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Re: Tesla's Energy Trans.
Hi Terry,
<< Hi Nick,
Unlike the never ending arguments over energy transmission, spark length
claims are much more on topic and important to us.
Good
At 04:42 PM 12/25/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi All,
> I hope terry feels like letting this through as I never got around
>to adding my final thoughts to the discussion. I think I've set out most
of
>my idea but some of the list were a little scathing about my refs.
>particullarly the 128foot streamer at resonance. As I was re-reading a
Tesla
>biog ('The Man Who Invented The 20th Century' Headline Press 1999) I came
>across this:
>'The strike was over 200 feet (61m) in length. There was a mighty clap of
>thunder as the electricity ripped the air apart. The local newspapers
>reported that the noise could be heard as far off as Cripple Creek, 20miles
>(32km) away.'
It is easy to "write" things like this, but "proving" such claims is not
easy. What local papers wrote this and on what dates? The Colorado
Springs and Cripple Creek news papers are probably still available (and not
that far away for me to go find). If the references cannot be
substantiated, then I must conclude that these are rumors and not fact.
Since this is a very modern book, the author should be able to give
references which support these rather "unbelievable" spark lengths...
Tesla's own highly detailed notes of the time do not record anything even
near this...
I agree that as an unsubstantiated claim this is a bit flimsy - unfortunately
as the book is so thoroughly researched it contains only a 'select
bibliography' therefore I have not found his referance for the Colorado
springs paper.
Pikes Peak, Mount Big Chief, Sheep mountain, Cow Mountain, and Almagre
Mountain are ~12000-14000 foot peeks between Cripple Creek and Colorado
Springs and I must point out that the likely hood of a sound traveling over
those peaks or through all that rock is unbelievable to me. Cripple creek
was a heavy mining area with lots of explosives being used to blow the
local mountains into gold ore at the time. Big bangs would have been very
common, but not from Tesla's coil...
The design of Tesla's machine simply would not have supported the electric
potentials required to produce a 200 foot arc...
I would point out that on page 329 of the colorado springs notes tesla
mentions that he could achieve sparks of 50-55 feet in a straight line at
'not quite full power' - this is without earth resonant tuning of any sort
and with the coil still in developement. It is reasonable to assume that the
magnification factor of the earth in resonance would be more than 4 -
therefore 200 fet does not look to unlikely. As to your assertion that he
could not contain the voltages required to produced 200 foot arcs - As we see
with our coils every day It is perfectly possible to sustain 2 arcs at once,
often of very different lengths. I would not underestimate Tesla -
unfortunately his habit of committing nothing to writing before it was
perfected in every way meant that he said nothing at the Colorado Springs
stage, preferring to confirm his observations and then present a working
system to the world.
I ain't believing this one ;-)) I'll go "out on a limb" and call these
claims FALSE!!
Nice limb ya' got there :-)
>The same book also substantiates the claim that the experiment burnt out
the
>alternator at the Colorado springs power company, who's director Leonard
>Curtiss, Tesla's former patent lawyer, had agreed to provide power at the
>off-peak rate all the time to Tesla.
The overloading and damage to the power station is fairly well known and
not particularly surprising.
I was merely confirming this for some of the more baselessly sceptical
members of the list
>There is also a detailed description of 200 incandesant bulbs being lit at
a
>range of 26 miles from the plant by a receiver. The passage unfortunately
>does not give the wattage or cp rating of the bulbs so that no power figure
>can be calculated from this.
Where did this passage come from?? The author must have some evidence or
proof of this?? I have not read this book but if it does have new
information it would be very valuable. If it simply repeats a bunch of the
old "tall tails" about Tesla's experiments that really are not true then...
I have wondered this as well about this biog - If the author cannot provide
accurate refs then he has failed in his job.
Sorry to be picky but there has been a lot of garbage written about Tesla's
Colorado Springs coil that is simply not true. I am more than willing to
beat the truth out of authors that make such claims without any evidence to
back them up...
Go get 'em ;-)
200 foot spark lengths suggest input power levels in the
range of 2 million watts. Tesla simply did not have that much power
available.
I as we all know you cannot calculate power input from spark length - the
50-55 feet he recorded in Colorado springs notes was with only 50kW - whereas
bill wysock needs 125kW to achieve the same.
Hopefully the author has good references for these claims in his book that
we can go check or he is "available" to answer the obvious questions this
book raises.
I hope so too. Publishers are normally a bit squeamish about conatct details
but I'm sure I can get hold of him somehow.
Cheers,
Terry
Fort Collins, Colorado
>>
Happy New Year
Nick Field