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    1934 04 08 Radio & Light Are Sound Sound - Unlocked

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    TheARKAAH
    77-year-old Nikola Tesla talks about radio's past, present and future. Inventor points out where theorists often chose wrong paths at the crossroads of science. "There is something frightening about the universe when we consider that only our senses of sound and sight make it beautiful," he says.

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    1934 04 08 Radio & Light Are Sound Sound - Unlocked

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    TheARKAAH
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    77-year-old Nikola Tesla talks about radio's past, present and future. Inventor points out where theorists often chose wrong paths at the crossroads of science. "There is something frightening about the universe when we consider that only our senses of sound and sight make it beautiful," he says.

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    1934 04 08 Radio & Light Are Sound Sound_unlocked

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    77-year-old Nikola Tesla talks about radio's past, present and future. Inventor points out where theorists often chose wrong paths at the crossroads of science. "There is something frightening about the universe when we consider that only our senses of sound and sight make it beautiful," he says.

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    41 views3 pages

    1934 04 08 Radio & Light Are Sound Sound - Unlocked

    Uploaded by

    TheARKAAH
    77-year-old Nikola Tesla talks about radio's past, present and future. Inventor points out where theorists often chose wrong paths at the crossroads of science. "There is something frightening about the universe when we consider that only our senses of sound and sight make it beautiful," he says.

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    of 3

    New York Times

    April 8, 1934, Sec. X, P. 9, c. 1

    Tesla Sees Evidence Radio and Light Are Sound

    An Inventor's Seasoned Ideas

    Nikola Tesla, Pointing to 'Grevious Errors' of the Past, Explains Radio as He Sees It at
    Age of 77 - He Expects Television

    By Orrin E. Dunlap, Jr.

    A tall, lean inventor in a cutaway walked into his skyscraper parlor thirty-three floors
    above the sidewalks of New York, laid his black derby on the table, opened the window
    and then was ready to talk about radio's past, present and future. He wee Nikola Tesla,
    the inventor whose discovery of the rotary magnetic field made possible the alternating
    current motor. He described a system of wireless transmission of energy in 1892.

    Seven milestones beyond three-score and ten, this electrical wizard, who came to
    America in 1884, looked back across the years, recalled where theorists often chose
    wrong paths at the crossroads of science and then turned his thought to the future in
    which television lurks.

    A Spectacle That Frightens

    "There is something frightening about the universe when we consider that only our senses
    of sound and sight make it beautiful,. said Mr. Tesla as his furrowed brow indicated he is
    puzzled with its destiny. "Just think, the universe is darker than the darkest ink; colder
    than the coldest ice and more silent than a silent tomb with all the bodies rushing through
    it at terrific speeds. What an awe-inspiring picture, isn't it? Yet it is our brain that gives
    merely a physical impression. Sight and sound are the only avenues through which we
    can perceive it all. Often I have wondered if there is a third sense which we have failed to
    discover. I'm afraid not," he said after some hesitation in thought.

    Looking back to the mauve decade, to the turn of the century when the world was being
    thrilled with new ideas and discoveries, Mr. Tesla observes a vast change in the art of
    invention. Man, he finds, in this streamline era of speed, has little chance to think.

    Fruits of Seclusion

    The big, modern research laboratories are but the incubators of ideas as he has watched
    them function. Seldom, if ever, he explains, has an original idea of any consequence been
    born in an elaborate laboratory. The egg of science is laid in the nest of solitude. True, it
    may later be incubated, hatched and nursed in the million-dollar laboratory.

    "It is providential that the youth or man of inventive mind is not 'blessed' with a million
    dollars," said Mr. Tesla. "He would find it difficult to think. m e mind is sharper and
    keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to
    think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple
    the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas
    are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble
    surroundings."

    Radio experimenters of this age are following ancient theories, Mr. Tesla believes, and he
    warns that progress will be more rapid when they discard the old and adopt new ideas.
    His directions for getting on the right track of radio, television and sundry other branches
    of science follow:

    "The fascination of the electro-magnetic theory of light, advanced by Maxwell and


    subsequently experimentally investigated by Hertz, was so great that even now, although
    controverted, the scientific minds are under its sway. This theory supposed the existence
    of a medium which was solid, yet permitted bodies to pass through it without resistance;
    tenuous beyond conception, and yet, according to some, one thousand times denser than
    platinum. According to our conceptions of mechanical principles and ages of experience,
    such a medium was absolutely impossible. Nevertheless, light was considered essentially
    a phenomenon bound up in that kind of a medium; namely, one capable of transmitting
    transverse vibrations like a solid.

    A Question Tesla Asked

    "It is true," said Mr. Tesla, "that many scientific minds envisaged the theory of a gaseous
    ether, but it was rejected again and again because in such a medium longitudinal waves
    would be propagated with infinite velocity. Lord Kelvin conceived the so-called
    contractile ether, possessing properties which would result in a finite velocity of
    longitudinal waves. In 1885, however, an academic dissertation was published by Prof.
    De Volson Wood, an American, at a Hoboken institution, which dealt with a gaseous
    ether in which the elasticity, density and specific heat were determined with rare
    academic elegance. But, so far, everything pertaining to the subject wee purely
    theoretical..

    What, then, can light be if it is not a transverse vibration? That was the question he asked
    himself and set out to find the answer.

    "I consider this extremely important,. said Mr. Tesla. "Light cannot be anything else but a
    longitudinal disturbance in the ether, involving alternate compressions and rarefactions.
    In other words, light can be nothing else than a sound wave in the ether..

    This appears clearly, Mr. Tesla explained, if it is first realized that, there being no
    Maxwellian ether, there can be no transverse oscillation in the medium.

    The Newtonian theory, he believes, is in error, because it fails entirely in not being able
    to explain how a small candle can project particles with the same speed as the blazing
    sun, which has an immensely higher temperature.

    "We have made sure by experiment," said Mr. Tesla, "that light propagates with the same
    velocity irrespective of the character of the source. Such constancy of velocity can only
    be explained by assuming that it is dependent solely on the physical properties of the
    medium, especially density and elastic force.

    Micro-Wave Possibilities

    Coming now to the wireless waves, it is still true that they are of the same character as
    light waves, only they are not transversal but longitudinal. As a matter of fact, radio
    transmitters emit nothing else but sound waves in the ether, and if the experts will realize
    this they will find it very much easier to explain the curious observations made in the
    application of these waves.

    "It being a fact that radio waves are essentially like sound waves in the air, it is evident
    that the shorter the waves the more penetrative they would be. In 1899 I produced
    electromagnetic waves from one to two millimeters long and observed their actions at a
    distance. There has been a great hope expressed by various workers that introduction of
    these waves will have a revolutionary effect, but I am not sharing the opinion. They will
    be used, of course, but to a very limited extent. It is manifest that applications of the very
    short waves will not produce any appreciable effect upon the wireless art.

    "Errors" Retard Wireless Power

    What about the possibilities of power transmission by wireless? the inquirer said.

    Here again Mr. Tesla blames "a strange misconception of the experts" and "grievous
    errors" for retarding the idea. He believes that when it is accomplished, the power will
    travel on long waves and not on the wings of "uneconomically produced" short waves.
    He said he could vouch that the scheme of wireless power transmission is entirely
    practical.

    "m e application of short waves for power purposes," said Mr. Tesla, "involves
    complicated and expensive apparatus for rectification or frequency transformation, which
    would make any serious attempt to carry out a project of this kind much more difficult
    from an economical point of view."

    When will television come around the corner? he was asked.

    "It ought to be with us soon, and some day it will be on a par of perfection with
    broadcasting of music.. Then with a circular sweep of his arm and added, "there will be
    large pictures thrown on the wall..

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