To the parents of Nikola Tesla:
Notwithstanding our constant efforts to put an end to your son’s interest with what can only be described as ‘unknown forces of the universe,’ Nikola has far-surpassed our expectations as a student—and twice there have been reports of extinguished small fires resulting from his ‘experimentations,’ but this is not the purpose of this letter, although the issue should soon be addressed.
The reason is to inform you that Nikola is on a path to graduate early, with honours, in as little as three years.
In a letter to his father [date illegible because of deterioration; although determined to have been written sometime prior to 1874]:
[top of page missing]
—of the Smijan Austro-Hungarian Army, so I must evade such conscription and flee to Tomingaj, which is near Gračac. I must make amends with nature, clear my head, and prepare mentally for what is to come. War is a pointless act of cruelty mankind parades upon itself. To enter a war without consent of soldiers is utterly . . . [illegible]. Have you per-chance read anything by a man by the name of Mark Twain? I have recently— [remainder missing]
Transcribed from a telegram sent from Graz University of Technology in Styria, Austria, dated December 24th, 1875:
Father,
I am saddened to hear of your diminishing health, so I would like to attempt to elevate your spirits by letting you know I am excelling at TU Graz this last year under the Military Frontier Scholarship, and have to-date not missed a single class nor assignment. I must admit I’ve seen the Dean’s letter he plans to send your way—he felt the need to share his words with me as well—in which he states, “Your son is a star of first rank!” That said, you may find yourself reading some rather harsh words from a certain Professor Poeschi, as we have had mixed words—near fisticuffs, if I may be honest—about the necessity of commutators in use with the Gramme dynamo, which is a type of electronic generator capable of producing direct current. The contraption involves a series of armature coils wound about a revolving ring of iron. The coils are thus connected in series and there is a great deal of magnetism involved. Poeschi is insistent upon connecting the junction between pairs to these commutators, which is rubbish!
In a letter to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, postmarked June 19th, 1878:
Mr. Clemens:
I wanted to send you this note of thanks for helping me through a period of self-enlightenment. I had the pleasure of familiarizing myself with your short fiction over these last few years, and your recent novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Although your fictitious world is set in the town of St. Petersburg—which I assume is also fiction because it is not to be found on a map that makes any logical sense, I can’t help but feel this town you created is inspired by your very own Hannibal, Missouri, and that this is an autobiographical novel of sorts.
I have taken a liking to your work, and have to ask the question: Do you also write under Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass? I have read a few humorous articles by a writer of that name—the name is also humorous: Snodgrass, ha!—and he shares something similar with his prose.
We should make an appointment to meet, sooner rather than later, as I would like to share with you some interesting ideas I have for a particular word we mutually admire: “peace.”
Sincerely,
N.T.
In a letter from Milutin Tesla to Graz University of Technology in Styria, Austria, dated March 3rd, 1879:
To whom it may concern:
I am writing to inquire about the location of my son, Nikola Tesla, who I have heard recently dropped out of your institution, despite his continued education relying on my finances. I have not heard from him in some time, nor from the school, and am highly concerned of his whereabouts. He has cut all ties with family and seems to have vanished from this very earth. There are rumors he has moved to Maribor, Slovenia, where I will travel next if his location is still uncertain following your reply. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated . . .
There are numerous letters and transcriptions concerning the whereabouts of Nikola Tesla over the thirty-five years that follow, following Milutin’s sudden and unexpected death on April 17th, 1879, but none are relevant for the purpose of this collection of articles. The relationship between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla is well-known, as well as their quarrels with patents and ownership of original ideas for both direct and indirect electrical circuits. And there are other non-relevant matters, so the timeline of these articles quickly shifts through the years covering Tesla’s stint in Hungary, Budapest, and Paris—where he worked for the Continental Edison Company—and through his emigration into the United States in 1884 when he was brought to New York—Manhattan’s Lower East Side—to manage Edison Machine Works. And the timeline quickly shifts through 1885 to the start of Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, through the inventions of the polythermal induction motor, and various transformer designs. His work helped journey him to places like Niagara, to assist in generating power from the falls. And over the years, and through many inventions, Nikola became independently wealthy from licensing patents, giving him both the time and funds to pursue his own interests, both brilliant and peculiar, resulting in inventions still in use today, such as the Tesla coil. He alternated, like some of his machines, between wealthy and broke.
Yet his ideas always reached farther than his funds would allow, often beyond the scope of imagination; his ideas becoming what most considered fantastic, but in the way that word can also mean lunacy, crazy, something composed of ‘fantasy;’ ideas one might read in fiction.
Thus, in a letter written by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, addressed to Nikola Tesla at his South Fifth Avenue laboratory, postmarked June 19th, 1894:
Greetings, Mr. Tesla:
After so many letters back and forth, it is finally time we meet in person, don’t you think? Your name is all over the papers, like a brand, so your whereabouts were not difficult to track. There is even a picture of your laboratory in New York in the latest Times, and I must say, the building looks garish and, well, clayey! You gave me strife with that word in your last letter: clayey, saying I had made up a word that was not yet a word. This makes us more similar than differing, don’t you think? You invent new things out of nothings, much like I do with words. I happen to be making my way north and will be passing through New York in my travels. I’ll stop by if you’ll allow, and we can talk about your “ideas” for a better world that you touched on in your last correspondence, and I would love for the opportunity to “hold the lightning,” or to walk through it, at least, as you have been noted as doing in some of your recent public experiments. You were right about Hannibal, by the way. I love the damn Mississippi! It’s liquid chocolate, ‘tis true! [the 2nd page of the letter is water-damaged and unreadable]
In a letter to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, postmarked July 31st, 1894:
Sam / Mark (you are one in the same, so what does it matter?):
My most recent experiments in finding a means to bring light to our so very dark world has taken much of my time, in fact nearly all of it. I write these words under the light provided by wireless electricity, if you can imagine such a thing. Apologies for the delay since your last meeting, but I have found a way inside Pandora’s Box and have flung it wide open, thus breaking its hinges; I’m not sure it will be capable of closing ever again.
What we discussed when we last met, I won’t write about here, but wanted you to know that I’ve found a way! There can be an end to all war—not by offense, but by defense . . . I only need to find the means to fund such exhaustive research.
Your friend,
N. Tesla
From a classified transcription of a conversation held in the Situation Room, retrieved from the hacker group Anonymous, dated September 11th, 2011:
[name redacted]—“Where is Flight [number redacted] headed?”
[name redacted]—“Origination was J.F.K. with a destination of Chicago/O’Hare, sir.”
[name redacted]—“Chicago? [Emphasized]”
[name redacted]—“We have reason to believe the hijackers will attempt to fly the aircraft into either the Willis Tower, or the John Hancock building. Both building names have been mentioned—”
[name redacted]—“How do we know this?”
[name redacted]—“Text messages obtained from passengers onboard the flight, sir.”
A long silence . . .
From a letter to John Pierpont “Jack” Morgan Jr. (also known as J.P. Morgan, Jr., philanthropist, banker, and finance executive), dated November 29th, 1934:
I have made recent discoveries of inestimable value . . . The fly machine [war plane] has completely demoralized the world, so much that in some cities, as London and Paris, people are in mortal fear from aerial bombing. The new means I have perfected afford absolute protection against this and other forms of attack. . . . These new discoveries, which I have carried out experimentally on a limited scale, have created a profound impression.
Published in the New York Times, in an article headlined “Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla’s Claim on 78th Birthday,” dated July 11th, 1934:
My apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that nothing can resist . . .
Also claimed on Nikola Tesla’s 78th birthday, as published in the New York Times in an article headlined “‘Death Ray’ for Planes,” published September 22nd, 1940:
. . . The nozzle would send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending nation’s border and will cause armies to drop dead in their tracks.
Snippets from the treatise “The New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy through Natural Media: System of Particle Acceleration for Use in National Defense” concerning charged particle beam weapons in an attempt to explicate technical descriptions of an alleged ‘superweapon’ that could potentially put an end to all war, dated sometime between 1935 and 1937 [currently located in the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade]:
The advances described are the result of my research carried on for many years with the chief object of transmitting electrical energy to great distances. The first important practical realization of these efforts was the alternating current power system now in universal use. I then turned my attention to wireless transmission and was fortunate enough to achieve similar success . . .
I mastered the technique of high potentials sufficiently for enabling me to construct and operate, in 1899, a wireless transmitter developing up to twenty million volts . . .
After preliminary laboratory experiments, I made tests on a large scale with the transmitter referred to and a beam of ultra-violet rays of great energy in an attempt to conduct the current to the high rarefied strata of the air and thus create an auroral such as might be utilized for illumination, especially of oceans at night . . .
Much time was devoted by me to the transmission of radiant energy, in various forms, by reflectors and I perfected means for increasing enormously the intensity of the effects, but was baffled in all my efforts to materially reduce dispersion and became fully convinced that this handicap could only be overcome by conveying the power through the medium of small particles projected, at prodigious velocity, from the transmitter. Electrostatic repulsion was the only means to this end and an apparatus of stupendous force would have to be developed . . .
When I undertook to carry out this plan in practice, the difficulties seemed insurmountable. In the first place, a closed vacuum tube could not be employed as no window could withstand the force of the impact. This made it absolutely necessary to project the particles in free air which meant that each could hold only an insignificant charge. Thus, no matter how high the potential of the terminal, the force of repulsion would be necessarily too small for the purpose contemplated . . .
The successful carrying out of the plan involves a number of more or less important improvements but the principal among these includes the following:
1. A new form of high vacuum tube open to the atmosphere.
2. Provisions for imparting to a minute particle an extremely high charge.
3. A new terminal of relatively small dimensions and enormous potential.
4. An electrostatic generator on a new principle and of very great power.
From a classified transcription of a conversation held in the Situation Room, retrieved from the hacker group Anonymous, dated September 11th, 2011:
[name redacted]—“Where is the plane currently?”
[name redacted]—“Just entering airspace over Ohio.”
A letter from Samuel Langhorne Clemens, addressed to Nikola Tesla at [address illegible], postmarked January 27th, 1933:
Nikola,
Does the newsprint speak the truth? Have you perfected the [illegible] vacuum and completed your “ray?” The Times reads as though your purpose is to find a means not only to end all war, but to create a device capable of annihilating innumerous lives in the blink of an eye, without a trace . . . yet those are your words they are printing, are they not? My heart is telling me you have higher plans, that your “death ray” is in fact a “peace ray,” in the same manner a country capable of manufacturing a bomb of atomic proportions would rely on its possession more so than its use.
Your friend,
S. Clemens
A postcard from Nikola Tesla to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, postmarked February 28th, 1933, the back of which contains a photograph of an unknown street in New York:
S.C.—My plans for “peace” have expanded beyond the vision of plain-folk minds. Papers enjoy the term “death ray,” and so do I, but only because it brings financiers to the table.—N.T.
In a letter mailed from Hotel New Yorker, addressed to S.W. Kintner, Esq. of Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, PA, dated April 7th, 1934:
My dear Mr. Kintner;
I was glad that you did not put the matter before Mr. Merrick for I found after careful thought and figuring that it would take much more money to carry out my proposal which I made to you on the spur of the moment stimulated by the pleasure of our meeting and your warm response. The Westinghouse people made a friendly gesture and I wanted to meet them in the same spirit by giving them the first opportunity on discoveries which I honestly believe to be more important than any of recorded in the history of invention.
[page missing]
I note your suggestion but am at a loss to see how to carry it out. Rest assured though, that I shall always hold your people in high regard and if I ever find it in my power to advance their interest I shall spare no effort.
The skepticism of your expert was expected. He is probably under the sway of the modern illusionary ideas and the abler he is the more apt he is to be in error. But I have demonstrated all the principals involved and am going ahead with perfect confidence which all the experts in the world could not shake.
Yours very truly,
Nikola Tesla
Published in the New York Sun in an article titled “Tesla Invents Peace Ray: Tesla Describes His Beam of Destructive Energy,” dated July 10th, 1934:
Invention of a “beam of matter moving at high velocity” which would act as a “beam of destructive energy” was announced today by Dr. Nikola Tesla, the inventor, in his annual birthday interview. Dr. Tesla is 78, and for the past several years has made his anniversary the occasion for announcement of scientific discoveries.
The beam, as described by the inventor to rather bewildered reporters, would be projected on land from power houses set 200 miles or so apart and would provide an impenetrable wall for a country in time of war. Anything with which the ray came in contact would be destroyed, the inv
entor indicated. Planes would fall, armies would be wiped out and even the smallest country might so ensure “security” against which nothing could avail.
Dr. Tesla announced that he plans to suggest his method at Geneva as an assurance of peace.
From the New York Sun, in an article titled “Death-Ray Machine Described: Dr. Tesla Says Two ofb Four Necessary Pieces of Apparatus Have Been Built,” published July 11th, 1934:
Amplifying his birthday anniversary announcement of the prospective invention of an electrical death-ray, or force beam, that would make any country impregnable in time of war, Dr. Nikola Tesla says that two of the four pieces of necessary apparatus already have been constructed and tested.
Four machines combine in the production and use of this destructive beam, which, according to Dr. Tesla would wipe out armies, destroy airplanes and level fortresses at a range limited only by the curvature of the earth. These four are:
First, apparatus for producing manifestations of energy in free air instead of in a high vacuum as in the past. This, it is said, has been accomplished.
Second, the development of a mechanism for generating tremendous electrical force. This, too, Dr. Tesla says, has been solved. The power necessary to achieve the predicted results has been estimated at 50,000,000 volts.
Third, a method of intensifying and amplifying the force developed by the second mechanism.
Fourth, a new method for producing a tremendous electrical repelling force. This would be the projector, or gun of the invention.
While the latter two elements in the plan have not yet been constructed, Dr. Tesla speaks of them as practically assured. Owing to the elaborate nature of the machinery involved, he admits it is merely a defense engine, though battleships could be equipped with smaller units and thus armed could sweep the seas.
In addition to the value of this engine for destruction in time of war, Dr. Tesla said it could be utilized in peace for the transmission of power . . .
Fantastic Tales of Terror Page 27