NIKOLA TESLA

WAR BY ELECTRICAL MEANS

Vaclav Netolicky

He was a prophet of the wireless-controlled engines of war.

- Edwin H. Armstrong

War begins

• World War I was sparked by the assasination of an Austrian Archduke on Tesla’s homeland in Sarajevo

December 20th 1914

• Tesla published an article in the New York Sun titled “Nikola Tesla looks to Science Fiction to end war”

• He felt that war was a physical process whose duration could be determined by a mathematical equation.

“war is essentially a manifestation of energy involving the acceleration and retardation of a mass by force”

Tesla calculated that the war would last 5 yearsHe also felt that the duration of the war could be

brought to zero with a weapon of sufficient magnitude

December 8, 1915

The New York Time published the following:

“Nikola Tesla…has filed patent applications on the essential parts of a machine, the possibilities of which test a layman’s imagination and promise a parallel of Thor’s shooting thunderbolts from the sky to punish those who had angered the gods…

…he is not yet ready to give the details of the engine which he says will render fruitless any military expedition against a country who possesses it.”

All of this meant little to soldiers dying on the battlefields

• Contrary to popular thinking, new technology was only adding to the savagery

• Flame throwers, machine guns, poison guns, airplanes, and the tank were introduced

• Tesla was well aware of the war

• He was receiving letters from his family about the war

Electricity

• Radio was one of the most important innovations

• Troops could now communicate over large distances

Radio and the Navy

• Early onboard sets were based on Marconi’s design

• These had a range of about 60 miles

• Tesla developed a radio for the US Navy

• A five-kilowatt set was capable of sending messages 1,500 miles

U.S. Naval Radio Service

• A firm used Tesla’s patents to build a radio station for the Navy in New Jersey

• It could operate on several adjacent-frequency channels and could transmit in multiplex code

• Signals were received 9,000 miles away• For 2 years Tesla received

$1000/month for these patents

April 2, 1917

• President Wilson persuades Congress to declare war on Germany

August 1917

In an interview with the Electrical Experimenter Tesla provided the first technical description of what would later be known as radar

• “the method of locating such hidden metal masses as submarines by an electrical ray…That is the things that seems to hold great promise. If we can shoot out a concentrated ray comprising a stream of minute electric charges vibrating electrically at tremendous frequency, say millions of cycles per second, then intercept this ray, after it has been reflected by a submarine hull for example, and cause this intercepted ray to illuminate a fluorescent screen on the same or another ship, then our problem of locating the hidden submarine will have been solved.”

• It took twenty more years for Tesla’s concept of radar to be perfected

• The prototype was officially credited to Robert A. Watson-Watt of England in 1935

• He was the first to effectively visualize radio signals with a cathode ray tube

July 4, 1917

• Tesla’s dream - Wardenclyffe Tower - was blasted down with dynamite

• Rumors were spread that spies were hiding there to radio information to German U-boats

• Tesla maintains the following…

“On this occasion I would contradict the widely circulated report that the structure was demolished by the government, which owing to war conditions, might have created prejudices in the minds of those who may not know that the papers, which thirty years ago conferred upon me the honor of American citizenship, are always kept in a safe…On the contrary, it was in the interest of the Government to preserve it, particularly, as it would have made possible - to mention just valuable result - the locations of a submarine in any part of the world”

Scientific Outsider

• Tesla now depended on the popular press to continue to advance his concepts

• In The Electrical Experimenter Tesla introduced the guided ballistic missile

“I am now planning aerial machines devoid of sustaining planes, ailerons, propellers and other external attachments, which will be capable of immense speeds and are very likely to furnish powerful arguments for peace in the near future…By installing proper plants it will be practicable to project a missile of this kind into the air and drop it almost on the very spot designated, which may thousands of miles away”

While at Wardenclyffe…

• He demonstrated his robot boat to a delegation of Japanese

• From a high cliff he directed a tiny vessel into Long Island Sound, closed a switch, and caused the boat to explode before the eyes of his amazed spectators - when the Japanese offered to buy the device, Tesla refused to sell it to them

• Some people who worked with Tesla were worried about the instruments of war he was inventing

• Tesla had just launched several model wireless torpedoes in the Sound and caused them to circle a ship and return to shore

• Tesla said “sometimes I feel that I have not the right to do these things.”

Science Fiction

• But with so many of his ideas that were directed by radio waves, people thought they were more the stuff of science fiction than of reality.

THE END