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'" TESlA ElECTRICITY GENERATION EXPERIMENT by Anthony Hansen NinetY-fave years ago, near Colorado Springs, USA, a strange device was connected to the Earth. It was a large electrical machine which, at its high est point, was 167 feet tall. Part of t!he device was 50 feeJ in diameter. Thc com plete machine was kept in a wooden build ing specially ma:de for it. When the device was switched on, bolts of lightning would jump ,from a metallic ball 30 inches in diameter and 167 feet from the ground, straight up to the sky. A spectacular demonstration of energy, ho doubt it would have i.mpressed the people ofColorado Springs. . The man who designed and built thjs strange device was Nikola Tesla (1856 1~943). Tesla is perhaps best remembered for the AC power system which was first used at Niagara Fatls and is now used in virtually every country. He is not well known for his Colorado expedments. According to Tesla, the device was' con" structed to prove his theory that electricity could be taken from the Earth-in o~her words, a previously unknown source of power could be extracted from the Earth and put to use. It seems that Tesla was suc cessful but the system was never put into use, much to Tesla's disappointment. [t appears that some experimenters did try Ito build these machines but apparently to no avail Some even complained to Tesla who usually replied by saying, "Wen, it is not my fault if you cannot build my machines; it just means that you are electri cians of the ordinary kind." Sometimes he answered by saying anyone who has the same ability as he, can build them. As there are very few people like Tesla, this seemed a formidable ltask. But after careful consideration it occurred to me that Tesla had left more than enough clues how to buiJd this equipment, and that most of the material necessary to build one of these devices was available. I then decided that I would attempt to build one of these devices. Now the first APRIL -MAY 1995 tihing to do, it seemed, would be to make out a list of materials requircd. Copper wire and cable, condensers, step-up trans formers, mechanisms for breaking or puls ing the system, ins'olating materials and many other things. There was also the need to decide what length of wire might be necessary to tap into the Earth. Tesla usually wou.nd his CQils to quarter wave lengths and stated that a certain length was needed to tune in. If it was shorter, the fre quency would be too high and it would be impossible to draw out energy. Having decided to use a certain I~ngth of secQndary wire, I then turned to the next consideration which was the size of the secondary. As the length of wire was quite long it was obvious the secondary would be fairly largc. The next problem was capacitors. The ones Eneeded had to be able to take a great electrical pressure andl also have a fairly large storage capacity. These proved to be quite difficult to obtain, or, if they wcre available, were very expensjve. Tesla solved this problem by using champagne bottles. These were arranged side by side in large wooden boxes lined with sheet copper or tin. There was u'sually 3D to 40 bottles per box. The basic idea was to fiIJ the bottles with a concentrated salt water solution to within a few inche"s of.the~iop. The salt solution was also surrounding the bottles. When connected up, Tesla had a cheap and very strong capacitor. He also had the use of the champagne and, as he liked en tertaining, there were probably quite a few bottles. This seems a wonder ful use for champagne bottles. The other ad'vantage was that if the capacitor over loaded, the bottlcs would burst. [t could be said tbat this was like a, ~usc blowing and added safety to the system. I have seen modern capacitors blow up, sometimes with spectacular results. I would raiher hear a champagne bottlt; pop inside a box than watch modern oil-filled ones explode. The overall consideration was what ate the basic things required to build a com plete system. The list now read as follows: I-Secondary coil (exact length to be determined) NEXUS • 51