Nexus - 1201 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

NIKOLA TESLA'S AETHER-POWERED CAR NIKOLA TESLA’ AETHER-POWERED CAR In the northern summer of 1931, Dr Nikola Tesla road-tested a luxury Pierce-Arrow sedan fitted with an 1800 rpm AC electric motor and powered by a receiver tuned to tap energy from the aether. he city of Buffalo, in the north of New York State, USA, bore silent witness to an extraordinary event one week in the (northern) summer of 1931. The economic Depression had dampened business and manufacturing to some extent, but the city was nevertheless a hubbub of activity. Among the thousands of vehicles travelling the streets of the city one day, a luxury car stopped by the kerb at a traffic light intersection. A pedestrian noticed that the car was a new Pierce-Arrow sedan, with head- light housings blending into gracefully swept front fenders in the unique Pierce-Arrow style. What also set the elegant car apart was that on this cold day, there was no visible vapour belching from the exhaust pipe. The bystander approached the driver and through the open window commented on the lack of fumes coming from the exhaust. The driver acknowledged the man's compliment and remarked that it was because the car had "no engine". This statement is not as whimsical or mischievous as it may seem. There was some truth to it. The Pierce-Arrow did indeed have no internal combustion engine. It had an electric motor instead. If the driver had cared to expand his comment further, he might have told the pedestrian that the electric motor ran with no batteries—with no "fuel" of any kind. The driver was Petar Savo, and though he was operating the car he was not responsible for its astonishing features. These were the work of his sole passenger, a man whom Petar Savo knew as an "uncle": none other than the electrical genius Dr Nikola Tesla (1856-1943). In the 1890s, Nikola Tesla revolutionised the world with his inventions in practical electricity, giving us the induction electric motor, alternating current (AC), radio telegraphy, wireless remote control, fluorescent lamps and other scientific marvels. It was Nikola Tesla's polyphase current (AC), not Thomas Edison's direct current (DC), that really ushered in the modern technological age. Tesla did not rest on his laurels but continued to make fundamental discoveries in the fields of energy and matter. He discovered cosmic rays decades before Millikan, and was an early developer of X-ray, cathode ray and other vacuum tubes. However, Nikola Tesla's potentially most significant discovery was that electrical energy could be made to propagate through the Earth and also around the Earth in an atmospheric zone called the Schumann cavity. It extends from the planetary surface to the ionosphere at about 50 miles (80 kilometres) altitude. Electromagnetic waves of extremely low frequencies in the range of 8 Hz (the Schumann resonance or pulse of the Earth's magnetic field) travel with virtually no loss, to any point on the planet. Tesla's system of power distribution and his dedication to free energy meant that his system could be tapped by anyone in the world with the right electrical device correctly tuned to the power transmission. This threat to powerful interests and their distribution and sale of electrical power was too great. Tesla's discovery resulted in the withdrawal of financial backing, ostracism from the scientific mainstream and the gradual removal of his name from the history books. Having had the status of a scientific superstar in 1895, Tesla was virtually a "non- person" by 1917, limited to performing small-scale scientific experiments in virtual seclusion. A thin figure in his open coat of pre-World War I style, he would announce his discoveries and developing ideas to journalists during his annual birthday briefings for the press. It was a sad mixture of ego and frustrated genius. In 1931, Nikola Tesla turned seventy-five. In a rare display of media tribute, Time by Igor Spajic © 2004 c/- NEXUS Magazine PO Box 30 Mapleton, Qld 4560 Australia Email: editor@nexusmagazine.com NEXUS + 37 by Igor Spajic © 2004 DECEMBER 2004 — JANUARY 2005 www.nexusmagazine.com