The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1911-06-27
TESLA AND HIS
WIRELESS AGE
BY Arthur 3. Reeves in Popular
Electricity.

lions Wnlch were OF sucn intensity
that when circulating through my
arms and chest they have melted wires
which have Joined my hands, and still
] have felt no Inconvenience. ] have
energized with such oscillations
loop of heavy copper wire so powerfully
that masses of metal placed within
perature and melted often with the
violence of an explosion. And yet in
to this space in which this terribly
destructive turmoil was going on
have repeatedly thrust my head with
out feeling anything or experiencing
injurious after effects"
The speaker was tall, spare man
with clean.cut, thin, refined face,
and eyes of exceptional keenness. He
was sitting at broad flat-top desk in
his office on the twentieth floor OF
the Metropolitan Tower, and his eyes
wandered restlessly In just pride
from a photograph of his old friend
Lord Kelvin on one wall to large
photograph Of electrical streamers ri.
valling the lightning on the other.
The speaker was Nikola Tesla.
But before describing his wonderful
theories and experiments in the wire
less transmission of energy, let me
say something of the man and his
life. And first of all, it must not be
forgotten that today over four mil.
lion horsepower of water falls are
harnessed by Tesla's alternating cur
rent system. That is like saying that
forty million men, untirlng, working
without pay. consuming no food,
shelter or raiment, are constantly la.
boring to provide for our wants. In
these days OF conservatism, II is in
teresting to note that this vast cleo
trical energy derived from WATERFOWL
er saves hundred millions Of tons
OF coal every year. Our trolley roads,
our subways, many of our electrified
RAILROADS, the incandescent lamps In
our homes and offices. all use a sys.
TEN OF power transmission of this
mans invention.
Nikola Tesla was born at Smiljan,
Lika, in the border country OF Aus
tria. Hungary in 1857. He was the son
of Greek clergyman and orator and
Georgia Mandic. herself somewhat of
an investor like her father before her.
The young Tesla attended the schools
OF Lika and Croatia. and later the
Polytechnic at Gratz, as we'll as the
University of Prague. in Bohemia. AT
Gratz he saw and operated Gramme
machines for the first time, and was
so struck with the objections to the
use OF commutators and brushes that
he made up his mind to remedy that
defect in dynamo electric machines.
Tesla began his practical career
in Buda Pesth In 1881. His first cleo.
trical invention was a telephone re-
peater. Later he was engaged in vari.
GUS branches of engineering and man.
ufacture in Paris, and In 1884 he
came to the United States. Here he
found employment for while with
the Edison company in Orange, New
Jersey. After the prescribed period OF
residence he became naturalized
American citizen.
After numerous scientific addresses
and papers and inventions like the
third brush regulation he entered
business for himself, the Tesla Elec.
ulcal Company of New York being
formed in 1887 Already he had con.
oeived his great idea of the rotating
magnetic field, which makes possible
the transmission Of power by alterna
ting current, system extensively
used over long distances, His work
with dynamos, transformers, induction
COILS oscillators, arc and incandescen
lamps, involving alternating current,
OF high frequency and high potential
at once brought him great fame II
fact the immense stimulus of Tesla
work TO the study of alternating en-