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Nikola Tesla: Lecture Before the New York Academy of Sciences April 6, 1897 : The Streams of Lenard and Roentgen and Novel Apparatus for Their Produ - Hardcover
Synopsis
Following Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents, this book is the second in a three part Tesla Presents series offering the reader what has been, up until now, unavailable material on the pioneering work of Nikola Tesla in field of radio frequency electrical engineering. While first delivered under the title "On the Streams of Lenard and Roentgen with Novel Apparatus for Their Use" the information carried within the text of the lecture goes far beyond this topic. In addition to his opening remarks on X-ray discovery, a major portion of Tesla's commentary deals with the specially designed high frequency resonators that were used in conjunction with his work, plus clear descriptions of stroboscopic instruments he designed for measurement of frequency and phase. Other topics addressed include wireless receiving methods and the genesis of Tesla's particle beam projector of 1937. During the talk Tesla had displayed approximately 120 drawings of specially constructed vacuum tubes, many being of the Lenard type and also the single-electrode type of his own design. Also among the drawings were renderings of various tubes used in his wireless communications experiments. Enhanced photographs of these images are among the 30 illustrations which fill out this fine volume.
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From the Back Cover
"Suddenly, without any preparation, Roentgen surprised the world..." So begins one of the most sought after of Tesla's treasures - his unpublished 1897 X-Ray lecture before the New York Academy of Sciences. Several puzzles become clear with this historical document. Tesla's independent discovery of X-Rays, unlike Roentgen's, was primarily based on sources which produced X-Rays by vacuum high field emission and the process now known as bremsstrahlung. While Roentgen employed a gaseous discharge tube utilizing electron avalanche, Tesla's cold cathode tubes worked best with high vacuum. Tesla's distinctive approach presaged the way for high energy particle accelerators, permitting the utilization of megavolt potentials, single electrode tubes, atmospheric bremsstrahlung, and a variety of intense beam techniques. As usual, he was years ahead with his inventions: Fowler and Nordheim's quantum mechanical considerations, necessary to understand Tesla's sources, were not available for another 32 years! (By then Tesla was developing a macroscopic charged particle beam.)
This broad lecture provides a remarkable amount of collateral information. He not only discussed his approach to X-Ray experimentation, but also included a surprising amount of information on high frequency RF techniques, coupled oscillators, magnetic receiver technology, the development of fluorescent, lighting, and the creation of a stroboscopic measurement apparatus. The stroboscopy, tachometry, and chronography alone would have made the lecture a classic! The lecture demands careful study and balanced evaluation.
Drawing on a lifetime of historical investigation and scholarship, Leland Anderson has once again contributed a splendid record of documentation to the scientific community. His unique insight into electrical history has not only furnished us with another unusual primary source in the history of science but, in this critical publication, Mr. Anderson has molded a singular instrument for the serious analysis of Tesla's professional activities. -- Kenneth and James Corum
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
At the close of 1894, realizing the necessity of recovery from a straining task, on which I have been laboring for a number of years and which still commands my energies, it occurred to me to investigate the actinic action of phosphorescent bodies. The subject did not appear to have been studied, and I began the work at once securing later, at the suggestion of some friends connected with the Century Magazine, the assistance of Messrs. Tonnele & Company, artists' photographers, of this city, then doing work for this magazine. In these experiments I employed an improved apparatus for the production of powerful electrical vibrations as well as one of my high frequency alternators of old design. A great variety of Crooks tubes, single electrode globes, and vacuum bulbs without external electrodes were experimented upon. A surprising fact was soon brought to light; namely that the actinic power of the Crooks bulbs varied greatly and that some, which emitted a comparatively strong luminosity, hardly showed an effect, while others, of much smaller light-giving power, produced strong impressions. I wish to state here, in order to be clear, that my efforts were directed toward investigating such actions of true phosphorescent light, as furnished from bulbs without appreciable emission of heat, and not so much as those of incandescent vacuum tubes, although some photographs were likewise taken with these. As both the artists and myself were busy on other matters, the plates in their ordinary holders were frequently put in some corner of the laboratory until a suitable opportunity for carrying on the experiments was found. During these investigations many plates gave a result, while many others failed, and on some of these both Mr. Alley, who then assisted me, and myself noted unaccountable marks and defects. Mr. Alley particularly found it extraordinary, that, in spite of his care, many plates proved defective and unsuccessful. The taking of these photographic impressions by means of Crooks bulbs brought freshly to my mind the experiments of Lenard, some features of which, particularly the action on a sensitive plate, had fascinated me from the start, and I resolved to go over the ground covered by him with assistance and improved appliances. Just as my attention was arrested by this feature, my laboratory with almost everything it contained was destroyed; and the few months following passed in intense activity which made me temporarily forget my projects. I had hardly finished the work of reconstruction and resumed the course of my ideas when the news of Roentgen's achievement reached me. Instantly the truth flashed upon my mind. I hurried to repeat his incompletely reported experiments, and there I beheld the wonder myself. Then - too late - I realized that my guiding spirit had again prompted me and that I had failed to comprehend his mysterious signs....
But while I have failed to see what others in my place might have perceived, it was always since my conviction, which is now firmer than ever, that I have not been forsaken by my kind spirit who then communed with me, but that, on the contrary, he has further guided me and guided me right in comprehension of the nature of these manifestations. Perhaps, in bringing to your attention some new facts which I have since discovered in addition to those already announced, I may induce, at least in some of you, to interpret these phenomena as I do. For fear, though, that I might miss my chief objective this evening, I must ask your kind indulgence to dwell in a few words on the novel appliances which are exhibited here for your inspection. When I trace their origin, I find it clearly in my early recognition of the fact that an economical method of producing electrical vibrations of very high frequency was the key for the solution of a number of most important problems in science and industry....
As to the broad principle, these transformers or electrical oscillators, as they might be most properly called, it is simple enough and has been advanced by me some five or six years ago. A condenser is charged from a suitable source and is then in any convenient way discharged through a circuit containing, as it does here, the primary of the transformer. The first diagram, Fig. 1, illustrates a generator G, a condenser C, and for charging and discharging the latter any kind of device b adapted to produce an intermittent break in the dielectric. The circuit L containing the high or low tension devices d through which the condenser discharges being properly adjusted, extremely rapid electrical vibrations which, so far as we know are unattainable by any other means, result; and these set up, by inductive action in any neighboring circuits, similar vibrations which give rise to many curious phenomena...
The next step in the evolution of the principle and its adaptation to practical uses was to associate with the system illustrated in Fig. 1 a self induction coil L as shown in diagram Fig. 3, which modified the action in many now well understood ways... Then I associated a secondary coil S with the primary circuit p, as shown in Fig. 5, this enabling the obtaining of any tension required...
A photograph of one of these instruments, Fig 9, especially adapted to be used in the operation of Roentgen bulbs, or in general use as a laboratory appliance in place of the ordinary induction coil, gives an idea of the actual arrangement of the parts.
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