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Re: What about test euipment and stuff?



Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

At 11:54 AM 2/5/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Original poster: "james brady by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><james_brady10-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
>
>
>One of my big questions is:
>
>
>
>What kind-of test equipment did Telsa use? I am pretty sure that he didn't 
>have any and he still built TC's that are better than today's.

Tesla, along with other experimentalists of the time, built his own test 
gear and probably spent a lot of time characterizing its limitations and 
performance. He also probably spent a lot of money (in proportion to the 
total budget) on instrumentation. Take a look at a classic book by Strong 
("Procedures for Experimental Physics", available from Lindsay Books, for 
one)for what was state of the art in the 30's and 40's. Even today, we have 
to build our own test equipment (or pay someone to build it for you as a 
one-off), even for TC tinkering, and certainly for state of the art 
systems. You can't just go out and buy a vector network analyzer off the 
shelf for 100+ GHz, for instance (well, you can, but they're built by the 
each).

I don't know that Tesla built TC's that are better than today's.  The 
theory underlying the function is much better understood today, and we have 
measurement tools that are relatively inexpensive that would be unheard of 
at the end of the 19th century (sampling digitizer and FFT?, or even just 
an oscilloscope). You'd also have to argue about what "better" means: 
performance using champagne bottles and gutta percha insulation?

This is not to say that Tesla wasn't gifted.  I'd say that if you took 
someone today and put them in a warehouse with stuff available to Tesla in 
1900, they'd have a hard time duplicating the systems he 
built.  Particularly with the inconsistent material quality and properties 
of the day, Tesla's gut feel engineering knowledge was probably essential.





> >Terry,
> >
> >Here is an interesting comparison of DMM's from Test&Measurement
> >World and a chart showing various waveforms. You may want to post
> >it on hot-streamer.
> >I signed up for a free subscription to the magazine with my
> >"business" name. The publisher also has a number of other
> >electronics industry mags, some of which you may already get.
> >
> >Nick A
> >Littleton, CO
> >
> >
> >http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/TMW03_02DMMtable.xls
> >
> >http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/TMW03_02F1SfigAweb.gif