"We are whirling through endless space, with an inconceivable speed, all around us everything is spinning, everything is moving, everywhere there is energy. There must be some way of availing ourselves of this energy more directly. Then, with the light obtained from the medium, with the power derived from it, with every form of energy obtained without effort, from the store forever inexhaustible, humanity will advance with giant strides. The mere contemplation of these magnificent possibilities expands our minds, strengthens our hopes and fills our hearts with supreme delight."
Nikola Tesla, 1891
Tesla Coils
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) is still surrounded by controversy and mystery fifty years after his death. He is perhaps the most controversial and mysterious inventor of the technical age, and is also a cult icon of alternative science followers. A Serbian immigrant, he arrived in America a pauper, earned fame and fortune as an eccentric but flamboyant genius, and died in poverty.
Colorado Springs experiment where grounded tuned c...
A 1915 example of an early type of resonant circui...
Oudin coilNikola Tesla's patents still today are the cores of our electrical power distribution and use. Royalties from his many inventions founded empires of industry and technology for those shrewd enough to have obtained them cheaply, such as Morgan, Westinghouse and Edison. The celebrated Tesla Coil even to this day presents the most awesome electrical display in the world. Cult followers believe Tesla was centuries ahead of today's technology, inventing antimatter, and antigravity. No matter whom you ask, they will tell you Tesla was eccentric and brilliant. In fact, his patents founded empires of industry and technology.
Tesla coils are an air-core, resonant transformers. It is basically a high frequency RF oscillator. The Tesla coil formed the basis of all radio transmitters before to 1915. These spark gap transmitters were banned from use by the Communications Act of 1934. They work at high frequencies,