Re: Flat coils & undamped waves (was Wire Length)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Nevertheless, deliberate augmentation of the resonator's internal 
capacity as a substitute for what might be called the 'external 
capacity' formed by the elevated terminal and its distant 
counterparts would be self defeating.  To assert that this was 
Tesla's true intention is quite ridiculous.

Gary Peterson"

   I don't know whether this was his intent or not - just quoting 
his patent verbatim.  Since this was written a long time before his 
later statement I don't think there's any way to know what his real 
knowledge was at that time or how much he knew about the losses 
involved.  For the record, I suspect he never employed this idea but 
simply applied for a patent when the thought struck him - that's 
certainly the case with a number of his other patents.   Patents for 
patents sake?

    I've just reread Leland Andersen's book on Tesla's later 
testimony and end up with the same impression as the first time I 
read it a number of years ago.  It's really a tragic story about 
realization of opportunity lost and what "might have been".  It seems 
to me in large part to be a lament about how others have been 
successful using "my ideas" and "my schemes".  Lots of personal 
pronouns there and denunciations of successful people.  As for the 
accuracy of his claims the only real evidence is in the fascinating 
photographs of stuff like his tuned wire receiver, his patents and 
his descriptions of some of his work are so vague as to be 
disconcerting.  "If only" he had published more and made more public 
demonstrations.   Clearly his priorities were elsewhere.  I was again 
struck by his extreme vagueness about the actual frequencies used in 
many of the experiments (certainly not all) and find it hard to 
believe that he could have forgotten that much in the intervening 
years.  The most pathetic single part is the inventory of 
Wardenclyffe which includes "one submarine boat".  He was a very 
proud man so how it must have hurt him to see that taken by the 
foreclosure!!!!!!!!!!

   There are several points raised in it which I'll detail in a 
later note as I'm interested in seeing how the rest of you feel about them.

Ed