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"I have had a very successful year," he said with the enthusiasm of one a third of his years. "I have made two inventions, among the most important of my life. "When they are announced, one will be like the 100,000 trumpets of the Apocalypse. The other will be less sensational, but it, too, will be important. It will be like the shout with which Joseph's army brought down the walls of Jericho.
"I am elated. The practical success of these inventions is almost achieved. I hope to be able to make them known within the next year."
Invention Would Aid Steel Trade
Dr. Tesla would not disclose the nature of these inventions in detail. He intimated that the more important of them had to do with molecular physics and that it would be of the utmost benefit to the steel industry.
"When applied in certain ways," he said, "it will yield greatly improved products and obviate much waste."
The other invention would result in a saving of energy, he said. It had nothing to do, he explained, with the problem on which he has long been working - the tapping of a tremendous and thus far unused source of energy. He has been working on that during the last year, he said, and has made great advances both in its practical application and in the theory underlying it. As to this new source of power, he said;
"When the time is ripe I propose first to announce the scientific principles underlying it only. Later I shall show its practical application through the forms of power generating apparatus. If I succeed, the world will see machines against which the largest turbo-dynamos of today will be mere playthings."
In response to questioning, Dr. Tesla said that one invention on which he had been working recently would permit the generation of all kinds of rays of almost unlimited intensities, and would afford a check on whether the present theories of atomic structure are true and workable or merely a fabric of the imagination.
New York Times — July 10, 1932, p. 19, c. 1
Asked about his startling new scientific discoveries, one of which concerns the "photographing of thought," which will, he maintains, bring about a tremendous social revolution, he said:
"My first and most important discovery concerns the harnassing of a new source of power, hitherto unavailable, to be developed through fundamentally novel machines of my invention.
"I am not yet prepared to dwell on the details of the project, for they must be checked before my findings can be formally announced. I have worked on the development of the underlying principles for many years. From the practical point of view of the engineer engaged in power development, the first investment will be relatively very great, but once a machine is installed it may be depended on to function indefinitely, and the cost of operation will be next to nothing.
"My power generator will be of the simplest kind - just a big mass of steel, copper and aluminum, comprising a stationary and rotating part, peculiarly assembled. I am planning to develop electricity and transmit it to a distance by my alternating system now universally established. The direct current system could also be employed if the heretofore insuperable difficulties of insulating the transmission lines can be overcome.
Kansas City Journal-Post — September 10, 1933
Mr. Tesla said that one of these discoveries is a new way of transmitting energy, an entirely new principle nothing like wireless. The second has to do with a new method of housing cosmic rays, and the third concerns a problem which scientists and inventors have worked on for seventy-five years but which every one has given up as utterly impossible.
New York Sun — July 9, 1935
The second invention, which, he said, "will be considered absolutely impossible by any competent electrical engineer," was described by him as a new method and apparatus for producing direct current without a commutator, "something that has been considered impossible since the days of Faraday." "Incredible as it seems," he said, "I have found a solution for this old problem."
New York Times — July 11, 1935 p. 23, c. 8
"I am elated. The practical success of these inventions is almost achieved. I hope to be able to make them known within the next year."
Invention Would Aid Steel Trade
Dr. Tesla would not disclose the nature of these inventions in detail. He intimated that the more important of them had to do with molecular physics and that it would be of the utmost benefit to the steel industry.
"When applied in certain ways," he said, "it will yield greatly improved products and obviate much waste."
The other invention would result in a saving of energy, he said. It had nothing to do, he explained, with the problem on which he has long been working - the tapping of a tremendous and thus far unused source of energy. He has been working on that during the last year, he said, and has made great advances both in its practical application and in the theory underlying it. As to this new source of power, he said;
"When the time is ripe I propose first to announce the scientific principles underlying it only. Later I shall show its practical application through the forms of power generating apparatus. If I succeed, the world will see machines against which the largest turbo-dynamos of today will be mere playthings."
In response to questioning, Dr. Tesla said that one invention on which he had been working recently would permit the generation of all kinds of rays of almost unlimited intensities, and would afford a check on whether the present theories of atomic structure are true and workable or merely a fabric of the imagination.
New York Times — July 10, 1932, p. 19, c. 1
Asked about his startling new scientific discoveries, one of which concerns the "photographing of thought," which will, he maintains, bring about a tremendous social revolution, he said:
"My first and most important discovery concerns the harnassing of a new source of power, hitherto unavailable, to be developed through fundamentally novel machines of my invention.
"I am not yet prepared to dwell on the details of the project, for they must be checked before my findings can be formally announced. I have worked on the development of the underlying principles for many years. From the practical point of view of the engineer engaged in power development, the first investment will be relatively very great, but once a machine is installed it may be depended on to function indefinitely, and the cost of operation will be next to nothing.
"My power generator will be of the simplest kind - just a big mass of steel, copper and aluminum, comprising a stationary and rotating part, peculiarly assembled. I am planning to develop electricity and transmit it to a distance by my alternating system now universally established. The direct current system could also be employed if the heretofore insuperable difficulties of insulating the transmission lines can be overcome.
Kansas City Journal-Post — September 10, 1933
Mr. Tesla said that one of these discoveries is a new way of transmitting energy, an entirely new principle nothing like wireless. The second has to do with a new method of housing cosmic rays, and the third concerns a problem which scientists and inventors have worked on for seventy-five years but which every one has given up as utterly impossible.
New York Sun — July 9, 1935
The second invention, which, he said, "will be considered absolutely impossible by any competent electrical engineer," was described by him as a new method and apparatus for producing direct current without a commutator, "something that has been considered impossible since the days of Faraday." "Incredible as it seems," he said, "I have found a solution for this old problem."
New York Times — July 11, 1935 p. 23, c. 8
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