by Marc Seifer
frequencies]…The Fire Department responded to an alarm frantically
turned in; four tons of machinery flew across the basement and the only thing which saved the building from utter collapse was the quick action of Dr. Tesla in seizing a hammer and destroying his machine.”
“The device could be a Frankenstein’s monster,” Tesla confided many years later. “If not watched, no substance can withstand the steadily applied rhythm when its resonance point is reached. Skyscrapers could easily be destroyed with the steady building up of resonance from the timed strokes of a five-pound hammer.29
In another rendition of the story, told at another time, Tesla claimed that he had taken his alarm clock-sized oscillator to a building site “in the Wall Street district.” Finding one under construction, about “ten stories high of steel framework…” he clamped the vibrator to one of the beams and fussed with the adjustment until he got it.
“In a few minutes I could feel the beam trembling,” Tesla told a reporter. “Gradually, the trembling increased in intensity and extended throughout the whole great mass of steel. Finally, the structure began to creak and weave, and the steel-workers came to the ground panic-stricken, believing there had been an earthquake. Rumors spread that the building was about to fall, and the police reserves were called out. Before anything serious happened, I took off the vibrator, put it in my pocket and went away. But if I had kept on ten minutes more, I could have laid that building flat in the street. And, with the same vibrator, I could drop the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River in less than an hour.”
Tesla told the reporter that he could split the earth in the same way, putting an end to mankind.
“The vibrations of the earth,” he said, “have a periodicity of approximately one hour and forty-nine minutes. That is to say, if I strike the earth this instant, a wave of contraction goes through it that will come back in one hour and forty-nine minutes in the form of expansion. As a matter of fact, the earth, like everything else, is in a constant state of vibration. It is constantly contracting and expanding.
“Now suppose that at the precise moment when it begins to contract, I explode a ton of dynamite. That accelerates the contraction, and in one hour and forty-nine minutes, there comes an equally accelerated wave of expansion. When the wave of expansion ebbs, suppose I explode another ton…and suppose this performance be repeated time after time. Is there any doubt as to what would happen? There is no doubt in my mind. The earth would be split in two. For the first time in man’s history, he has the knowledge with which he may interfere with cosmic processes.”
Tesla calculated that this procedure might take more than a year to succeed, “but in a few weeks,” Tesla said, “I could set the earth’s crust into such a state of vibration that it would rise and fall hundreds of feet, throwing rivers out of their beds, wrecking buildings, and practically destroying civilization. The principle cannot fail.”30
23
VRIL POWER (1898)
We entered an immense hall, lighted by…[a] lustre…but diffusing a fragrant odor. The floor was in large tesselated blocks of precious metals, and partly covered with a sort of matlike carpeting. A strain of low music, above and around, undulated as if from invisible instruments…
In a simpler garb than that of my guide, [a figure] was standing motionless near the threshold. My guide touched it twice with his staff, and it put itself into a rapid and gliding movement, skimming noiselessly over the floor. Gazing on it, I then saw that it was no living form, but a mechanical automaton…Several [other] automata…stood dumb and motionless by the walls.
THE COMING RACE, EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON1
One of Tesla’s major inventions in terms of ingenuity, originality, and complexity of design was a remote-controlled robotic boat which he called the telautomaton. This device was unveiled at the Electrical Exposition held at Madison Square Garden during the height of the Spanish-American War in May 1898, but earlier precursors could be traced to wireless motors which he displayed before the Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1892.
This single invention not only established all of the essential principles of what came to be known a few years later as the radio; it also lay as the basis of such other creations as the wireless telephone, garage-door opener, the car radio, the facsimile machine, television, the cable-TV scrambler, and remote-controlled robotics. The precise nature of the invention, virtually its patent application, was published in most of the technical journals at the time of its inauguration.2
The telautomaton paralleled precisely a model developed by British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1871, although Tesla insisted in a missive to Johnson, written two years after the invention’s inauguration, that he had not been inspired by this science-fiction tale.3
As Bulwer-Lytton was perhaps the most popular author next to Charles Dickens at that time, it is unlikely that Tesla was unaware of this story when he conceived of the invention. In The Coming Race, Bulwer-Lytton describes a concept which he called “vril power.” This was an energy transmitted from the eye and body of the fictional advanced species which was used to animate automatons.4 In essence, Tesla built a working model that substituted electricity for the novelist’s “vril.” The story begins when the protagonist falls into a hole in the earth and comes upon an advanced civilization: “In all service, whether in or out of doors, they [the people of Vril-ya] make great use of automaton figures, which are so ingenious, and so pliant to the operations of vril, that they actually seem gifted with reason. It was scarcely possible to distinguish the figures I beheld, apparently guiding…the rapid movements of vast engines, from human forms endowed with thought.”5 As we shall see, key aspects of Bulwer-Lytton’s story correlate quite closely with positions espoused by Tesla.
The electrical exhibition was organized by Stanford White, who worked with Tesla to fashion a rainbow room of neon lights at the entrance, and it was presided over by Chauncey Depew, another Tesla friend, who was also one of the principals of the New York Central Railroad and a U.S. senator from New York. It had been hoped that President McKinley would illuminate the exposition by means of telegraph lines from Washington, but something went awry, so Vice President Garret Hobart opened the proceedings instead. Representing the Marconi company was Tom Edison’s son, Tom Junior, who obtained the position through T. C. Martin. This liaison marked the beginning of a partnership between Marconi and Edison, as the Menlo Park wizard had wireless patents which the Italian wanted to own in order to boost his legal position on priority of discovery. The event also portended the upcoming break in the friendship between Tesla and Martin.
Animosities between Spain and the United States had run high for a number of years. Ever since 1895, when the Spaniards took repressive measures against rebelling Cubans, many Americans began to champion the cause of Cuban annexation.
The sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor in February of 1898 eliminated any doubts, and war was officially declared two months later. Tesla had been meeting with John Jacob Astor throughout this period in his continuing attempts to woo the financier as Astor spelled out more clearly his position on relevant issues.6 While his wife played mah-jongg at home, the colonel jaunted along the deck of his mighty ship, the Nourmahal, which he had armed with four machine guns in order to protect against potential pirates. Labeled as insipid and henpecked by gossip columnists, Astor sought his freedom on the high seas.
Perhaps it was during an outing on Astor’s yacht that the inventor conceived of the idea of fashioning the teleautomaton in the form of a torpedo. “Come to Cuba with me where you can demonstrate your work upon the insufferable scoundrels,” Astor suggested.
Tesla may have been tempted, but in the midst of a whirlwind of invention, he graciously declined as he had been called “for a higher duty.”7
Tesla finalized construction of his remote-controlled boat and considered how to make amends as Astor conferred with President McKinley in Washington and then hastened to the front lines. Th
e colonel had donated $75,000 to the U.S. Army to equip an artillery division for use in the Philippines and lent the Nourmahal to the navy for use in battle. The tall ship, nearly a hundred yards in length, was equipped with a corps of military seamen. Able to feed sixty-five at one sitting, the steam-driven three-masted schooner made a formidable warship. With his honorary rank stepped up to inspector general, Colonel Astor sailed his battalion down to Cuba, where he could “watch Teddy Roosevelt in the Battle of San Juan Hill through a pair of field glasses.”8
Beating the Spanish with modern instruments of destruction became the overriding theme of the exposition. Tesla would have far and away the most sophisticated construction, but he chose to portray it by deceptively emphasizing mysterious features: “In demonstrating my invention before audiences, the visitors were requested to ask any question, however involved, and the automaton would answer them by signs. This was considered magic at the time, but was extremely simple, for it was myself who gave the replies by means of the device.”9
The boat, approximately four feet in length and three feet high, was placed in a large tank in the center of a private auditorium, set up for special viewing for key investors like J. O. Ashton, George Westinghouse, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.10 By means of a variety of transmitters and frequencies, the inventor could start, stop, propel, steer, and operate other features, such as putting lights on or off. Tesla was also planning on constructing a prototype submersible, perhaps to compete in the mock battles that were staged between models of the American ships and the Spanish fleet, but it was never built.
Due to the lack of access the press had to this exclusive invention the newspapers featured Marconi’s wireless detonation system instead. By means of a bomb planted onboard the enemy frigate and a simple button placed in the hands of Tom Junior, “Spanish” ships were blown to smithereens. Marconi, however, had not solved the problem of tuning a frequency, and so, on one occasion, Edison’s son accidentally blew up a desk in a back room that had housed other bombs. Fortunately, no one was injured.11
It appears that the public appreciated the dramatic Marconi contraption, which appealed to baser instincts, as compared to Tesla’s masterwork, which was sixteen years ahead of its time operationally and at least a century ahead of its time conceptually, that is, as envisioned in final form. Only the scientific journals explained with any clarity the complexity of the device.12
Tesla’s coy portrayal kindled a blitzkrieg of epithets from the press. The following fantastic prognostication particularly upset them:
Torpedo Boat Without a Crew
My submarine boat, loaded with its torpedoes, can start out from a protected bay or be dropped over a ship side, make its devious way along the surface, through dangerous channels of mine beds…watching for its prey, then dart upon it at a favorite moment…discharge its deadly weapon and return to the hand that sent it…I am aware that this sounds almost incredible and I have refrained from making this invention public until I had worked out practically every detail.13
By allowing the following editorial to appear in his journal Electrical Engineer, T. C. Martin was, in a backhanded way, another to lead the assault.
Mr. Tesla and the Czar
Mr. Tesla fools himself, if he fools anybody, when he launches into the dazzling theories and speculations associated with his name…Just of late Mr. Tesla has been given publicity to some of his newest work…We should be glad personally to see him finish up some of the many other things that have occupied his energies these ten years past.
The editorial then went on to criticize Tesla’s oscillator and his method of “delivering large quantities of current…without wires, say from Niagara Falls to Paris [which has also yet to happen]…Mr. Marconi has already telegraphed from balloon to balloon without wires…over twenty miles, thus proving in advance the tenability of Mr. Tesla’s proposition.14
Discredit of the wireless torpedo followed. This was in reaction to Tesla’s suggestion that the ultimate weapons could be “devil automata.” Caught up in war fever, Tesla emphasized nefarious implications of his work: Automatons would fight while humans would live. He wrote, “The continuous development in this direction must ultimately make war a mere context of machines without men and without loss of life—a condition [which will lead]…in my opinion…to permanent peace.”15
This position was refuted by a number of individuals, the most eloquent by Frenchman M. Huart:
The Genius of Destruction
Like all inventors of destructive machines, [Tesla] claims that his [devil automata] will make the governments which are inclined to create international conflagrations hesitate. On this account Nikola Tesla claims a right to be called a benefactor of humanity. The genius of destruction would seem to have, then, two aims. It creates evil but mostly good. Through its help the abolition of wars may no longer be a utopia of generous dreamers. A blessed era will open up to the people, whose quarrels will be settled in view of the terror of the cataclysms promised by science. What contradictions of conception is the human mind subject to?16
Coincidentally, this view was espoused by Mark Twain, who wrote to Tesla from Europe wanting to sell the patents to cabinet ministers in Austria, Germany, and England, by Bulwer-Lytton, and by Czar Nicholas of Russia, whom Tesla himself was negotiating with.17 (And that was how “Nicholas” Tesla became associated with the czar.) In the modern era, Edward Teller, one of the inventors of the hydrogen bomb, and, more recently, President Ronald Reagan in his 1980s Star Wars speeches, have also expounded on this position. But Tesla (much like Einstein) came to regret his initial view of how the agents of Armageddon could lead humans to peace.
The brazen essay, which had appeared in Martin’s journal, continued as an introduction to Tesla’s “thoughtful” paper on electrotherapeutics and then concluded with the following convoluted backhand compliment:
It is not our desire to pose as apologists or publicists for Mr. Tesla. He needs no assistance of that kind; and so long as he commands freely whole pages of the Sunday papers, for which Mr. Wanamaker pays gladly his thousands of dollars, the scientific journals have little to do with the matter. All we wish to say is that it is not fair to condemn, as many do, Mr. Tesla as a visionary and impractical. No man has finished his work till he is dead, and even then there are long, long centuries in which his ideas can prove themselves true. The visionaries are thus often in the end the most sordid of realists—something Mr. Tesla will never be.18
As Martin had been, in a sense, Tesla’s advance man, his decision to allow this critique in his journal became a tacit sanction for other writers to unfurl their condemnation. For instance, another scathing review appeared in both The Scientific American and the more popular Public Opinion. The article appeared on the same page as the obituary of mountebank inventor John Worrell Keely.
Was Keely a Charlatan?
In the death of J. W. Keely of Keely Motor fame…the world has been robbed of one of its most unique and fascinating characters…[Keely] was always going to startle the world but never did. It is sincerely to be hoped that Keely’s alleged secrets have died with him.
Science and Sensationalism
…That the author of the multiphase system of transmission should, at this late date, be flooding the press with rhetorical bombast that recalls the wildest days of the Keely Motor mania is inconsistent and inexplicable to the last degree…The facts of Mr. Tesla’s invention are few and simple as the fancies which have been woven around it are many and extravagant. The principles of the invention are not new, nor was Tesla the original discoverer.19
This implication that Tesla was not the author of his system of wireless communication echoed previous charges that he was not the genuine inventor of the AC polyphase system. This was what particularly angered him, as it was essential that his work be original. “I wish I could lay upon the fellow all the forked lightning in my laboratory,” Tesla told the Johnsons at dinner at their home.20
“Perhap
s it would be more effective if an outside person came to your defense,” Robert suggested.
“My dear Luka, I know that you are a noble fellow and devoted friend and I appreciate your indignation at these uncalled for attacks, but I beg you not to get involved under any condition as you would offend me. Let my ‘friends’ do their worst, I like it better so. Let them spring on scientific societies worthless schemes, oppose a cause which is deserving, throw sand into the eyes of those who might see. They will reap their reward in time.”21
“Then how can we redress such an outrageous individual?”
“Let us have a profound contempt for the creature,” Tesla concluded.
“I don’t see Commerford in this same category,” Katharine offered, trying to set the stage for a reconciliation.
“I know you and Luka want me to forgive your friend Martin for his disparaging editorial. It was well done, but not so painstakingly as many others before. He renders me more and more valuable services.”
“At least talk to him,” Katharine pleaded.
Tesla grabbed his hat, coat, and gloves and waved his hand. “Sorry for him. That is all,” he said as he departed.22
Tesla counterattacked with a spirited response to Electrical Engineer which they were forced to publish:
On more than one occasion you have offended me, but in my qualities both as Christian and philosopher I have always forgiven you and only pitied you for your errors. This time, though, your offense is graver than the previous ones, for you have dared to cast a shadow on my honor…Being a bearer of high honors from a number of American universities, it is my duty, in view of this slur, to exact from you a complete and humble apology…On this condition I will again forgive you, but I would advise you to limit yourself in your future attacks to statements for which you are not liable to be punished by law.23