Tesla, page 41
13 Antonio Perez-Yuste, “Early Development of Wireless Remote Control: The Telekino of Torres-Quevedo,” IEEE.org, January 2008.
14 “Tom Edison’s Son Explodes Desk by Accident,” NYT, May 3, 1898, 7:1.
15 Anderson, Nikola Tesla: Guided Weapons.
16 Seifer, Wizard, 194–95.
17 Willard L. Candee, Electrical Review and Western Electrician, November 25, 1911, 1059.
18 “Tesla’s Latest Wonder: Magician of Electricity Says He Will Abolish War,” Reading Times, PA, 11/10,1898, p. 2, BDA.
19 NT, “Torpedo Without a Crew,” Current Literature, February 1899, 136–37.
20 M. Huart, “The Genius of Destruction,” Electrical Review, December 7, 1898, 7; Seifer, Wizard, 196–97.
21 Mark Twain to NT, 11/17/1898, NTM; cited in Anderson, Nikola Tesla, Guided Weapons, 131.
22 NT, letter to Benjamin F. Miessner, author of Radiodynamics: The Wireless Control of Torpedoes and Other Mechanisms. New York: Van Nostrand, 1916, LOC.
23 JHH Jr. to NT, 2/16/1911, NTM; cited in Seifer, Wizard, 348–49.
24 NT to JHH Jr., 2/18/1911, NTM; in Seifer, Wizard, 349.
25 Lloyd Espenschied, “Discussion of History of Modern Radio-Electronic Technology,” Proceedings of IRE (1959): 1254.
26 Hammond to Lowenstein, 5/11/1911; in Lloyd Espenschied. “Discussion of History of Modern Radio-Electronic Technology,” Proceedings of IRE (1959): 1254.
27 Ibid.
28 Aitken, Continuous Wave Technology.
29 JHH Jr and E. S. Purington, “Rebuttal to Espenschied,” Proceedings of IRE (1959): op. cit., 1259–60.
30 Miessner to JHH Jr., 2/6/1912, in “Rebuttal of Espenschied” by J. H. Hammond Jr. and E. S. Purington, Proceedings of IRE (1959): 1259.
31 Tesla-Fessenden U.S. Patent Interference Case, August 1902, pp. 87, 97–98.
32 Miessner to JHH Jr., 2/12/1912, op cit.
33 JHH Jr., patent #1,522,882, granted January 13, 1925.
34 Hedy Lamarr, patent #2,292,387 Secret Communication System; Melinda Wenner, “Hedy Lamarr: Not Just a Pretty Face,” Scientific American, June 3, 2008.
35 Hammond Jr. and E. S. Purington, “Rebuttal to Espenschied,” Proceedings of IRE (1959): JHH Jr. and E. S. Purington (1959): op. cit., 1262.
36 Fritz Lowenstein, patent #1,470,088, 10/9/1923.
37 Puharich, Beyond Telepathy; Seifer, Wizard, 354.
38 Nancy Rubin. John Hays Hammond Jr., Gloucester, MA: The Hammond Museum, 1987.
39 Nikola Tesla, “Breaking Up Tornadoes,” Everyday Science and Mechanics, December 1933; in NT 1984, 248–49.
8. Marconi and the Germans
1 Guglielmo Marconi, “Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy,” Electrical Review, June 15, 1901, 755.
2 Adapted from Chapters 39–41 of Wizard.
3 Wikipedia.
4 “Mr. Tesla Before the Royal Institution, London,” Electrical Review, March, 19, 1892, 57; in Martin, Researches, Writings and Inventions, 200.
5 NT, New York World, 4/13/30.
6 R. N. Vyvyan, cited in Marconi, My Father Marconi, 138.
7 NT 2008, 4/28/1910, 478.
8 By doubling that figure and dividing by the speed of light, he also calculated the resonant frequency of the Earth, which was 1/12th or 0.8484 of a second.
9 “Your Excellency,” Tesla began writing from his Wardenclyffe laboratory, “Noting that [my] inventions . . . have been appropriated by others . . . boldly exploited to my detriment, I am compelled to protest humbly, yet emphatically, against the intended use of Your Excellency’s name and authority in connection with the sending of a wireless message announced in the journals . . . [as] this would create an erroneous impression all over the world, which might permanently injure my material interests and temporarily detract from my scientific reputation as original investigator.” NT to Teddy Roosevelt, 1/15/1903, NTM, quoted in Kruk, Nikola Tesla: The Force Awakens, 66–67.
10 NT to K. G. Frank, 10/12/1915, NTM. Tesla writes, “My discoveries in [AC transmission and motor design] are the foundation of an immense industry in Germany, but it is no benefit to myself . . . for such has been the uniform experience of American inventors.... Ask any.... Bell, Edison, Thomson, Bush, Weston and others, what pecuniary benefits they have received from Germany, and the answer will be none.” NT, “Patents in Germany, Complaints of Ill Treatment of American Inventors,” NYS, May 7, 1908.
11 Ambrose Fleming letter to R. N. Vyvyan, circa 1937, R & R Auction House.
12 Bernstein, Three Degrees Above Zero, 83.
13 Marconi, My Father Marconi, op. cit., 189–90.
14 KSP, in Seifer, Wizard, 361.
15 NYT, August 9, 1914.
16 Tesla-Fessenden, U.S. Patent Interference, Case, 1902, 87, 97–98, M. Seifer Archives; Seifer, Wizard, 280–81.
17 E. J. Wheeler, ed. “Rival Systems of Wireless Telegraphy and the Differences Between Them,” Current Opinion, February 1914.
18 Seifer, Wizard, 361.
19 NYT, August 17, 1914.
20 K. G. Frank to NT, 10/7/1915, NTM. Although Tesla is asking Frank about the possibility of obtaining German patents, he already had patents in Germany that the Kaiser would not recognize. It should be noted that over his lifetime, Tesla had about 120 fundamental U.S. patents and nearly another 200 patents worldwide in such countries as Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Russia, India and Japan.
21 KSP, in Seifer, Wizard, 361.
22 Tuckerton Radio Station to J. Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, July 3, 1916, NA. Homag stands for, in English, High Frequency Machine Stock Company for Wireless Telegraphy.
23 R. M. Winans, “Wireless Power,” interview with NT, Buffalo Courier, March 12, 1912, 4; NT to JJA, 3/22/1909, NTM.
24 Vincent Astor to NT, 5/15/1912, NTM.
25 NT to K. G. Frank, 2/16/1915, NTM.
26 “U.S. in Charge of Sayville,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 9, 1915.
27 Gary Peterson, “The Application of EM Surface Waves to Wireless Energy Transfer,” April 8, 2017.
28 K. L. Corum and J. F. Corum, “Bell Labs and the Radio Surface Wave Propagation Experiment, Texzon Technologies: Texas Symposium on Wireless Microwave Circuits and Systems, Baylor University, Waco TX, March 31, 2016”; Tesla 1916; Arnold Sommerfeld. “Uber die Ausbreitung der Wellen, in der drahtlosen Telegraphie,” Annalen der Physik 28, no. 4 (March 16, 1909): 665–736; note cited by Anderson in Tesla 1916, 133.
29 Tesla explains in his 1916 deposition that Wardenclyffe was set up to reduce considerably the radiation aspect and increase the conductive properties by sending the EM energy through the Earth. “You want high potential currents, you want a great amount of vibratory energy; but you can graduate this vibratory energy. By proper design and choice of wave lengths, you can arrange it so that you get, for instance, 5% in these EM waves and 95% in the current that goes through the Earth. That is what I am doing. Or, you can get, as these radio men, 95% in the energy of EM waves and only 5% in the energy of the current. Then you are wondering why [they] do not get good results.” NT 1916, 132–33; phone interview with Gary Peterson, 3/31/2020.
30 “Germans Treble Wireless Plant,” NYT, April 23, 1915.
31 NT to F. W. Woolworth, 10/16/1912, NTM. In The Tesla Files, Prometheus Films, shown on the History Channel in June 2018, astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor speculated that when Tesla moved into the Hotel New Yorker, circa 1934–1943, he may have placed a laboratory in the top floor in a particular corner storage room, near where the telephone switchboard was located. Pipes in this corner room went all the way to ground, and also the Hotel New Yorker had its own generator separate from the grid, thus he would have had access to electric power. Taylor’s speculation that Tesla, in a sense, created a Wardenclyffe wireless setup, has some merit, and in support of that, I pointed out that Tesla planned to do precisely this in the Woolworth building fifteen years earlier, but this segment was cut from the final show. A key point to keep in mind was that Tesla was hit by a taxicab in June of 1937 at the age of eighty-one, and was thus too incapacitated to do any real work after that point, that is, from 1937 until his death in 1943. Thus, if he did do wireless experiments using the hotel’s height and electrical setup, it would have to have been during the years 1934 through the first half of 1937, when his interest seemed to be more involved in developing his particle beam weapon.
32 NT to RUJ, 12/24/1914, LOC.
33 NT to JPM Jr., 12/23/13, LOC.
34 R. P. Hobson to NT, 6/6/1902, NTM; cited in Anderson, Nikola Tesla: Guided Weapons, 134–35.
35 Lieutenant Commander A. R. Sulfidge to N. Tesla, 4/29/1896, NTM.
36 R. B. Bradford, chief of the Bureau of Engineering and Development, U.S. Navy, to NT, 10/23/1900, NTM.
37 NT to U.S. Navy, chief of Bureau of Equipment, 11/24/1900.
38 NT to J. D. Long, secretary of the Navy, 10/19/1900, NTM.
39 William Crawford to NT, 6/19/1900, NTM.
40 R. B. Bradford, chief of the Bureau of Engineering and Development, U.S. Navy, to NT, 12/17/1900.
9. The Great War
1 Edward H. Smith, “Tesla Describes Wireless Warfare of the Future,” the World magazine, January 30, 1916.
2 “Denies German Ownership,” NYT, August 17, 1914.
3 “Kintner v. Atlantic Communication Co., et al. Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. Atlantic Communications, District Court, NY, March 4, 1921,” legal.com/decision-1921.
4 K. G. Frank to NT, 9/17/1915, NTM.
5 NT to JPM Jr., 02/19/1915, LOC.
6 “Tesla Sues Marconi,” NYT, August 4, 1915.
7 “Sayville Trebles Output,” NYT, April 23, 1915. As stated in the text, Sayville’s accomplishment was achieved by taking Tesla’s advice, by increasing the ground connection and creating “a double tuned circuit which allowed the primary capacitance to be very large . . . what may have happened . . . is Tesla showed [the Germans] how to increase the primary capacitance and vary the mutual coupling from the primary to the secondary to match the break speed. Those adjustments could improve their output easily by a factor of 10” (email Ken Corum to M. Seifer, 1/18/2021).
Where the New York Times reported the creation of three five-hundred-foot towers, Joe Sikorski’s research has suggested that “Telefunken erected sixteen small towers the first of which was 150 feet tall for short range messages with four taller towers to support the [five-hundred-foot-tall main] antenna of the 100 watt transmitter. The towers themselves were more of a support to what was called an ‘umbrella antennae’ system—which was a series of wires that connected to the tower masts and created a sort of web resembling an elaborate maypole. But every newspaper seemed to publish a different amount of towers.” Sikorski confirmed nine smaller supporting towers (Joe Sikorski, email to M. Seifer, 4/1/2020), and various photographs confirm Sikorski’s assessment. Tesla’s deposition, written in 1916, however, emphasizes that he played a key role in getting Telefunken to reduce the radiation aspect and increase dramatically the ground connection, and this was certainly confirmed by the reports that Sayville had in rapid fashion tripled their power. The importance of this event in supporting the viability of Tesla’s theories cannot be understated. See NT 1916, 133.
8 FDR, assistant secretary of the Navy, re: Tesla priority in wireless, September 14, 1916, NA.
9 “Prof. Pupin Now Claims Wireless His Invention,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 13, 1915; Seifer, Wizard, 371–73.
10 Marconi v. Atlantic Communications, 1915; Kintner v. Atlantic Communication Co., et al. Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. Atlantic Communications, District Court, NY, March 4, 1921. See also Marconi Wireless v. Kilbourne and Clark, Decided May 3, 1920, ravellaw.com. Kintner had taken over Fessenden’s company, and Tesla had established priority over Fessenden in court in 1902, see Seifer, Wizard, 280–82; Marconi at the Key: Inventor, with Judge Veeder, Visits Wireless Station, NYT, 5/2//1915; Invisible Threads by Joe Sikorski, 2021.
11 NT, “The Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation on the Wireless Transmission of Energy.” Electrical Review and Western Electrician, July 6, 1912; and NT 1984, 123.
12 Stephenson, Mr. Nikola Tesla and the Electric Light of the Future. Scientific American, 3/30/1895, pp. 16408–09; A Way to Harness Free Electricity Discovered by Nikola Tesla, The World Sunday Magazine, 3/8/1896.
13 NT 1916, 29–30, 105; NT to JPM, 12/26/1901, NTM.
14 Anderson, “John Stone Stone,” cited in Seifer, Wizard, 372–73.
15 Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company of America, plaintiff-appellant, vs. Kilbourne and Clark Manufacturing Company, defendant, appellant, United States Circuit Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, Brooklyn, NY, March 10, 1916.
16 Lessing, Man of High Fidelity, 42–43.
17 Seifer, Wizard, 373–74; Engineering and Technology History Wiki, ethw.org.
10. The Fifth Column
1 NT to K. G. Frank, 5/21/1916, NTM.
2 K. G. Frank to NT, 5/16/1916, NTM.
3 Blum, Dark Invasion, 70.
4 Ibid., 146; Kaiser Sends First Wireless to Wilson, NYT, 1/29/1914; Wilson’s Word to Kaiser, NYT, 6/21/1914.
5 Jones and Hollister, German Secret Service.
6 Ibid.; Return of Alien Property, U.S. Congress, Committee of Ways and Means, Statement by Senator Sutherland, Alien Property Custodian, November 23, 1926; a heavyweight whose life reads like a German version of a Le Carré novel, von Papen would later survive the Nuremberg Trials, live through the 1950s and 1960s, and pass away at age 85, in 1969.
7 Jones and Hollister, German Secret Service, 49.
8 Wikipedia.
9 Jones and Hollister, German Secret Service, op. cit., 49.
10 “Captain Boy-Ed,” letter to the editor, NYT, July 9, 1915, 10.
11 New York Times Current History series, vol. 17, The European War.
12 Ibid., 113–14.
13 “JP Morgan Shot by Man Who Set the Capitol Bomb,” NYT, July 3, 1915; NT to JPM Jr., July 1915, LOC.
14 NT, “Wireless Controls German Air Torpedoes,” NYT, July 10, 1915.
15 NT, “Science and Discovery Are the Great Forces which Will Lead to the Consummation of the War,” NYS, December 30, 1914; Edward H. Smith, “Tesla Describes Wireless Warfare of the Future,” The World Magazine, January 30, 1916, 5–6.
16 Charles Apgar, The Amateur Radio Station Which Aided Uncle Sam, EE, 11/1915, pp. 337–338; Invisible Theads by Joe Sikorski, 2021.
17 NT to George Scherff, 12/25/1917, LOC.
18 RUJ to NT, 3/1916, LOC.
19 K. G. Frank to NT, 11/29/1915, NTM, German translation by Google.
20 NT to K. G. Frank, 12/1/1915, NTM, German translation by Devin Keithley.
21 Karl Ferdinand Braun to Tesla, 7/11/1915, NTM, cited in Kruk, Nikola Tesla: The Force Awakens, 12.
22 Tesla to Karl Ferdinand Braun, 9/11/1915, NTM, cited in Kruk, Nikola Tesla: The Force Awakens, 13.
23 W. H. Bragg, June 11, 1931, in NT 1961, cited in Kruk, Nikola Tesla: The Force Awakens, 8–9.
24 NT to U.S. Lighthouse Board, 9/27/1899, NA.
25 NT to RUJ, 11/10/1915, BLCU.
26 Seifer, Wizard, 380.
27 Wikipedia.
28 “Tesla No Money,” New York World, March 16, 1916.
29 NT to K. G. Frank, 12/17/1915, NTM.
30 NT 1919, cited in Seifer, Wizard, 382.
31 NT to Edison, 2/9/1912, NTM; Edison to NT, 2/23/1912, NTM.
32 NT to Edison, 6/22/1914, NTM.
33 NT to Edison, 12/16/1914, NTM.
34 Edison to NT, 12/16/1914.
35 NT, Edison Medal Speech, 1917.
36 J. B. Smiley to F. Hutchins, 7/16/17, LAP.
37 NT to Waldorf-Astoria, 7/12/1917, LAP.
38 “Tesla’s New Device Like Bolts of Thor,” NYT, December 8, 1915.
39 Joseph Alsop, “Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla’s Claim on 78th Birthday,” NYHT, July 11, 1934, pp. 1, 15, in NT, 1981, p. 112.
40 NT to William Crawford, 4/28/1913, NTM.
41 NT to JPM Jr., 4/8/16, LOC.
42 “Spies on Ship Movements,” NYT, 2/17/1917.
43 Mitchell Palmer, Report of all Proceedings Under the Trading with the Enemy Act During 1918. United States Alien Property Custodian Publication, 1919.
44 Blum, 2014.
45 “19 More Taken as German Spies,” NYT, 4/8/1917.
