Re: 7.1Hz, how the heck did Tesla succeed?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: William Beaty <billb@xxxxxxxxxx>

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: Terry Fritz <teslalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> >fact it's high (but the peak moves around randomly which screws up the
> >measurements.)
>
> Modern analysis techniques can pick out sub uHz signals many 10's of dB
> down...  Full spectrum with known capture bandwidth...   Maybe the data is
> very old...  But "now days" they just take 0 to say 100kHz bandwidth data
> for a few weeks and feed it to a computer....  There is not much that can
> go wrong,

Really?  :)

What goes wrong is that the received signal is way down in the noise,
therefore exotic antenna techniques become useful.

Another problem is that the bandwidth of a detector varies in inverse
proportion to sampling time, so a narrowband signal which wanders randomly
will be wrongly interpreted as a wideband signal .  Regardless of whether
the detection is performed live, or via sofware w/files, if (say) you
sample at 1Hz but only for 0.1 second, the instrument will have chopped
the signal and therefore falsely receives it as a wide band signal.  To
make narrowband measurements you have to make longterm measurements.  If
the signal frequency is changing, then you can't measure it with
narrowband filters unless you know just how it's changing.  That's why
spread spectrum comm is used: the frequency hopping is a *huge* problem
unless you know the code.

> and exact Fo frequency "jumping around" is not problem at all...

Totally wrong because the jumping around, combined with the narrowband
filters, will chop the signal and add a wideband artifact.  Or do you have
an explanation for how a spread spectrum signal which is deep down in the
noise can be easily received when you don't know the random sequence of
frequencies?  If frequency jumps caused no problems, then spread spectrum
transmissions would give no security at all.  It's the same physics.

> I did a Google search for ""Sutton/Spaniol"" and only got these links:

Remove the slash.

Keywords +sutton +spaniol get 511 google hits, so add keyword +vlf to cut
it down.  The third link down is very interesting!  This exact topic was
on pupman list back in 1995.


> If they were trying to do it with their active antenna,

I'm talking about other papers they've published.  These aren't on www as
far as I know.


> they would have had
> many problems :o))))  They needed to use some "real" instruments
> ;-))

Lol!  In the above you're trying to attach a derogatory description to
their work.  That's a dishonest rhetorical gambit; an "illegal move" in
any science discussion.  (Remember how Huxley defeated Bishop Wilberforce
in the evolution debates.)  Anyone who uses rhetoric in a science debate
has layed themselves open to failure.  Rhetorical techniques may be a good
move for a politician who wants to sway an audence, but they're too
dishonest for anyone involved in the sciences;  anyone who supposedly
wants to know the truth.  Rhetorical strategies hide truth and create
confusion.  We're supposed to point on the flaws in opponents's arguments,
not muddy the waters with belittling language.  Attaching derisive labels
is rhetoric, not reasoning.  I strongly suggest you eliminate them from
your repetoir.


>  Spectral analysis techniques are extremely well known,

Not true.  Sutton and Spaniol were VLF researchers at NASA, and that
particular paper is about techniques for increasing S/N ratio at the
receiver.  There are no magical "Spectral analysis techniques" which
eliminate noise, therefore it becomes important to reduce noise at the
reciever.


> but "they" did
> not seem to use any of them =:O  Here is a nice amateur's site:

Lol!  More emotional argument techniques  ..rather than giving details to
support your criticism, instead you label them as "amateur."  For shame.

Unfortunately I've seen this rhetorical strategy in common use among
people who think they're skeptically scientific.  Only in politics, etc.,
does "skepticism" involve trying to sway an audience by belittling an
opponent's claims.  In politics the goal is to sway the audience by any
means possible, and dishonest techniques are common.  But in science we're
supposed to show why the claims are wrong, not belittle them.  Smear
tactics only confuse thigss.  Cut away any such BS and belittling, and
instead eliminate emotional biases and try to gain clear understanding.


> >But this brings up a big issue.  If Tesla accomplished it, HOW DID HE DO
> >IT?
>
> I submit that the key there is "if"....

Certainly.  But in physics, experiment is the only possible skeptic; the
final judge.

It doesn't matter what you or I think.  If we want to know what's real, we
have to actually test weird claims and let nature decide the issue.  If I
say "Here is a possible way that Tesla could have done it," then no amount
of derision or trivializing or derogatory labeling will settle the
question.  Perhaps the ridicule will scare people off and prevent anyone
from doing the experiment.  In that way it's anti-science.  Faraday says
"let the experiment be made."

But I'm certainly not suggesting that *you* should do it.  If someone is
convinced that Tesla was a crackpot when it comes to his "World System"
claims, then for that person, any testing of those claims would be an
extreme longshot gamble, a big waste of time and resources.  This stuff
needs to be tested by me or others who suspect that Tesla knew what he was
talking about.  For us, it's not a ridiculous longshot gamble, instead
it's a possible technical revolution waiting to happen.


> I have never seen or heard of any
> credible evidence that Tesla accomplished this.  I have seen and heard vast
> amounts of "increadible" evidence however...

What incredible evidence do you mean?

If you know of vast amounts of evidence, even if it's "incredible" in your
opinion, I'd like to know about it.  (Or do you mean rumors and
anecdotes?)


>
> >The Earth's resonant overtones supposedly die away above 10KHz, so
> >high-freq Tesla coils won't work.  Maybe Tesla built a huge 2KHz coil?
> >Driven by a multipole generator?
>
> He had many AC generators covering many frequencies.  I never recall any
> going down to 7.1Hz but he should have been able to easily run them that
> slowly.

Perhaps you missed the fact that an earth-resonance power transmitter
would have to be a Tesla coil, a hundreds- megavolts device at frequencies
far below 40KHz.  Rotating generators can't do it.


> I do note that 40,000/60 = "666"....

Lol.  More rhetorical tricks.  Emotion-based "derogation."  "Attaching a
stigma" to somebody's claim, that's a good way to sway a non-technical
audience.

But a person who wants to get to the truth should be trying to eliminate
his own emotional biases, not trying to spread them to others.


> Years later when all this came up, folks started to "speculate" that he

What's your point in putting quotes around "speculate?"  Are you implying
that they *weren't* speculating?   If not, then what?   Is it some sort of
sneering?


> would pulse his coil at 7.1 BPS...  But that was "their" idea about 100

Same with "their."   What do these quote marks mean; that it wasn't their
idea?  Or is it yet another tactic of derision rather than reason?


> >I just noticed another possibility.  Tesla had patents for vacuum tubes
> >attached to the top of his coils.
>
> For light bulbs...

Wrong.  You're thinking of carbon-button lamps.  This thead is about his
so-called "radiant energy" patents, not about carbon lamps.

According to Tesla, a vacuum tube at the top of a TC is supposed to emit
some sort of electrical stream which can be used to transmit energy to a
distant receiver.  This probably was simply an x-ray tube which creates a
weakly ionized path in air.  Then this path can be used as a
poorly-conductive AC power line (but at high voltage and low current we
can transfer significant power even through a high resistance.)


> >Suppose Tesla was rectifying the output
> >of his big coils.  This *might* be possible by mounting a bank of
> >ultraviolet lamps or X-ray tubes at the top of the coil.  On the positive
> >half cycle the X-ray tube turns on and ionizes the nearby air, making it
> >conductive.  On the negative half-cycle it turns off, and if the frequency
> >was low enough, then the ionized air-conductivity would shut off before
> >the next pulse.  It would be like a gigantic mercury vapor rectifier, but
> >with controlled artifical gas-asymmetry rather than the natural asymmetry
> >provided by gas-immersed metal electrodes.
>
> I don't recall Tesla doing any of this...

Go track down Tesla's "radiant energy" patents.  (Or not, since you
clearly have a low opinion of this whole topic.)

I'm speculating as to the purpose of those vacuum tubes in his "radiant
energy" patents, as well as the purpose of the banks of lamps inside the
terminal of the Wardenclyffe tower.

If xray-created air ionization can turn on and off at tens of KHz, then
not only would the x-ray emitters create a large but invisible "antenna"
above a big Magnifier, but they might charge that "antenna"  with immense
DC potential, and also they could be pulsed on and off at any low
frequencies.  In that case the main high-freq Magnifier would just be the
transformer in a DC power supply, and the earth-resonant EM power being
sent out would not be the resonant frequency of the extra coil.  I'm
looking for reasons why this might not work.


> >Total speculation, obviously.   But not banned in theory!   :)
>
> Yes, total speculation...  It "could" be banned though!! >:o))

You think so?  Please tell me how it's banned.   (And explain those
quotation marks while you're at it.)

I do seriously want reasoned criticism.  Give me genuine flaws and ditch
the rhetoric and "sneering" stuff.  I enjoy proper criticism, but any
emotional tactics I will reject after loudly pointing them out.


> >I know that a few people own dental x-ray tubes.  I don't have a big
> >outdoor TC myself, or an open field.  It's like amateur rocketry: observe
> >the test from 100 ft away behind an earth berm!  Does anyone dare to
> >experiment with this stuff?
>
> Folks have been powering Crook's tubes with those little hand held coils
> for ~~75 years.

Yes, and your point?  Sounds to me like yet more of the same derision, but
if you expand on what you meant, perhaps I'll change my opinion.




> He was one of the first to note the dangers of X-rays.  He noted that he
> felt a sharp, stinging pain where it enter his body, and again at the place
> where it passed out...

No, IIRC that stuff about stinging pains was his description of his
disovery of the "death ray"  phenomenon, where he claims to have explored
the effect and eventually built a particle beam weapon which accelerated
tungsten dust-motes in a vacuum and passed them through an actively-pumped
hole in the side of the vacuum chamber.  This was in old conference
publications of ITS, and also the recent Tesla special on PBS described
the history.  The US military explored this weapon idea after laying hold
of Tesla's papers after his death, but nobody knows what happened to that
classified project.  There's a good chance that it didn't work.  But
perhaps they made no headway because they needed a Tesla-class
experimenter in order to figure out how he'd accomplished what he claimed.



(((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                http://staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/
beaty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx       Research Engineer
billb@xxxxxxxxxx                UW Chem Dept,  Bagley Hall RM74
206-543-6195                    Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700
Seattle, WA  206-789-0775    unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci