Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (76 page)

2. Ibid., August 3, 1899.

3. Ibid., November 6, 1899.

4. John Ratzlaff and Fred Josst,
Dr. Nikola Tesla: English/Serbo-Croatian Diary Comparisons, Commentary and Tesla/Scherff Colorado Springs Correspondence.
(Millbrae, Calif.: Tesla Book Co., 1979), p. 73.

5. NT to GS, September 6, 1899 [LC].

6. NT to GS, September 22, 1899, in Ratzlaff and Jost,
Dr. Nikola Tesla,
p. 114.

7. Nancy Czito, Personal interview, November 1983, Inventor Commemoration Day, Washington, D.C.

8. NT, October 1919, p. 516; in
Tesla Said,
p. 216.

9. Leland Anderson, “John Stone on Nikola Tesla’s Priority in Radio and Continuous-Wave Radiofrequency Apparatus,”
Antique Wireless Association Review,
1:1, 1986.

10. NT to GS, October 29, 1899 [LC].

11. Alexander Marincic,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1979, p. 421.

12. NT,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1979, p. 111.

13. John O’Neill, “Tesla Tries to Prevent World War II” (Originally unpublished chapter from Tesla biography),
Tesla Coil Builders Association,
July—August, 1988, pp. 13-14.

14. NT to RUJ, October 1, 1899 [BLCU].

15. NT,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1979, p. 219.

16. O’Neill, 1988, p. 14.This work has been replicated by Professor James Corum by setting up two coils near each other, one with a low frequency (90 KH) and the other with a high frequency (200 KH). When exciting both coils, small fireballs sometimes appear. Placing a “thumbprint of carbon” on one of the coils also helps augment the process. It is possible, in this latter case, that the microparticles of carbon, when electrified, attract additional charges. Robert Golka, another Tesla researcher, has also produced fireballs. He suggests that rotational motion of a boundary layer of charges may be involved in the process. James Corum, “Cavity Resonator Developments,” lecture before the International Tesla Society, Colorado Springs, August 1990.

17. NT,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1979, p. 228.

18. NT, “Can Radio Ignite Balloons?”
Electrical Experimenter,
October 1919, pp. 516, 591-92.(Archives, Gernsback Publications, Farmingdale, NY).

19. As “the loss [of propagated waves] is proportional to the cube of the frequency…with waves 300 meters in length, economic transmission of energy is out of the question, the loss being too great. With wave-lengths of 12,000 meters [loss] becomes quite insignificant and on this fortunate fact rests the future of wireless transmission of energy.” NT, “The Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation on the Wireless Transmission of Energy,”
Electrical Review and Western Electrician,
July 6, 1912; in
Tesla Said,
pp. 121-27.

20. NT,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1979, p. 76.

21. H. Winfield Secor, “The Tesla High Frequency Oscillator,”
Electrical Experimenter,
March 1916, pp. 614-15, 663.

22. NT, “Can Radio Ignite Balloons?”
Electrical Experimenter,
October 1919, p. 591.

23. Ibid.

24. John O’Neill,
Prodigal Genius,
p. 187; NT,
Colorado Springs Notes,
1899/1979, p. 348.

25. KJ to NT, December 22, 1899 [NTM].

1. RUJ to NT, July 7, 1900 [LC].

2.
Colorado Springs Gazette,
“Nikola Tesla to Come Here,” October 30, 1903, 1:7; Tesla Sued for $180 by Electrical Co.,” April 6, 1904, 3:1; “NT Says He Is Not Indebted to Duffner,” September 6, 1905, 1:2.See also Ratzlaff and Anderson, pp. 79, 81, 86.

3. “Signor Marconi Arrival from Europe,”
New York Times,
January 3, 1900, 1:3.

4. Dragislav Petkovich, “A Visit to Nikola Tesla,”
Politika,
vol. XXIV, no. 6824, April 27, 1927 [LA].

5. Stanko Stoilovic, “Portrait of a Person, a Creator and a Friend,”
Tesla Journal, 4/5,
1986/87, pp. 26-29.

6. Pupin papers, patent no. 652,231, June 19, 1900 [BLCU].

7. Stanko, “Portrait,”
Tesla Journal,
pp. 26-29.

8. U.S. patent letters to Pupin, June 30, 1896; July 25, 1896, Pupin papers [BLCU]; see also
Inventions, Researches, and Writings,
1894, p. 292, and previous discussion in chapter 15.

9. NT, “Tesla’s Wireless Torpedo,”
New York Times,
March 20, 1907, 8:5, in
Tesla Said,
p. 96.

10. NT, “The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace,”
Electrical World & Engineer,
January 7, 1905, p. 22.

11. Admiral Higginson to NT, October 8, 1900 [NAR].

12. Vojin Popovic, “NT, true founder of radio communications,” in
Nikola Tesla: Life and Work of a Genius
(Belgrade: Yugoslavia Society for the Promotion of Scientific Knowledge, 1976), V. Popovic, ed., p. 82.

13. The letter also makes reference to Tesla’s continuing partnership with Peck and Brown, Tesla owning 4/9ths of all royalties on the invention. NT to GW, January 22, 1900 [LC].

14. Bernard A. Behrend,
The Induction Motor and Other Alternating Current Motors: Their Theory and Principles of Design
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), pp. 261-62.

15. “The Tesla Patents,”
Electrical Review,
September 19, 1900, pp. 288-92; see also discussions on priority of AC in earlier chapter.

16. GW to NT, September 5, 1900 [LC].

17. 685,012; 787,412; 725,605.

18. Swami Vivekananda to E. T. Sturdy, February 13, 1896, in
Letters of Swami Vivekananda
(Pithoragarth Himalayas: Advaita Ashrama May Avati, 1981), pp. 281-83.

19. RUJ to NT, March 6, 1900 [LC].

20. NT to RUJ, March 6, 1900 [LC].

21. NT, “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy,”
Century,
June 1900, pp. 175-211.

22. NT to Corinne Robinson, [HL].

23. NT to JJA, May 2, 1900; March 30, 1900.

24. NT to RUJ, June 21, 1900; June 29, 1900 [LC].

25. “A Tesla Patent in Wireless Transmission,”
Electrical World and Engineer,
March 26, 1900, p. 792.

26. NT to RUJ, June 15, 1900 [LC].

27. “Science and Fiction,”
Popular Science Monthly,
July 1900, pp. 324-26.

28. NT to RUJ, July 12, 1900 [BLCU].

29. R. A. Fessenden, “Wireless Telegraphy,”
Electrical World and Engineer,
January 26, 1901, pp. 165-66.

30. KJ to NT, August 2, 1900 [NTM].

31. NT to KJ, August 12, 1900 [BLCU].

32. JJA to NT, September 1900 [NTM].

33. NT to JJA, October 29, 1900 [NTM].

1. NT, “Our Future Motive Power,”
Everyday Science and Mechanics,
December 1931, pp. 78-81, 86.

2. Ibid.

3. H. Satterlee,
J. Pierpont Morgan, An Intimate Portrait,
p. 344.

4. NT to RUJ, January 29, 1900 [BLCU].

5. Werner Wolff,
Diagrams of the Unconscious
(New York: Grune & Stratton, 1948), p. 267.

6. H. Satterlee,
J. Pierpont Morgan,
Morgan,
An Intimate Portrait,
p. 344.

7. NT to JPM, November 26, 1900 [LC].

8. H. Satterlee and J. P. Morgan,
An Intimate Portrait,
p. 345.

9. Cass Canfield,
The Incredible Pierpont Morgan: Financier and Art Collector
(New York: Harper & Row, 1974).

10. A. Satterlee and J. P. Morgan,
An Intimate Portrait,
p. 343-44.

11. G. Wheeler,
Pierpont Morgan and Friends: Anatomy of a Myth
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 61-62.

12. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

13. Note: All conversations between Tesla and Morgan have been recreated from their correspondence. Some literary license has been taken when in conversation form. Blocked quotes are verbatim. NT to JPM, November 26, 1900 [LC].

14. NT to JPM, December 10, 1900 [LC].

15. “Marconi’s Signals,”
New York Times,
April 8, 1899, in Jolly, p. 66.

16. “New Electric Inventions: Nikola Tesla’s Remarkable Discoveries,”
New York Recorder,
June 15, 1891.

17. “Besides, in this country, I have protected myself, though not quite so completely, in England, Victoria, New South Wales, Austria, Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Russia and Switzerland” NT to JPM, December 10, 1900 [LC].

18. Robert Hessen,
Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 116-17.

19. M. Josephson,
The Robber Barrons
(New York: J. J. Little, 1934), p. 426 and Satterlee,
J. Pierpont Morgan,
p. 347.

20. Satterlee, p. 348.

21. Wheeler, p. 233.

22. E. Hoyt,
The House of Morgan
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966), p. 245.

23. NT to JPM, December 10, 1900 [LC].

24. NT to JPM, September 7, 1902 [LC].

25. NT to JPM, March 5, 1901 [LC].

26. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

27. NT to JPM, December 10, 1900 [LC].

28. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 (size calculated from point 8) [LC].

29. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

30. Ibid.

31. JPM to NT, February 15, 1901 [LC].

32. NT to JJA, January 3, 1901 [NTM].

33. JPM to NT, March 5, 1901 [LC].

34. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

35. NT to JPM, February 18, 1901 [LC].

36. NT to JJA, January 11, 1901 [NTM].

37. NT to JJA, January 22, 1901 [NTM].

38. One curious feature to this episode is that aside from lighting patents dating from 1890 to 1992, no circa-1900 Tesla patents have been uncovered which are specifically written up to describe fluorescent or neon lighting. This conclusion is corroborated by correspondence with other Tesla researchers (e.g., Leland Anderson and John Ratzlaff). If Tesla drafted patents on this invention, they were never filed in Washington. There may be copies in Morgan’s archives or the Tesla Museum, or the invention might be somehow linked to other patents. A congressional investigation provides tangential evidence that Morgan purposely squelched this invention: “The introduction of fluorescent lighting in this country was slowed up by GE and Westinghouse, through control of patents, lest its efficiency cut too drastically the demand for current.”
(Invention and the Patent System,
Report of Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States, 88th Cong., 2d sess., December 1964, p. 100.)

39. NT to JPM, March 5, 1901 [LC].

40. NT to GW, March 13, 1901 [LC].

1. NT to JPM, February 12, 1901 [LC].

2. NT to RUJ, March 8, 1900; March 9, 1900 [BLCU].

3. EH to NT, February 25, 1901 [LC].

4. NT to TCM, December 12, 1900 [NTM].

5. TCM to NT, December 13, 1900 [NTM].

6. TCM to NT, December 18, 1900; December 17, 1900 [NTM].

7. NT to Miss Emma C. Thursby, March 3, 1901 [NHS].

8. Julian Hawthorne, “Tesla’s New Surprise,”
Philadelphia North American
circa 1900 [BLCU].

9. NT to JH, January 16, 1901 [BLCU].

10. Paul Baker,
Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White
(New York: Free Press, 1989), p. 15.

11. Ibid., p. 289.

12. Ibid., p. 321.

13. Literary license taken on conversation. Adapted from R. Fleischer, director,
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
(film), 1955; Michael Macdonald Mooney,
Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and Death in the Gilded Age
(New York: Morrow, 1976), pp. 45-46.

14. NT to KJ, June 11, 1900 [BLCU].

15. J. Ratzlaff and L. Anderson, p. 70.

16. O’Neill.

17. NT to RUJ, January 1, 1901 [BLCU].

18. Interview with Mrs. Robert Underwood Johnson, July 1, 1990.

19. “Nikola Tesla Inventor,”
Long Island Democrat,
August 27, 1901, 1:3.

20. O’Neill.

21. Historical Sketches of Northern Brookhaven Town: Shoreham, p. 68 [KSP].

22. “Mr. Tesla at Wardenclyffe, L.I.”
Electrical World and Engineer,
September 28, 1901, pp. 509-10.

23. Ibid.: Warden’s quote: “the ultimate number spoken of is 2000 to 2500 [workers].”

24. “When the Man Who Talked to Mars Came to Shoreham,”
Port Jefferson Record,
March 25, 1971, p. 3.

25. W. Shadwell,
McKim, Mead & White: A Building List,
#818, NY, 1978.

26. SW to JPM, February 6, 1901; February 7, 1901 [SWP].

27. SW to NT, April 26, 1901 [SWP].

28. SW to NT, June 1, 1901 [SWP].

29. GS to NT, July 23, 1901 [LC].

30. SW to NT, January 1, 1901 [SWP].

31. G. Marconi, “Wireless Telegraphy and the Earth,”
Electrical Review,
January 12, 1901; Recent Electrical Patents: “Marconi has been granted another patent on an improved receiver for electrical oscillations in his wireless telegraphy system…
Electrical Review,
March 2, 1901; quotation in text is from “Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy,”
Electrical Review,
part I, June 15, 1901, p. 755; part II, June 22, 1901, pp. 781-83.

32. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

33. NT, Wardenclyffe drawing and notes, May 29, 1901 [NTM].

34. Stephen Birmingham,
Our Crowd
(New York: Pocket Books, 1977). See also Satterlee, 1939 and Wheeler, 1973.

35. “Fear and Ruin in a Falling Market,”
New York Times,
May 10, 1901, 1:6.

36. Edwin Hoyt,
The House of Morgan,
p. 251.

37. NT to JPM, October 13, 1904 [LC].

1. Thomas Edison, private notebook, March 18, 1902 [TAE, Reel M94].

2. O’Neill.

3. NT to RUJ, June 14, 1901 [BLCU].

4. SW to NT, June 1, 1901 [SWP].

5. “Long Island Automobiles,”
Electrical World and Engineer,
January 26, 1901, p. 165.

6. Paul Baker, p. 318.

7. Lawrence Grant White letter to Kenneth Swezey, December 21, 1955 [KSP]. Lawrence had provided Swezey with three letters from Tesla, copies of which are in the Library of Congress and the Swezey Collection. He had asked for their return, but the originals are missing and copies do not exist in the Stanford White papers at the Avery Library.