Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency

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Experiments with Alternate
Currents of High Potential and
High Frequency

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Potential and High Frequency, by Nikola Tesla
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Title: Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High
Frequency
Author: Nikola Tesla
Release Date: September 16, 2004 [eBook #13476]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATE CURRENTS OF HIGH
POTENTIAL AND HIGH FREQUENCY***
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EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATE CURRENTS OF HIGH
POTENTIAL AND HIGH FREQUENCY
A Lecture Delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers,
London
by
NIKOLA TESLA
With a Portrait and Biographical Sketch of the Author
NEW YORK
1892

Biographical Sketch of Nikola Tesla.
While a large portion of the European family has been surging
westward during the last three or four hundred years, settling the vast
continents of America, another, but smaller, portion has been doing
frontier work in the Old World, protecting the rear by beating back the
"unspeakable Turk" and reclaiming gradually the fair lands that endure

the curse of Mohammedan rule. For a long time the Slav people--who,
after the battle of Kosovopjolje, in which the Turks defeated the
Servians, retired to the confines of the present Montenegro, Dalmatia,
Herzegovina and Bosnia, and "Borderland" of Austria--knew what it
was to deal, as our Western pioneers did, with foes ceaselessly fretting
against their frontier; and the races of these countries, through their
strenuous struggle against the armies of the Crescent, have developed
notable qualities of bravery and sagacity, while maintaining a
patriotism and independence unsurpassed in any other nation.
It was in this interesting border region, and from among these valiant
Eastern folk, that Nikola Tesla was born in the year 1857, and the fact
that he, to-day, finds himself in America and one of our foremost
electricians, is striking evidence of the extraordinary attractiveness
alike of electrical pursuits and of the country where electricity enjoys
its widest application. Mr. Tesla's native place was Smiljan, Lika,
where his father was an eloquent clergyman of the Greek Church, in
which, by the way, his family is still prominently represented. His
mother enjoyed great fame throughout the countryside for her skill and
originality in needlework, and doubtless transmitted her ingenuity to
Nikola; though it naturally took another and more masculine direction.
The boy was early put to his books, and upon his father's removal to
Gospic he spent four years in the public school, and later, three years in
the Real School, as it is called. His escapades were such as most quick
witted boys go through, although he varied the programme on one
occasion by getting imprisoned in a remote mountain chapel rarely
visited for service; and on another occasion by falling headlong into a
huge kettle of boiling milk, just drawn from the paternal herds. A third
curious episode was that connected with his efforts to fly when,
attempting to navigate the air with the aid of an old umbrella, he had, as
might be expected, a very bad fall, and was laid up for six weeks.
About this period he began to take delight in arithmetic and physics.
One queer notion he had was to work out everything by three or the
power of three. He was now sent to an aunt at Cartstatt, Croatia, to
finish his studies in what is known as the Higher Real School. It was

there that, coming from the rural fastnesses, he saw a steam engine for
the first time with a pleasure that he remembers to this day. At Cartstatt
he was so diligent as to compress the four years' course into three, and
graduated in 1873. Returning home during an epidemic of cholera, he
was stricken down by the disease and suffered so seriously from the
consequences that his studies were interrupted for fully two years. But
the time was not wasted, for he had become passionately fond of
experimenting, and as much as his means and leisure permitted devoted
his energies to electrical study and investigation. Up to this period it
had been his father's intention to make a priest of him, and the idea
hung over the young physicist like a very sword of Damocles. Finally
he prevailed upon his worthy