The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies (25 page)

Although I knew that higher electro-motive forces were attainable with apparatus of larger dimensions, I had an instinctive perception that the object could be accomplished by the proper design of a comparatively small and compact transformer. In carrying on tests with a secondary in the form of a flat spiral, as illustrated in my patents, the absence of streamers surprised me, and it was not long before I discovered that this was due to the position of the turns and their mutual action. Profiting from this observation I resorted to the use of a high tension conductor with turns of considerable diameter sufficiently separated to keep down the distributed capacity, while at the same time preventing undue accumulation of the charge at any point. The application of this principle enabled me to produce pressures of 4,000,000 volts, which was about the limit obtainable in my new laboratory at Houston Street, as the discharges extended through a distance of 16 feet. A photograph of this transmitter was published in the
Electrical Review
of November 1898.

In order to advance further along this line I had to go into the open, and in the spring of 1899, having completed preparations for the erection of a wireless plant, I went to Colorado where I remained for more than one year. Here I introduced other improvements and refinements which made it possible to generate currents of any tension that may be desired. Those who are interested will find some information in regard to the experiments I conducted there in my article, “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy” in the
Century Magazine
of June 1900, to which I have referred on a previous occasion.

I have been asked by the
ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER
to be quite explicit on this subject so that my young friends among the readers of the magazine will clearly understand the construction and operation of my “Magnifying Transmitter” and the purposes for which it is intended. Well, then, in the first place, it is a resonant transformer with a secondary in which the parts, charged to a high potential, are of considerable area and arranged in space along ideal enveloping surfaces of very large radii of curvature, and at proper distances from one another thereby insuring a small electric surface density everywhere so that no leak can occur even if the conductor is bare. It is suitable for any frequency, from a few to many thousands of cycles per second, and can be used in the production of currents of tremendous volume and moderate pressure, or of smaller amperage and immense electromotive force. The maximum electric tension is merely dependent on the curvature of the surfaces on which the charged elements are situated and the area of the latter.

Judging from my past experience, as much as 100,000,000 volts are perfectly practicable. On the other hand currents of many thousands of amperes may be obtained in the antenna. A plant of but very moderate dimensions is required for such performances. Theoretically, a terminal of less than 90 feet in diameter is sufficient to develop an electromotive force of that magnitude while for antenna currents of from 2,000–4,000 amperes at the usual frequencies it need not be larger than 30 feet in diameter.

In a more restricted meaning this 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.

Taken in the narrowest significance of the term, however, 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. Distance is then absolutely eliminated, there being no diminution in the intensity of the transmitted impulses. It is even possible to make the actions increase with the distance from the plant according to an exact mathematical law.

This invention was one of a number comprised in my “World-System” of wireless transmission which I undertook to commercialize on my return to New York in 1900. As to the immediate purposes of my enterprise, they were clearly outlined in a technical statement of that period from which I quote:

The “World-System” has resulted from a combination of several original discoveries made by the inventor in the course of long continued research and experimentation. It makes possible not only the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission of any kind of signals, messages or characters, to all parts of the world, but also the interconnection of the existing telegraph, telephone, and other signal stations without any change in their present equipment. By its means, for instance, a telephone subscriber here may call up and talk to any other subscriber on the Globe. 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.

These examples are cited merely to give an idea of the possibilities of this great scientific advance, which annihilates distance and makes that perfect natural conductor, the Earth, available for all the innumerable purposes which human ingenuity has found for a line-wire. One far-reaching result of this is that any device capable of being operated thru one or more wires (at a distance obviously restricted) can likewise be actuated, without artificial conductors and with the same facility and accuracy, at distances to which there are no limits other than those imposed by the physical dimensions of the Globe. Thus, not only will entirely new fields for commercial exploitation be opened up by this ideal method of transmission but the old ones vastly extended.

The “World-System” is based on the application of the following important inventions and discoveries:

1) The “Tesla Transformer.” This apparatus is in the production of electrical vibrations as revolutionary as gunpowder was in warfare. Currents many times stronger than any ever generated in the usual ways, and sparks over one hundred feet long, have been produced by the inventor with an instrument of this kind.

2) The “Magnifying Transmitter.” This is Tesla’s best invention, a peculiar transformer specially adapted to excite the Earth, which is in the transmission of electrical energy what the telescope is in astronomical observation. By the use of this marvelous device he has already set up electrical movements of greater intensity than those of lightning and passed a current, sufficient to light more than two hundred incandescent lamps, around the Globe.

3) The “Tesla Wireless System.” This system comprises a number of improvements and is the only means known for transmitting economically electrical energy to a distance without wires. Careful tests and measurements in connection with an experimental station of great activity, erected by the inventor in Colorado, have demonstrated that power in any desired amount can be conveyed, clear across the Globe if necessary, with a loss not exceeding a few per cent.

4) The “Art of Individualization.” This invention of Tesla’s is to primitive ‘tuning’ what refined language is to unarticulated expression. It makes possible the transmission of signals or messages absolutely secret and exclusive both in the active and passive aspect, that is, non-interfering as well as non-interferable. Each signal is like an individual of unmistakable identity and there is virtually no limit to the number of stations or instruments which can be simultaneously operated without the slightest mutual disturbance.

5) “The Terrestrial Stationary Waves.” This wonderful discovery, popularly explained, means that the Earth is responsive to electrical vibrations of definite pitch just as a tuning fork to certain waves of sound. These particular electrical vibrations, capable of powerfully exciting the Globe, lend themselves to innumerable uses of great importance commercially and in many other respects.

The first “World-System” power plant can be put in operation in nine months. With this power plant it will be practicable to attain electrical activities up to ten million horsepower and it is designed to serve for as many technical achievements as are possible without due expense.

Among these the following may be mentioned:

1) The inter-connection of the existing telegraph exchanges or offices all over the world;

2) The establishment of a secret and non-interferable government telegraph service;

3) The inter-connection of all the present telephone exchanges or offices on the Globe;

4) The universal distribution of general news, by telegraph or telephone, in connection with the Press;

5) The establishment of such a “World-System” of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use;

6) The inter-connection and operation of all stock tickers of the world;

7) The establishment of a “World-System” of musical distribution, etc.;

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

9) The world transmission of typed or handwritten characters, letters, checks, etc.;

10) The establishment of a universal marine service enabling the navigators of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine the exact location, hour and speed, to prevent collisions and disasters, etc.;

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

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

I also proposed to make demonstrations in the wireless transmission of power on a small scale but sufficient to carry conviction. Besides these I referred to other and incomparably more important applications of my discoveries which will be disclosed at some future date.

A plant was built on Long Island with a tower 187 feet high, having a spherical terminal about 68 feet in diameter. These dimensions were adequate for the transmission of virtually any amount of energy. Originally only from 200 to 300 K.W. were provided but I intended to employ later several thousand horsepower. The transmitter was to emit a wave complex of special characteristics and I had devised a unique method of telephonic control of any amount of energy.

GENERAL MOTORS

Why do the cities of America have no streetcars, let alone streetcars named Desire, running along them?

In 1974 one Bradford Snell, a staff attorney for the US Senate antitrust subcommittee, advanced the startling claim that General Motors had, in alliance with Standard Oil, Firestone, and Phillips Petroleum gone into cahoots to destroy the energy-efficient streetcar in forty-five cities, so as to pave the way for the triumph of the internal combustion engine. Which they all had a big stake in. According to Snell, GM and the other firms set up a holding company, National City Lines, that bought up electric trolley systems, dismantled them and replaced them with buses. In his report to the US Government, “American Ground Transport – A Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus and Rail Industries” (see Document, p.176), he stated that General Motors was “a sovereign economic state whose common control of auto, truck, bus and locomotive production was a major factor in the displacement of rail and bus transportation with cars and trucks”.

Snell’s claim received a turbo-boost in 1988, when it formed the sub-plot of the movie
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Here the evil character Doom reveals that he bought the Red Car system so that he could junk it and force people to drive on his new freeway.

So, were the citizens of US cities taken for a ride by GM and its corporate pals?

There
is
a kernel of truth in Snell’s allegation: National City Line did buy the Los Angeles Railway in 1944, and did replace streetcar lines with buses. Furthermore, General Motors and its subsidiary, National City Lines, along with seven other corporations were indicted on two counts under the Sherman Antitrust Act. They were charged with:

The defendants were aquitted on the second count of trying to form a monopoly (although no one disputed that GM and its allies were engaged in all out war to create a transport environment favourable to its gas-powered products). GM, though, was convicted on the first. That is to say, they were guilty of conspiring to have GM companies buy only GM buses and spares.

It is not pretty, it is not ethical, but it not quite the same as maintaining that GM killed the streetcar. The streetcar was dying in its tracks before GM came along, because the rival bus was cheaper and more versatile (especially in a rapidly growing city like LA). Even transit systems which the NLC did not buy up, such as Pacific Electric, were dismantled in favour of the rubber-wheeled alternative.