electro-Technical Commission decided to honour Tesla and his rotating magnetic field technology by measuring the strength of MRI magnetic fields in tesla units. One tesla is the equivalent of 10,000 gauss. The stronger the magnetic field, the higher the tesla units and, consequently, the better the image quality of the MRI.

Tesla and Transportation

Incredibly, amidst a profusion of work on electrical motors, electrical current generators and electrical transmission of power in the early 1890s, Tesla somehow found the time to work on inventions related to transportation. On 6 February 1894, he received a US patent (514,169) for what he called a reciprocating engine. The patent description reads as follows: ‘Provides a means of engines, which under the applied forces such as elastic tension of steam or gas under pressure, that will yield constant oscillatory movements (in wide limits)…function is constant irrespective of the loads, frictional losses or other factors (which degrade other engines)…convert pressure into mechanical power…better at higher temperatures and pressures than previous engines.’[35]

Admittedly, Tesla designed the reciprocating engine (sometimes called Tesla’s oscillator) as a steam-powered electric generator. Steam is pressured into the device and exits through multiple outlets, driving a piston up and down. To generate electricity, this could be coupled with an armature; however, as can be seen, it could just as well be used as a means of driving a set of wheels. Clearly it is the forerunner of motors able to power automobiles!

That Tesla dabbled in inventions related to the burgeoning automobile industry in the USA is further supported by the evidence of US Patent 609,250, which he received on 16 August 1898. This patent was for an ‘electrical igniter for gas engines’.[36] Tesla believed that his version of the electrical igniter using the charging and discharging of a condenser through a switch or ‘commutator’ was much more efficient than any other that existed at that time.

Tesla’s work related to transportation was not limited to inventions related to automobiles. On 20 February 1894 he received a US patent (514,972) for an ‘electric railway system’.[37] This system involved the use of his high-voltage, high-frequency electric currents to run through appropriately insulated and screened overhead conductor lines, ‘along the line of travel’. An inductive mechanism on top of a railway locomotive would pick up the electric charge by the induction process and transmit it to the motor of the locomotive.

Shortly thereafter, on 10 April 1894, Tesla received a patent (US Patent 517,900) for his innovative version of a steam engine. In this he had a spring-loaded reciprocating piston moving within a cylinder. The slide valve of the engine was adapted for operation by steam under pressure from the independently controlled engine of ‘constant period’.[38]

One of Tesla’s most fascinating inventions (US Patent 613,809) related to what we today call the remote control of moving vehicles—an invention that left an incredibly profound legacy. In this, also called the ‘boat patent’, Tesla demonstrated in front of a live audience at New York City’s Madison Square Garden the possibility of transmitting electromagnetic waves to a vessel some distance away and rendering the controlling circuitry of the vessel active or inactive (an ‘AND’ gate in modern digital logic) without the use of any connecting wires and cables.[39]

Tesla’s work on transportation even extended to aerial transportation, this at a time well before anyone had any notion of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Tesla, in January 1928, received two patents (US Patents 1,655,113 and 1,655,114) for what was rather blandly titled a ‘Method of Aerial Transportation’—these being the last of the listed U.S. patents of Nikola Tesla. In the patents the propulsion force for the aircraft relied on his unique bladeless design of turbines using the boundary layer effect (US Patent 1,061,142).[40]

However, a further reading of the description of the cited patent shows it to be a unique ‘method of achieved vertical take-off, transition to and from horizontal flight, and vertical landing, with a tilting rotor; including transportation which consists in developing by the propelling device a vertical thrust in excess of the normal, causing thereby the machine to rise in approximately vertical direction, tilting it and simultaneously increasing the power of the motor and thereby the propeller thrust, then gradually reducing the propeller thrust as forward speed is gained and the plane takes up the load, thus maintaining the lift force sensibly constant during flight, tilting the machine back to its original position and at the same time increasing the power of the motor and thrust of the propeller and effecting a landing under the restraining action of the same.’[41]

It would be interesting to know how many of those flying the modern Osprey V-22 tilt rotor aircraft or the LTV XC-142 know that this was one of Tesla’s inventions dating back to 1928! Aviation purists, however, believe that, whilst the use of a turbine and the design for vertical take-off and landing were most prescient and correct, the aircraft would not have been able to ‘hover’ because the wings were not long enough to get the requisite lift and stability. Further, the aircraft did not have a tail rotor, which is the one that provides so-called anti-torque stability. However, could it be, then, that Tesla’s concept was more in line with the British Harrier Jump Jet than a helicopter type of VTOL aircraft?

Tesla in his autobiography also speaks of pilotless remote-controlled aircraft, what today may be called drones. He writes: ‘It is practicable, with the existing wireless plants, to launch an airplane, 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.’[42]

One of Tesla’s most important inventions was that of what came to be known as the Tesla turbine. This was the invention for which he received his US Patent 1,061,206 of 21 October 1909.[43]

At that time conventional turbines with blades had poor efficiency as a consequence of deficiencies in blade designs. Tesla designed his turbine without the use of blades. Instead, there was a set of discs on which a gas or compressed air coming out of nozzles would hit the edges of the discs. This was the principle of the utilization of the boundary layer effect, giving the turbine very high levels of efficiency. In addition to the possibility of the utilization of this type of turbine in ships, it could also be used as a prime mover for power generation and other applications. Interestingly, Tesla even envisaged his turbine being used as the prime mover in geothermal power generation, a somewhat increasingly popular means of power generation in countries such as Iceland, China and even India.[44]

Tesla and Robotics

It is commonly acknowledged that Tesla was a pioneer in the field of robotics. He had a visionary approach to the subject. In fact, he propounded the theory that all living beings, including himself, are automata in one form or another. According to Tesla, ‘I have, by every thought and act of mine, demonstrated, and do so daily, to my absolute satisfaction that I am an automaton endowed with power of movement, which merely responds to external stimuli beating upon my sense organs, and moves accordingly.’ Further, ‘Obviously to put into practice this idea it would be possible to construct a machine that would have arms and legs, and which would walk in an upright position, but this would additionally complicate the task and make it more complex.’[45]

Tesla was way ahead of his time in imagining radio-controlled robotic vehicles and vessels, particularly for use by the US defense services. According to the description in Tesla’s application for US Patent 613,809, with reference to the ‘boat patent’, he writes, ‘Vessels or vehicles of any suitable kind may be used, as life, dispatch, or pilot boats or the like, or for carrying letters, packages, provisions, instruments, objects, or materials of any description, for establishing communication with inaccessible regions and exploring the conditions existing in the same, for killing or capturing whales or other animals of the sea, and for many other scientific, engineering, or commercial purposes; but the greatest value of my invention will result from its effect upon warfare and armaments, for by reason of its certain and unlimited destructiveness it will tend to bring about and maintain permanent peace among nations.’[46]

Sadly, none of the principal parties who should have been the major beneficiaries of Tesla’s invention, such as the US Department of Defense, showed any interest whatsoever in the invention at that time. About 40 years later, towards the end of World War II, the German army did have radio-controlled military tanks.[47] Too late, however, to change the course of history!

But arguably Tesla’s most important statement on robotics was this one: ‘A multitude of jobs that are presently still performed by human hands will be performed by automaton’s hands. At this very moment scientists in the laboratories of American universities endeavor to create something what can be described as a thinking machine. Such developments I have already predicted. In fact I have constructed robots. Today, robots are an undeniable fact, but their principles are yet to be explored. In the twenty-first century robots will have the role that slaves had in the ancient civilizations.’ How prescient indeed![48]

Whilst seeking investments from some of his wealthy friends and contacts for commercializing his inventions, Tesla is reported to have said, ‘You see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race.’[49] Sadly for Tesla, the rich friends were more interested in practical things, such as lights and illumination, not robots.

We do know that in addition to the remote-controlled boat (sometimes also referred to as the first guided torpedo), Tesla is known to have worked on a ‘driverless’ car[50] long before the current efforts by Google and others. Some reports suggest that Tesla also worked on some form of ‘killer robots’.[51]

Tesla in Colorado Springs, USA: The Quest for Wireless Power Transmission

Having been rebuffed by his wealthy friends in financing his robotics developments, Tesla needed to get back to his work on lights and illumination. He approached the prominent industrialist and financier Colonel John Jacob Astor (of Waldorf Astoria fame). He is reported to have told Astor, ‘I can run on a ‘single’ wire sufficient for one incandescent lamp more than 1000 of my own lamps, giving fully 5000 times as much light. Let me ask you, Colonel, how much is this alone worth when you consider that there are hundreds of millions invested in electric lights?’[52] By 1898, Astor had been persuaded to invest around $30,000 in Tesla’s company.

However, having attracted Astor’s investment in his company, Tesla wished to return to, for that time, more esoteric developments and inventions. Developing and producing lights was apparently no longer fashionable! What Tesla wished most was to produce larger and more efficient generators of very high-frequency electrical energy—something that would be impossible to achieve in his laboratory in New York.

Tesla decided to take up the offer of an old friend, patent attorney Leonard Curtis, of a piece of land (with free electricity thrown in) next to Curtis’ power utility company in Colorado Springs. Tesla was determined to prove that he could transmit large amounts of electrical power over distances without the encumbrance of any wires or cables. He sincerely believed that he could bring about the transmission without any significant loss of power.

To be able to prove his hypothesis, Tesla essentially had to create the equivalent of atmospheric ‘lightning’. To this end, his laboratory at Colorado Springs was comprised of a massive Tesla coil with the secondary coil of the transformer being able to provide output in the megavolt range. This output voltage was fed to a huge ball of copper atop a very high mast. The massive sparks were then supposed to be impulses going through the earth to be picked up at some point a considerable distance away. Though the experimental set-up did produce the equivalent of huge bolts of lightning, as the voltage was cranked up, suddenly everything went ‘dead’. Tesla had managed to blow up the dynamo at the local power utility. The quest for free power for the masses sadly remained a distant dream.

Not much more is known about the details of Tesla’s work at his secretive laboratory in Colorado Springs. What is known, however, is that on one occasion when there had been a heavy thunderstorm accompanied by lightning in the Colorado Springs area, Tesla’s measurement instruments picked up something unusual. According to Tesla, ‘I obtained the first decisive experimental evidence of a truth of overwhelming importance for the advancement of humanity—the observation of standing or stationary electrical waves. The tremendous significance of this fact in the transmission of energy by my system had already become quite clear to me. Not only was it practicable to send telegraphic messages to any distance without wires, as I recognized long ago, but also to impress upon the entire globe the faint modulations of the human voice, far more still, to transmit power, in unlimited amounts to any terrestrial distance and almost without loss.’[53]

It must of course be recorded here that while at Colorado Springs, one night Tesla picked up some strange signals on his equipment. According to him, ‘Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the incident, and see my apparatus as though it were actually before me. My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night.’

What Tesla had picked up were some radio frequency signals, possibly pulsars, in the 8 to 22 kHz band. His critics unfairly ‘panned’ him for his first reaction: were these extraterrestrial signals? People went so far as to adduce that Tesla claimed that the signals were from Mars. Much later it was proven and reconfirmed by experiments that there do exist such signals in the frequency band cited by Tesla. The exact origin and nature of these signals were at that time not clearly determined, but they were definitely not from Mars.[54]

Tesla and Radio/Telegraphy/‘Internet’

The world acknowledges Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of the radio. Some would like to give this honour to an Indian, Jagadish Chandra Bose.[55] We know that Marconi had taken out the first patent on wireless telegraphy in England in 1896. But we also know that Tesla, when working on the development of his coil, was able to transmit and receive radio signals when both the coils were tuned to the proper frequency.

Further, early in 1895, before Marconi’s patent of 1896 for the radio, Tesla was preparing to demonstrate the transmission of a radio signal over a distance of around 50 km. But then disaster struck! Tesla’s laboratory in New York was destroyed in a fire.

Marconi demonstrated the transmission of a radio signal across the English Channel in March 1899, although it is popularly believed that he had used an oscillator of Tesla’s design. On 20 March 1900 Tesla received a US patent (645,576) for ‘Wireless transmission of electrical power and related to wireless telegraphy through the natural media’.[56] This was followed up by another US patent (649,621) on 15 May 1900, which was described as a ‘transmitting coil or conductor arranged and excited to cause currents or oscillation to propagate through conduction through the natural medium from one point to another remote point therefrom and a receiver coil or conductor of the transmitted signals’.[57]

In fact, in 1903, the US Patent Office, whilst rejecting a patent application filed by Marconi, remarked, ‘Many of the claims [by Marconi] are not patentable over Tesla patent numbers 645,576 and 649,621, of record, the amendment to overcome said references as well as Marconi’s pretended ignorance of the nature of a “Tesla oscillator” being little short of absurd.’[58]

Sadly, though, except for the aforementioned developments, Tesla’s radio-controlled boat, as well after some of the work done at Colorado Springs, when Nikola Tesla announced his basic concept of telegraphy by the use of so-called stationary electrical waves, there is not much more by way of any real evidence of Tesla ever having constructed a working radio set.

Yet when informed that Marconi had transmitted radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean, Tesla said, ‘Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.’[59]

As regards wireless telegraphy, again precious little by way of hard facts is available with respect to Tesla’s contribution. A leading popular US science magazine, Scientific American, however, carried a story in its 19 June 1897 issue stating that ‘Very recently Mr. Tesla has announced that he has completed his wireless telegraph to such an extent as to permit of telegraphy through the earth for a distance of 20 miles or more, and his experiments satisfy him of the feasibility of wireless telegraphy on a much more extended scale. In fact, he aims at nothing less than the establishment of a system of telegraphy that shall include the whole earth’.[60]

Yet Tesla’s concept of wireless telegraphy is sometimes linked by his ardent fans as being a precursor to what the modern world knows as the Internet. In a pitch to the famous banker and investor JP Morgan, Tesla made the following proposal: ‘The fundamental idea…is to employ a few power plants, preferably located near the large centers of civilization and each capable of transmitting a message to the remotest regions of the globe. These plants…as fast as they receive the news, they pour them [sic] into the ground, through which they spread instantly’.[61]

Further, Tesla hypothesized a hand-held device as a receiver, connected to a short pole: ‘An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than a watch, will enable him to listen anywhere, on land or sea, to a speech delivered or music played in some other place, however distant.’[62] So were these the forerunners of the Internet and the mobile phone/pocket radio? Conceptually, perhaps, but no record exists of an actual device made or a patent applied for.

Tesla and Solar Energy

Tesla, as already noted, strongly believed that ‘Nature has stored up in the universe infinite energy’. He was determined to extract usable energy from ‘nature’. Amongst his most significant inventions, for which he received US Patent 685,957,[63] is for an ‘Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy’. The description of the patent states ‘Radiation charging and discharging conductors. Radiations considered vibrations of ether of small wave lengths and ionize the atmosphere. Radiant energy throws off with great velocity minute particles which are strongly electrified. Rays or radiation falling on insulated conductor connected to a condenser or capacitor, the condenser indefinitely charges electrically.’

Shorn of technical jargon, let us examine what the preceding description really means. It is basically an insulated metal plate placed at an elevation. Another such plate is inserted into the ground. A conducting wire is connected to one side of a condenser (capacitor), and another conducting wire connects the grounded plate to the other side of the capacitor.

The radiant energy rays of the Sun give off positively charged particles, which on striking the upper plate provide an electrical charge to it which flows to the capacitor terminal to which it is connected by the conducting wire. The other end of the capacitor being grounded enables the capacitor to receive a continuous charge as long as the radiant energy of the Sun is being received. This clearly appears to be a forerunner of the modern day solar panel.

Tesla may well thus be considered a pioneer in the capture of solar energy using a very simple device, long before today’s conventional panels, which use silicon solar cells, became popular. Many now call this Tesla’s ‘free energy receiver’, principally because in theory the device should work even when the Sun is not actually shining. All it needs are for the cosmic rays originating from the Sun to be picked up by the upper plate.

Tesla and Electrotherapy

One of the offshoots of the development of the Tesla coil was its potential or use in therapeutic applications. By the generation of appropriate frequencies and focusing these on afflicted areas of patients, it was found that the effects of certain ailments, such as rheumatism, could be minimized. This came about because of the increase in the supply of blood along with an induced heating, much as in modern-day diathermy equipment. Healing was said to be promoted by the increase in oxygenation levels and in the nutritive value of the blood.

It has even been reported that when Tesla was hit by a speeding taxi in Manhattan (in 1937), he preferred to go to his hotel room and take his own electrotherapy there rather than go to a hospital for treatment. Tesla, however, did not patent any version of an electrotherapy machine. He did establish a company, the Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company, for making and selling therapeutic treatment machines. It is possible that in the later part of his life an ailing Tesla, with little money available for patent attorneys, decided on this course of action.

Yet others took it upon themselves to develop, produce and market their versions or copies of Tesla’s electrotherapy machine. For example, a Russian-French Scientist, Georges Lakhovsky, produced a version called the multi-wave oscillator. In this device a suitably charged tunable Tesla coil provided high-frequency input to a sort of antenna, which could then be passed over the afflicted area of a patient as part of the treatment process. Lakhovsky published a few books and articles in which he claims to have even treated cancer using a Tesla coil–based electrotherapy machine.[64]

Of late, such therapy has been making a comeback of sorts, especially in the area of sports medicine—particularly in the form of a hand-held device called the violet ray machine.[65]

Tesla and the Quest for Global Wireless Communications and Power Transmission

The Wardenclyffe Project

Tesla returned from Colorado Springs with only minimal success but clearly having spent most of the money invested by Astor. Tesla desperately needed another investor to work on his dream project, that of developing a global wireless communications and power transmission system, somehow using the properties of the Earth.

Tesla wrote an article in Century magazine postulating not only the possibility of harnessing the Sun’s energy but also that it would be possible to wirelessly transmit communication signals as well as electrical power. Further, he wrote, it would be possible to control weather by the use of electrical energy and also that it would be possible to design the ultimate weapon systems that would put an end to any future wars.[66]

One of those who read the article in Century was the famous banker and financier JP Morgan (see also the earlier section ‘Tesla and Radio/Telegraphy/Internet’). Tesla’s vision of the wireless transmission of power and communication signals interested him.

In a meeting, Tesla reportedly told Morgan that with his world system, ‘When wireless is fully applied the earth will be converted into a huge brain, capable of response in every one of its parts.’[67]

The canny JP Morgan offered Tesla an initial sum of only $150,000 to start development of the technology and, realizing Tesla’s financial situation, also insisted on taking 51 % of not only Tesla’s wireless patents but also those for his lights and motors. The meagre amount offered by Morgan, in comparison to the multi-million-dollar contract for the big power project at Niagara Falls, was not going to get Tesla very far!

Yet it was a beginning. Using that money, Tesla purchased a site of some 200 acres of land on Long Island in New York state in an area called Wardenclyffe-on-Sound. By 1901 Tesla had constructed at the site a large 60-metre-high tower on top of which was a huge dome-like structure. Below the tower was a shaft 40 metres deep and a set of iron pipes that went another 100 metres into the ground, almost like prongs stuck into the earth.

This structure was the Wardenclyffe Tower, also known as the Tesla Tower. The huge dome, almost like a beehive, was intended to be part of a giant Tesla coil that would act as a ‘magnifying transmitter’. At the laboratory at Wardenclyffe, Tesla would finally develop his dream projects!

Sadly, things did not go quite according to plan. By early 1902 Tesla needed more money for the Wardenclyffe project. By then, Marconi had already successfully transmitted a wireless message across the Atlantic. Accordingly, Morgan, the investor in the project, did not see any reason to extend additional financing to Tesla since his primary interest—wireless telegraphy—had already seen a breakthrough by a rival.

Much as Tesla claimed that Marconi was using his patents, and despite the observations and rulings of the Patent Office against Marconi, Tesla simply did not have the funds to fight expensive patent lawsuits against Marconi. Worse, JP Morgan was now unwilling to let go of his control over Tesla’s existing patents.[68] Many have speculated whether Morgan’s attitude was prompted and prodded by General Electric—a company in which he had major commercial interests. Certainly he had an easy and cheap way of controlling technologies developed and patented by Tesla.

Almost certainly Tesla tried unsuccessfully to tap other sources of funding, including from his old partner, the Westinghouse Company. Now at the end of his tether, Tesla met JP Morgan in 1904 and said to him, ‘I have done the best that could be done, you fire me out like an office boy and roar so that you are heard six blocks away; not a cent! It is spread all over town, I am discredited, the laughing stock of my enemies.’[69]

By now Tesla was deeply in debt. He had large outstanding bills at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he was now staying. Out of sheer desperation, Tesla ended up mortgaging the Wardenclyffe property to George Boldt, then owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (presently owned by a Chinese insurance company).

During World War 1 a rumour spread rather rapidly in the New York area that the tower was being used by German spies—a possible reference to Tesla’s background on the European continent. As a result, the tower itself was demolished and the steel, machinery and other items sold almost at scrap value.

Author’s note: In 1969 the property ended up under the ownership of AGFA, the photo film company. AGFA operated at that site until 1992. Finally, in 2009, AGFA decided to put the property up for sale.

In 2013, a non-profit organization, with the whole-hearted support of the owner of a very popular American comic strip, purchased the property. The objective was to set up a Tesla Science Center in Wardenclyffe. Elon Musk of Tesla Motors donated $1 million for this centre.

It is still not fully clear what precise experimental activities Tesla and his staff carried out at Wardenclyffe. Tesla ensured complete secrecy. What we do know is that Tesla had commenced work there to make it a ‘world system communications facility’ with the magnifying transmitter to be a ‘free energy device’. In the Wardenclyffe Loan Foreclosure Proceedings, Tesla stated, ‘The primary purpose of the tower, your Honour, was to telephone, to send the human voice and likeness around the globe through the instrumentality of the earth.’[70]

Tesla clearly describes his ‘world system’ of wireless transmission in his autobiography. He writes, ‘The wireless transmitter is one in which the Hertz wave radiation is an entirely negligible quantity as compared with the whole energy, under which condition the damping factor is extremely small and an enormous charge is stored in the elevated capacity. Such a circuit may then be excited with impulses of any kind, even of low frequency and it will yield sinusoidal and continuous oscillations like those of an alternator.’[71]

Tesla than goes on to write, ‘It is a resonant transformer which, besides possessing these qualities, is accurately proportioned to fit the globe and its electrical constants and properties, by virtue of which design it becomes highly efficient and effective in the wireless transmission of energy.’[72] It appears that Tesla here is referring to his US Patents 645,576 and 649,621, however couched in generalities the explanatory notes to the patents may be.[73]

In brief, the ‘World System’ at Wardenclyffe was comprised of a Tesla transformer, a magnifying transmitter adapted to somehow ‘excite’ the Earth, the Tesla wireless system and a most unique tuning system. The ‘World System’ as a whole was designed to produce terrestrial stationary waves working on the premise that the Earth was responsive to specific electrical frequencies.

Tesla in his autobiography sums up the ultimate purpose of the ‘World System’ as follows:

‘With this power plant, it will be practicable to attain electrical activities up to ten million horsepower (7.5 billion watts), and it is designed to serve for as many technical achievements as are possible without due expense.’ Among these are the following:

1. 1.
The interconnection of existing telegraph exchanges or offices around the world;

2. 2.
The establishment of a secret and non-interferable [sic] government telegraph service;

3. 3.
The interconnection of all present telephone exchanges or offices around the globe;

4. 4.
The universal distribution of general news by telegraph or telephone, in conjunction with the press;

5. 5.
The establishment of such a ‘World System’ of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use;

6. 6.
The interconnection and operation of all stock tickers of the world;

7. 7.
The establishment of a world system—for example of musical distribution;

8. 8.
The universal registration of time by cheap clocks indicating the hour with astronomical precision and requiring no attention whatever;

9. 9.
The world transmission of typed or handwritten characters, letters or checks, for example;

10. 10.
The establishment of a universal marine service enabling navigators on all ships to steer perfectly without a compass, to determine their exact location, hour and speed, to prevent collisions and so forth;

11. 11.
The inauguration of a system of world printing on land and sea;

12. 12.
The world reproduction of photographic pictures and all kinds of drawings.

‘I also propose to make demonstration in the wireless transmission of power on a small scale.’[74]

Certainly in parts it sounds very much as if Tesla foresaw the Internet, albeit with a substantially different technology used as the base! Some people even like to ascribe the modern-day Internet of Things to Tesla, however far-fetched that notion may be.

How much did Tesla actually achieve at Wardenclyffe has never been fully documented. Bits and pieces of information have, however, been gathered from news reports (some fanciful), description and photographs of the equipment presented at the foreclosure proceedings, together with a few eyewitness reports.

What is in the public domain is that once his requests for financing were rebuffed, Tesla decided to press on with preliminary tests at Wardenclyffe, regardless. The New York Sun newspaper reported in its edition of 14 July 1903 the following:

‘Tesla’s flashes are startling, but he won’t tell what he is trying for at Wardenclyffe. Natives here are intensely interested in the nightly electrical display shown from the tall tower where Nikola is conducting his experiments in wireless telegraphy and telephony.’

The same newspaper in its edition of 17 July 1903 stated, ‘All sorts of lightning were flashed from the tall tower and poles last night. For a time the air was filled with blinding streaks of electricity which seemed to shoot off in the darkness on some mysterious errand. The display continued till after midnight.’[75]

But this may just have been a great inventor’s final grandstanding! We do now know that by early 1906 Tesla had totally abandoned Wardenclyffe, financially ruined and in very poor health. His dream of the ‘World System’ had come crashing down into virtually nothing!

Tesla’s ‘Death Rays’ (Particle Beam Generators), Lasers, Other Instruments of War

Tesla, after World War I, seemed to have developed an antipathy towards conventional warfare, especially set-piece infantry and artillery-based battles. He could foresee the use of modern technology in the development of a variety of extraordinary weapon systems. In his autobiography he foresaw weapon systems that only now are beginning to be used by the most developed nations.

From his autobiography: ‘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. A city at any 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 (USA).’[76]

Many of Tesla’s fans and conspiracy theorists believe that immediately after Tesla’s death in his hotel room on 7 January 1943 all his notes, papers, models and other objects simply vanished from his hotel room and were never found. They point fingers at US intelligence and defense services claiming that the missing papers contained all the work that Tesla had done on ‘special’ and futuristic weapons. One of the main concepts that Tesla had worked on was the generation and use of so-called death rays—something that the US authorities did not wish to get into the wrong hands.

The 23 July 1934 edition of Time magazine carried the following piece:

Last week Dr. Tesla announced a combination of four inventions that would make war unthinkable. Nucleus of the idea is a death ray—a concentrated beam of sub-microscopic particles flying at velocities approaching that of light. The beam, according to Tesla, would drop an army in its tracks, bring down squadrons of airplanes 250 miles away. Inventor Tesla would discharge the ray by means of 1) a device to nullify the impeding effect of the atmosphere on the particles 2) a method for setting up high potential 3) a process for multiplying that potential to 50,000,000 volts; 4) creation of a ‘tremendous repelling force’.

The basic principle of this killer ‘ray’ appears to be a concentrated ‘particle beam’ emanating from a projector. The projector itself seems to be based on a van de Graaff generator with an open-ended vacuum tube coupled with it. Through this ‘ray gun’, highly charged minute metallic particles could be emitted by means of electrostatic repulsion and propelled at extremely high velocities—at multiples of the speed of sound. In modern-day terminology, such a device would be called a directed energy weapon.

It has not quite been proven that Tesla ever built and demonstrated any of these particle beam generators or ray guns. Did he have the basic concepts right but then not have the financial resources to build one and patent it? We do not really know for sure. Certainly Tesla’s old age and poor health may also have had a debilitating effect. Yet it certainly merits further discussion. We do know that amongst the legacies left by Tesla are derivatives and adaptations of his ray gun, which are today in use in micro-surgery and brain surgery.

Disturbingly, there are some references, but no proof, to the fact that Tesla tried unsuccessfully to sell this ray gun technology to the USA and Britain. These reports claim that the only ones to show interest were the Soviets, who are believed to have paid him an advance of $25,000.[77]

On the other hand, there is somewhat more evidence of Tesla’s work towards a so-called laser-like light source. In the earlier section titled ‘The Tesla Coil (“Coil”) and Illumination Lamps’, we noted that Tesla had made a so-called button lamp, which (albeit only at high voltages) was more efficient than any other existing lamp at that time. This button lamp was a glass globe with a coating of a reflective material. The button itself was usually made of carbon, which when electrified would radiate energy. This energy would bounce off the reflective coating and return to the button, which would further enhance and multiply the amount of energy produced—and the process would go on until a very powerful, concentrated light was produced.

Tesla in his later experiments used buttons made of ruby. It is this work that leads us to believe that Tesla indeed should be given credit as the first to make a ruby laser, even though at that time he perhaps did not fully realize the technology and significance of lasers. In his book Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, Marc Seifer quotes Tesla as saying, ’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 exact 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, sharply defined line corresponding to the outline of the fused ruby drop.’[78]

Many of Tesla’s fans believe that Tesla carried forward this work on a laser-like device to convert it into a powerful weapon system. People also tend to confuse Tesla’s concept of a particle beam generator, or death ray, and his work on the button lamp, which could produce a laser-like effect.Interestingly, as this book is being written there are suggestions from knowledgeable quarters that for the US to stay ahead of the rest of the world in weapons technology there is a need to consider making electromagnetic rail guns firing ammunition using electricity as well as ‘directed energy’ laser based weapons. Sounds very much like a vindication of Tesla!

The conspiracy theorists take this further to suggest that the US federal intelligence and defense agencies at Tesla’s death took away all relevant papers and other material to ensure that they did not end up in the hands of his nephew and heir, Sava Kasanovich, a Serb (suspected of being a communist), to be handed over to the Soviets.

The Internet is full of reports that Tesla developed technologies for many other weapon systems, both offensive and defensive. Included amongst these so-called weapon systems are a Tesla howitzer, a multimode Tesla weapon or the ‘scalar potential interferometer’, the Tesla ‘shield’, a ‘continuous fireball’ weapon etc. It is clearly beyond the scope of this book to go into the details of these so-called weapon systems and their technologies and analyze whether such weapon systems had even been conceptualized, produced and actually demonstrated.

The Legacy of Nikola Tesla

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked with, is mine.’[79]

‘The namesake of our Tesla Roadster is the genius of Nikola Tesla and we are confident that if he were alive today, Nikola Tesla would look over our car and nod his head with understanding and approval.’ – Statement made by Tesla Motors at the launch of their car the Tesla Roadster.

Nikola Tesla filed 278 patents in over 25 countries. There are societies and awards (including the Nikola Tesla Award established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the USA and the Tesla Award of the International Press Academy) named after him.

There is also an airport (in Belgrade, Serbia), a measurement unit (the tesla magnetic field strength in MRI), a currency (the Serbian 100 dinar note), electrical power stations, objects in space (the Tesla crater on the moon and the minor planet no. 2244), a train (the Nikola Tesla of the Silverlink Metro in London) and numerous other items and places named in honour of this great man.

We also have the many companies worldwide named after Tesla honouring his work and legacy. Tesla Motors, led by Elon Musk, of course, is now a recognized global name. But there are numerous others, including, for example (in no particular order), Tesla Exploration (Alberta, Canada), Tesla Studios (UK), Tesla Solutions (India), Everson Tesla Inc. (Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA), Tesla Electric Company (Beaverton, Oregon), The Tesla Company (Czech Republic), Tesla Cables (Hungary), Nikola Tesla Institutes of Medicine (Costa Rica), Applied Tesla Technology Inc. (Conroe, Texas) and Tesla Systems Research (Orinda, California) just to name a few.

However, to describe the actual legacies of Tesla to today’s world, we need to adopt an objective approach stripped of all the current-day hoopla about him in the media and on the Internet. Clearly, we need to follow two lines of thought, one leading from the known, acknowledged and listed patents of Nikola Tesla, the other leading from his various speeches, writings and verbal interlocutions (in some cases ascribed to Tesla by his many fans claiming that he kept many ideas secret and only in his head) on technologies and ideas never fully ascribed to Tesla relative to intellectual property rights.

Unlike Edison, Tesla did not found many companies. Those that he did start, such as the Tesla Electric Company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing Company, The Therapeutic Company and the Tesla Ozone Company, closed down in his own lifetime and no legacy, unlike in the case of Edison, has been carried forward.

This reluctance to set up for-profit companies has been partially explained by referring to Tesla’s formative years in the non-mercantile philosophy dominant in Europe at the time. It could also be that Tesla was not very familiar with US corporate practices at the time and certainly became wary of being ‘used’ and cheated by investors and partners.

W. Bernard Carlson, in his book Tesla: Inventor of the Electric Age,[80] suggests that Tesla missed out on commercial opportunities because he put design concepts and brilliance of science ahead of practical application and making money.

Marc Seifer goes even further. He believes that ’capitalist interests squashed some of his more radical ideas: the concept of a steam turbine engine that could have powered cars and ocean liners was suppressed by the oil companies; the concept of Tesla’s fluorescent lights was blocked by companies who could make more money from selling traditional light bulbs’.[81]

Let us therefore begin to understand Tesla’s legacy as it stands now on the connection with his known and established patents and demonstrated technologies and equipment. His fans and admirers may claim that we should also include items like lasers (‘death rays’), solar technology, the Internet, radios, VTOL aircraft and many other technologies as part of Tesla’s legacy. True, Tesla could arguably be linked to these technologies. However, in the view of this author, a comprehensive and convincing case cannot be made in favour of Tesla’s being the font of legacies in these areas.

Tesla, of course, also invented the blade-less turbine, which works on the boundary layer concept—definitely a unique technology! However, the turbine suffered from issues related to poor torque capability. It never quite caught the attention of the market. These days, fortunately, there is somewhat of a revival of interest in the Tesla turbine, especially in geothermal applications. One company has even used the principle to make a bladeless wind turbine, but the Tesla turbine continues to be mainly of interest for hobbyists.

Tesla’s Legacy: Alternating Current and Motors

Without doubt Tesla’s greatest legacy is related to his work on alternating current (a.c.) and, more specifically, to the a.c. rotating magnetic field employed by him in his motor designs. This was his long-standing dream! This was the technology that he developed under the inspiration of Goethe’s Faust!

Tesla’s alternating current concept came into conflict with Edison’s direct current but soon became the predominant system in the world where transmission of electricity had to be done over long distances. It is only very recently, with the emphasis on ‘green’ renewable energy, that the direct current system has been making a major comeback, especially where off-grid systems, particularly those based on solar energy, are being set up.

Alternating current motors have been in widespread use around the world for many years now. It is believed that such electric motors used for industrial applications in the USA account for more than 50 % of all electrical usage.

Over the years, however, motor design moved away from the use of electromagnetic windings (of copper or aluminium) to the use of permanent magnets in rotors. This was largely due to the possibility this presented of making potentially cheaper and more powerful motors using permanent magnets. However, with the soaring prices in recent years (largely due to the Chinese monopoly on these items) of rare earth materials, which largely form the basis of permanent magnets, there has been a reversion back to Tesla’s old design of the alternating current induction motor.

As we have noted, Nikola Tesla’s motor is in essence a rotating transformer based on the concept of a rotating magnetic field. When an alternating current is applied to the stator, a magnetic field is created. The Tesla stator is usually comprised of three coil windings. When three different ‘phases’ are applied to the three different coils, three separate magnetic fields are created and ‘induced’ into the rotor.

The magnetic fields created in the rotor then try to catch up with the magnetic fields of the stator, producing a turning motion (torque) in the rotor. However, the magnetic fields in the rotor never actually catch up with those in the stator, hence the use of the term asynchronous motor. Because of the three separate waves, there is a better and more efficient ‘induction’ process and, hence, a much better turning of the rotor due to increased torque.

The permanent magnet motors have a problem handling a wide range of temperatures, so an efficient cooling system is needed, unlike in asynchronous induction motors using Tesla’s principle. This issue becomes all the more important when applied to automobiles since one can dispense with elaborate cooling systems and use simple air cooling, resulting in considerable savings in terms of costs and weight. This is the great advantage of the Tesla Roadster car, which uses a tiny three-phase induction motor, over other electrical cars, which still use synchronous permanent magnet motors.

In the past, asynchronous induction motors, though simple and rugged, were predominantly used for fixed-speed applications. Such motors suffered from the problem of being able to have their speed varied. But the requirement of variable-speed drives is quite common in modern industry. Mercifully, with modern-day microprocessor-based controllers, it has become possible to apply fixed-frequency–variable-voltage or variable-voltage–variable-frequency speed controls, overcoming the problem of varying motor speeds.

Tesla made his original motors using copper in the rotors. But the soft copper was found to be difficult to handle during the manufacture of motors. Tesla also tried to use aluminium in the rotors but found that its use led to a reduction in the efficiency and power of the motors. Most modern, efficient induction motors continue to use copper for the rotors. However, the latest, most advanced motors use die–cast copper rotors.

The following quote from Tesla Motors perhaps sums it up best: ‘So we set out to create our own copper rotor fabrication process. It took us a few years but it worked…Here’s the cool thing: if you handed one of our motors to Nikola Tesla, he’d recognize it immediately as his own invention. Nice job of optimization, but clearly his.’[82] An extraordinary legacy of Tesla’s indeed!

Tesla’s Legacy: The Tesla Coil

Unquestionably the alternating current motors became Tesla’s most ubiquitously known and used technology. So widespread did their application become that over the years people somehow overlooked associating Nikola Tesla’s name to the now commonplace alternating current (a.c.) asynchronous induction motor.

Yet Tesla’s coilwas to become the most spectacular of his inventions. It was the many photographs of Tesla sitting in a room with giant sparks from large coils shooting across the room that ‘fired’ people’s imagination—and continue to do so. This was Tesla’s showmanship at his very best!

The principle of the Tesla coil is simple enough, as we have seen. It is essentially an air-core transformer or inductor in which an alternating current, when passed through a coiled wire, creates an ‘oscillating’ magnetic field. This primary coiled wire in turn induces an alternating current in a secondary coiled wire placed nearby. Increase the turn’s ratio between the secondary and primary coils many times, and you can proportionately increase the output a.c. voltage from the secondary coil.

If capacitors are placed in both the primary and secondary coils, when current is applied to the primary coil, it keeps charging its capacitor until the air (spark gap) between the two coils is charged to such an extent that sparks are emitted and charge flows through the secondary coil. It is now the turn of the capacitor in the secondary coil to go through an identical process. The to-and-fro transfer of charge reaches a rate of several hundred times per second. This results in very high-frequency power and voltage outputs—something that Tesla publicly demonstrated and used in experiments.

Tesla originally conceived of his coil as a wireless transmitter of power. The first practical applications were in illumination. Tesla’s illumination devices unfortunately never became commonplace, losing out to the low-voltage incandescent bulbs of Edison. Consequently, the only real present-day legacy of Tesla in the use of his coil may be found in some high-frequency ballasts for fluorescent lamps, power supplies for plasma devices and ultraviolet lamps, and power supplies for a range of X-ray tubes. Interestingly, several companies today use the Tesla coil technology for creating special effects for entertainment shows, television, live events and tourist attractions.

Tesla soon realized that the principle of the coil could also be used in other applications, including for communications, remote control, robotics, ozone generation and therapeutics. Some of these applications were intended to be an integral part of what Tesla called his ‘World System’. It is in several of these applications that a demonstrable legacy of Tesla currently exists, as we shall soon read.

Even after all these years, the appeal of the Tesla coils, especially to technology buffs, manages to live on. A recent development is the replacement of the ‘spark gap’ by the use of semiconductor circuitry, giving rise to what is popularly called the switched Tesla coil or the solid-state Tesla coil.

A solid-state coil is comprised of a solid-state inverter replacing the primary coil circuit. Its great advantage is that it does away with one of the main weaknesses of the traditional Tesla coil— the very large electromagnetic radio interference it produced. Modern high-voltage power supplies may now use the switched Tesla coils without running the risk of radio frequency interference.

The most interesting application of the newer solid-state Tesla coils is in music. These coils have a very high level of operational control in audio modulation. It is therefore quite possible to control the pitch at the output, somewhat like an electronic organ. Kits for these musical ‘instruments’ are now widely advertised and available, including on e-commerce sites.

Tesla’s Legacy: Wireless Power

Tesla’s work at Colorado Springs as well as at Wardenclyffe was principally focused on his desire to create a practical wireless power transmission system using the technology of the Tesla coil. As we now know, and as was predicted by a few leading scientists of that time, Tesla did not quite succeed in his quest to produce a self-generating constant power transmission system. He had not fully taken into account the fact that there would be losses of power, which would need to be made up by further inputs of mains electricity—hence not truly a constant self-sustaining system.

Presently, after his induction motor technology, which remains ubiquitous, it is arguably the use of ‘wireless power’ (though not quite in the way Tesla had actually intended) that seems to be attracting global attention.

Tesla’s dream for his Wardenclyffe endeavour was somehow to pulse a large broadband Tesla coil at about 8 Hertz to be in resonance with the standing electromagnetic waves between the Earth’s surface and the bottom of the ionosphere. These electromagnetic waves (at about 55 km above Earth’s surface) are termed the Schumann Cavity, named after the German scientist who discovered it.

The result of this resonance effect, Tesla believed, would be like a massive cosmic storage battery—his dream of free and unlimited energy. Inspired by the Indian sage Swami Vivekananda, Tesla even quipped, ‘Can man control the grandest, most awe inspiring of all processes in nature? If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural!’[83]

Tesla also, as we have seen, believed that the Earth itself could be visualized as one huge spherical conductor that could also be used for his wireless transmission of power. Alas, as we now know, this dream of wirelessly transmitting large amounts of power did not go beyond the initial experiments at Wardenclyffe.

With the advantage of modern technological developments, however, we also know that Tesla was actually spot on about the basic concept of wireless inductive power transfer. This concept entails energizing a primary transmitting coil using alternating current, which in turn induces an electric current in a secondary receiving coil placed in some proximity to the primary.

It is this principle of wireless inductive power, also known as remote power transmission, which has suddenly become a very exciting and commercially feasible concept. According to The Economist, in its 27 June 2015 issue, ‘The technology Tesla pioneered is already being used to charge mobile phones, and researchers are working on similarly wirelessly powered kitchen appliances, military equipment such as heads-up displays, and medical devices ranging from heart pumps to brain monitor. IHS, a market research firm, estimates that sales of such machines, now half a billion dollars a year, will grow 30-fold over the next decade.’[84]

This revived Tesla wireless power transfer technology is rapidly spreading to such hitherto unforeseen applications as wireless charging of electrical cars and vehicles, charging of phones in cars, cordless food processors, electronic watches and other ‘wearables’, and even robotic flying objects or drones.

One recent version of this wireless power transfer technology even harvests the unutilized radio frequency waves from the ubiquitous Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G/4G mobile phone communication systems and feeds them back into charging mobile phones. The latter technology comes from yet another company named after Tesla—Nikola Labs, based in the US state of Colorado.In what is possibly the nearest to Tesla’s own concept of use of wireless power technologies are being developed to equip commonly used appliances such as television sets with arrays of small antennas that could deliver power to mobile phones, toys etc. via directed microwave transmissions.

Tesla’s Legacy: Automobiles

In the minds of most people, the name Tesla is closely linked to electrically powered cars, thanks mainly to Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors. We have seen how Tesla’s concept of the motor has been adapted for use in electrically propelled vehicles, first by Tesla Motors and now by companies like Toyota as well. With the growing trend towards driverless cars, it is Tesla’s robotics concepts that are also increasingly being applied in self-driven cars and other automobiles. Many recent studies have shown that the use of such driverless cars would significantly reduce not only vehicle accidents (principally caused by driver errors) but also the total number of vehicles on the roads, minimizing pollution.

Several companies, including Google, are developing such autonomous cars. Daimler has developed a self-driven truck. Tesla Motors is developing an autopilot software linked to high-resolution maps for use in its Model S cars. The ride-hailing company Uber has recently tested prototype driverless cars. London’s Heathrow Airport provides driverless pods to transport people from car parks to departure and arrival terminals. Needless to say, there will be more such developments in the years to come.

Tesla’s Legacy: Healthcare and Therapeutics

Those in the healthcare business—doctors, technicians, equipment manufacturers and perhaps even some patients—know about Nikola Tesla; his name is used as the unit for the strength of the magnetic field in the now extensively used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. But there is more that links Tesla to the field of healthcare, especially therapeutics.

Earlier in this chapter we read about Tesla’s work on X-rays, even though ultimately Roentgen was given credit for it. Tesla also invented the so-called violet ray machine, in which a radio frequency electrical discharge, purple in colour, is generated through a glass bulb. When the ray strikes human skin, it creates controlled heat at a desired spot. This is the precursor of what is today known as diathermy. In fact, a modern adaptation of Tesla’s invention is the microwave diathermy machine, which is now regularly used in hospitals in the treatment of back pain and other spinal disorders, to the eternal gratitude of multitudes of patients, including this author.

We have also noted the development by Georges Lakhovsky of a ‘Multi Wave Oscillator’ treatment system based on the Tesla Coil. Tesla also made Ozone generators which were also used in health care of sorts although its use in modern day therapy is perhaps not so widespread, with ozone generators being used more as a sort of up-market air purifier.

But Tesla also greatly contributed in the development of the medical field that may be described as Electro Therapeutics based on the use of pulsed Electro Magnetic fields. Tesla, as we have noted, actually set up one of his more successful companies, ‘The Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company’, for the manufacture of equipment related to the filed. Tesla’s interest in health care may have had an origin in his many bouts of ill health. Having developed his Coil he started to experiment with the possible healing properties of his high frequency oscillator coils.

Marc Seifer in his book[85] writes, ‘Tesla believes that electricity is the greatest of all doctors. “My high frequencies,” he would say, “produce an anti-germicidal action.” Thus, as part of his routine for a day at the lab, the inventor would disrobe, step upon his apparatus, and turn on the juice. A prickly corona would envelop his body and restore it to a most pristine condition.’

Tesla, as we have read, did not apply for or receive any patents for his electrotherapy machines, but he did set up the Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company, one of his successful companies. The machines made by this company were based on his belief that the high-potential high-frequency signals generated by his coil could be harmlessly passed through human bodies with major therapeutic benefits, especially for the treatment of major aches, pains or prolapsed discs, for example.

Tesla described his machines in considerable detail at a meeting in 1891 of the American Electro Therapeutic Association.[86] At this lecture, Tesla stated, ‘By adopting the method described, the body of a person may be subjected without danger to electrical pressures vastly in excess of any producible by ordinary apparatus…The facts mentioned would make it reasonable to expect that this extraordinary effect, which, in other ways, I have already usefully applied, will likewise prove to be of value in electro-therapy.’[87]

Shortly thereafter, such systems grew considerably in popularity. Sadly, though, the American Medical Association (AMA) stepped in and stopped further sales of all such equipment. The AMA even banned the teaching of electrotherapy in recognized medical colleges on the grounds of ‘quackery’.

Not surprisingly, the use of therapeutics continued to flourish in Tesla’s native Serbia and from there spread to the former Soviet Union before making its way back to Western Europe via the very popular specialized clinics in Switzerland and other European countries.

In 2011, a popular television program in the USA and a documentary entitled The Healing Field, made by the Canadian Robert W. Connolly, highlighted the benefits of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy using specially made PEMF ‘bio beds’ from Switzerland. With popular enthusiasm in the USA aroused by these revelations, the health care regulatory agencies have now started licensing PEMF treatment and equipment as well. A few companies in the USA and Canada have already introduced such machines to the market . Hopefully it will not be too long before such electrotherapy becomes accepted, standard practice. Patients who benefit would then have every reason to thank Nikola Tesla!

Footnotes

1

My Inventions, Nikola Tesla; Martino Fine Books, 15 June 2011, ISBN 10:1614270848.

2

www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm.

3

Ibid, p. 1.

4

Ibid, p. 1.

5

Ibid, p. 1.

6

Ibid, p. 1.

7

Nikola Tesla, The Nikola Tesla Treasury, p. 640, Wilder Publications, 2007.

8

Ibid, p. 1.

9

Ibid, p. 1.

10

Ibid, p. 1.

11

Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World, Jill Jonnes, Random House, 19 August 2003.

12

Ibid, p. 1.

13

Ibid, p. 1.

14

Ibid, p. 1.

15

Ibid, p. 11.

16

Ibid, p. 11.

17

“The complete patents of Nikola Tesla”—Nikola Tesla, Jim Glenn; Barnes & Noble Books, 1994.

18

Ibid, p. 17.

19

Ibid, p. 17.

20

Ibid, p. 11.

21

Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O’Neill; p. 82, Book Tree, 1 July 2007.

22

Ibid, p. 17.

23

Ibid, p. 21.

24

“Nikola Tesla the Eugenecist: eliminating undesirables by 2100”—Matt Novak; Smithsonian.com, November 16th, 2012.

25

www.imdb.com/title/tt0457210.

26

Ibid, p. 1.

27

www.teslasociety.com/magnetic.htm.

28

The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions), Nikola Tesla, Barnes & Noble, June 2014.

29

Ibid, p. 28.

30

Ibid, p. 28.

31

The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, Thomas C. Martin, p. 145, Health Research Books, 1 November 1997.

32

‘Nikola Tesla and Swami Vivekananda’ http://www.teslasociety.com/tesla_and_swami.htm.

33

Ibid, p. 28.

34

‘X-rays—Open Tesla Research’, www.teslaresearch.jimdo.com/x-rays.

35

Ibid, p. 17.

36

Ibid, p. 17.

37

Ibid, p. 17.

38

Ibid, p. 17.

39

“The Robot Boat of Tesla Comes to Life” www.de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=3418.

40

Ibid, p. 17.

41

Ibid, p. 17.

42

Ibid, p. 1.

43

Ibid, p. 17.

44

www.teslaturbinegenerator.com.

45

“The problems of increasing human energy”—Nikola Tesla; ‘Century Illustrated Magazine’; June 1900. As quoted in Ibid, p. 28.

46

Ibid, p. 17.

47

“Nikola Tesla and Robotics”—Miomir Vukobratovic; Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering; Vol. 3, No.2; Nov. 2006; pages 163–175.

48

Tesla: Wizard and Genius, Milinkovic, Aleksandar, Zlaja Publishers, Belgrade, pp. 140–146.

49

Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla, John J. O’Neill, David Mckay, New York, 1944, p. 81.

50

Ibid, p. 49.

51

Killer Robots: Legality and Ethicality of Autonomous Weapons, Dr. Armin Krishnan, Ashgate Publishing, 28 March 2013.

52

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, Marc Seifer, Citadel Press, New York, 2000.

53

Ibid, p. 1.

54

‘Nikola Tesla and the Planetary Radio Signals’, K. L. Corum and Dr. J.F. Corum; 5th International Tesla Conference, Belgrade, 15–19 October 1996, www.teslasociety.com/mars.pdf.

55

‘Sir J. C. Bose’s Diode Detector Received Marconi’s First Transatlantic Wireless signal of 1901 (The ‘Italian Navy Coherer Scandal’ Revisited’, Probir K. Bondhyopadyay, Proc. IEEE, Vol. 86, No. 1, January 1998.

56

Ibid, p. 17.

57

Ibid, p. 17.

58

www.pbs.org/tesla/II/II_whoradio.html.

59

Ibid, p. 48.

60

“Scientific American”; June 19th 1897; page 386.

61

“Did Al Gore invent the Internet/No, Nikola Tesla did.”—W. Bernard Carlson; Professor, Engineering and Society, University of Virginia, ‘Huffington Post’, 12/07/2013.

62

Ibid, p. 51.

63

Ibid, p. 17.

64

The Secret of Life: Electricity, Radiation and Your Body, Georges Lakhovsky, Kessinger Publishing Co., ISBN-13: 978-0-7661-4197-1.

65

www.electrotherapymuseum.com/Articles/VioletRay.

66

http://www.pbs.org/tesla/II/II_todre.html.

67

Ibid, p. 57.

68

Ibid, p. 11.

69

Ibid, p. 11.

70

www.teslascience.org/pages/twp/tunnels.htm.

71

Ibid, p. 1.

72

Ibid, p. 1.

73

Ibid, p. 17.

74

Ibid, p. 1.

75

http://teslaresearch.jimdo.com/wardenclyffe-lab-1901-1906.

76

Ibid, p. 1.

77

www.pbs.org/tesla/II/II_wendwar.html.

78

Ibid, p. 46.

79

Tesla, Master of Lightning, Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth & Jim Glenn, Metro Books/Barnes & Noble, October 2001; ISBN—13: 978-1586631871.

80

Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, W. Bernard Carlson, Princeton University Press, 2013; ISBN-13: 978-0691057767.

81

Ibid, p. 46.

82

www.teslamotors.com/blog/motor-city.

83

Ibid, p. 28.

84

‘Coiled and ready to strike—wireless charging’, The Economist, pp. 67–68, 27 June 2015.

85

Ibid, p. 47.

86

http://teslapress.com/electrotherapy.html.

87

‘High frequency oscillators for electro-therapeutic and other purposes’, Nikola Tesla, The Electrical Engineer, Vol. XXVI, Nov. 17, 1898, No. 550.

© The Author(s) 2016

Anand Kumar SethiThe European Edisons10.1057/978-1-137-49222-7_3

3. Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt

4 August 1887–20 April 1925

Anand Kumar Sethi^1

(1)

New Delhi, India

Eric Tigerstedt

Ornulf Tigerstedt was a famous Finnish poet of Swedish origin and one of seven siblings born to Axel Fredrik Tigerstedt and Mary Florence von Schoultz. In one of his poems (in Swedish), in the Tigerstedt family collection, he writes:

“Is the genius’ flame extinguished with its covering too, a weak and fragile human form?”

The quotation is so apt because Ornulf, it is believed, actually wrote these words about a dead Goethe—the one who so inspired Nikola Tesla!

But the words could quite easily also apply to arguably the greatest Finnish engineer, scientist and inventor ever to have lived—the poet’s elder brother, Eric Tigerstedt, often and generally referred to as ‘Suomen Edison’ (Finland’s Edison).

Eric died young at the age of only 38. As we will see, he had a somewhat troubled life with multiple issues—hardly conducive to writing poetry. Yet, as some of his many letters home and other writings, now in possession of his nephew[1] in Finland, show, he was a gentle and tender person, soft at heart. He was also a very good painter—definitely a person with soft skills in addition to the logic and reasoning of a good engineer and inventor.

On the tragic death in 1916 of his brother Axel Olof Paul, an officer who died during World War I fighting in Poland, Eric Tigerstedt wrote (adapted from the original Swedish, courtesy of Dr. Peter Tigerstedt)[2]:

“Thoughts go back to by-gone children’s play,

As we shared both sorrow and gay,

You never left my side.

At school we sat brothers side by side,

Both at lunch and dinner,

Hand in hand we walked.

Never saw we sorrow, we God’s children were in Paradise,

Naked we in forests ran over ling and lingonberry.

My heart felt sorrow when you left for war and danger,

The play of life and death a play I never had myself,

Dear brother you still live in my heart as in those days,

So we wander through in life until we reach the very end.”

As one drives north on one of Finland’s main eastern roads, the E6 to Kouvola, about 115 km from Helsinki on the eastern side of the road is a high hill. This is the ‘Haukkavuori’ (Eagle’s Mountain). Just a few small buildings on top constitute the infrastructure for the mountain’s ski slope, a major attraction in the long winter. It is fine for experienced skiers to attempt this steep slope. A very young Eric Tigerstedt, however, was determined to go downhill by jumping off using a self-designed plywood glider and came out quite the worse for his effort. He was soundly berated by his livid father and ‘grounded’—quite literally.

On the western side of the E6 highway one notices a vast expanse of green, forested land, some 2000 ha of it, with just a few cottages and farm structures built in the traditional Finnish architectural style. This is the beautiful Tigerstedt family estate of Mustila. It has one of the world’s largest arboretums and is home to hectares and hectares of North American conifers, hardwoods, Rhododendron trees from the Himalayas and many other ornamental species.

Eric Tigerstedt was born here and grew up in these leafy surroundings, the son of an aristocratic father of Finnish-Swedish noble descent, whose ancestors had roots in Scotland’s Clan Campbell (a great Campbell aunt was born in Calcutta and hailed from one of the elite families that governed colonial India).

Eric Tigerstedt was a poor student with below-average language and mathematical skills, his nephew Prof. Peter Tigerstedt says, citing family records. How, then, did Eric Tigerstedt turn to engineering, invention and innovation?

Perhaps he had inherited his father’s genes. Axel Frederik was a renowned geologist with a specialization in nickel deposits. Eric Tigerstedt, we are informed,[3] even at a very young age, showed great interest in the soundless movies made by the Lumière brothers. He was keen to emulate them and their work.

By the age of 13 years, Eric Tigerstedt was already tinkering with electrical motors, batteries and even a home-made camera. He was apparently always eager to experiment and find new ways of doing things, much more so than the average teenager.

The technical bent of mind could also have been honed by the challenge thrown at Eric Tigerstedt by his father when Eric was all of 14 years old. The Mustila estate at that time, in 1901, had a proliferation of rats. Eric was given the challenge of developing a ‘better mousetrap’ (what else?) and the promise of a financial reward for each rat caught by his ‘electric’ mousetrap.

This success with the mousetrap encouraged Eric Tigerstedt (herein after—‘Tigerstedt’) to start tinkering with electronics in a big way. The very next year, 1902, he developed an electronic eavesdropping device that he hid behind a photograph frame in his parents’ bedroom.[4] He wanted to find out what his parents talked about, especially after the tragic death of their little daughter (Eric’s sister), Mary Florence, supposedly from diphtheria.

The incident with the eavesdropping device would have serious and far-reaching consequences. Tigerstedt was asked to leave his parents’ home in Mustila. In 1902, Eric moved to Helsinki and took up a job with the local shipyard. He now had to live on his own and fend for himself, at the tender age of 15.

The mundane work at the shipyard was not exciting and challenging enough. Tigerstedt wanted to handle proper electronics technology and circuits. In 1903, at age 16, Tigerstedt somehow managed to get hired as a junior technician at the Helsinki Telephone Company, then a rapidly growing enterprise. By all accounts, Tigerstedt loved his new job and was quite diligent at it. He was thrilled to be surrounded by electronics. In his spare time he took up a new hobby—amateur radio, a tradition in the Tigerstedt family ever since.

With growing maturity and his industrious attitude towards his job, Tigerstedt was forgiven by his father for his earlier transgressions. He was finally allowed to come home for a visit. That year, 1905, however, would turn out to be another turbulent year in the life of Eric Tigerstedt.

Having been allowed to visit Mustila, Tigerstedt decided to go skiing. Tragically, in a serious skiing accident, he broke his ankle and was laid up for weeks. The injury he sustained in the skiing accident, his family believes, led to serious and tragic consequences years later.

Still in a plaster leg cast and unable to return to his job, Tigerstedt decided to concentrate on his new passion, amateur radio. In 1905, at the age of 18, Tigerstedt assembled his first spark transmitter.[5] He would become Finland’s first amateur radio operator. Working the airwaves one day, he managed to make contact with a Russian warship. A complaint was lodged, and the local police promptly paid him a visit. Tigerstedt’s ham radio equipment was seized and a police report filed against him. (Historical note: In 1905 Finland was a grand duchy of Russia and remained so until the declaration of independence by Finland in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.)

Fortunately for Tigerstedt, his father happened to be acquainted with the famous Russian scientist Alexander Popov (regarded by Russians as the father of radio) and sent him a letter asking for help. The family records[6] indicate that Popov wrote a letter to the authorities in Russian-controlled Finland stating that Eric Tigerstedt was innocent and harmless but clearly had a very bright future in radio technology. Tigerstedt in turn was made to promise that he would ‘never appear in the “ether” [recall here Tesla and the ether] again’.[7] Tragically, Popov died in 1907; perhaps he would have taken on young Tigerstedt as his apprentice!

Thanks to his experience at the Helsinki Telephone Company and his demonstrated skill with radio transmission technology, Tigerstedt was hired by the famous Swedish Company L. M. Ericsson shortly after he was healthy enough to go back to work. Whilst still employed at Ericsson, Tigerstedt took a leave of absence to return briefly to Mustila to visit his family and, more importantly, to organize an exhibition of his wooden aircraft glider—his other passion. This was now too much for his father! The glider was destroyed on the orders of his father. Tigerstedt was made to resign from his position at L. M. Ericsson, and arrangements were made for him to pursue further studies in Germany.

The family selected one of the best known German colleges of engineering at the time. In 1908 Tigerstedt was enrolled at the Städtische Friedrichs Polytechnicum (later the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences) in Köthen, some 30 kilometers from the German city of Halle.

Tigerstedt (now a beer-swilling young man) did more than just his studies at Köthen. He became very smitten by the sister (Marta Nybom) of a classmate (Albert Nybom) and promptly got engaged to her. For the courtship to prosper, Tigerstedt needed transportation to drive his new fiancée around. Using his engineering skills, Tigerstedt constructed a contraption, a sort of three-wheeled motorcycle—clearly not an approved road-worthy vehicle. The local German police promptly forbade him to use this vehicle anywhere in or around Köthen.

In the summer of 1910, Tigerstedt, now aged 23, returned home to Mustila for the long summer vacation. There is no record in Mustila about whether he brought Marta Nybom, his fiancée, with him to introduce her to the family. Possibly not, since during this vacation Tigerstedt is believed[8] to have been near at his productive best working at the laboratory that he had set up in a barn in Mustila.

During holidays in the summer of 1910 in Mustila, Tigerstedt is known to have worked extensively on colour photography (some examples are preserved in Mustila),[9] making him one of the pioneers in the field of colour photography. It is pertinent to note that the autochrome plate for use in colour photography had only come into existence in late 1907, just 3 years before Tigerstedt started his experimentation on colour photography.

In his colour photography work Tigerstedt used three different lots of paste of potato powder mixed with starch. The three lots of paste were mixes of red, green and blue pigments (the RGB of present day colour television). The three differently coloured pastes were applied to a glass plate using a celluloid glue. A cellophane film was then spread over the surface of the plate. This specially prepared plate was then positioned in a camera in such a way that the treated surface of the plate faced the ‘objective’ to be photographed. Records show that the quality of the colour photography results obtained by Tigerstedt in 1910 were not surpassed in Europe until as late as 1938.[10]

Much as Nikola Tesla had done some 14 years earlier, Tigerstedt decided to experiment with X-rays and make his own version of an X-ray machine. He set up a laboratory at Vuorimiehenkatu in Helsinki for the purpose of developing an improved version of what Roentgen and Tesla had made before him. It is reported[11] that Tigerstedt wished to know more precisely the state of his ankle (which was broken in the 1905 ski accident) and take a good X-ray image of it.

The X-ray machine developed by Tigerstedt was demonstrated to two famous doctors of Finland of the time, Dr Homen and Dr Hornborg. The two medical experts were so impressed with this new high-resolution X-ray machine that Tigerstedt got his first commercial break—an order to supply such a machine to Helsinki University Hospital.[12] Unfortunately, Tigerstedt was unable to capitalize on his new-found commercial opportunity and was not able to make more X-ray machines. His father insisted that he return to Köthen to complete his studies.

The following year, 1911, was equally productive. While Tigerstedt’s studies at Köthen continued, he saved his best work for inventions in his laboratory in Mustila during summer vacations. During that particular vacation of 1911 Tigerstedt developed a remotely operated temperature measurement and closed-loop control system to prevent overheating of bearings in rotating machines. Overheating was a common problem at the time, particularly in Tesla’s alternating current motors and generators.

During the same summer vacation, Tigerstedt developed something quite peculiar—a shotgun, with a counter that recorded the number of shots fired. Even stranger, this contraption did not need to be fired using the index finger, as was normal. The gun had to be operated using the thumb, in a sort of reverse direction compared to using the index finger. Tigerstedt, however, did obtain his first patent for this weird shotgun. It was Finnish Patent 5046. Clearly, the gun had something to do with animal game hunting popular then, as now, in Finland. Clearly it was not meant for combat—the Finnish civil war and the war of independence were still many months away!

On 14 October 1911 Tigerstedt graduated from the Polytechnic in Köthen. With his freshly acquired qualifications as an engineer Tigerstedt was eager to return to his first passion as a child—movies. Somehow the silent films made by the Lumière brothers (Auguste and Louis)[13] had made a great impression on him. Whilst the movies were great fun, there was no accompanying dialogue, so viewers had a hard time following movie plots.

In 1912 Tigerstedt set about adapting the prevalent technologies, Edison’s kinetoscope technology and the Lumière brothers’ cinematograph.[14] Firstly, he wanted to increase the frame rate from the 16 frames per second achieved by the Lumière brothers, which made the movies ‘jerky’. Tigerstedt achieved a creditable 24 frames per second. This technological development would eventually have a very significant consequence.

Tigerstedt excitedly informed his father of his successes in the field of cinematography and of his determination to bring sound to movies, which had been silent up to that point. Once again, his aristocratic father berated him for working on such fanciful ideas rather than concentrating on more practical engineering endeavours.

Depressed by his father’s criticism, Tigerstedt put aside any further work on bring sound to movies. Instead, he turned his attention to planting trees (some 1000 of them in the arboretum, where most still exist) in Mustila and to painting (typically goblins on cloth).[15]

At the insistence of his father, late in 1912 Eric Tigerstedt applied for and was accepted for a job at the Helsinki works of the famous German company Siemens & Halske. In Helsinki, Siemens & Halske was involved in the assembly of basic telephone exchanges. These exchanges were manually operated by women providing connections from callers to recipients by inserting patch cords and connectors in a hardware matrix.

Tigerstedt told his superiors at Siemens & Halske that this manual operation was somewhat silly. He proposed the creation of an electronic automatic exchange—in 1912, nearly half a century before electronic exchanges became a reality! Records to show that later on Tigerstedt actually did develop a basic electronic telephone exchange. He received Finnish Patent 5732 for this invention.

Unfortunately, Tigerstedt’s superiors at Siemens & Halske did not think very highly of such a ‘crazy’, unworkable suggestion from a young upstart who was only 25 years old. Finding his job at the company mundane and boring, Tigerstedt returned to Germany, which he believed had a better intellectual milieu and more opportunities for converting his talent for innovation into developing new technologies and, hopefully, into money-making enterprises. He felt Berlin, then a thriving city and capital of Germany, was his best option. Since his engagement to Marjatta had by now fallen apart, Tigerstedt needed to totally immerse himself in his engineering work.

Sound on Film: ‘Photomagnetophone’

We have noted that Tigerstedt made his first foray into cinematography in 1912. He initially worked on improving the designs of Edison (the cylinder-based kinetophone) and the Lumière brothers’ cinematograph design. However, his ultimate goal was to incorporate sound on film. Later that year, Tigerstedt started his experiments. The first words (in German), a short piece, recorded by Tigerstedt were the following:

‘Grau ist alle Theorie. Grün ist nur des Lebens Baum.’[16]

(‘Grey is all theory. Only green is the tree of life.’)

Back in Berlin, Tigerstedt, now completely immersed in his work, made an adaptation to the great Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen’s telegraphone. With this device it was possible to make recordings by magnetizing a steel wire.[17] In a further technical development, Tigerstedt went on to synchronize the sound recorded on the telegraphone with the speeded up movement of the visual frames of the movie. He called his invention the ‘photomagnetophone’.

Tigerstedt felt that the use of Poulsen’s telegraphone was only an intermediate step. However accurate the synchronization with the film frames turned out, the result was not good enough for him or for a public audience. There had to be a better way—possibly something on the film reel itself. Many weeks of experimentation followed. Finally, Tigerstedt, to the utter delight of movie goers, was able to directly incorporate sound on a magnetic strip into films themselves. This was his improved photomagnetophone.

Of course, others were trying to achieve the same objective. The great Edison himself had initiated the development of the ‘Kinetoscope–Kinetophone’. Edison’s system, however, required that viewers have their own individual earphones. The system also lacked proper video/audio synchronization. Even Edison’s improved Kinetophone was a failure.[18]

Many others were also working on improved sound on film systems, including Gratioulet and Lioret of France, Dussaud in Switzerland, Emile Berliner in Germany, and Short and Parsons in the UK. All of these systems had one drawback or another. The Frenchman Eugene Lavaste came closest to developing a viable system of sound on film.

Lavaste had earlier worked with Edison from 1886 to 1892. He was quite familiar with the basic concepts needed for improved cinematography systems. Although Lavaste was awarded the first patent for a device for sound in movies, its big disadvantage was that it used a completely different piece of film for the audio, which was placed on top of the film with the video. Though an improvement over the work of others, it still suffered from a lack of synchronization between audio and video.

By 1913, Tigerstedt had completed most of the development work on his invention for sound on film—an improved version of his photomagnetophone, and he filed an application for a German patent. In 1914 Tigerstedt successfully demonstrated his system to a small group of eminent German scientists by showing a self-made movie, aptly titled Word and Picture. Following this, German Patent 309,356 was awarded to Tigerstedt in 1914. Subsequently, in 1917, a French patent, 482039, and in 1919 a British patent, 100748, were also registered in Tigerstedt’s name.[19]

In his own words (written in New York in 1925, in English) Tigerstedt describes his invention thus: ‘For the speaking film I made use of a “phonogram”, which I placed on a band of film in the form of light intensity changes over the whole breadth of the film. The line–curves thus brought out spoke over an “antimony–cell” much stronger and clearer than the “notch–curves” [NB: This may be what today is called “equalization”—the balance between frequency components and electronic audio signals] previously used.’ [20]

With the invention of the improved ‘photomagnetophone’ to his credit, in 1913 Tigerstedt teamed up with two Swedes, Axel Wahlstedt, a businessman, and Hugo Swarthling, an engineer, to set up the Photomagnetophon Company, based in Germany. Though brilliant as an engineer and inventor, Tigerstedt was evidently not a good businessman. Instead of waiting for the other partners, particularly Swarthling, to bring in their share of equity funds, Tigerstedt went ahead and overspent from his own pocket and on credit for premises, equipment, components and parts. The result was a major financial crunch at the very beginning of his very first company! Production and sales could not get off the ground. Now there was no money left for rent. As a result, the landlord confiscated the laboratory and everything in it.

With no bank credit available and no other equity or debt financing available, Tigerstedt had perforce to turn to his family for support. He asked his father and his elder brother, Carl Gustav Tigerstedt (father of Prof. Peter Tigerstedt) for a bail-out. This time his father really blew his top, so to speak. ‘Better now that you finish your dreams or you will soon be in the mental hospital in Lapinlahti’[21] were the precise words in a letter that Tigerstedt received. His father had no idea that his son had invented something that would leave such an extraordinary legacy to the modern world, the first modern compact movie projector.

The Electro-Ophthalmoscope (‘Television’)

Whilst working on the photomagnetophone, Tigerstedt had developed a unique way of transmitting video images over a distance using standard communication wires (some might call it today’s cable television). A set of vibrating mirrors was incorporated into the transmission station as well as the receiving station. The transmitter had a subsystem that used the photoelectric properties of selenium (as in the photomagnetophone) converting light signals to electrical impulses. The receiver in turn had a subsystem whereby the electrical impulses were converted back into light signals[22]—a sort of modulator–demodulator arrangement as we know it today.

Records indicate that Tigerstedt made at least two such machines and successfully demonstrated the transmission of video images between Berlin and London in 1914. Tigerstedt, after this successful demonstration of what he called the ‘electro-ophthalmoscope’, wrote in his diary (translated from the Swedish):

‘There will come a time when people will sit at home and follow events in the world using what I would call the “electronic eye”.’[23] It is pertinent to note that the development of the Tigerstedt ‘Electro-Ophthalmoscope’ system predated by some five years John Logie Baird’s ‘Nipkow disk’ for television broadcasting.[24] Clearly Tigerstedt deserves to be recognized as a pioneer in television technology!

It is not clear whether Tigerstedt applied for and received a patent for this invention. The closest this author has been able to find is a French patent (FR507417 dated 10 October 1920) for ‘Procede et appareil pour la transmission de signaux, conversations et autres’. Regrettably, no description is attached to the patent, so it is difficult to be sure whether the patent is actually for the ‘electronic eye’. Unfortunately, the geopolitical situation at that time was getting to be very ominous, with World War I being almost imminent. It is thus quite likely that Tigerstedt did not apply for a German patent.

The Vacuum Tube ‘Triode’

Tigerstedt faced a serious problem of getting adequate amplification of electronic signals whilst working on the development of his photomagnetophone and electro-ophthalmoscope. He writes in his diary, ‘Because the amplifying tubes used by me were not satisfactory in the “impulse”, I constructed a new tube, a high vacuum tube with cylindrical electrodes.’

The American inventor Lee de Forest[25] was the first to produce a three-element vacuum tube device, which he called the ‘audion’. De Forest had initially produced a two-electrode device, a vacuum tube diode detector, for which he received US Patent 841,387 in 1907. However, this did not quite serve the purpose of amplification of electronic signals.

De Forest then added a third element, a metal cylinder outside the vacuum tube. This again was not satisfactory. A subsequent addition of a control electrode, in zig-zag form, but this time placed inside the vacuum tube (the basic triode vacuum tube for which a patent was received in 1908), was also far from satisfactory.

Tigerstedt determined the basic problem in de Forest’s audion. It had unsatisfactory charge control owing to the configuration of the electrodes themselves, leading to very poor amplification.

Tigerstedt set about modifying de Forest’s audion. Out went the zig-zag form of the control electrode, to be replaced by a cylindrical format. All the electrodes were now housed ‘inside’ the glass tube and formed a magnetically and electrically shielded concentric electrode assembly.

On satisfactory operation of his modified triode using cylindrical electrodes inside the vacuum tube, Tigerstedt made an application for a German patent (which was subsequently granted with No. 314805 and a further improvement was given by No. 450513).

Unfortunately events in Europe had by then, in 1914, taken a turn for the worse. World War I had spread across most of the continent. Tigerstedt was a Finnish (Russian) citizen of Swedish descent. Finland, as noted earlier, was at that time a Russian grand duchy. As a consequence, Tigerstedt was declared a citizen of an enemy state, Russia, living in Germany.

At the end of July 1914, the German police, at the request of the immigration authorities, paid Tigerstedt a visit. He was asked to leave the country within 3 days. There was now no chance of getting any more German patents. Further, to compound Tigerstedt’s problems, Germany totally invalidated all of his existing patents. After the war Germany did offer compensation to Tigerstedt for his invalidated patents, because of the post-war hyperinflation in the country, the amounts offered were close to being worthless.

Not surprisingly, German telecommunication and electronics equipment manufacturers are known to have used Tigerstedt’s design for the triodes during the war; they worked far better than any from earlier German sources. Incredibly enough after World War I ended, Tigerstedt received letters from the German companies Siemens & Halske and Telefunken formally requesting licenses to be able to produce Tigerstedt’s modified triode tube. The first lot to be produced came with an order of 200,000 pieces.[26]

Unfortunately for Tigerstedt, World War I happened at a most inconvenient time. Much as Volta had done many years earlier, Tigerstedt had arranged a demonstration of his inventions and technologies in Paris and London, two of the main hubs in Europe for trade and commerce. Slated to be unveiled at these demonstrations was a completely new version of the sound-over-film device—a ‘portable’ cinematography system. These events, scheduled for 1915, had to be called off—a huge setback for Tigerstedt!

Once again, for Tigerstedt it was back home to Mustila in Finland. He now finally had the chance to explain to his father what exactly he had been inventing and where his future and the future of electronics lay. By the accounts at the Museum at Mustila,[27] this time his father gave his blessings to Tigerstedt and told him to go ahead with developing his products and inventions.

The ‘Biographone’/Loudspeaking Telephone/Microphone

Conditions in Finland during World War I were hardly conducive to developing new technologies or to coming out with inventions. It was well-nigh impossible to get one’s hands on any equipment, parts or components. Tigerstedt decided to suspend his activities and move from his native Finland. He first travelled to Sweden, a country he knew well. However, having long been impressed by the work of the Danish scientist and engineer Valdemar Poulsen,[28] Tigerstedt felt that Denmark was perhaps a better choice than Sweden.

In 1915 Tigerstedt applied for a job at the Danish company Petersen & Poulsen, a company formed to make products using the technologies developed by Valdemar Poulsen and his associates. The company wanted to utilize Tigerstedt’s know-how with the photomagnetophone and integrate it somehow with Poulsen’s own telegraphone.

Tigerstedt writes in his diary, ‘I constructed a new apparatus for this purpose with the assistance of Valdemar Poulsen’s “Telegraphone”. After experimenting with this for a time I succeeded, by means of a special construction of the “Telegraphone”, to eliminate all interfering noises from the steel wires, and obtained a reproducing that cannot be criticized.’[29]

This new product was demonstrated to Valdemar Poulsen, a Prof. Petersen and some Danish lawyers. So impressed was Poulsen on seeing Tigerstedt’s work that he offered the facilities of his own laboratories and other infrastructure for Tigerstedt to use. Manufacture of this new product, dubbed the ‘biographone’, commenced shortly thereafter.

At about this time Tigerstedt’s father paid him a visit in Copenhagen. It appears that he was suitably impressed at seeing his son’s work and the very positive reputation that he had acquired. He excitedly wrote home to the family in Mustila: ‘In Eric’s laboratory, I could see and hear the movie Word and Picture. I was even asked to speak on the magnetized wire. After a few minutes I could hear my voice back. I was amazed that my voice could come back from a steel wire. I was then convinced that the world would now be a different place due to my boy Eric’s work.’[30]

Tigerstedt now decided to set up his own company, incorporated in Denmark: A/S Photomagnetophone Co. He would use it to commercialize his path-breaking inventions. The actual financial results of this company are not known, but documents[31] indicate that the company was sold in 1917 for 25,000 Danish kroner, a fairly good sum of money for the time.

The upgraded photomagnetophone or biographone was not the only thing keeping Tigerstedt busy. He was working at a furious pace on many other inventions and innovations. He had developed a vastly improved loud speaking telephone and a very efficient microphone. In his own words: ‘At the same time I worked on the improvement of the “loud speaking telephone” and the “microphone”, and was successful with the introduction of organic diaphragms, which I produced by dipping rings in a specially prepared liquid, which when dry developed into a diaphragm, which was 0.05 mm thick and whose number of vibrations was considerably higher than the diaphragms known earlier. Besides the speaking film I also worked on my “cylinder microphone”, a carbon powder microphone with a cylindrical diaphragm.’ [32]

Tigerstedt applied for and received patents for his latest work: the telephone, the microphone and the diaphragm. [33] These patents were as follows: loud speaking telephone: 16748 (France), 493429 (France), 7029 (Finland), 23432 (Denmark); microphone: 1235510 (USA), 1276287 (USA), 191506647 (Britain), 519035 (France), 488251 (France), 478162 (France); diaphragm: 172704 (Canada), 1454913 (USA), 130600 (Britain), 478725 (France), 25361 (Denmark).

In a short period of time working in Denmark, Tigerstedt began to acquire a very good reputation as an inventor and received accolades from his peers.

Small Hand-Held Phone (Mobile Phone?)

Whilst living and working in Denmark, Tigerstedt also experimented with many different types of communication devices incorporating his newly developed microphones using highly efficient diaphragms.

What is not commonly known is that in 1917, Tigerstedt developed what may best be described as a ‘pocket-sized folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone’. This sounds very much like the clam type mobile phone hand set that was so popular until a few years ago. Tigerstedt’s letters home confirm that he had a prototype for such a phone ready and that he had applied for a patent.[34]

A Danish Patent, No. DK 22091, 1917, was issued in Tigerstedt’s name for a ‘Lommetelefon og Mikrofon’; however, the patent description is missing from available Escapenet and other records. It is thus difficult to determine how precisely the device operated—on a normal wired telephone line or on a radio frequency.[35] If the latter, then clearly Tigerstedt has not received enough credit for, arguably, pioneering a mobile handset as early as 1917. Suffice it to say that Tigerstedt may indeed have conceptualized what is today a mobile phone handset. Unfortunately, the cellular tower infrastructure required for mobile telephony operation did not exist in 1917.

Relays for Undulatory Currents

In the process of developing telephony, Alexander Graham Bell converted speech at the transmitter into undulating electric currents. At the receiving end these undulating electric currents needed to be converted back into speech. The conversion was attempted by different means, including the use of vibrating reeds.

Tigerstedt, in a modification of his work on the triode vacuum tube, developed a device that enabled easy control and conversion of the undulating currents in telephony. The device made by Tigerstedt received first a German patent, 3214805, and subsequently a US patent, 1,212,163. According to the description in the US patent application, it was a ‘relay for undulatory currents comprising an airtightly closed evacuated container, an anode mounted therein, a perforated auxiliary electrode arranged inside the said anode, a cathode arranged inside the said auxiliary electrode and adapted to be heated by an electric current and magnetically and electrically conducting substance surrounding the said container’. The document further states that ‘the invention relates to a special construction of the kind of relays for undulatory currents in which the variation in the electrical conductivity effected by the ionizer takes place by means of a grate or a sieve like auxiliary electrode’.[36] , [37]

Though there is no record of any US company being granted a license for this product from Tigerstedt, he himself went on record to state that some German companies, including Telefunken, acquired the license for its commercial exploitation. However, according to Tigerstedt, ‘the low value of the German currency and other conditions made it so that I have had but little turnover from this contract’.[38]

Hearing Aids and Pilot-to-Pilot Communicator

Tigerstedt’s work in Denmark suffered a major setback with the start of the civil war in Finland and the declaration by Finland of independence from Russia. Shortly after the outbreak of fighting in the civil war in Finland, Eric Tigerstedt received a telegram in Copenhagen asking him to return home, post haste, to take over the position of ‘Inspector of Radio Stations’—a sort of supervisory function to ensure all radio stations were working properly and carried the approved content. Shortly before leaving Denmark in 1917 for home in Mustila, Tigerstedt, in an interview to a local Danish newspaper, enumerated the following as targets for his future work[39]:

- A futuristic electronic telephone exchange;

- Telephones with transfer of pictures (videophones, mobile phones with cameras?)

- Modern electrical homes;

- Underwater ultrasound communications;

- Cryptography;

- Hearing aids;

- Modern portable cinematography equipment.

A reading of this list today sounds tremendously prescient—and all forecast by this young man all of thirty years of age!

Even before leaving Copenhagen Tigerstedt had already commenced work on a pilot-to-pilot communication system for a dual-seater aircraft in which the two pilots sit one behind the other. This invention was the outcome of a chance meeting Tigerstedt had had with an aircraft pilot who had experienced communication problems on board his dual-seater aircraft.

The pilot-to-pilot communication system required a very special earpiece as well as a tiny, very low-noise microphone. Both of these were specially made by Tigerstedt. The system was successfully tried out in Denmark.[40] What we do not know is whether multiple products were made for use in countries other than Denmark.

The special earphones developed for the pilot communicator led Tigerstedt to develop an improved hearing aid. The new type of hearing aid was a huge improvement over the ear-trumpet-type aids then in vogue.

No available records indicate that a patent was issued for either the pilot-to-pilot communication system or the hearing aid. What is known[41] is that one of these hearing aids was supplied to a Prince Carl of Soedermanland (in south-east Sweden), who was quite delighted with it.

Tigerstedt and Cryptography Equipment

The development of sound on film (photomagnetophone), the ophthalmoscope and the improved triode vacuum tube were unquestionably extraordinary achievements. All of them have had a major impact on the modern world—a clear legacy of Tigerstedt. However, in terms of sheer technological excellence the development of a highly sophisticated cryptography system is arguably the high point of Tigerstedt’s work.

World War I had already ended by 1921 when Tigerstedt delivered his first cryptography system to the Finnish government, the development work having started late in 1918, possibly when Tigerstedt was still in Denmark. Almost certainly the system would have been deployed during the Finnish civil war. The development of this system was of extraordinary benefit not only to Finland but to several other countries that used the system in World War II and later.

The cryptography system itself was quite ingenious. What is extraordinary is that the system could uniquely be applied in telephony, telegraphy and wireless-based equipment—something no one else had been able to develop.

Fundamentally, what Tigerstedt had done was to split up the morse signs, or words and phrases which were to be transmitted, into sections or packets. These signs, words or phrases were subsequently rearranged in a totally different order, rendering the speech or transmission totally unintelligible.

At the receiving end the transmitted morse signs, words and phrases were rearranged into their original proper order, rendering them intelligible. To be more precise, the technology used by Tigerstedt is called ‘time division (shift) scrambling cryptography’. The world of electronic intelligence has long acknowledged this system as the Tigerstedt cryptography system or the Cryptographone—the name given to it by Tigerstedt.

While researching for this book in the archives of a famous old technical publication called Wireless World (started in 1913 in the UK, now called Electronics World), the author came across a long-forgotten technical paper[42] describing in considerable technical detail, complete with the details of the electronics, Tigerstedt’s cryptography system. According to this paper, the principle used is ‘the same as that achieved by the man who repaired his cuckoo clock so that it “cooed” before it “cucked”’.

In one of Tigerstedt’s letters he wrote, ‘In 1921 my first ‘Cryptographones’ (secret telephones and telegraphs) were ready. They were shown at an exhibition before Dr. Valdemar Poulsen. Dr. Poulsen applied for the first apparatus for the Bourdeaux Station. [Author’s note: ‘Were the French already upgrading their equipment and systems immediately after World War I?] Later on the Finnish government ordered two apparatus.’[43]

Tigerstedt’s Other Inventions in Finland and Denmark

We have already noted Tigerstedt’s work related to cinematography, the triode, hearing aids, the transmission of video signals over a distance (‘biographone’), modern telephones and sophisticated cryptography equipment. However, from his own letters and diaries we know that Tigerstedt worked on and invented even more devices.

In one of his letters, dated 12 September 1923,[44] Tigerstedt writes, ‘Besides the speaking film I worked also on my “cylindrical diaphragm” (a carbon powder microphone with a cylindrical diaphragm), submarine telephone and telegraph, miniature listening telephone (the audiphone), Gramophones, Secret Telephone and Telegraph etc.’ There is also a record of a device that Tigerstedt calls the ‘Parlograph’. It appears to be some form of an early-generation dictating machine.

Records exist of Tigerstedt filing patent applications for many more items than the 70 odd patents actually issued to him. In his previously cited letter, he writes that ‘in 1922 I had 400 applications for patents in different countries’.

The following is a list of some of the patent applications that this author has been able to find that do not show up with patent numbers in any current database:

- Arrangement for reducing the ‘flimmering’ [sic] in cinematographic pictures,

- Arrangement for recording sound waves,

- Arrangement for identifying sounds,

- Biograph,

- Gramophone,

- Arrangement for recording sounds on image bands,

- Arrangements for intermittently advancing a film in cinematographs,

- Resonance carrier for telephones,

- Arrangement for spooling film bands.

It is of course a matter of great satisfaction that the Technical Museum in Helsinki[45] is currently conducting a major programme to obtain as much information as possible on Eric Tigerstedt and his work to be added to their collection. The exercise includes tracking down whatever is known of his patents, including those presumed lost in Germany. Some of those recently discovered and recorded are the following:

- Projectile counter operated by the recoil of the firearm caused by its firing (German Patent 267617),

- Method of reproducing sound records (German Patent 309834),

- Submarine transmission of high-frequency sound waves (German Patent 309534),

- Sound directing appliances for use with telephones and microphones (British Patent 191506647).

Tragically, none or little descriptive documentation has so far been found on the aforementioned patent filings. Hopefully in the near future we may be able to track down more details. Surely there are some hidden gems there! Perhaps Tigerstedt, being perpetually short of funds, did not have the money to fully pursue patent applications. Surely in his later years his ill health was a factor.

Licensing of Tigerstedt’s Technologies

A company, A/S Anod, was set up in Norway in 1918 to commercialize some of Tigerstedt’s inventions. This included his work on hearing aids that he had completed just before leaving Copenhagen for Mustila at the start of the Finnish civil war.

A/S Anod also received a license from Tigerstedt for his improved version of the triode vacuum tube. Unfortunately, records show that A/S Anod was acrimoniously liquidated early in 1922. Poor Tigerstedt received no money on this liquidation—not even the 15,000 kroner that he had extended as a loan.

Tigerstedt was really at his most productive in Copenhagen (with his Laboratory and home at Platanvej 21, Fredriksberg). He also by then had another attachment in Copenhagen. He had fallen in love with a young artist, Ingrid Lignell (who later became known as Ingrid Ruin, a very famous artist). No wonder Tigerstedt wanted to return to Copenhagen as soon as possible.

With continuing financial problems at A/S Anod and based on his past poor experience in setting up companies on his own, Tigerstedt now decided on a different tack, that of licensing out the technologies and products that he had developed.

In 1918 the technology for the photomagnetophone was transferred to the Skandinavisk Grammophon AS Company, Denmark, a subsidiary of the Gramophone Company, U.K. The technology for his acoustic high frequency signaling system was transferred to AB Svenska Gasaccumulator Company, Sweden (today AGA—Aktiebolaget Gasaccumulator).

One of Tigerstedt’s letters home to his father also speaks of transferring some technology related to infrared film and camera filters to another company, which he does not name.

Tigerstedt also received an invitation from the American Telegraphone Company in the USA asking him to come to the USA for the demonstration of all his machines. A letter was also received from a US patent attorney requesting the granting of a license for his patented technologies in cinematography for use by the Western Electric Company, the venerable company started by Elisha Gray and part of the AT&T group.

By all accounts none of these licenses brought in any reasonable sums of money. Tigerstedt’s letters home from that time invariably contain requests for some more money or for some dues to be paid off by the family.

To compound Tigerstedt’s financial woes, he married Ingrid Lignell in the year 1919. It was time for the family in Mustila to take action. Carl Gustav Tigerstedt (Eric’s elder brother and father of Prof. Peter Tigerstedt was dispatched to Copenhagen. He arranged for the transfer of all of Eric Tigerstedt’s activities back to Finland.

The new holding company in Finland for all of Tigerstedt’s intellectual property and other assets was formed in 1920 and was named Emission. Since, evidently, Tigerstedt was not really very good at managing his business affairs, the new company was put under the charge of an experienced and eminent person, Eric Von Frenckell (later mayor of Helsinki).

Tigerstedt himself returned to Finland briefly. He was now not feeling too well. Medical tests carried out at a Helsinki hospital in September 1920 revealed that Tigerstedt had severe inflammation in one lung. Because of this he had to be hospitalized for a week. The doctors suspected that this could be the beginning of tuberculosis—as a possible consequence of the ski injury to his leg that he had sustained in his youth!

The year 1921 was a trying time for Tigerstedt. He was already in poor and indifferent health. His wife, Ingrid, gave birth to a son (Carl) in Helsinki in February. But trouble was already brewing in the marriage (the marriage broke up within 2 years and in the same year that son Carl was born). Tigerstedt’s finances were in shambles. His main intellectual properties had been transferred to another company.

According to the family, Eric Tigerstedt was a difficult person to live with, quite introverted, insensitive and somewhat jealous of a wife who was young, pretty and successful as a painter! Could he have been a little bit autistic (autism had not been known at the time) in the mould of other brilliant people like Tesla, Cavendish and Dirac?

By 1922 there was really nothing to keep Tigerstedt in Denmark any longer. He moved back, this time with bag and baggage, to Mustila in Finland. The old laboratory there was cleaned up and restarted.

Tigerstedt still had visions of new inventions and products and was most eager to pursue them. In 1922 Eric Tigerstedt formed a new company. Registered in Finland, the new company was called Tigerstedt Patenter AB. But funds were desperately needed to relaunch his work. In addition, funds were needed to pay alimony to his ex-wife and child support for son Carl, now living in Denmark. Sadly, no funds were forthcoming. Once again, Tigerstedt was left with no option but to shut down his company, the same year that it started, without having transacted any meaningful business.

Tigerstedt, Edison and the United States

Tigerstedt was at the end of his tether. He desperately needed to get away from Mustila and Finland. He was depressed and downhearted after his wife and son left him. The company in Finland was a non-starter. The possibility of having contracted tuberculosis made matters worse.

Siemens & Halske had made him a job offer in Berlin, but his past experience in Germany discouraged him. Germany did not beckon him this time. On reflection, Tigerstedt, much like Tesla before him, felt his future lay in the country of invention, innovation, business and enterprise—the United States of America.

Tigerstedt, as noted earlier, had received an invitation from the American Telegraphone Company to visit the USA to demonstrate the cryptographone and his other machines. In pursuit of his new objective of moving to the USA, Tigerstedt shot off a letter to one of his idols, the great Thomas Alva Edison.[46] By all accounts, Tigerstedt was quite taken aback when he unexpectedly received a positive response from the great man himself.

In 1923 Eric Tigerstedt set sail for the USA to seek his fortune in the New World, much as Nikola Tesla had done before him. On arrival in New York in October 1923, Tigerstedt promptly sought out Edison in his laboratory. This was his chance to personally tell Edison of all the technologies and inventions that he had worked on and achieved in his short life of 36 years.

Clearly Edison was impressed. He wrote letters of recommendation to several leading electronics companies, including American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), a division of which, Western Electric, had been in touch with Tigerstedt in the past. To General John J. Carty of AT&T, Edison wrote on 9 October 1923 as follows:

“My dear General,

I am giving this letter to Mr. E.M.C. Tigerstedt of Finland, who called upon me today.

I have told him that his inventions are more in your line than in mine, and that possibly you might be able to find employment for him.

Yours very truly,

Thos. A. Edison”[47]

One letter was sent by Edison to the Secretary of the US Department of Commerce requesting all assistance be made available to this extraordinary talent, Tigerstedt, should he wish to set up his own company in the USA.

Eric Tigerstedt opted to set up his own company. The Tiger Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York in 1923. Tigerstedt could not afford the high rents of Manhattan and hence found a place to stay at 1318 South Avenue, Plainfield, Netherwood, New Jersey. No plaque adorns that address today. No plaque is to be found either there or anywhere else, except at a cemetery in Helsinki.

Shortly after setting up the company, production was commenced with the manufacture of small radio receivers, cryptographones and other items. The radio receivers (which used crystals sourced from the Carborundum Company—one of the prime beneficiaries of the Westinghouse/Tesla Power project at Niagara Falls) started to sell very well, as did the photomagnetophone. Even the cryptographones found a good market, including an order from the government of Mexico.

Tigerstedt is almost exultant when he writes to his father, saying, ‘The radio receiver demand is incredible. Now the golden years are starting.’ But regrettably, fate had other ideas. As had been Tigerstedt’s story all along in the past, as soon as things started looking brighter, something calamitous would happen in his life.

On 20 April 1924, Tigerstedt had a major automobile accident and was seriously injured while driving near his residence in New Jersey. Following a spell in hospital, he appeared to be on the road to recovery. He even returned to work.

Later in 1924 he commenced work on a three-dimensional voice recorder (a sort of three-dimensional, high-bass stereo effect on sound playback). Tigerstedt’s notes show that he even came up with a working prototype of such a machine in July 1924. Sadly he would never have the chance to complete its development and to file and obtain a patent for it.

To earn more money for himself and his business, Tigerstedt started to ‘moonlight’. He took on a side job with a company called the Baldwin Sales Company, which assembled and distributed loudspeakers, with headquarters located at Fulton Square in New York City.

In December 1924 Tigerstedt began to feel somewhat uneasy with a constant difficulty in breathing. A series of medical tests showed that he had developed staphylococcus and streptococcus infections. In January 1925 Tigerstedt had to be rushed to hospital (on 5th Avenue in Manhattan) as things health-wise were going from bad to worse.

It appears that somehow, owing to the serious car accident and the injuries sustained in it, his old problem of tuberculosis had kicked in again and the infection had started to spread. Out of sheer desperation, Tigerstedt, in a letter home on 14 January 1925, requested that his younger brother Goran (also a budding electronics engineer) to come to the USA immediately to take charge of affairs at the Tiger Manufacturing Company.

On 16 February 1925, even before Goran had left Finland, Tigerstedt had by then become far too weak and frail to even write his own letters. Fortunately for Tigerstedt, one of the nurses (of Danish descent) caring for him at the Manhattan hospital took it upon herself to write all the letters and other documents that Tigerstedt could now barely manage to dictate.

On 16 February Tigerstedt’s dictated letter[48] to brother Goran reads, ‘Please do continue my work should I be deceased early. I am especially bothered by the fact that I cannot manage my various debts here and in Denmark and repay them.’

Sadly and most tragically, Tigerstedt dictated his last letter to the Danish nurse on 26 February 1925. This was to his dear father in Mustila. He writes, ‘The surgery carried out on Feb. 17th found that my left kidney was completely non-functional and destroyed. As a consequence, they have removed that kidney. Now I must finish. I have no energy to continue. Love to all. Papa’s boy. Eric.’[49]

Eric Tigerstedt, arguably one of the greatest electronics engineers of all time, tragically died in New York on 20 April 1925 at the young age of 38. Nobody from the family was next to him when he passed away. He had not heard from his ex-wife for 4 years. Also tragically, he had not heard that his little son Carl, 4 years old, had also died that very year.

It is thus perhaps apt and fitting to recall two of the lines of the poem Eric Tigerstedt wrote on the death of his brother (see above):

“The play of life and death, a play I never had myself.

So we wander through in life until we reach the very end.”

Sadly for the family, his employer at the Baldwin Sales Company, New York, sent several written notices to Mustila after Tigerstedt’s death to collect what he claimed were the payments ($1,434.79) made by him to the hospital along with some overdue rent bills (totalling $400) that had been settled. For non-settlement of these amounts, the employer had seized all of Tigerstedt’s equipment, notes and other assets. That is sometimes how things go! How tragic!

Tigerstedt’s Legacy

Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt was perhaps born at the wrong time. More likely, he was born under an evil retrograde star. Others might claim that some old crone had cast an evil eye on him when he was young. How to explain all the misfortunes and tragedies that befell this extraordinary man of science and engineering throughout his life? Every time things started to look up for Tigerstedt, something went utterly and horribly wrong!

Yet in his very brief life, Tigerstedt managed to produce an extraordinary body of work. We know that he filed for at least 400 patents—a number could easily have been much higher had his poor health and financial state not gotten in the way.

It is worth noting that Nikola Tesla had under 300 patents. True, Thomas Edison had over 1040 patents in his lifetime, but he lived and worked much longer than Tigerstedt. Edison died at the age of 84, and Tesla was 86 at the time of his death. Eric Tigerstedt was only 38 years old when he passed away. We can only surmise that if he had lived longer, health and finances permitting, Tigerstedt might well have risen to become the greatest electronics engineering inventor the world had ever seen, easily surpassing his idols Edison and Valdemar Poulsen.

The tragedy of Tigerstedt is that he never got his due from the world at large. Edison is and has been, of course, a global household name. Volta is also very well known as the ‘battery man’. Tesla, as we read earlier, has attained the status of a demigod.

So what of Tigerstedt? Unlike with Edison, Volta and Tesla, there are no plaques, statues, parks or medals honouring him, not even in his native Finland. The author has been struck dumb when senior Finnish politicians, diplomats and executives look puzzled at the mention of Tigerstedt’s name. Their reaction has largely been: Eric Tigerstedt who?

Edison, Volta and Tesla have had companies, technologies and products named after them. To the author’s knowledge, no company today carries Tigerstedt’s name. Even the Tiger Manufacturing Company of New York is defunct. True, some companies carry the name (one in Texas) Tiger Manufacturing or something similar, but they have no connection with Eric Tigerstedt or his old company in the USA.

With the exception of one book in Finnish[50] (for which the material, we are informed, came principally from the Tigerstedt family), one television documentary in Finland and just one book so far in English (a simple compilation of Wikipedia posts), there is no other work relating to Tigerstedt in the public domain. How odd! It is as if Tigerstedt’s own country and the world at large simply forgot about him until the present author partly resurrected him in a previous work.[51]

The only honour (and possibly a very appropriate one) that Tigerstedt’s name has been given is the naming of the extremely precise Finnish radar systems during World War II by his initials, E.T. This is appropriate because the Finnish air force (Ilmavoimat) radar system made it possible to repel a hugely superior Soviet force in numbers with possibly the highest kill rates in global air force warfare history.

Of course, these days a very small group of Tigerstedt fans in Finland and in some of the old Axis countries have tried in recent years to spread and perpetuate his name. There are multiple blog posts and sites[52] from these people related to World War II and Tigerstedt’s alleged contribution to that war. They fantasize about a hypothetical world in which the Axis powers defeat the Allies in the war. For them Tigerstedt is the ultimate saviour and hero. Military and other inventions have been liberally ascribed to him, tragically on dates when he had long since been dead!

So let us take a realistic look at Tigerstedt’s true legacy for our world. A close analysis of all his work reveals that the most significant of his inventions were (a) putting sound on film and cinematography equipment, (b) the improved triode vacuum tube, and (c) advanced cryptography equipment. Of course, he did pioneering work on such items as pocket phones (the forerunner of the mobile phone, as many would like to believe), X-rays, relays for undulatory currents, diaphragms and microphones, underwater communications, loud speaking telephones, hearing aids and dictating machines.

Tigerstedt also dabbled in television technology, infrared viewing devices and night vision devices. The fact remains that several others had also made significant contributions to the technology of these items. Hence, the modern versions of these may not strictly qualify as being the part of only Tigerstedt’s work and legacy.

Sound on Film

Tigerstedt’s work on putting sound on film was principally carried out between 1911 and 1912. Subsequently, after he had worked on improving Lee de Forest’s triode, he was able to obtain much higher amplification and improved the quality of the sound output from his photomagnetophone so much that the audio could now be heard clearly, even in large theatres and movie halls.

In a sort of role reversal and as a kind of ultimate compliment to Tigerstedt, Lee de Forest, in association with Western Electric (an AT&T associate company), sought to further Tigerstedt’s work on putting sound on film. Records show that de Forest actually met Tigerstedt and discussed his project with him. Whether they discussed a possible licensing arrangement is not known, but it is very likely that the offer of a job by Western Electric to Tigerstedt may have been a result of this meeting.

De Forest’s work on the Tigerstedt cinematography system resulted in the then popular ‘photofilm’ and ‘phonofilm’ systems, with de Forest taking all the credit for them. As things like this happen, with the introduction of Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system (based on the technology of Western Electric) and the backing of Hollywood, the market share of de Forest’s systems plunged sharply, sending his Phonofilm Company into bankruptcy.

In Europe, the German Tri-Ergon system dominated in movie theatres. From 1929 onwards, Tobis, heir to the Tri-Ergon system, co-operated with their main European competitor, Klangfilm, in using a modified Tigerstedt system. In fact, this European conglomerate sued Western Electric, alleging violation of their patents, a case that ended in the cross licensing of patents.

By then many others came out with different versions of sound on film, including RCA Photophone. It was only in the late 1970s that the fundamental old technology for sound on film changed over to what was described as the ‘stereo variable-area (SVA)’ system, formerly Dolby optical analogue sound. It was only in the 1990s that the Optical Digital Format (introduced by Dolby and Sony) became the norm. Up until that time, the technology base being used was the one developed by Tigerstedt.

Sound-on-movie technology may have undergone a transformation over the years from the old Tigerstedt, Tri-Ergon, Lee de Forest systems through to the Dolby optical analogue system, up to the Dolby optical digital system. However, the basic concept of a synchronized sound arrangement on film itself remains fundamentally the same as envisaged by Tigerstedt. Millions of moviegoers around the world, whether watching Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood, British, French, Chinese or other movies, should thank Tigerstedt for their enjoyment of movies. His legacy lives on!

Vacuum Tube Triode

Conventional wisdom tells us, and every electronics man or woman knows, that the advent of one of the greatest inventions of our times, the solid-state transistor, killed the vacuum tube. Moving on from there, we have had the integrated circuit in its various manifestations.[53] Surely by now the vacuum-tube-based triode should have been a rare museum piece, much like the one that the present author has in his modest home museum collection.

Actually, we may all be completely wrong! Just like vinyl records, cassette tapes, board games, the manual typewriter, black and white movies and many other items, we find the vacuum tube making a sort of comeback. And it is not just a love for retro stuff.

These old vacuum tubes are able to deliver some electronic parameters that are just not feasible with solid-state devices. Many Army Signal Corps engineers swear by them. Certainly, the better radio amateurs (hams) do as well. So what is going on?

Increasing numbers of Web sites are selling all manner of vacuum tubes, recently manufactured, not museum pieces. All types of newly made pre-amp tubes, rectifier tubes, RF tubes, for exaple, are being offered for sale. One site[54] advertises 119 varieties of triode. Some of the type numbers are familiar to us electronics engineers from our younger days—the 6N15, 6N9s, E88C tubes and many others.

Their solid-state cousins, transistors or integrated circuits, have some obvious limitations. This is the result of the very nature and fundamental features of solid-state physics. Want high-fidelity amplification without distortion? The triode valve is what you need. Ultra-high frequencies, radiation resistance—the ‘triode valve’ is up to the task. It is therefore no surprise that many universities and research organizations are working on improved triode technology, including possible miniaturization using semiconductor manufacturing techniques.

Familiar vacuum tube manufacturing names are back. The old British brand Mullard has been revived. It is owned by the New Sensor Corporation, which uses a plant in Russia for the production of vacuum tubes. The Western Electric brand in the USA has come back to life. That company have been producing the 300 Bs and recently started offering for sale the 403 series. Northern Electric of Canada have started producing the 12AX7, 12AU7 and other varieties in a factory in China. J.J. Electronics have started producing their version of the 12AX7 and other varieties in the old Tesla factory in the Slovak Republic.

Tigerstedt’s triode lives again!

Time Division (Shift) Scrambling Cryptography

Tigerstedt started working on his cryptography equipment in 1918. The technology behind this equipment is known as time division scrambling, as well as time shift scrambling. Tigerstedt demonstrated and sold some pieces of this type of equipment in 1921. The fact that several governments purchased Tigerstedt’s cryptographone has never been announced to the world at large—for obvious reasons.

During World War II many countries used different cryptographic techniques. Most famous of all, of course, was the British group at Bletchley Park (see my previous book[55]) where the German ‘Enigma’ machine code was cracked—now a subject of many movies and several popular books.

What is not so well known is the use by the Finnish Cryptography teams of the Tigerstedt cryptographone during their winter war campaign against the Russians during World War II. Just like their excellent radar coverage, the cryptography gave Finns defending their country a huge advantage over the numerically superior Soviet forces. It has been recorded[56] that the Finnish cryptography system was never cracked—all thanks to Tigerstedt!

Since the system was so much better and more secure than the other commonly used systems of frequency inversion, Tigerstedt’s system was used by many governments and government agencies, such as police and law enforcement, till as late as the 1990s. It was found to be particularly suitable for narrow band frequency modulation (FM) channels and, hence, popular. It was only the advent, in the late 1990s, of very modern digital scrambling technologies that led to the retirement of the venerable old Tigerstedt system of cryptography.As this book is being written, the whole field of cryptography has very much come back as an area of great importance as well as controversy. The controversy around Edward Snowden’s leaked documents detailing mass surveillance by the U.S. authorities are now too well known to warrant repetition. Yet the encryption technologies used by Apple’s I-phones, Facebook’s ‘WhatsApp’ and others resulting in the efforts of the FBI and other authorities to crack these encryptions is what is driving the fierce debate on modern day encryption. One wonders what Eric Tigerstedt would have made of all this! Let us not forget that Eric Tigerstedt had his technology in place long before Herbert Yardley helped put modern cryptography in place in the US.

The Finnish nation should thus be eternally grateful to Tigerstedt’s cryptographone and to a radar system named after him for what was achieved in the winter war against Russia!

Author’s Note: Eric Tigerstedt’s mortal remains were brought from New York and interred in the Tigerstedt family monument (his is the highest tombstone there) in the famous Helsinki cemetery of Hietaniemi—the same cemetery that contains the mortal remains and a monument to the Father of the Finnish Nation: General Mannerheim.

The tragedy is that if you look up the Web site of the cemetery, including the one put out as a Wikipedia piece, you will see a list of famous and infamous people buried at Hietaniemi. The list even includes the name of an infamous liquor smuggler (Algot Niska) from the days of prohibition in the country. Alas, the name of the greatest Finnish inventor and engineer ever does not figure on the list. There is not even a road in Finland in his honour! What a pity!

Here, then, is a salute from a fellow electronics man and, like Tigerstedt, a beer fan with a single kidney!

Footnotes

1

Prof. Peter Tigerstedt, Mustila, Finland.

2

Ibid, p. 1.

3

Ibid, p. 1.

4

Tigerstedt Museum, Mustila, Finland (from the collection of Goran Tigerstedt, brother of Eric Tigerstedt).

5

Ibid, p. 3.

6

Ibid, p. 1 and 3.

7

Ibid, p. 3.

8

Ibid, p. 3.

9

Ibid, p. 3.

10

Ibid, p. 3.

11

Ibid, p. 1.

12

Tigerstedt exhibits at Tekniikan Museo—Tekniiska Museet (Museum of Technology), Helsinki, Finland.

13

The Lumière Autochrome: History, Technology and Preservation, Bertrand Lavedrine and Jean Paul Gandolfo; Getty Publications, Los Angeles, 2013; ISBN 978-1-60606-125-1.

14

www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html.

15

Ibid, p. 3.

16

Ibid, p. 3.

17

The Business of Electronics: A Concise History, Anand Kumar Sethi, p. 89, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

18

https://soma.sbcc.edu/davega/filmpro_181.

19

Ibid, p. 11.

20

Ibid, p. 1 and 11.

21

Ibid, p. 3.

22

Ibid, p. 11.

23

Ibid, p. 3 and 11.

24

Ibid, p. 16.

25

Ibid, p. 16.

26

Ibid, p. 3.

27

Ibid, p. 3.

28

Ibid, p. 16.

29

Ibid, p. 3.

30

Ibid, p. 1.

31

Ibid, p. 3.

32

Ibid, p. 3.

33

Ibid, p. 11, derived from Espacenet: www.worldwide.espacenet.com/search.

34

Ibid, p. 1.

35

E.M.C. Tigerstedt ‘Suomen Edison’, A.M. Pertti Kuusela, Insinooritieto, Finland, 1981, ISBN 10: 8517933959.

36

US Patent Office www.google.com/patents/US1212163.

37

Saga of the Vacuum Tube, Gerald F.J. Tyne, Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution, Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc., Indianapolis, IN, USA.

38

Ibid, p. 3.

39

Ibid, p. 3 and 11.

40

Ibid, p. 3.

41

Ibid, p. 34.

42

“Secret Radio Telephony Systems—a review of the problems involved and the solutions suggested”—O.F. Brown; ‘Wireless World’, June 8th, 1927, page 713.

43

Ibid, p. 1.

44

Ibid, p. 3.

45

Ibid, p. 12.

46

Ibid, p. 3.

47

Ibid, p. 12.

48

Ibid, p. 3.

49

Ibid, p. 3.

50

Ibid, p. 35.

51

Ibid, p. 17.

52

www.alternatehistory.com (What if Finland had been prepared for the winter war?), www.axishistory.com, www.alternativefinland.com.

53

Ibid, p. 17.

54

www.tubes-store.com.

55

Ibid, p. 17.

56

“Christos Military and Intelligence Corner” http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.in/2014.07.

Appendix A: Patents of Nikola Tesla [1] , [2] , [3]

U.S.A.

1. 1.
Patent 0,334,823 — Commutator for Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 January 26—Elements to prevent sparking on dynamo electric machines; drum-style with brushes.

2. 2.
Patent 0,335,786 — Electric Arc Lamp —1886 February 9—Arc lamp with carbon electrodes controlled by electromagnets or solenoids and a clutch mechanism; Corrects earlier design flaws common to the industry.

3. 3.
Patent 0,335,787 — Electric Arc Lamp —1886 February 9—Arc lamp’s automatic fail switch when arc demonstrates abnormal behaviour; automatic reactivation.

4. 4.
Patent 0,336,961 — Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 March 2—Two main brushes connected to helix coil ends; intermediate point branch shunt connection for third brush.

5. 5.
Patent 0,336,962 — Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 March 2—Auxiliary brushes shunting a portion or all of the field helix coil; regulates energy flow; adjustable level of current.

6. 6.
Patent 0,350,954 — Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 October 19—Automatic regulation of energy levels; mechanical device to shift brushes.

7. 7.
Patent 0,359,748 — Dynamo Electric Machine —1887 March 22—Improve construction; facilitate easier construction; reduce costs; magnetic frame; armature; alternating current synchronous motor.

8. 8.
Patent 0,381,968 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1888 May 1—Mode and plan of operating electric motors by progressive shifting; field magnet; armature; electrical conversion; economical; transmission of energy; simple construction; easier construction; rotating magnetic field principles.

9. 9.
Patent 0,381,969 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1888 May 1—Novel form and operating mode; coils forming independent energizing circuits; connected to an alternating current generator; synchronous motor.

10. 10.
Patent 0,381,970 — System of Electrical Distribution —1888 May 1—Current from a single source of supply in main or transmitting circuit induced by induction apparatus; independent circuit(s); electric distributor.

11. 11.
Patent 0,382,279 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1888 May 1—Rotation is produced and maintained by direct attraction; utilizes shifting poles; induction magnetic motor.

12. 12.
Patent 0,382,280 — Electrical Transmission of Power —1888 May 1—New method or mode of transmission; dynamo motor conversion with two independent circuits for long distance transmission; alternating current transmission; includes a disclaimer; economic; efficient.

13. 13.
Patent 0,382,281 — Electrical Transmission of Power —1888 May 1—Improvements in electromagnetic motors and their mode or methods of their operations; motor is wound with coils forming independent circuits on armature; armature is mounted to rotate between two different poles; armature will eventually synchronize with generator; wind—coils or coils on field magnets; expose to continuous current to maintain a permanent field.

14. 14.
Patent 0,382,282 — Method of Converting and Distributing Electric Currents —1888 May 1—Related to electric distribution systems; current is from a single main source or suitable transmitting circuit; induction into an independent circuit; divide the current from a single source; transformations; discovery of method to avoid prior liable and dangerous methods; true dynamic induction.

15. 15.
Patent 0,382,845 — Commutator for Dynamo Electric Machines —1888 May 15—Relates to dynamo electric machines or motors; improvements in devices to collect or communicate currents; avoid destruction and wear of machine; avoid adjustments due to destruction and wear; enable practical construction of very large dynamo electric machines or motors with the minimum number of communicator segments; increase safety and efficiency.

16. 16.
Patent 0,390,413 — System of Electrical Distribution —1888 October 2—Related to previous electric distribution systems developed by Tesla; examples of systems in operation with motors or converters, or both, in parallel; examples of systems in parallel; examples of systems in series.

17. 17.
Patent 0,390,414 — Dynamo Electric Machine —1888 October 2—Related to patents of Tesla and Charles F. Peck, numbers US381968 and US382280; ordinary forms of continuous and alternating current systems may be adapted to Tesla’s system, with slight changes to systems; affects their forms; only the best and most practical solutions are presented to the three most common forms of the devices applicable; illustrations of continuous (or closed) circuit machines, machines possessing armatures with coils connected diametrically (known as “open circuits”), and machines with armature whose coils have a common joint.

18. 18.
Patent 0,390,415 — Dynamo Electric Machine or Motor —1888 October 2—Improvement in construction of dynamo or magneto electric machines; novel form of frame and field magnets that renders the machine more sturdy and compact as a structure; requires fewer parts; less difficulty in construction; lower expense; useful for alternating and continuous current machines.

19. 19.
Patent 0,390,721 — Dynamo Electric Machine —1888 October 9—Relates chiefly to alternating current machine invented by Mr. Tesla; related to patent numbers US381968 and US382280; seeks to avoid mechanical drawback of running high-frequency machines; efficient at low speeds; produces rotating magnetic poles in one element of machine and drives the other at a different speed.

20. 20.
Patent 0,390,820 — Regulator for Alternating Current Motors —1888 October 9—Improvement in electrical transmission systems; means of regulating power of motor or motors; used with system of multiple motors primarily (or systems with motors and transformers) that have independent energizing circuits that act to set up progressive or shifting magnetic poles (i.e. the rotating magnetic field); controls speed of motor.

21. 21.
Patent 0,396,121 — Thermomagnetic Motor —1888 January 15—It is widely known that heat applied to a magnetic body will lessen its magnetizing ability; high enough temperatures will destroy the magnetic field; mechanical power is obtained by a reciprocating action from the joint action of heat, magnetism, and a spring or weight (or other force); in this patent, heat is applied to a body that is magnetized by induction or otherwise to the action of heat until the magnetism is neutralized to allow a weight or a spring to give action and lessen the action of the heat to restore the magnetic effect to move the body in the opposite direction.

22. 22.
Patent 0,401,520 — Method of Operating Electro Magnetic Motors —1889 April 16—Improvements to previous instances of synchronous motors; previous instances of synchronous motors were not started by alternating current generators; new discovery of simple method or plan of operating such motors; requires no device other than the motor itself; conversion from a double circuit motor that will start under the actions of an alternating current into a synchronizing motor; synchronous motor definition.

23. 23.
Patent 0,405,858 — Electro Magnetic Motor —1889 June 25—Torque, instead of being the result of the difference of the poles is produced by the angular displacement of the parts which, though movable with respect to one another, are magnetized simultaneously, or approximately, by the same currents; concerns the armature and the field laminations of the magnetic core for the greatest magnetic attractions; best means to achieve these results.

24. 24.
Patent 0,405,859 — Method of Electrical Power Transmission —1889 June 25—New and useful method of bringing up the motor to a desirable speed; forms of alternating current machines, connected to alternating current generators, can be run as synchronous motor; prior alternating current will not start it; construct a generator with two coils or sets of coils and connect them with a motor of corresponding coils or sets of coils; by means of two line wires, the motor and generator in like fashion; related to US 390413 (for means of starting); will operate as a single-circuit synchronizing system.

25. 25.
Patent 0,406,968 — Dynamo Electric Machine —1889 July 16—Relates to class of machines referred to as “Unipolar” machines (i.e. a disk or cylindrical conductor is mounted between magnetic poles adapted to produce a uniform magnetic field); construction of a machine with two fields, each having a rotary conductor mounted between its poles; discussed primarily disk form; direction of magnetism or order of poles in one field of force is opposite to that of the other, so the rotation of the disk in the same direction forms a field from the center to the circumference and another from the circumference to the center; contacts applied to shafts form terminals of a circuit to produce a sum of electromotive forces of the two disks; if direction of fields is the same, driving the disks in the opposite direction will yield the same results.

26. 26.
Patent 0,413,353 — Method of Obtaining Direct Current from Alternating Currents —1889 October 22—Superiority of alternating currents discussed; delineates machines to convert alternating currents to direct (or continuous) currents at will at one or more points; obtain direct currents from alternating currents; active resistance to opposite electrical character, whereby the currents or current waves of opposite character will be diverted through different circuits.

27. 27.
Patent 0,416,191 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1889 December 3—Induction motor with two or more energizing circuits; alternating currents of differing phases are passed to produce rotation or operation of motor; simple method consists of two circuits; alternate method consists of one line that divides the alternating current in the motor circuit and effects an artificial lag in one of the circuit of branches (such as by a different induction capacity).

28. 28.
Patent 0,416,192 — Method of Operating Electro-Magnetic Motors —1889 December 3—Related to US401520; alternative improvements to synchronous motors; torque and synchronous actions in motors; different field circuits of differing induction; windings and shunts; increases tendency to synchronize.

29. 29.
Patent 0,416,193 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1889 December 3—Induction motor operation with two or more windings; securing differing phase differences; phase proportional to induction and inverse to resistance encountered by current; one circuit (the energizing circuit) should have high induction and low resistance (along with possessing a greater length or number of turns) and the converse in the other (which has few turns of finer wire or wire that has higher resistance); magnetic quantities of the poles should be approximately equal; self-induction cores are much longer.

30. 30.
Patent 0,416,194 — Electric Motor —1889 December 3—Drawings include the motor seen in many of Tesla’s photos; classic alternating current electro-magnetic motor; induction motor operation; field and armature of equal strengths or magnetic quality; field and armature cores of equal amounts; coils containing equal amounts of copper.

31. 31.
Patent 0,416,195 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1889 December 3—Induction motor operation with two or more windings; differing phases; structural and operational conditions; armature operation conditions and obedience to energizing circuit and stator; construction and organization principles.

32. 32.
Patent 0,417,794 — Armature for Electric Machines —1889 December 24—Construction principles of the armature for electrical generators and motors; simple and economical; coils of insulated conducting wire (or ribbon) may be wound or formed into bobbins; position of bobbins dictate windings; armature has polar projections and maximum core-surface exposure to field magnetic poles; related to other applicant patents, numbers US327797, US292077, GB9013.

33. 33.
Patent 0,418,248 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1889 December 31—Electric generator; employment of an artificial cooling device; enclosing the source of heat and that portion of the magnetic circuit exposed to the heat and artificially cooling the said heated part; combination of an enclosed source of heat applied to a portion of said core; magnetized core or body and a conductor within the field of force; artificial cooling device for reducing the temperature of the heated portion thereof; means for bringing a cooling gas or fluid in contact with the heated portion of the core, and means for controlling the admission of the same; combination and coils wound thereon and a connection with a boiler for admitting steam into the channels, as set forth; magnetized core containing passages or channels; means for applying heat to a portion of the core.

34. 34.
Patent 0,424,036 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1890 March 25—Cites then common language of his motors referred to as “ magnetic lag ” motors; another form of the induction motor with two or more energizing circuits with differing phase differences are passed to produce rotation or operation of the motor; magnetism lags electrical parts of energizing effects; manifests these effects simultaneously and not successively; related to US405858; torque is produced to the angular displacement of parts; best means to achieve these results; prefer the use of alternating currents.

35. 35.
Patent 0,428,057 — Pyro - magneto Electric Generator —1890 May 13—Electric generator; employment of an artificial cooling device; enclosing the source of heat and that portion of the magnetic circuit exposed to the heat and artificially cooling the said heated part; combination of an enclosed source of heat applied to a portion of said core; magnetized core or body and a conductor within the field of force; artificial cooling device for reducing the temperature of the heated portion thereof; means for bringing a cooling gas or fluid in contact with the heated portion of the core, and means for controlling the admission of the same; combination and coils wound thereon and a connection with a boiler for admitting steam into the channels, as set forth; magnetized core containing passages or channels; means for applying heat to a portion of the core.

36. 36.
Patent 0,433,700 — Alternating-Current Electro-Magnetic Motor —1890 August 5—Rotation of an electromagnetic motor is produced by the magnetic movements or the maximum of the pole’s (or point’s) magnetic effects from the conjoined actions (or the two energizing circuits) through which alternating currents (or similar rapidly varying currents) are passed through; multiple magnets are powered by artificial currents; inverse strength of magnetism on stator for best rotation; creates multiple phases through one circuit from one power source.

37. 37.
Patent 0,433,701 — Alternating-Current Motor —1890 August 5—Two sets of field-pole pieces of energized independently by the same source; closed magnetic iron shunts or bridges in sets or series.

38. 38.
Patent 0,433,702 — Electrical Transformer Or Induction Device —1890 August 5—Main magnetic core and the primary and secondary coils interposed by a magnetic shield or screen between the coils or around one of the coils; coils can be wound upon or built up around the magnetic shield; adapted to or capable of being magnetically saturated by a predetermined current strength below the maximum in the primary.

39. 39.
Patent 0,433,703 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1890 August 5—Describes the combination, in an alternating current motor, of an energizing coil and a core composed of two parts (one being protected from magnetization from the other one interposed between it and the coil); a rotating armature is motivated by the induced fields; alternatively, a field magnet composed of a coil and core (with two sections in proximity of the coil and an inner section between the same); also, a field magnet each composed of a coil and core (with two sections in proximity of the coil and an inner section between the same).

40. 40.
Patent 0,445,207 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1891 January 27—Describes the combination, in a motor, of a primary energizing circuit (connected to a generator) and a secondary circuit in inductive relation to the primary; each circuit has a different electrical character, resistance, induction capability, or number and type of windings.

41. 41.
Patent 0,447,920 — Method of Operating Arc-Lamps —1891 March 10—Abate or render inaudible sound emitted by arc lamps that are powered by (or supplied with) alternating currents by increasing the frequency of alternations (or pulsations) above the auditory level.

42. 42.
Patent 0,447,921 — Alternating Electric Current Generator —1891 March 10—A generator that produces alternations of 15000 per second or more.

43. 43.
Patent 0,454,622 — System of Electric Lighting —1891 June 23—Apparatus devised for the purpose of converting and supplying electrical energy in a form suited for the production of certain novel electrical phenomena, which require currents of higher frequency and potential. It specifies an energy storage capacitor and discharger mechanism on the primary side of a radio-frequency transformer.

44. 44.
Patent 0,455,067 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1891 June 30—Alternating current motor, with field magnets and energizing circuit armature-circuit and a core adapted to be energized by currents induced in its circuit by the currents in the field circuit; condenser connected with or bridging the armature-circuit (e.g., the rotating element of the motor); energizing circuit formed by coils wound thereon in a different inductive relations to the field and joined in a continuous or closed series; combination of a condenser, the plates of which are connected, respectively, to the junctions of the circuits or coils.

45. 45.
Patent 0,455,068 — Electrical Meter —1891 June 30—Method of computing the amount of electrical energy expended in a given time in an electrical circuit; operates by maintaining by the current a potential difference between two conductors in an electrolytic solution (or cell) uniform throughout the whole extent of such conductors exposed to the solution; measurement of the variation of the resistance in one or both conductors due to the gain or loss of metal by electro-deposition; electrolytic cell and conductors passing through the cell and connected in series with a translating device; one or more resistances connected with the conductors and cell for establishing a potential difference between the two conductors through the solution of the cell; tubular cell contains electrolytic solution and closed at each end.

46. 46.
Patent 0,455,069 — Electric Incandescent Lamp —1891 June 30—Incandescent lamp consisting of two isolated refractory conductors contained in a non-striking vacuum and adapted to produce light by incandescence; globe or receiver exhausted to the non-striking point with two mounted isolated bodies (or metal wires) of refractory conducting material to emit light and sealed in; terminal to connect with an electrical energy source; refractory conducting material not to be rendered incandescent coated or covered with insulation.

47. 47.
Patent 0,459,772 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1891 September 22—Alternating current non-synchronizing electric motor coupled with a synchronizing alternating current motor whereby the former starts the latter and throws it into synchronism with its actuating current; switch mechanism for directing the current through either or both of the motors; combination of two motors (one an alternating current torque motor [e.g., shifting poles via the energizing circuit] and the other a synchronizing alternating current motor) the armatures of which are mounted upon the same shaft; switching circuit directing the alternating current or currents through the several circuits of one motor or the single circuit of the other.

48. 48.
Patent 0,462,418 — Method of and Apparatus for Electrical Conversion and Distribution —1891 November 3—Apparatus devised for the purpose of converting and supplying electrical energy in a form suited for the production of certain novel electrical phenomena which require currents of higher frequency and potential.

49. 49.
Patent 0,464,666 — Electro-Magnetic Motor —1891 December 8—Alternating current motor provided with two or more energizing or field circuits; one circuit connected to current source and the other (or others) in inductive relation thereto; one circuit connected to alternating currents and the other constituting high potential secondary circuit; condenser interposed in the inductive circuit.

50. 50.
Patent 0,464,667 — Electrical Condenser —1891 December 8—Electrical condenser composed of plates or armatures immersed in oil; plates or armatures can be adjustable.

51. 51.
Patent 0,487,796 — System of Electrical Transmission of Power —1892 December 13—Alternating current generator consisting of independent armature-circuits formed by conductors alternately disposed; currents developed differ in phase and the field magnet poles in excess of the number of armature-circuits; motor having independent energizing circuits connected to the armature-circuit of the alternating current generator; rotating magneto-electric machine yielding a given number of current impulses or alterations for each turn or revolution; poles which in number are less than the number of current impulses produced in each motor-circuit by one turn or revolution; multipolar alternating-current machine.

52. 52.
Patent 0,511,559 — Electrical Transmission of Power —1893 December 26—Method of operating motors having independent energizing circuits; passing alternating currents through circuits and retarding the phases of the current in one circuit to a greater extent; directing alternating currents from a single source through both circuits of a motor and varying or modifying the relative resistance or self-induction of motor circuits, producing in current differences in phases.

53. 53.
Patent 0,511,560 — System of Electrical Power Transmission —1893 December 26—Motor having independent energizing circuits connected with a source of alternating currents; means of rendering the magnetic effects to said energizing circuit of difference phase; armature within the influence of the energizing circuit; energizing circuits connected in derivation or multiple arc and of different active or variable resistance (or self-inductance); pairs of mains connected and a multiple circuit differential phase; change of time-period of currents passing through an electro-motive phase-changing device interposed between the mains and the destination; includes a correction.

54. 54.
Patent 0,511,915 — Electrical Transmission of Power —1894 January 2—Method of operating electro-magnetic motors; passing alternating currents through one of the energizing circuits and inducing by such current in the other energizing circuit or circuits of the motor.

55. 55.
Patent 0,511,916 — Electric Generator —1894 January 2—Combination with the piston or equivalent element of an engine which is free to reciprocate under the action thereon of steam or a gas under pressure, of the moving conductor or element of an electric generator in direct mechanical connection; engine and generator being adjusted by their relative adjustment with respect to period to produce currents of constant period; electric generator having inducing or induced elements one of which is capable of oscillation in the field of force, the movable element being carried by the piston rod of the engine; relation as to respect of period of electrical vibration will not disturb the period of the engine; cylinder and piston reciprocating by steam or gas under pressure of a spring maintained in vibration by the movement of the piston, and the electric generator, the movable conductor or element of which is connected with the piston; method of constructing and adapting elements; imparting the oscillation of an engine to the moving element of an electric generator and regulating the period of mechanical oscillation by adjustment of the reaction of the electric generator.

56. 56.
Patent 0,512,340 — Coil for Electro-Magnets —1894 January 9—Effect of mutual relations of self-induction exploited; adjacent coil convolutions formed parts exist so that the potential difference is sufficient to neutralize negative effects; object to avoid expensive, cumbersome, and difficult condensers; bifilar coil winding technique.

57. 57.
Patent 0,514,167 — Electrical Conductor —1894 February 6—Prevent loss in line conductors; insulate and encase conductors with a sheathing which is connected to the ground; sheath or screen.

58. 58.
Patent 0,514,168 — Means for Generating Electric Currents —1894 February 6—Generating and utilizing electrical energy; related to US454622 and US462418; maintenance of intermittent or oscillatory discharges of a condenser of suitable circuit containing translating devices; discharges take place in insulating liquids (such as oil); varying spark gap distances; keep circulating flow in liquid; illustrates preferred manner.

59. 59.
Patent 0,514,169 — Reciprocating Engine —1894 February 6—Provide a means of engines that, under applied forces such as elastic tension of steam or gas under pressure, will yield constant oscillatory movements (within wide limits); function is constant irrespective of loads, frictional losses, or other factors (which degrade other engines); convert pressure into mechanical power; better at higher temperatures and pressures than previous engines; same principles of this engine appear later in the modern gasoline motors of automobiles; often cited by enthusiasts as a version of the “earthquake machine.”

60. 60.
Patent 0,514,170 — Incandescent Electric Light —1894 February 6—Related to US454622; incandescent electric lamps; particular forms of the lamp in which a light giving small body or button of refractory material is supported by a conductor entering a very highly exhausted globe or receiver; conducting screen surrounds the supporting conductor; single node vacuum tube.

61. 61.
Patent 0,514,972 — Electric Railway System —1894 February 20—Utilizes high potentials and high frequencies; insulated and screened supply conductor along the line of travel; induction bar or plate in inductive relation to the screened conductor and an electrical connection to the motor.

62. 62.
Patent 0,514,973 — Electrical Meter —1894 February 20—Method of measuring the amount of electrical energy expended in a given time in an electric circuit of alternating currents; high tension discharge through a rarefied gas between two conductors; computing from the amount of the particles thrown off from the conductors or one of the same by action of the discharge of the energy expended; primary coil in series with a translating device; high tension secondary; two carbon conductors sealed in an exhausted receiver and coated with an insulating material on three sides, one terminal of each conductor being connected to a terminal of a secondary.

63. 63.
Patent 0,517,900 — Steam Engine —1894 April 10—Cylinder and reciprocating piston (with a spring) and controlling slide valve of an engine adapted to be operated by steam or a gas system under pressure of an independently controlled engine of constant period operating the said valve.

64. 64.
Patent 0,524,426 — Electromagnetic Motor —1894 August 14—Alternating current motor with energizing coils adapted to be connected with an external circuit of cores of different magnetic susceptibility so as to exhibit differences of magnetic phase under the influence of an energizing current; rotary armature of magnetic poles and coils adapted to be connected with the external circuit surrounding the same; cores constructed of different size, length, mass, or material whereby their magnetic phase will differ in time.

65. 65.
Patent 0,555,190 — Alternating Motor —1896 February 25—Related to US381968 and US382280; mode and plan of operating electric dynamic motor generators by progressive shifting; magneto-electric machine; dynamo motor conversion with two independent alternating current circuits; transmission of energy; rotating magnetic field principles.

66. 66.
Patent 0,567,818 — Electrical Condenser —1896 September 15—Condenser constructed or provided with means for exclusion of air or gas; armature composed of a conducting liquid; armatures in two separate bodies of conducting liquid insulated electrically and contained in a receptacle; insulating liquid seal on the surface of the conductive liquids.

67. 67.
Patent 0,568,176 — Apparatus for Producing Electrical Currents of High Frequency and Potential —1896 September 22—Conversion of direct current into currents of high frequency; combination of high self-inductance circuit, choking coil circuit controllers adapted to make and break the circuit, a condenser into which the back-electro motive force discharges when interrupted, and a transformer through the primary of which the condenser discharges; motor for driving the controller; ‘current of high electromotive force (voltage) which is induced at each break of the main circuit (back-electro motive force) furnishes the proper current for charging the condenser (capacitor)’.

68. 68.
Patent 0,568,177 — Apparatus for Producing Ozone —1896 September 22—Primarily provides a simple, cheap, and effective apparatus for the production of ozone (or such gases); obtained by the action of high-tension electrical discharges; related to US462418 (November 3, 1891) and US454622 (June 23, 1891); in combination with a low self-induction and resistance circuit of direct currents, of a controller for making and breaking the same, a series-wound motor included in or connected with the charging-circuit and driving the controller; a condenser around the point of interruption in a circuit around the controller, and a transformer through the primary of which the condenser discharges (producing the potential necessary for such primary discharge and the coil raises the potential of such discharge) and which is in the discharge-circuit of the condenser; device for maintaining a current of air between the discharge-surface; a fan-motor (maintaining a current of air between the discharge-surfaces) is connected with the charging circuit.

69. 69.
Patent 0,568,178 — Method of Regulating Apparatus for Producing Electric Currents of High Frequency —1896 September 22. It consists of a supply-side circuit whose current is diverted into a charging circuit of high self-induction, a condenser (charged by the supply circuit), another circuit (with low self-induction) which the same discharges through (and raises the potential of the condenser), and means for controlling the charging and the discharging of same, the said method consisting in varying the relation of the varying frequencies of the impulses in the circuit comprising the system.

70. 70.
Patent 0,568,179 — Method of and Apparatus for Producing Currents of High Frequency —1896 September 22. Method for producing electric currents of high frequency, which consists in generating an alternating current, charging a condenser thereby during determinate intervals of each wave of said current, and discharging the condenser through a circuit of low self-induction; combination with a source of alternating current, a condenser, a circuit-controller adapted to direct the current during determinate intervals of each wave into the condenser for charging the same, and a circuit of low self-induction into which the condenser discharges; combination with a source of alternating current, a synchronous motor operated thereby, a charging-circuit in which the energy of said current is stored, a circuit-controller operated by the motor and adapted to interrupt the charging-circuit through the motor at determinate points in each wave, a condenser connected with the motor-circuit and adapted on the interruption of the same to receive the accumulated energy stored therein, and a circuit into which the condenser discharges.

71. 71.
Patent 0,568,180 — Apparatus for Producing Electrical Currents of High Frequency —1896 September 22—an isochronous mechanical break. Patent covers possible variations within Tesla’s wireless systems; a combination with a source of alternating current, of a condenser adapted to be charged thereby, a circuit into which the condenser discharges in a series of rapid impulses and in synchronism with the source, and a circuit-controller for effecting the charge and discharge of said condenser, composed of a set of sub-divided conductors (a pair of angularly adjustable terminal and two or more rotating conductors) moveable into and out of proximity with each other, whereby a spark may be maintained between them and the circuit closed thereby during determined intervals.

72. 72.
Patent 0,577,670 — Apparatus for Producing Electric Currents of High Frequency —1897 February 23. Two input circuits are each pulsed with a 25 % duty cycle. Additionally, the brushes are phased so that the ON states (discharges) never overlap. The output circuit has a toggled 50 % output duty cycle, double the duration of the input pulse. Resultant back-electro motive force is rectified to capacitors and fed through a Tesla coil to a load.

73. 73.
0,577,671 — Manufacture of Electrical Condensers , Coils and Similar Devices —1897 February 23—Improvements of condensers, transformers, self-induction coils, rheostats, and other similar devices; used in areas where currents of high potentials are brought into close proximity; method of excluding gas or air from the dielectric environment of such devices; insulated material rendered fluid by heat; material permeated the interstices of device and held under pressure; material cooled and solidified under pressure.

74. 74.
Patent 0,583,953 — Apparatus for Producing Currents of High Frequency —1897 June 8—Related to US568176; conversion of electric current of ordinary character into high frequency and high potential; can use either continuous (i.e., direct) or alternating currents.

75. 75.
Patent 0,593,138 — Electrical Transformer —1897 November 2—Novel form of transformer or induction coil and a system for the transmission of electrical energy by means of the same; improvement of electrical transformers; develops electric currents of high potential; corrects construction principles heretofore manufactured; higher potential for transmission than has ever been practically employed heretofore; free from the danger of injury from the destruction of insulation; safe to handle; high-frequency power supply for lighting and other applications.

76. 76.
Patent 0,609,245 — Electrical Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A circuit controller (see also 609245, 609246, 609247, 609250, 609251, 611719); conductive fluid make and break circuit; nozzle and conductor construction and their relative method of operation; single source of power for operation; nozzle and receptacle interaction; combination of rotating receptacle and motor, a magnetic body in receptacle, and an exterior mounted magnetic body.

77. 77.
Patent 0,609,246 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A circuit controller (see also 609245, 609246, 609247, 609250, 609251, 611719); conductive fluid make and break circuit; conductive liquid forming terminals; two orifices with relative movement that can direct jets or streams; two insulated compartments; jets or streams are brought into intermittent contact.

78. 78.
Patent 0,609,247 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A “circuit controller in which an independently mounted terminal operated in a similar manner by a rotating body of conducting fluid may be enclosed within a gas-tight receptacle”; conductive fluid make and break circuit; a combination of a closed receptacle containing a fluid, a method to rotate said receptacle, a mounted support, means for opposing or preventing the mount’s movement in the same direction of the receptacle, and a terminal conductor in the support; terminal capable of rotating about its axis or provided with rotating contacts; fluid comprises the opposite terminal; eccentric weight to a spindle; rotating terminal connected with spindle; receptacle mounted to rotate about an axis inclined to the vertical; spindle inside receptacle; weighted armature; fluid is displace by centrifugal force.

79. 79.
Patent 0,609,248 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A circuit controller (see also 609245, 609246, 609247, 609250, 609251, 611719) in which one terminal body moves through jets or streams intermittently and intercepts jets or streams; conductive fluids make and break circuit; rotary conductor; one terminal body moves through jets or streams intermittently and intercepts jets or streams; one rigid terminal receives directed jets or streams; combination in a receptacle of a conducting disk and an insulated disk; stationary tube or duct to direct jets or streams toward the conductor across the path of intermittent projections.

80. 80.
Patent 0,609,249 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A circuit controller (see also 609245, 609246, 609247, 609250, 609251, 611719); conductive fluids make and break circuit; combination in a circuit controller with a closed rotary receptacle, of a rigid conductor mounted in the same and through which the circuit is intermittently established, and means for directing a jet of stream of a fluid which is contained in the receptacle, against the said body so as to effect its rotation independently of the receptacle; rotary receptacle of a body or part mounted within the receptacle and concentrically mounted therewith, a conducting-terminal supported by said body and capable of rotation of the receptacle so as to oppose, by gyroscopic action, the rotation of the support, and means for directing a jet of conducting fluid against said terminal; a rotary receptacle of a support for a conductor mounted thereon concentrically with the receptacle and a gyrostatic disk carried by the support and adapted, when rotating, to oppose its movement in the direction of the rotation of the receptacle.

81. 81.
Patent 0,609,250 — Electrical Igniter for Gas Engines —1898 August 16—Ignition system principles used today in automobiles; operation of a machine that requires a spark, flame, or any other similar effect; more certain and satisfactory for use of and control by the machine or apparatus; charging and discharging a condenser through switch or commutator.

82. 82.
Patent 0,609,251 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 August 16—A circuit controller; circuit comprising, in combination, a receptacle containing fluid, means for rotating the receptacle, and a terminal supported independently of the receptacle and adapted to make and break electric connections; receptacle contains a conductive and non-conductive fluid; means of rotating the receptacle; terminal adapted to make and break electrical connection with the conductive fluid within or under the non-conductive fluid.

83. 83.
Patent 0,611,719 — Electrical Circuit Controller —1898 October 4—A circuit controller; conductive fluid make and break circuit; combination of a closed receptacle, of a circuit controller contained therein, and surrounded by an inert medium under pressure; method of maintaining an inert atmosphere under pressure; vessel containing a liquefied inert gas and method of communicating with the interior of the receptacle; one terminal is of a conductive fluid (such as mercury); combination of conductors of series of conductors constituting one terminal of a circuit controller, means of maintaining a stream or jet of conductive fluid as the other terminal with which the conductor makes intermittent contact; close receptacle containing terminal; method of excluding oxygen from terminals; motive device for rotating conductors; force-pump in direct connection with conductor for maintaining a circulation of conducting fluid contained in the receptacle through the nozzle or nozzles; rotating screw with conductor and extending into a well in which the fluid collects; duct or ducts leading from the well to points from which the fluid will be direct against the rotating conductor; magnetic core mounted on spindle.

84. 84.
Patent 0,613,735 — Electric Circuit Controller —1898 November 8—A circuit controller; conductive fluids make and break circuit; combination with rigid and fluid conductors adapted to be brought intermittently into contact with each other; means for imparting rotary motion to rigid and fluid conductors; means to rotate by the movement of a fluid conductor.

85. 85.
Patent 0,613,809 — Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles —1898 July 1—Art of controlling the movements and operation of a vessel or vehicle at a distance; electromagnetic waves conveyed to vessel by natural media and rendering by their means the controlling-circuit active or inactive; new and useful improvements in methods of and apparatus for controlling from a distance; solution for controlling from a given point the operation of mechanisms; no intermediate wires, cables, or other form of electrical or mechanical connection with the object save the natural media in space; explanation of most practical and effectual method and apparatus; remote control ( also known as the Tesla ‘ boat patent ’).

86. 86.
Patent 0,645,576 — System of Transmission of Electrical Energy —1900 March 20— Wireless transmission of electric power ; this wireless power transmission scheme consists of transmitting power between two tethered balloons maintained at 30,000 feet.

87. 87.
Patent 0,649,621 — Apparatus for Transmission of Electrical Energy —1900 May 15—Related to US645576; new and useful combinations employed; transmitting coil or conductor arranged and excited to cause currents or oscillation to propagate through conduction through the natural medium from one point to another remote point therefrom and a receiver coil or conductor of the transmitted signals; production of currents of very high potential; transmitting station and receiving station.

88. 88.
Patent 0,655,838 — Method of Insulating Electric Conductors —1900 October 23—Method and practical application of insulation by freezing and solidification; improvements in the method set out by Faraday; method of insulating electrical conductors which consist in surrounding or supporting said conductors by a material which acquires insulating properties when frozen or solidified; method of maintaining a conductor within a gaseous cooling agent by the continuous application of said agent; trough or conduit with circulating cooling agents.

89. 89.
Patent 0,685,012 — Means for Increasing the Intensity of Electrical Oscillations —1900 March 21—A method for producing a ‘ great increase in the intensity and duration of the ( electrical ) oscillations excited in a freely-vibrating or resonating circuit by maintaining the same at a low temperature ’; producing increase intensity and duration of electric oscillations; combination of a circuit to possess freely vibrating excitations and of means for artificially cooling the circuit to a low temperature; low-temperature resonating circuit; uses of electrical impulse oscillations; a circuit upon which oscillations are impressed and which is adapted to vibrate freely, in combination with a receptacle containing an artificial refrigerant in which the circuit is immersed; low-resistance oscillators in a series of transmitting and receiving circuits in a system for the transmission of energy.

90. 90.
Patent 0,685,953 — Apparatus for Utilizing Effects Transmitted from a Distance to a Receiving Device through Natural Media —1901 November 5—Transmitting station coil arranged and excited to cause arbitrary or intermitted oscillation propagation to another remote point receiver station coil; air is an excellent insulator; air strata used for means of conduction for production of generating actions at a distance; use of metallic conductor; transmitting apparatus of signals or intelligence should produce effect as strong as possible; charge a condenser or capacitor to utilize the potential energy.

91. 91.
Patent 0,685,954 — Method of Utilizing Effects Transmitted through Natural Media —1901 November 5—Utilizing effects or disturbances transmitted through natural media, which consists in charging a storage device with energy from an independent source, controlling the charging of said device by the actions of the effects or disturbances (during succeeding intervals of time determined by means of such effects and disturbances corresponding in succession and duration of the effects and disturbances), and coincidentally using the stored energy for operating a receiving device; independent source may be at a distant transmitting electrical energy; receiving device circuit discharges the accumulated stored energy (which may be potential energy) and causing variations in resistance in a circuit including an independent source of electricity and a storage device; effecting the storage (such as in a condenser) during any desired time interval and under control of such effects of disturbances; accumulated energy may operate a transformer (by discharging through a primary circuit at predetermined times) which, from the secondary currents, operate the receiving device.

92. 92.
Patent 0,685,955 — Apparatus for Utilizing Effects Transmitted from A Distance to A Receiving Device through Natural Media —1901 November 5—An apparatus for transmitting signals or intelligence through natural media from a sending station to a distant point; combination of a generator or transmitter adapted to produce arbitrarily varied or intermittent electrical disturbances or effects in natural media, and for utilizing electrical effects or disturbances transmitted through natural media; combination with a source of such effects of disturbances of a charging circuit adapted to be energized by the action of such effects or disturbances, between which a difference of potential is created by such effects or disturbances, a storage device included in the charging-circuit and adapted to be charged thereby, a receiver, a means for commutating, directing, or selecting the current impulses in the charging circuit so as to render them suitable for charging the storage device, a device for closing the receiving circuit, means for causing the receiver to be operated by the energy accumulated in the storage device at arbitrary intervals of time when connecting the receiving circuit with the storage device for periods of time predetermined as to succession and duration, and means for discharging the storage device through the receiving circuit at arbitrary intervals of time.

93. 93.
Patent 0,685,956 — Apparatus for Utilizing Effects Transmitted through Natural Media —1901 November 5—An apparatus for transmitting signals or intelligence through natural media from a sending station to a distant point; combination of a generator or transmitter adapted to produce arbitrarily varied or intermittent electrical disturbances or effects in the natural media; combination of a source of electricity, a transformer, a device normally of high resistance but adapted to have its resistance reduced when acted upon by effects or disturbances, with a receiving circuit connected to a condenser and a receiver adapted to open and close the receiving circuit at predetermined intervals of time.

94. 94.
Patent 0,685,957 — Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy —1901 November 5—Four illustrations; radiation charging and discharging conductors; radiations considered vibrations of ether of small wavelengths and ionize the atmosphere; radiant energy throws off with great velocity minute particles which are strongly electrified; rays or radiation falling on insulated conductor connected to a condenser (i.e., a capacitor), the condenser indefinitely charges electrically; radiation (or radiant energy) include many different forms; related to US 577671; transmitted or natural energy can be used.

95. 95.
Patent 0,685,958 — Method of Utilizing of Radiant Energy —1901 November 5—Two illustrations; ways of using radiation charging and discharging conductors; rays or radiation falling on insulated conductor connected to a condenser (i.e., a capacitor), the condenser indefinitely charges electrically; radiation (or radiant energy) include many different forms; related to US 577671; photoelectric stepping alternating current motors.

96. 96.
Patent 0,723,188 — Method of Signalling —1903 March 17—Elevated transmitter capacitance; coil; earth electrode; signal generator.

97. 97.
Patent 0,725,605 — System of Signalling —1903 April 14—Elevated transmitter capacitance; coil; earth electrode; signal generator; apparatus of and method for electrical disturbance or impulses; transmission of intelligent messages via wireless transmission; govern the movement of distant automata.

98. 98.
Patent 0,787,412 —— Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy through Natural Media —1905 April 18—Elevated transmitter capacitance; coil; earth electrode; signal generator; apparatus for generating and receiving electrical signals; tuned resonant circuits; physics of propagation; non-Hertzian nodes; globe as conductor.

99. 99.
Patent 1,061,142 — Fluid Propulsion —1909 October 21—Transmission and transformation of mechanical power through the agency of fluid; propelled fluid moves in a natural path; avoids losses.

100. 100.
Patent 1,061,206 — Turbine —1909 October 21—Improvements in rotary engines and turbines; mechanical power based on the vehicle of fluid for power; utilizes boundary-layer effect; fluid does not impact the blades as in a conventional turbine.

101. 101.
Patent 1,113,716 — Fountain —1914 October 13—Improvement in the construction of fountains and aquarium displays; large mass of fluid in motion; display of great power; large displacement of fluid with little expense of energy.

102. 102.
Patent 1,119,732 — Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy —1914 December 1—High-voltage, air-core, self-regenerative resonant transformer; oscillator for wireless transmission of electromagnetic energy.

103. 103.
Patent 1,209,359 — Speed Indicator —1916 December 19—Improvement that uses the adhesion and viscosity of a gaseous medium [preferably air] to measure speed [or measure the torque transmission] between indicator and driver.

104. 104.
Patent 1,266,175 — Lightning-Protector —1918 May 14—Novel and advantageous construction of a protector in accordance with the true character of the phenomena; corrects Benjamin Franklin’s hypothesis, and subsequent construction, for lightning protectors.

105. 105.
Patent 1,274,816 — Speed Indicator —1918 August 6—Speedometer that possesses the feature of linearly proportional torque readings; strong low speed torsional effects; not affected by atmospheric density, temperature, or magnetic influences.

106. 106.
Patent 1,314,718 — Ship ’ s Log —1919 September 2—Novel and advantageous construction of a ship’s log; instantaneous reading of knots or miles per hour.

107. 107.
Patent 1,329,559 — Valvular Conduit —1920 February 3—Improvement by means of a conduit or channel characterized by valvular action; conduit has baffles, recesses, projections, enlargements, or buckets that channels the flow’s movement one way more efficiently; mechanical diode; one-way valve with no moving parts.

108. 108.
Patent 1,365,547 — Flow Meter —1921 January 11—Related to the meter of measurement for velocity and quantity of fluid flow.

109. 109.
Patent 1,402,025 — Frequency Meter —1922 January 3—Ascertains the periodic electric frequency and electric oscillation by the rotation or reciprocation of an electromechanical device.

110. 110.
Patent 1,655,113 — Method of Aerial Transportation —1928 January 3—Describes a method of achieved vertical take-off, transition to and from horizontal flight, and vertical landing, with a tilting rotor; including transportation which consists in developing by the propelling device a vertical thrust in excess of the normal, causing thereby the machine to rise in an approximately vertical direction, tilting it and simultaneously increasing the power of the motor and thereby the propeller thrust, then gradually reducing the propeller thrust as forward speed is gained and the plane takes up the load, thus maintaining the lifting force sensibly constant during flight, tilting the machine back to its original position and at the same time increasing the power if the motor and thrust of the propeller and effecting a landing under the restraining action of the same.

111. 111.
Patent 1,655,114 — Apparatus for Aerial Transportation —1928 January 3—VTOL aircraft; includes a correction.

U.K.

1. 1.
GB1877 — Improvements in Electric Lamps —1886 February 9

2. 2.
GB2801 — Improvements in Reciprocating Engines and Means for Regulating the Period of the Same —1894 February 8

3. 3.
GB2812 — Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for the Generation of Electric Currents of Defined Period —1894 February 8

4. 4.
GB2975 — Improvements in Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 March 2

5. 5.
GB6481 — Improvements Relating to the Electrical Transmission of Power and to Apparatus therefore —1888 May 1

6. 6.
GB6502 — Improvements Relating to the Generation and Distribution of Electric Currents and to Apparatus therefore —1888 May 1

7. 7.
GB6527 — Improvements Relating to Electro-Motors —1889 April 16

8. 8.
GB8200 — Improvements Relating to the Transmission of Electrical Energy —1905 April 17

9. 9.
GB8575 — Improved Methods of and Apparatus for Generating and Utilizing Electric Energy for Lighting Purposes —1891 May 19

10. 10.
GB11293 — Improvements Relating to the Utilization of Electromagnetic , Light , or other like Radiations Effects or Disturbances transmitted through the Natural Media and to Apparatus therefore —1901 June 1

11. 11.
GB11473 — Improvements in Alternating Current Electro-magnetic Motors —1891 July 6

12. 12.
GB12866 — Improvements in Electrical Circuit Controllers —1898 June 8

13. 13.
GB13563 — Improvements in , and relating to , the Transmission of Electrical Energy —1901 July 3

14. 14.
GB14550 — Improvements relating to the Insulation of Electric Conductors —1900 August 14

15. 15.
GB14579 — Improvements in and relating to the Transmission of Electrical Energy —1901 July 17

16. 16.
GB16709 — Improvements relating to the Conversion of Alternating into Direct Electric Currents —1889 October 22

17. 17.
GB19420 — Improvements in Alternating Current Electro-magnetic Motors —1889 December 3

18. 18.
GB19426 — Improvements in the Construction and Mode of Operating Alternating Current Motors —1889 December 3

19. 19.
GB20981 — Improvements relating to the Production , Regulation , and Utilization of Electric Currents of High Frequency , and to Apparatus therefore —1896 September 22

20. 20.
GB24001 — Improved Method of Imparting Energy to or Deriving Energy from a Fluid and Apparatus for use therein —1910 October 17—Bladeless turbine having disc rotors; openings in the central portions and separating star-washers; riveted into single, solid structure; keyed to the shaft; turbine or rotary engine.

21. 21.
GB24421 — Improvements in Systems for the Transmission of Electrical Energy and Apparatus for use therein —1897 October 21

22. 22.
GB26371 — Improvements in the Method of and Apparatus for Controlling the Mechanism of Floating Vessels or Moving Vehicles —1898 December 13

23. 23.
GB174544 — Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for the Generation of Power by Elastic Fluid Turbines —1921 April 1

24. 24.
GB179043 — Improved Process of and Apparatus for Production of High Vacua —1921 March 24

25. 25.
GB185446 — Method of and Apparatus for Aerial Transportation —1921 April 4

26. 26.
GB186082 — Improvements in the Construction of Steam and Gas Turbines —1921 March 24—Two heavier end-plates; tapered toward the periphery; reduces maximum centrifugal stress; Turbine.

27. 27.
GB186083 — Improved Method of and Apparatus for the Economic Transformation of the Energy of Steam by Turbines —1921 March 24—Improvements to increase efficiency of steam power plants and thermo-dynamic transformers; producing motive power; economical; operable at very high temperature; operable with cheap fuel; avoids deteriorating actions previously common; system is related to the Tesla turbine.

28. 28.
GB186084 — Improved Process of and Apparatus for Deriving Motive Power from Steam —1921 March 24

29. 29.
GB186799 — Process of and Apparatus for Balancing Rotating Machine Parts —1921 September 2

Canada

1. 1.
CA24033— Improvements in Dynamo Electric Machines —1886 April 24

2. 2.
CA24348 — Electric Arc Lamp —1886 June 18

3. 3.
CA29537 — Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for the Electrical Transmission of Power —1888 May 1

4. 4.
CA30172 — Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for Converting and Distributing Electric Currents —1888 May 1

5. 5.
CA33317 — Improvements in Methods and Apparatus for Converting Alternating into Direct Currents —1889 December 19

6. 6.
CA135174 — Improvements in Fluid Propulsion —1910 November 24—Tesla Pump

7. 7.
CA142352 — Improvement in the Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Media —1906 April 17

France

1. 1.
FR354791 — Perfectionnements à la transmission de l ’ énergie électrique —1905 October 12

2. 2.
FR421543 — Procédé et appareils pour la production et l ’ utilisation de la force motrice au moyen de fluides —1911 February 24

3. 3.
FR515388 — Perfectionnements aux fontaines —1921 March 31

4. 4.
FR540616 — Conduite faisant fonction de valve —1922 July 13

5. 5.
FR540617 — Perfectionnements aux paratonnerres —1922 July 13

6. 6.
FR541113 — Procédé et appareil pour équilibrer les pièces tournantes des machines —1922 July 22

7. 7.
FR549259 — Procédé et appareils pour la transformation économique de l ’ énergie de la vapeur au moyen de turbines —1923 February 6

8. 8.
FR549260 — Procédé et appareil pour l ’ utilisation de la vapeur comme force motrice —1923 February 6

9. 9.
FR549261 — Procédé et appareil pour la production d ’ un vide élevé —1923 February 6

10. 10.
FR549628 — Procédé et appareil pour transports aériens —1923 February 15

Spain

1. 1.
ES23742 — Mejoras en el sistema de gobierno del mecanismo de recipientes o barcos flotantes o vehículos móviles por medio de los aparatos que se describen —1899 January 31

2. 2.
ES26430 — Mejoras en el aislamiento de conductores eléctricos —1900 August 14

3. 3.
ES26801 — Mejoras en el aislamiento de conductores eléctricos —1900 November 6

4. 4.
ES49122 — Mejoras introducidas en los motores actuados por fluidos —1910 October 21

5. 5.
ES81244 — Un procedimiento , con su aparato correspondiente para la obtención de fuerza motriz por medio de turbinas de fluidos elásticos. —1922 March 31

6. 6.
ES81253 — Un método , con su aparato correspondiente para transportes aéreos —1922 April 3

Appendix B: List of Patents of Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt ( Author’ s Note : As Currently Found )

( Extracted from Espacenet : https://www.worldwide.espacenet.com )

1. Diaphragm adapted to receive and produce sound.

Inventor:

CAMPBELL TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS

Applicant:

CPC:

H04R7/00

IPC:

H04R7/00

Publication info:

US1454913 (A)1923-05-15

Priority date:

1919-07-08

2. SOUND-DIRECTING APPLIANCE.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04R1/30

IPC:

Publication info:

US1276287 (A)1918-08-20

Priority date:

1915-05-12

3. MICROPHONE.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04R1/083

IPC:

Publication info:

US1235510 (A)1917-07-31

Priority date:

1915-03-27

4. RELAY FOR UNDULATORY CURRENTS.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H01J5/12

IPC:

Publication info:

US1212163 (A)1917-01-09

Priority date:

1916-10-19

5. Sound-directing Appliances for use with Telephones and Microphones.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R13/00

IPC:

H04R13/00

Publication info:

GB191506647 (A)1916-05-04

Priority date:

1914-05-20

6. Microphone.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04R21/021

IPC:

H04R21/02

Publication info:

GB191505174 (A)1915-10-07

Priority date:

1914-04-09

7. Transmission of Sound Waves.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04R1/42

IPC:

H04R1/42

Publication info:

GB191504912 (A)1915-07-29

Priority date:

1914-03-30

8. Improvements in or relating to synchronism apparatus.

Inventor:

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

H02P5/48

IPC:

H02P5/48

Publication info:

GB167500 (A)1922-11-06

Priority date:

1920-08-07

9. Diaphragm for Reception and Reproduction of Sound.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04R7/00

IPC:

H04R7/00

Publication info:

GB130600 (A)1920-07-22

Priority date:

1918-07-26

10. Improvements relating to the Combined use of Kinematographs and Talking Machines.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

G11B15/18

IPC:

G11B15/18

Publication info:

GB100748 (A)1919-03-20

Priority date:

1915-06-22

11. Dispositif pour enregistrement d'ondes sonores.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPRELL  [DK]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

FR520067 (A)1921-06-20

Priority date:

1914-08-01

12. Appareil phonétique et cinématographe.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

G03B31/00

IPC:

G03B31/00

Publication info:

FR520066 (A)1921-06-20

Priority date:

1914-07-01

13. Dispositif de translation d'ondes sonores par voie électrique.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

G11B5/00

IPC:

G11B5/00

Publication info:

FR520065 (A)1921-06-20

Priority date:

1914-04-22

14. Microphone.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R21/026

IPC:

H04R21/02

Publication info:

FR519035 (A)1921-06-03

Priority date:

1918-11-08

15. Procédé et appareil pour la transmission de signaux, conversations et autres communications.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTED ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04K1/06

IPC:

H04K1/06

Publication info:

FR507417 (A)1920-09-15

Priority date:

1918-10-10

16. Membres adaptée pour recevoir et reproduire le son.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R7/00

IPC:

H04R7/00

Publication info:

FR501902 (A)1920-04-29

Priority date:

1918-07-26

17. Téléphone.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R25/60 H04R25/65

IPC:

H04R25/02

Publication info:

FR493429 (A)1919-08-08

Priority date:

1917-03-31

18. Microphone.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R21/021

IPC:

H04R21/02

Publication info:

FR488251 (A)1918-09-17

Priority date:

1916-09-26

19. Relais pour courants ondulatoires.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H01J17/56

IPC:

H01J17/56

Publication info:

FR483162 (A)1917-06-06

Priority date:

1916-10-13

20. Dispositif d'enregistrement et de reproduction simultanés de vues animées et de sons.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

G03B31/00

IPC:

G03B31/00

Publication info:

FR482039 (A)1917-02-13

Priority date:

1915-06-22

21. Disposition de diaphragme.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R13/02

IPC:

H04R13/02

Publication info:

FR478725 (A)1916-01-05

Priority date:

1914-05-20

22. Microphone.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

CPC:

H04R21/026

IPC:

H04R21/02

Publication info:

FR478162 (A)1915-11-26

Priority date:

1914-04-09

23. Hörtelefon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H04R25/00 (IPC1-7): H04R25/00

Publication info:

FI7029 (A)1918-09-03

Priority date:

24. Högtalande telefon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNU CAMPBELL  [FI]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H04R11/02 (IPC1-7): H04R11/02

Publication info:

FI6748 (A)1917-09-06

Priority date:

25. Tillvägagångssätt och anordning för överfäring av hörbara toners ljudvågar.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [FI]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H04R23/00 (IPC1-7): H04R23/00

Publication info:

FI6596 (A)1917-03-14

Priority date:

26. Strömbrytare avsedd att på avstånd förse strömfarbrukande anläggningar med elektrisk ström.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [FI]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H01H3/28 (IPC1-7): H01H3/28

Publication info:

FI6565 (A)1917-01-18

Priority date:

27. Strömbrytare för elektriska anläggningar.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [FI]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H01H3/28 (IPC1-7): H01H3/28

Publication info:

FI6564 (A)1917-01-18

Priority date:

28. Telefonanläggning.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DE]

Applicant:

CPC:

IPC:

H04R23/00 (IPC1-7): H04R23/00

Publication info:

FI5732 (A)1914-04-30

Priority date:

29. Anordning ved Telegrafoner og lignende.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUSCAMPBEL [FI]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK30163 (C)1922-09-04

Priority date:

1920-03-31

30. Anordning til at vise, hvorvidt to eller flere Legemers Bevägelser foregaar synkront.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK30145 (C)1922-08-28

Priority date:

1920-05-25

31. Fremgangsmaade og Apparat til Overförelse af Signaler, Telegraftegn og lignende.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK29737 (C)1922-06-12

Priority date:

1919-11-05

32. Röntgenrör med Polarisator.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK29419 (C)1922-04-10

Priority date:

1920-03-31

33. Fremgangsmaade og Apparat til Overförelse af Signaler, Tale' og andre Meddelelser.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK29064 (C)1921-12-27

Priority date:

1919-10-16

34. Mikrofon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK26572 (C)1920-09-06

Priority date:

1918-11-08

35. Membran, särlig til Höre- og Taleapparater.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK26438 (C)1920-08-16

Priority date:

1918-08-22

36. Membran til Optagelse og Gengivelse af Lyd.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK25361 (C)1919-12-22

Priority date:

37. Fremgangsmaade og Apparat til Overförelse af Signaler, Tale og andre Meddelelser.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK25198 (C)1919-11-17

Priority date:

38. Anordning ved Lyddaaser til Talemaskiner.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK25135 (C)1919-10-13

Priority date:

39. Anordning ved Apparater til Optagelse af Magnetiseringspaavirkninger paa Telegrafontraade.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK24071 (C)1919-02-10

Priority date:

40. Höretelefon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK23432 (C)1918-08-26

Priority date:

41. Mikrofon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK22247 (C)1917-07-09

Priority date:

42. Relais for undulerende Strömme.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK22190 (C)1917-06-18

Priority date:

43. Korrespondanceafbryder til elektriske Anläg.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK22143 (C)1917-05-21

Priority date:

44. Lommetelefon og -mikrofon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK22091 (C)1917-04-30

Priority date:

45. Fremgangsmaade til Overförelse af Signaler ved Hjälp af Lydbölger med höjt Svingningstal.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK22008 (C)1917-03-19

Priority date:

46. Reguleringsanordning for Detektorer til Optagelse af undersöiske Lydsignaler.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK21912 (C)1917-02-19

Priority date:

47. Anordning ved Detektorer for Lydbölger.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK21911 (C)1917-02-19

Priority date:

48. Anordning ved Membraner til höjttalende Telefoner.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK21902 (C)1917-02-12

Priority date:

49. Anordning ved Membraner til Talemaskiner.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK21420 (C)1916-08-07

Priority date:

1914-05-20

50. Mikrofon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK21072 (C)1916-03-06

Priority date:

1914-04-09

51. Fremgangsmaade og Apparat til Overförelse af Lydbölger.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUSCAMPBEL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUSCAMPBEL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

DK20904 (C)1916-01-17

Priority date:

1914-03-30

52. Telephon, das nebst Membran und Magnetsystem in den Gehoergang hineingesetzt wird.

Inventor:

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

H04R25/60 H04R25/65

IPC:

H04R11/06 H04R25/00

Publication info:

DE350498 (C)1922-03-22

Priority date:

1917-03-31

53. Einrichtung zur Feststellung des Synchronismus und der Phasendifferenz zweier Bewegungen.

Inventor:

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

G01P3/565

IPC:

G01P3/56

Publication info:

DE346912 (C)1922-01-10

Priority date:

1920-06-17

54. Vorrichtung zum UEbertragen von Schallwellen auf elektrischem Wege.

Inventor:

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

G11B5/00

IPC:

G11B5/00

Publication info:

DE342841 (C)1921-10-24

Priority date:

1915-04-23

55. Vorrichtung zur Wiedergabe von Wort und Bild.

Inventor:

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

G03B31/00 G03B31/04 H04N3/36

IPC:

G03B31/00 G03B31/04 H04N3/36

Publication info:

DE342840 (C)1921-10-24

Priority date:

1915-06-23

56. Verfahren und Einrichtung zum geheimen, elektrischen Übermitteln von Signalen, Gesprächen und andern Mitteilungen.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

H04K1/06

IPC:

H04K1/06

Publication info:

CH94326 (A)1922-05-01

Priority date:

1920-07-02

57. Mikrophon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

CH91735 (A)1921-11-16

Priority date:

1918-11-08

58. Kathodenstrahlrelais mit Hilfselektrode.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPbELL [DK]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

CH82154 (A)1919-09-01

Priority date:

1918-05-28

59. Hörtelephon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [DK]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

CH81983 (A)1919-08-16

Priority date:

1918-04-22

60. APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING SIGNALS.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

CA220993 (A)1922-07-18

Priority date:

61. Verfahren zur Herstellung einer Telephonmembran aus nicht magnetisierbaren Materialien und ein mit einer solchen Membran versehenes Hörtelephon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

AT87379 (B)1922-02-25

Priority date:

1917-03-31

62. Einrichtung zur Übertragung von Schallwellen auf elektrischem Wege.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

AT86962 (B)1922-01-10

Priority date:

1915-04-22

63. Mikrophon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

AT77000 (B)1919-06-25

Priority date:

1916-09-26

64. Mikrophon.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

AT73948 (B)1917-10-25

Priority date:

1914-04-09

65. Selbsttätiger Geschosszähler.

Inventor:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL [FI]

Applicant:

TIGERSTEDT ERIC MAGNUS CAMPBELL  [FI]

CPC:

IPC:

Publication info:

AT67458 (B)1915-01-11

Priority date:

1913-07-28

Bibliography

Bibliography (English): Alessandro Volta

(Extracted from ‘General Biography on Alessandro Volta, Georgia Santangel and Carla Garbarino)

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- ‘Volta’s chemical theories: the first two phases’, BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, II, pp. 1–14.

- ABETTI, P.A., “The Letters of Alessandro Volta”, ‘Electrical Engineering’, 71:9 (1952), pp. 733–76.

- ‘Volta’s validity in modern physics’, Scientia, 112 (1977), pp. 181–7. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 143

- ANDRADE MARTINS, ROBERTO DE, ‘Romagnosi and Volta’s pile: early difficulties in the interpretation of voltaic electricity, BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 81–102.

- APPLEYARD, ROLLO, ‘Alessandro Volta; les pionniers de la communication électrique’, New York: International Standard Electric Corporation, 1927.

- BACHHOFFNER, GEORGE H., ‘A popular treatise on voltaic electricity and electromagnetism; illustrated by experiments, with the mode of performing the same’, London: Simpkin, Marshall &E. Palmer, 1838.

- BARUZZI, AGOSTINO ed., ‘From Luigi Galvani to contemporary neurobiology’: [contributions to the celebration of the University of Bologna: Bologna, 27–28 September, 1988], Padova: Liviana, 1989.

- BELLODI, GIULIANO and BRENNI, PAOLO, ‘The arms of the physicist: Volta and scientific instruments’, BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 1–40.

- BENSAUDE-VINCENT, BERNADETTE, ‘Pneumatic chemistry viewed from Pavia’, BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, II, pp. 15–31.

- BERETTA, MARCO, ‘Pneumatics vs. aerial medicine’: salubrity and respirability of air at the end of the eighteenth century”, BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, II, pp. 50–71.

- BEVILACQUA, FABIO ed., 1st EPS Conference on History of physics in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries: Como, 2–3 September 1992 (1a Conferenza EPS su La storia della fisica in Europa nel 19° e 20° Secolo: Como, 2–3 Settembre 1992), Bologna: Compositori, 1993.

- BEVILACQUA, FABIO and GIANNETTO, ENRICO eds., Volta 99: bicentenary of the invention of the battery: 1. Volta and the history of electricity, 11–15 September 1999, 2. Sciences as culture, 15–19 September 1999, Villa Olmo, Como, Università di Pavia, Pavia.

- BEVILACQUA, FABIO, et al. eds., ‘Science education and culture: the contribution of history and philosophy of science’, Dodrecht; Boston; London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

- BONERA, GIANNI, ‘Alessandro Volta: l’uomo, lo scienziato, il credente’, Pavia: Publisher:

- CdG, 1999. ‘Non solo pila: Alessandro Volta filosofo naturale e ‘fisico’ sperimentale del Settecento’, Kos, 165 (1999), pp. 36–41.

- BONERA, GIANNI and GIUDICE, FRANCO, ‘Duecento anni, ma non li dimostra’, Kos, 171; Publisher: CDG, Pavia (1999).

- BONERA, GIANNI, ‘From the controversy with Galvani to the invention of the Battery’, in ‘Alessandro Volta nel bicentenario dell’invenzione della pila’, 1799–1999: atti, 2002, pp. 353–64. Publisher: CDG, pavia.

- BORDEAU, SANFORD P., ‘Volts to Hertz - the rise of electricity from the compass to the radio through the works of sixteen great men of science whose names are used in Measuring Electricity and Magnetism’, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Burgess Publishing Company, 1982.

- BOSSCHA, JOHANNES, ‘Sulle lettere scritte da Volta a van Marum’, Milano: Tip. Rebeschini, 1904 [Extract from: Rendiconti dell’Istituto lombardo, v. 37, 1908].

- BOZZI, CARLO LUIGI, ‘Il mago dell’elettricità’: Alessandro Volta, Firenze: Fonteluce edizioni Vallecchi per i ragazzi, 1951.

- BRAMBILLA, ELENA, ‘Scientific and professional education in Lombardy, 1760–1803: physics between medicine and engineering’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, I, pp. 51–99.

- CANBY, EDWARD TATNALL, ‘A history of electricity’, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963.

- CECCHINI, ROBERTO, ‘Alessandro Volta and his battery’, IEEE ‘Antennas and Propagation’ Magazine, 34 (April) (1992), pp. 30–7.

- CIARDI, MARCO, ‘Falling stars, instruments and myths: Volta and the birth of modern meteorology’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 41–51.

- DE SANTILLANA, GIORGIO, ‘Alessandro Volta: his ‘pile’ or battery, opened the age of electric power and settled his celebrated argument with Luigi Galvani’, Scientific American, 212:1 (January) (1965), pp. 82–91.

- DIBNER, BERN, ‘Galvani - Volta. A controversy that led to the discovery of useful electricity’, Norwalk, Connecticut: Burndy Library, 1952.

- ‘Ten founding fathers of the electrical science, Norwalk, Connecticut: Burndy Engineering Company, 1954.

- DIBNER, BERN ed., ‘Heralds of Science’: as represented by two hundred epochal books and pamphlets selected from the Burndy Library, Norwalk, Connecticut: Burndy Library, 1955.

- DIBNER, BERN ed., ‘Early electrical machines: the experiments and apparatus of two enquiring centuries (1600 to 1800) that led to the triumphs of the electrical age’, Norwalk, Connecticut: Burndy Library, 1957.

- DIBNER, BERN, ‘Alessandro Volta and the electric battery’, New York: Franklin Watts, 1964.

- DUBPERNELL, G. and WESTBROOK, J.H. eds., ‘Selected topics in the history of electrochemistry’, Princeton: 1978.

- FLEMING, JOHN AMBROSE SIR, ‘The centenary of the electric current, 1799–1899, New York: van Nostrand, 1899.

- FOX, ROBERT, ‘The caloric theory of gases: from Lavoisier to Regnault’, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

- FRANGSMYR, TORE, et al. eds., ‘The quantifying spirit in the eighteenth century’, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: 1990.

- FRATTEGIANI, MARIA TERESA, ‘Caratteristiche del linguaggio scientifico rintracciabili negli scritti di Galilei, Redi, Volta’, Annali dell’Università per stranieri di Perugia, n. 15 (1990), pp. 209–46.

- FREGONESE, LUCIO, ‘Two different scientific programmes: Volta’s electrology and Coulomb’s electrostatics’, in BLONDEL, CHRISTINE and DÖRRIES, MATTHIAS eds., Restaging Coulomb: usages, controverses et réplications autour de la balance de torsion, 1994, pp. 85–98.

- GHIGGINO, P., ‘Volta’s electrophorus: the first electric generator?’, GEC Review, 1 (1997), pp. 48–54.

- GILL, SIDNEY, ‘A voltaic enigma and a possible solution to it’, Annals of Science, 33:4 (1976), pp. 351–70.

- GREENSLADE, THOMAS B., ‘Apparatus for natural philosophy. Volta’s pistol’, Rittenhouse, 1:2 (1987), pp. 55–61.

- HAAS, L.F., ‘Alessandro Volta (1745–1787)’, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 63:3 (sept. 1997) (1997), p. 293.

- HACKMANN, WILLEM, ‘Alessandro Volta: the Napoleon of Science’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 65 (Jun.) (2000).

- HACKMANN, WILLEM,, ‘The enigma of Volta’s ‘contact tension’ and the development of the ‘dry pile’ , in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 103–19.

- HALL, E.H., ‘Volta’s theory of the Volta effect: a modern interpretation’, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale dei Fisici: 11–20 Settembre 1927, 5., Como-Pavia-Roma, COMITATO PER LE ONORANZE A VOLTA ed., 1928, pp. 149–58.

- HANKINS, THOMAS L., ‘Science and the Enlightenmen’t, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

- HEILBRON, JOHN L., ‘Volta, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio’, in GILLISPIE, CHARLES, COULSTON ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1976, XIV, pp. 69–82.

- HEILBRON, JOHN L., ‘Volta’s path to the battery’, in DUBPERNELL, G. and WESTBROOK, J.H. eds., ‘Selected topics in the history of electrochemistry’, Princeton: 1978, pp. 39–65.

- HEILBRON, JOHN L., ‘Electricity in the 17th and 18th centuries. A study of early modern Physics’, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

- HEILBRON, JOHN L., ‘Elements of early modern physics’, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

- HEILBRON JOHN L., ‘Weighing imponderables and other quantitative science around 1800’, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

- HEILBRON JOHN L., ‘Galvani, Volta, and the uses of centennials’, in PANCALDI, GIULIANO and BRESADOLA, MARCO eds., Luigi Galvani international workshop: Proceedings: Bologna, 9 October 1998, 1999, pp. 18–32.

- HEILBRON JOHN L., ‘Analogy in Volta’s exact natural philosophy’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, I, pp. 1–23.

- HOLMES, FREDERIC L., ‘Eighteenth-century chemistry as an investigative enterprise’: five lectures delivered at the International summer school in history of science, Bologna, August 1988, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

- HOME, RODERICK WEIR, ‘The effluvial theory of electricity’, New York: Arno Press, 1981.

- HOME, RODERICK WEIR, ‘Volta’s English connections’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, I, pp. 115–32.

- HONG, SUNGOOK, ‘Controversy over voltaic contact phenomena, 1862–1900’, Archive of History of Exact Sciences, 47 (1994), pp. 233–89.

- HUTCHISON, KEITH, ‘Forces and facts: yet another fragment of the explanation for late eighteenthcentury dynamism’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, I, pp. 25–49.

- ILES, GEORGE, ‘Flame, electricity and the camera: man’s progress from the first kindling of fire to the wireless telegraph and the photography of color’, New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900.

- INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE (14.), ‘Proceedings of the 14. International Congress of the History of Science’, 1975. GEORGIA SANTANGELO-CARLA GARBARINO

- KIPNIS, NAHUM, ‘Debating the nature of voltaic electricity, 1800–1850’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 121–51.

- KIPNIS, NAHUM, ‘Scientific controversies in teaching science: the case of Volta’, ‘Science and Education’, 10 (Jan.–Mar.) (2001), pp. 33–49.

- KIPNIS, NAHUM, ; Scientific controversies in teaching science: the case of Volta’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO, et al. eds., ‘Science education and culture: the contribution of history and philosophy of science’, 2001, pp. 255–71.

- KRAGH, HELGE, ‘Confusion and controversy: nineteenth-century theories of the voltaic pile’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, I, pp. 133–57.

- LARDNER, DIONYSIUS, Hand-book of natural philosophy and astronomy, London: Taylor, Walton and Maberly, 1851–1852.

- LEZHNEVA, OLGA, ‘Galvani and Volta: a tragic and noble duel’, Moscow: ‘Social Sciences Today’, Editorial Board, USSR Academy of Sciences, 1985.

- MAURO, ALEXANDER, ‘The role of the voltaic pile in the Galvani-Volta controversy concerning animal vs. metallic electricity’, ‘Journal of the History of Medicine’, 24 (1969), pp. 140–50.

- MAURO, ALEXANDER, ‘Italian hydraulics and experimental physics in Eighteenth-Century Holland - from Poleni to Volta’, in PALM, L.C. and MAFFIOLI, CESARE eds., ‘Italian scientists in the low countries in the 17th and 18th centuries: invited papers from the Congress held in Utrecht on 25–27 May 1988 to commemorate the 350 th anniversary of the publication of Galileo Galilei’s Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, Amsterdam, 1989, pp. 243–75.

- MERTENS, JOOST, ‘Shocks and sparks: the voltaic pile as a demonstration device’, Isis, Vol. 89:2 (1998), pp. 300.

- MEYER, HERBERT W., ‘A history of electricity and magnetism’, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971.

- MOLONEY, B., ‘The Third Earl Cowper - An English patron of science in eighteenth-century Florence and his correspondence with Alessandro Volta’, Italian Studies, 16 (1961), pp. 1–34. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 163.

- MONEY, JOHN, ‘From Leviathan’s air pump to Britannia’s voltaic pile. Science, public life, and the forging of Britain: 1660–1820’, Canadian Journal of History, 28 (1993), pp. 521–44.

- MOORE, CARL E., et al., ‘Volta as voltmeter”, IEEE Spectrum, March (1996), pp. 39–44.

- MORUS, IWAN RHYS, ‘Galvanic cultures: electricity and life in the early nineteenth century’, Endeavour, 22:1 (1998), pp. 7–11.

- OSMAN, W.A., ‘Alessandro Volta and the inflammable-air eudiometer’, Annals of science, 14, n. 4 (1958), pp. 215–42.

- PACE, ANTONIO, ‘The Franklin-Volta correspondence: legend or fact?’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 99 (1955), pp. 436–9.

- PANCALDI, GIULIANO, ‘The social uses of past science. Celebrating Volta in fascist Italy’, in ZWILLING, ROBERT ed., Natural sciences and human thought, 1995, pp. 217–24.

- PEDEFERRI, P., ‘Humphry Davy, Alessandro Volta and the cathodic protection’, Quaderni del Giornale di fisica, 6 (2000), pp. 57–61.

- PELLAT, H., Leçons sur l’électricité: électrostatique, pile, électricité atmosphérique: faites à la Sorbonne en 1888–89, Paris: Carre, 1890. • Pellegrinaggio alla tomba di Volta in Camnago, Como: Ostinelli, 1899. • Pellegrinaggio nazionale voltiano, organizzato dalla C.I.T. nel primo centenario della morte di Alessandro Volta (6–20 settembre 1927), Roma: Compagnia italiana pel turismo, 1927. • Per il 7. congresso internazionale dei fisici nel centenario di Volta, Pavia: r. Università di Pavia, 1927.

- PERA, MARCELLO, ‘Radical theory change and empirical equivalence. The Galvani Volta controversy’, in SHEA, WILLIAM R. ed., ‘Revolutions in science: Their meaning and relevance’, 1988, pp. 133–56.

- PERA, MARCELLO, ‘How crucial is a crucial experiment? Reflections on the Galvani-Volta controversy’, in BARUZZI, AGOSTINO ed., From Luigi Galvani to contemporary neurobiology: [contributions to the celebration of the University of Bologna: Bologna, 27–28 September, 1988], 1989, pp. 19–37. 166

- PERA, MARCELLO, ‘The ambiguous frog: the Galvani-Volta controversy on animal electricity’, MANDELBAUM, J. trans., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

- RAFFERTY, A.M., ‘Alessandro Volta and the Italian scientific community’ c. 1800, Oxford University (UK): 1992.

- SARTON, GEORGE, ‘The discovery of the electric cell (1800). With facsimile reproduction (n. 10) of Alexander Volta’s memoir’: ‘On the electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds’ ”, Isis, 15 (1931), pp. 124–57.

- SELIGARDI, RAFFAELLA, ‘Volta and the synthesis of water: some reasons for a missed discovery’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2000, II, pp. 33–48.

- SHEA, WILLIAM R. ed., ‘Revolutions in science - their meaning and relevance’, Science History Publications, Canton, Mass., USA.

- SMITH, EDGAR, C., ‘Alessandro Volta, 1745–1827’, Nature, 155 (1945), pp. 473–4.

- SOOTIN, HARRY, ‘12 pioneers of science’, New York: Vanguard Press, 1960.

- SUDDUTH, WILLIAM M., ‘The voltaic pile and electro-chemical theory in 1800’, Ambix, 27 (1980), pp. 26–35.

- SUTTON, GEOFFROY, ‘The politics of science in early Napoleonic France. The case of the voltaic pile’, Historical Studies in the Physical Science, 11–12, Part 2 (1981), pp. 329–66.

- TAKAHASHI, JUNJI, ‘Change of the concept of the electric current from Galvani to Volta’, in INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE (14.), Proceedings of the 14 th International Congress of History of Science, 1975, pp. 327–30.

- TEICHMANN, JURGEN, ‘Volta and the quantitative conceptualization of electricity: from electrical capacity to the preconception of Ohm’s law’, in BEVILACQUA, FABIO and FREGONESE, LUCIO eds., Nuova Voltiana, Milano: Hoepli, 2001, III, pp. 53–80.

- THOMSON, WILLIAM LORD KELVIN, Mathematical and physical papers, by Sir William Thomson … Collected from different scientific periodicals from May, 1841, to the present time, Cambridge: University Press, 1882–1911.

- VARNEY, ROBERT, N. and FISHER, LEON H., ‘Electromotive force - Volta’s forgotten concept’, American Journal of Physics, 48 (1980), pp. 405–8.

- ‘The Volta temple at Como’, ‘Nature’, 123 (1929), pp. 683–4.

- WALKER, CHARLES VINCENT, ‘Electrotype Manipulation’, London: G. Knight and Sons, 1845.

- WHITTAKER, EDMUND TAYLOR, ‘A history of the theories of aether and electricity’, Los Angeles, California; New York: Tomash Publishers; American Institute of Physics, 1987.

- WOLF, A., ‘A history of science technology and philosophy in the 18th century’, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1938.

Nikola Tesla: Bibliography

Books By Nikola Tesla

- “My Inventions”; Martino Fine Books; 15 th June, 2011; ISBN – 10: 1614270848.

- Problems of increasing human energy”; Create Space Independent Publishing Platform; ISBN – 10: 15147231190.

- “The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla (Lost Science)- with David Childress; Adventures Unlimited Press; June 12, 2014; ISBN – 10: 093281313194.

- “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, with special reference to the harnessing of the Sun’s energy”, Wilder Publications; Dec. 18 th , 2008; ISBN – 10: 1934451819.

- “Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency”; Merchant Books; Dec. 4 th , 2009; ISBN – 10: 1603862722.

- “The True Wireless”; Snowball Publishing; Nov. 4 th , 2009; ISBN – 10: 1934451916.

- “Very truly yours”; Wilder Publications; March 26 th , 2009; ISBN – 10: 1934451916.

- “On light and other high frequency phenomena”; Wildside Press; Feb. 11 th , 2007; ISBN – 10: 0809501619.

- “The Wireless Tesla”; Wilder Publications; April 16 th , 2008; ISBN – 10: 1604590009.

- “Famous Scientific Illusions”; Sublime Books; June 10 th , 2015; e – book; ASIN: BOOKE2674C.

- “Colorado Springs Notes, 1899 – 1900”; Nikola Tesla Museum, Beograd; Important Books; Sept. 5 th , 2013.

Nikola Tesla: Important Lectures

- A NEW SYSTEM OF ALTERNATING CURRENT MOTORS AND TRANSFORMERS , AIEE Address, May 16, 1888

- EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATE CURRENTS OF VERY HIGH FREQUENCY AND THEIR APPLICATION TO METHODS OF ARTIFICIAL ILLUMINATION , AIEE, Columbia College, N.Y., May 20, 1891.

- EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATE CURRENTS OF HIGH POTENTIAL AND HIGH FREQUENCY , IEE, London, Royal Institution, London, ‘Societe Internationale des Electriciens’ and the ‘Societe Francaise de Physique’, Paris, February 1892.

- ON LIGHT AND OTHER HIGH FREQUENCY PHENOMENA , Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, February 1893, and National Electric Light Association, St. Louis, March 1893.

- MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL OSCILLATORS , International Electrical Congress, August 1893, New York Electrical Society, November 1893.

- ON THE STREAMS OF LENARD AND ROENTGEN WITH NOVEL APPARATUS FOR THEIR USE , The New York Academy of Sciences, April 1897.

- NOTES ON AN ELECTRICAL OSCILLATOR , British Association for the Advancement of Science, Toronto, August 1897

- HIGH FREQUENCY OSCILLATORS FOR ELECTRO-THERAPEUTIC AND OTHER PURPOSES , American Electro-Therapeutic Society, Buffalo, September 1898.

- TELAUTOMATICS , Commercial Club, Chicago, May 1899

Nikola Tesla: Important Articles

- Tesla’s Alternating Current Generators for High Frequency —‘Electrical Engineer’; N. Y., Mar. 18, 1891, pp. 338–340. (Cited in 1893 St. Louis Lecture.)

- “Tesla’s Wonderful Experiments ,” Scientific American, Feb. 7, 1892, p. 132

- “Tesla at the Royal Institution ,” Scientific American, March 11, 1892, p. 168

- “Review of Tesla at the Royal Institution ,” Scientific American Supplement, March 26, 1892, p. 13533

- “Mr. Tesla’s Experiments on Alternating Currents of Great Frequency ,” Scientific American, March 26, 1892, p. 196–196, 199, 200

- “Nikola Tesla and His Business ,” Scientific American Supplement, May 21, 1892, p. 13659–60

- “Action of the Eye ,” Scientific American, Oct. 4, 1893, p. 245

- On Electricity, Electrical Review , January 27, 1897

- Plans to Dispense With Artillery of the Present Type , The Sun , New York, November 21, 1898

- The Problem of Increasing Human Energy , Century Illustrated Magazine, June 1900

- “ Tesla Describes His Efforts in Various Fields of Work ,” Electrical Review - N. Y., Nov, 30, 1898

- Tesla’s New Discovery , The Sun , New York, January 30, 1901

- Talking With the Planets , Collier’s Weekly , February 19, 1901

- The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires , Electrical World , March 5, 1904

- The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace , Electrical World and Engineer , January 7, 1905

- Tesla’s Wireless Torpedo , New York Times , March 19, 1907

- The Future of the Wireless Art , Wireless Telegraphy & Telephony , Van Nostrand, 1908

- Mr. Tesla’s Vision , New York Times , April 21, 1908

- Nikola Tesla’s New Wireless , The Electrical Engineer - London, December 24, 1909

- The Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation On the Wireless Transmission of Energy , Electrical Review and Western Electrician , July 6, 1912

- How Cosmic Forces Shape Our Destinies , New York American , February 7, 1915

- Some Personal Recollections , Scientific American , June 5, 1915

- The Wonder World To Be Created By Electricity , Manufacturer’s Record , September 9, 1915

- Nikola Tesla Sees a Wireless Vision , New York Times , Sunday, October 3, 1915

- Tesla’s New Device Like Bolts of Thor , New York Times , December 8, 1915

- My Inventions , Electrical Experimenter , February-June and October 1919

- The True Wireless , Electrical Experimenter , May 1919

- “Inventor Claims Wireless Power .”, New York Herald, March 9, 1924

- “Tesla on Rays .” New York Herald, July 24, 1924.

- Swezey, K. M.; Nikola Tesla’s Theory of Power Transmission ; New York Telegram and Evening Mail (Radio Magazine), Nov. 15, 1924, p. 2.

- “The Development of the Modern Vario-Coupler from 1890 to 1925. Nikola Tesla Electric Resonator or Tesla Coil is Grandfather of Radio Transformers ,” New York Herald Tribune, Radio Magazine, March 1, 1925, pp. 2, 4.

- Swezey, K. M. “A Logical Discussion on the Transmission of Power by Radio ,” N. Y. Herald Tribune, Sept. 6, 1925, Radio Section, p. 8 (n)

- When Woman is Boss , Colliers , January 30, 1926

- “Envisions Planes Run by Wireless ”; Tesla Tells of Genuine Death Rays in Future,—New York Sun, July 12, 1927, col. 1.

- “Tesla Predicts Fuel less Plane Without Engine ”,— New York Herald Tribune, July 12, 1927, 1 col.,

- Swezey, K. M. “Power by Radio Predicted for Near Future ”: New York Herald Tribune, July 24, 1927, pp. 1, 5.

- World System of Wireless Transmission of Energy , Telegraph and Telegraph Age, October 16, 1927

- Test Transmission of Power by Radio ,“ N. Y. Sun, Aug 4, 1928, Radio Section.

- Nikola Tesla Tells of New Radio Theories , New York Herald Tribune , September 22, 1929

- Our Future Motive Power , Everyday Science and Mechanics , 1931

- Pioneer Radio Engineer Gives Views On Power , New York Herald Tribune , September 11, 1932

- “Stimulus and Response ,” American Business Survey, Oct. 1932, p. 4. (Tesla’s experiments with tuning forks.)

- “Tesla’s Wireless Power Dream Nears Reality ,” New York Daily News, April 2, 1934, p. 12 (Test run of motor car for 30 to 40 miles planned, using wireless transmission of energy to power car.) (n)

- “Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World ,” Modern Mechanics and Inventions, July 1934

- Dr. Tesla Visions the End of Aircraft in War , Helen Welshimer, Oct. 21, 1934, The Pittsburgh Press, Syracuse Herald, Every Week Magazine.

- “Tesla Predicts Ships Powered by Shore Beams ,” New York Herald Tribune, June 5, 1935.

- New Apparatus Transmits Energy — Tesla Announces Method of Remote Control , New York Sun, July 10, 1935 (Method of transmitting mechanical energy accurately over any terrestrial distance, a new means of communication, and a method of locating mineral deposits.)

- “Tesla Invents Wireless Electricity - Scientist, Unfinanced Here, To Build Plant In Europe,” New York American , July 10, 1936 (n).

- “Tesla, 80, Reveals New Power Device ” New York Times, July 10, 1936, p. 1, col. 2. (Says his wireless system of power transmission will supply the earth with energy for industry.)

- “Tesla Prepares to Send Power Without Wires ” Inventor, 80, Announces Solution of Problem He Worked on for 35 Years. Earth Will Carry Current. 100-Million-Volt Plant to be Build in Foreign Land,” New York Herald Tribune, July 27, 1936. (n)

- A Machine to End War , Liberty, February 1937

Books on Eric Tigerstedt

- “Eric Tigerstedt”, Agnes F. Mcbrewster, Frederic P. Vandome, John Miller; Betascript Publishing; 8 th December 2012; ISBN 6133887990.

- ‘Eric Tigerstedt’; High Quality articles by Wikipedia; Publisher – VSD; 2012, ISBN 10: 5512628054.

- “E.M.C. Tigerstedt ‘Suomen Edison” (In Finnish), A.M. Pertti Kuusela, Pub. Insinooritieto; ISBN 9517933959.

- “AO Lisia Historiaan” (In Finnish), J.Kuusanmaki, Kauko Rumpunen, Pertti Vuorinen; ISBN 9529098782.

- “Saga of the Vacuum Tube”, Gerald F.J. Tyne; ISBN 067214717.

- “Finnish Inventors – Arthuri Ilmari Virtanen, Eric Tigerstedt, Spede Pasanen, Lauri Rapala; LLC Books; 15 th Sept. 2010; e - book, ASIN:1157246303.

- “Finnish Business People – Eric Tigerstedt, Sophia Jansson, Jorma Ollila, Taneli Tikka, Wilhelm Schauman, Juusi V. Koivisto, Hannu Rajaniemi; LLC Books,; 2010; ISBN: 9781155703787.

- “The Business of Electronics – a Concise History”, Anand Kumar Sethi; Palgrave Macmillan, New York; Nov. 2013; ISBN: 9781137323385.

Index

A

Ackermann, Hartmut

Aepinus, Franz Maria

AGFA

aircraft, battery powered

Aldini, Giovani

Ambri

American Electrical Novelty & Manufacturing Co.

American Electro Therapeutic Association

American Ever Ready Co.

American Institute of Electrical Engineers

American Medical Association (AMA)

American Telegraphone Company

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T)

‘AND’ gate

Angera

Anhalt University of Applied Science

animal electric fluid

Anod, A/S

Applied Tesla Technology Inc.

Aquion

Aristotle

armature circuit, condenser

Astor, Col. John Jacob

audion

audiophone, Tigerstedt

B

Bachelor, Charles

Baird, John Logie

Baldwin Sales Company

Banks, Joseph

Barletti, Carlo

Barnes & Noble

battery/batteries

dry cell

Edison

lead acid

lithium

lithium ion polymer

lithium-iron

lithium polymer

lithium-sulphur

methane

portable

rechargeable

Tesla

voltaic

Beccaria, Giambatista

Bell, Alexander Graham

Bennet, Abraham

Berkeley Lab

Berliner, Emile

bio beds

biographone

Biotech Renewable Energy Pvt. Ltd., India

Bletchley Park

boat patent, Tesla

Boldt, George

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Bose, Jagadish Chandra

Boyle, Robert

Brahe, Tyco

brain stimulation, transcranial

Braun, Karl Ferdinand

Brown, Alfred S.

Bruno, Giordano

brushes, motor

Budapest

Budapest Telephone Exchange, The

C

Calvin, John

camera filters, Tigerstedt

Campi, Father Carlo Giuseppe

Canton, John

capacitor, parallel plate

carbon button lamp

Carborundum Company

cardboard, baked

cardboard, brine soaked

Carlisle, Anthony

Carl, Prince of Soedermanland

Carlson, W. Bernard

Carlstadt

Carty, John J.

Cavallo, Tiberius

cell, Leclanche

cells, stacking

Century magazine

Charles Ferdinand University, Prague

Chicago World’s fair

China United Coal Bed Methane Corp.

Cinematographe

Clan Campbell

coil, switched Tesla

Colombano

Colorado Springs

Columbus’ egg

commutator

Como

Como Laboratory

compressed natural gas (CNG)

condensatore

Connolly, Robert W.

Continental Edison Company

Copernicus, Nicolaus

cosmological theory

Cotugno, Domenico

Cri–Cri

cryptographone

cryptography system, Tigerstedt

cryptography, Time Division (Shift) Scrambling

crystals

current, alternating (a. c.)

Curtis, Leonard

cylinder microphone

D

Daimler

Daniell, John

Darwin, Charles

Davy, Humphry

Davy, Sir Humphrey

Death rays, Tesla

de Forest, Lee

De Saussure, Horace Benedict

Deutsche Edison Accumulator Company

diathermy

dielectrics

resinous

vitreous

diode detector, vacuum tube

Djokovic, Novak

Dogma, Catholic Church

Dolby

driverless cars

drones

Duval, Hughes

dynamo, direct current (d. c.)

E

Economist, The

Edison Phonograph Company

Edison, Thomas Alva

Edison Volta Prize

Eel, electric

E-Fan

electrical igniter, gas engines

Electrical World

electric fish

electricity

animal

atmospheric

static

electric ‘Pistole’

Electric Storage Battery Company

electrochemical series

electrochemistry

electrocyte cells

electrometer

absolute

straw

electronic automatic exchange, Tigerstedt

electronic eye, Tigerstedt

electro ophthalmoscope

electrophorus

human

influence

perpetual

electroscope

leaf

micro

electrostatic charge

electrostatic generator

electrotherapy

electrotherapy, Tesla

Emission Company, Finland

energy, radiant

Engineers Club, The

Enigma machine

Enlightenment, Age of

Environmental Protection Agency

Ericsson

ether

ether, luminiferous

Etouni, Hany

E.T. radar system, Finland

eudiometer

eudiometry

eugenics

European Edison Company

European Physical Society

Eveready

Everson Tesla Co.

ExoMars trace gas orbiter

exoplanets

F

Faraday, Michael

Faust

Ford, Henry

Frankenstein

Franklin, Benjamin

free energy receiver, Tesla

Frenckell, Eric Von

G

Galileo Galilei

Galvani, Luigi

Gassner, Dr. Carl

Gattoni, Giulio Cesare

General Electric, Jenbacher Gas Engine Division

geocentricity

geothermal power

Giga Battery Factory

Gilbert, William

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

Google

Gorak Shep

Gospich

gramophone

Gramophone Company, The

Graz Polytechnic

Grove, William

H

hailstones

Halle

hand held phone, Tigerstedt

Haukkavuori (Eagle’s Mountain)

hearing aids, Tigerstedt

Heilbronn, John

Helsinki

Helsinki Telephone Company

Helsinki University Hospital

Henley, William

Hietaniemi cemetery

Homen, Dr.

Hornborg, Dr.

Hotel New Yorker

Huygens, x

I

illumination lamp, Tesla

Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force)

incandescent bulb, Edison

incandescent bulb, Tesla

induction, electrostatic

infinite universe

Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, The

Internet, xii

J

J. J. Electronics

Jungner, Waldemar

K

Kasanovich, Sava

Kepler, Johannes

killer robots

Kinetoscope–Kinetophone, Edison

Klangfilm

Köthen

Kouvola

L

Lake Como

Lake Maggiore

Lakhovsky, Georges

Lalande Cell

landfill gas/biogas

Landriani, Marsilio

lasers

Lavaste, Eugene

law of induction, Faraday

Leclanche, Georges

Leyden flask

Leyden jar

LG Chem

Liberty magazine

lights, arc

Lignell, Ingrid

lithium

Lombardy

loud speaking telephone

Lucretius

Lumiere brothers

Luther, Martin

M

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Mannerheim, General

Marconi, Guglielmo

Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company

Marlowe, Christopher

Mars Rover, ‘Curiosity’

Matteuci, Carlo

Maxwell, James Clark

McGraw Edison Company

Mephistopheles

methane

anaerobic digestion

coal mining

electricity from

fossil fuels

greenhouse gas

hydrates

livestock

Mars

uses of

Methane, Coal Bed (CBM)

microphone, carbon

microphone, Tigerstedt

miniature listening phone, Tigerstedt

mobile phones

mobile phones, Tigerstedt

Morgan, J.P.

Morse, Samuel

morse signs

Moruzzi, Giuseppe

motor, alternating current (a.c.)

motor, asynchronous

motor, induction

motor, permanent magnet

motor, polyphase

motor, self start synchronous

motor speed controls, voltage / frequency

Mullard

Muller, Johannes

multi wave oscillator

Mungai, Christine

Museo Tekniikan, Helsinki

Musk, Elon

Mustila

N

Nairne, Edward

NASA

National Academy of Sciences

National Carbon Company

Naturalis Historia

neuro modulation

neurostimulation

New Sensor Corporation

Newton, Isaac

New York Herald Tribune

New York Sun

Niagara Falls

Nicholson, William

nickel cadmium dry cell battery

nickel metal hydride (NiMH)

night vision devices, Tigerstedt

Nikola Labs Colorado

Nikola Tesla Day

Nikola Tesla Institutes of Medicine

Nipkow Disk

Nippon Electric

Niska, Algot

Nissan

Nobel, Alfred

Nollet, Jean-Antoine

Northern Electric, Canada

Nybom, Albert

Nybom, Martha

O

Oersted, Hans Christian

O’Neill, John J.

Oregon, S. S.

ozone

ozone generators

P

pain, Volta’s studies

Panasonic

Pancaldi, Giuliano

particle beam generators

Pascal, Blaise

patents

Tesla

Tigerstedt

Pavia, University of

Peck, Charles

Petersen & Poulsen Company

Philosophers, Natural

Philosophy, Natural

Phonogram–Tigerstedt

Photofilm / Phonofilm systems, de Forrest

Photomagnetophone Company

Photomagnetophone Company, A/S

Photomagnetophone, Tigerstedt

pile, stacked metallic discs

pile, voltaic

pilot to pilot communications, Tigerstedt

Plainfields, Netherwoods, N.J.

planetologists

Plante, Gaston

Plato

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Younger

Popov, Alexander

Popov, Alexander Stepanovitch

Porta Nuova Tower

Poulsen, Valdemar

powerwall battery

prana

Priestley, Joseph

projectile counter, Tigerstedt

pulsed electro magnetic field (PEMF)

Puskas, Ferenc

Puskas, Theodore

R

radio, Tesla

Rahway, N. J.

rare earth materials

ray guns, Tesla

Reformation, The

relays, undulating current

robotics, Tesla

Roentgen, William

rotating magnetic field

Royal Society, The

S

Sakti3

Sarton, George

Schlecht, Sabine

Schonbein, Christian Frederick

Schoultz, Mary Florence von

Schumann cavity

Scientific American, publication

‘scientific revolution’

‘scientist’

Seeo

Seifer, Marc

semiconductor

shadowgraph

Shelley, Mary

Shoreham, N. Y.

Siemens & Halske

Siemens, Werner von

signaling system, acoustic high frequency

Skandinavisk Grammophon A/S Company, Denmark

small radio receivers, Tigerstedt

Smiljan

solar energy, tesla

Solar Impuls

Sony

sound waves, submarine transmission of

spark gap

spark transmitter, Tigerstedt

Städtiche Friedrichs Polytechnicum

stereo variable area (SVA) system

Strasbourg

Straubel, J. B.

Suomen Edison

Svenska Gasaccumulator Company (AGA–Aktiebolaget Gasaccumulator)

Swarthling, Hugo

T

Technical Museum, Helsinki

Telefunken

telegraphone

telegraphy, wireless

Tesla a. c. motor

Tesla Cables Co.

Tesla car

Tesla coil

Tesla Electric Company

Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing Company

Tesla electric railway

Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company

Tesla Exploration

Tesla Memorial Society

Tesla Motors

Tesla, Nikola (Nicolae)

Tesla oscillator

Tesla Ozone Company

Tesla patents

Tesla reciprocating engine

Tesla Roadster

Tesla Solutions

Tesla Studios

Tesla Systems Research

Tesla Therapeutic Co.

Tesla Tower

Tesla turbine

Tesla, unit

Tiger Manufacturing Company, U.S.A.

Tigersedt, Eric (Magnus Campbell)

Tigerstedt, Axel Frederik

Tigerstedt, Axel Olaf Paul

Tigerstedt, Carl Jr.

Tigerstedt, Goran

Tigerstedt, Mary Florence

Tigerstedt, Ornulf

Tigerstedt Patenter AB, Finland

Tigerstedt, Peter

Time, magazine

torch, battery

transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)

Tri Ergon system

Triode, vacuum tube

turbine, bladeless

Turin University

Turrell, Walter John

U

Union Carbide Company

unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)

U. S. Department of Commerce

V

Van de Graaff generator

Van Marum, Martinus

Varta

Vertical take off & landing (VTOL)

Vesalius, Andreas

videophones, Tigerstedt

violet ray machine

Vivekananda

voice recorder, three dimensional

Volt

Volta, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio

Volta batteries

Volta Beltings

Volta, cars

Volta Company, Russia

Volta Company, Volta powder

Volta Data Centre

Volta Dies & Molds

Volta electric brush

Volta Finance Ltd.

Volta flashlights

voltage

Volta, graphics processors

Volta Graphophone Company

Voltaic Pile

Volta Industries

Voltakreuz

Volta Laboratory

Volta Labs Inc.

Volta Lamp

as precursor to incandescent bulb

as precursor to telegraph

Volta micro electroscope

Volta, minor planet

Volta, moon crater

Volta pendants

Volta, pharmaceuticals

Volta’s Electrometer

Vuorimiehenkatu

W

Wahlstedt, Axel

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

Walsh, John

Wardenclyffe

Wardenclyffe Tower

war of the currents

Western Electric Company

Westinghouse Co.

Westinghouse Electrical & Manufacturing Company

Westinghouse, George

Whewell, William

Whitacre, Dr. Jay

Wilcke, Johan,

William 1, Emperor

wireless power

wireless power transmission

Wireless World, ‘Electronics World,’

Word & Picture–movie, Eric Tigerstedt

World System, Tesla

X

X-ray

Footnotes

1

“The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla”—Jim Glenn, Barnes & Noble Books; 1994; ISBN-10: 1566192668.

2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nikola_Tesla_Patents .

3

“The Complete Nikola Tesla U.S. Patent Collection”; web.mit.edu/most/Public/Tesla1/alpha_tesla.html.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

1. Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta

2. Nikola (Nicolae) Tesla

3. Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt

Backmatter