Quote: By this time Tesla's top priority had shifted from his system of high-frequency lighting to the development of a wireless system that could transmit electrical energy directly to homes and factories, as proposed in his 1900 Century magazine article. He claimed that it is possible to transmit energy on a worldwide scale, applying a method that involves electrical conduction through the earth and the periodic alteration of Earth's electrostatic charge. In 1900 he received the patents SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY and APPARATUS FOR TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY. They describe two wireless stations, one consisting of a large Tesla coil magnifying transmitter and the other a similar Tesla coil receiver, each with an elevated air terminal electrode suspended by balloon at an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 m), where the atmospheric pressure is lower. Tesla believed atmospheric ionization would allow energy to be transmitted at high voltages (millions of volts) over long distances by electrical conduction. Another claim was that such a high elevation of the air terminal electrodes is not absolutely necessary. By 1901 Tesla had come to believe the entire planet could be made to act as a giant electrical resonator and that by driving sufficiently powerful current pulses into Earth at a harmonic of its fundamental resonant frequency using a grounded Tesla coil transmitter working against a relatively short elevated capacitive air terminal electrode, its natural electrostatic potential could be made to oscillate, and this alternating current could be received at any location with a Tesla coil receiver and similar capacitive air terminal electrode arrangement tuned to resonance with the transmitter. Tesla demonstrated the coupling of a Tesla coil transmitter and a Tesla coil receiver in an experiment at his Experimental Station in Colorado Springs, transmitting enough electrical energy to power a 10-watt incandescent lamp at a distance of 1,938 feet (591 m) from the station's magnifying transmitter. |