Reading Nikola Tesla – part 4: How to overcome natural resistance

Here we are in 2018, over a hundred years later speculating about what could have been Nikola Tesla’s secret. I then think to myself: if only I could show you what I read, you would understand that there is no secret. When I read his articles and patents from 1900 onward, what I see is a man desperately trying to get his views across. He tries again and again in many different ways, but no-one seems to see what I see.

It is my sincere wish that one day people will read Tesla’s articles and really understand what he is saying.
So… Let me take you by the hand an walk you through his most famous article: “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy”, published in Century Illustrated Magazine of June 1900.

Part 1 can be summarized as:

Hi there future inventor, I am Nikola Tesla and I have made a number of important discoveries and I am not sure if I can get it all operational during my lifetime. So in this article I want to explain them to you.

In part 2 Tesla explains how he sees electricity.
Next in part 3 Tesla explains that we can use our atmosphere to get electricity (almost) directly from the source (cosmic rays) if only we could ‘activate’ the normally inert gasses.

So in this fourth part we naturally will take a look at how to activate our atmosphere. Although I know what he is saying and I have clear evidence that it is true, I have even experimentally verified it, there are still some points in Tesla’s explanation that I do not quite understand. I can not recreate the picture in my mind, that Tesla must have had in his. But I find it truly amazing that he understood that lightning builds up in small steps without having access to the high speed cameras that we have today.

Let’s continue in the main article where we’d left off. I’ll try to the best of my abilities.

THE SECOND PROBLEM: HOW TO REDUCE THE FORCE RETARDING THE HUMAN MASS
—THE ART OF TELAUTOMATICS.
As before stated, the force which retards the onward movement of man is partly frictional and partly negative. To illustrate this distinction I may name, for example, ignorance, stupidity, and imbecility as some of the purely frictional forces, or resistances devoid of any directive tendency. On the other hand, visionariness, insanity, self-destructive tendency, religious fanaticism, and the like, are all forces of a negative character, acting in definite directions. To reduce or entirely overcome these dissimilar retarding forces, radically different methods must be employed. One knows, for instance, what a fanatic may do, and one can take preventive measures, can enlighten, convince, and, possibly direct him, turn his vice into virtue; but one does not know, and never can know, what a brute or an imbecile may do, and one must deal with him as with a mass, inert, without mind, let loose by the mad elements. A negative force always implies some quality, not infrequently a high one, though badly directed, which it is possible to turn to good advantage; but a directionless, frictional force involves unavoidable loss. Evidently, then, the first and general answer to the above question is: turn all negative force in the right direction and reduce all frictional force.

After the introduction and first chapter we have now arrived at the second chapter dealing with retarding forces. It is a difficult chapter as it deals with 2 different things; warfare and telautomatics. The latter I will cover in the next post, the first is a problematic one because Tesla tries to explain a concept that we are unfamiliar with concerning how to derive a current from the air.

There can be no doubt that, of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance. Not without reason said that man of wisdom, Buddha: "Ignorance is the greatest evil in the world." The friction which results from ignorance, and which is greatly increased owing to the numerous languages and nationalities, can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent. But however ignorance may have retarded the onward movement of man in times past, it is certain that, nowadays, negative forces have become of greater importance. Among these there is one of far greater moment than any other. It is called organized warfare. When we consider the millions of individuals, often the ablest in mind and body, the flower of humanity, who are compelled to a life of inactivity and unproductiveness, the immense sums of money daily required for the maintenance of armies and war apparatus, representing ever so much of human energy, all the effort uselessly spent in the production of arms and implements of destruction, the loss of life and the fostering of a barbarous spirit, we are appalled at the inestimable loss to mankind which the existence of these deplorable conditions must involve. What can we do to combat best this great evil?

Enormous amounts of power that are available to us are currently simply lost. We need unification of heterogeneous elements (electrically motivate particles to move in the same direction) and to stop war and all that is related to it. But what does ‘war’ stand for?

Law and order absolutely require the maintenance of organized force. No community can exist and prosper without rigid discipline. Every country must be able to defend itself, should the necessity arise. The conditions of to-day are not the result of yesterday, and a radical change cannot be effected to-morrow. If the nations would at once disarm, it is more than likely that a state of things worse than war itself would follow. Universal peace is a beautiful dream, but not at once realizable. We have seen recently that even the noble effort of the man invested with the greatest worldly power has been virtually without effect. And no wonder, for the establishment of universal peace is, for the time being, a physical impossibility. War is a negative force, and cannot be turned in a positive direction without passing through, the intermediate phases. It is a problem of making a wheel, rotating one way, turn in the opposite direction without slowing it down, stopping it, and speeding it up again the other way.

As with many paragraphs in this article, the key-phrase is the last in a paragraph. You can not use brute force, you have to give it time to adjust properly. It looks like he is talking about induction or something similar.

It has been argued that the perfection of guns of great destructive power will stop warfare. So I myself thought for a long time, but now I believe this to be a profound mistake. Such developments will greatly modify, but not arrest it. On the contrary, I think that every new arm that is invented, every new departure that is made in this direction, merely invites new talent and skill, engages new effort, offers new incentive, and so only gives a fresh impetus to further development. Think of the discovery of gun-powder. Can we conceive of any more radical departure than was effected by this innovation? Let us imagine ourselves living in that period: would we not have thought then that warfare was at an end, when the armour of the knight became an object of ridicule, when bodily strength and skill, meaning so much before, became of comparatively little value? Yet gunpowder did not stop warfare: quite the opposite—it acted as a most powerful incentive. Nor do I believe that warfare can ever be arrested by any scientific or ideal development, so long as similar conditions to those prevailing now exist, because war has itself become a science, and because war involves some of the most sacred sentiments of which man is capable. In fact, it is doubtful whether men who would not be ready to fight for a high principle would be good for anything at all. It is not the mind which makes man, nor is it the body; it is mind and body. Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

Again, a more powerful approach will only lead to more powerful resistance. The key-phrase is the last in this paragraph, what consists of “force and matter”? An electrical current as we have discussed before is a movement of some sort, and a movement implies something (matter) that moves and a force that propels it.
We want something (electricity) that is capable of “war”, and for this we need this combination of force and matter. This gives us a vague clue what “war” might stand for.

Another argument, which carries considerable force, is frequently made, namely, that war must soon become impossible be cause the means of defence are outstripping the means of attack. This is only in accordance with a fundamental law which may be expressed by the statement that it is easier to destroy than to build. This law defines human capacities and human conditions. Were these such that it would be easier build than to destroy, man would go on unresisted, creating and accumulating without limit. Such conditions are not of this earth. A being which could do this would not be a man: it might be a god. Defence will always have the advantage over attack, but this alone, it seems to me, can never stop war. By the use of new principles of defence we can render harbours impregnable against attack, but we cannot by such means prevent two warships meeting in battle on the high sea. And then, if we follow this idea to its ultimate development, we are led to the conclusion that it would be better for mankind if attack and defence were just oppositely related; for if every country, even the smallest, could surround itself with a wall absolutely impenetrable, and could defy the rest of the world, a state of things would surely be brought on which would be extremely unfavourable to human progress. It is by abolishing all the barriers which separate nations and countries that civilization is best furthered.

Taken literally, this sounds strange. It looks as if he compares defence to destruction and attack to building. But here lies the key to understanding this part. Defence stands for maintaining the status quo and thus it means to destroy the electric effect that we want to build (attack). Any electric effect is always met with resistance because otherwise its energy could increase indefinitely. War then, stands for our attempt to create a new (electrical) situation and the natural response to resist changing the status quo (inertia/induction). The solution to which is not in more powerful means. Again, the solution is in uniting heterogeneous elements.

Again, it is contended by some that the advent of the flying-machine must bring on universal peace. This, too, I believe to be an entirely erroneous view. The flying-machine is certainly coming, and very soon, but the conditions will remain the same as before. In fact, I see no reason why a ruling power, like Great Britain, might not govern the air as well as the sea. Without wishing to put myself on record as a prophet, I do not hesitate to say that the next years will see the establishment of an "air-power," and its centre may be not far from New York. But, for all that, men will fight on merrily.

This paragraph does not add anything substantial. The introduction of gunpowder did not change anything, why then add that the introduction of airplanes won’t change anything? But there is a clear reason why Tesla added this. The key-phrase is almost the last in this paragraph, and it is a real beauty this time: “the next years will see the establishment of an ‘air-power’, and its centre may be not far from New York.” Tesla had started building Wardenclyffe not far from New York, where air-power – not air-force – would be established. Wardenclyffe was to become a power-plant to derive energy from air.
Interestingly, in an article of May 18th, 1902 “Startling Prediction of the World's Greatest Living Scientist”, Tesla writes:

When all the coal of the earth is used, what then?
Perplexed humanity confronted with the possibility of its industrial machinery being stopped for want of power, will be forced to turn from earth to air.

Back to the main article:

The ideal development of the war principle would ultimately lead to the transformation of the whole energy of war into purely potential, explosive energy, like that of an electrical condenser. In this form the war-energy could be maintained without effort; it would need to be much smaller in amount, while incomparably more effective.

A word about capacitors. They can store energy (measured in Joules) and release it in an incredible short time, thus at a tremendous rate (measured in Watts, but Tesla also uses HP). This is our means to create the desired effect with as little energy as possible. For example 1 million Joule in 1 second is 1 million Watt, but 1 Joule in 1 micro second is also 1 million Watt.

As regards the security of a country against foreign invasion, it is interesting to note that it depends only on the relative, and not the absolute, number of the individuals or magnitude of the forces, and that, if every country should reduce the war-force in the same ratio, the security would remain unaltered. An international agreement with the object of reducing to a minimum the war-force which, in view of the present still imperfect education of the masses, is absolutely indispensable, would, therefore, seem to be the first rational step to take toward diminishing the force retarding human movement.

When we read Tesla’s autobiography chapter 5 on the Magnifying Transmitter, Tesla starts with a story about creating an avalanche. That is what Tesla refers to here as well. The more sudden our impulse the more power we can put into it and conquer a small region. Then with the help of that region we can conquer the next region. This is exactly what happens in a stepped leader of a natural lightning strike.

It starts with a small strike of 20-80 meters depending on the voltage (roughly 1 meter per 1 million volt). A situation is then created in which air gets ionized and charges collect near the end of that strike driving up the electric potential until a new small strike adds another 20-80 meters. This process repeats and is how the stepped leader creates a channel of ionized gas with energy from cosmic rays, not from the thundercloud! Once this channel connects to the ground it is emptied in the violent blow that we are familiar with.

Fortunately, the existing conditions cannot continue indefinitely, for a new element is beginning to assert itself. A change for the better is eminent, and I shall now endeavour to show what, according to my ideas, will be the first advance toward the establishment of peaceful relations between nations, and by what means it will eventually be accomplished.
Let us go back to the early beginning, when the law of the stronger was the only law. The light of reason was not yet kindled, and the weak was entirely at the mercy of the strong. The weak individual then began to learn how to defend himself. He made use of a club, stone, spear, sling, or bow and arrow, and in the course of time, instead of physical strength, intelligence became the chief deciding factor in the battle. The wild character was gradually softened by the awakening of noble sentiments, and so, imperceptibly, after ages of continued progress, we have come from the brutal fight of the unreasoning animal to what we call the "civilized warfare" of today, in which the combatants shake hands, talk in a friendly way, and smoke cigars in the entr'actes, ready to engage again in deadly conflict at a signal. Let pessimists say what they like, here is an absolute evidence of great and gratifying advance.

It is clear that Tesla wants to move on here to a next item that he wishes to discus. It again has to do with “warfare”, or using electrical force to do something that we want.
First we used “brute force” techniques but as our understanding increased, we started using more intelligent ways. Think for example of the brush-less motor and generators (invented by Tesla) and especially of the AC distribution network.

But now, what is the next phase in this evolution? Not peace as yet, by any means. The next change which should naturally follow from modern developments should be the continuous diminution of the number of individuals engaged in battle. The apparatus will be one of specifically great power, but only a few individuals will be required to operate it. This evolution will bring more and more into prominence a machine or mechanism with the fewest individuals as an element of warfare, and the absolutely unavoidable consequence of this will be the abandonment of large, clumsy, slowly moving, and unmanageable units. Greatest possible speed and maximum rate of energy-delivery by the war apparatus will be the main object. The loss of life will become smaller and smaller, and finally, the number of the individuals continuously diminishing, merely machines will meet in a contest without blood-shed, the nations being simply interested, ambitious spectators. When this happy condition is realized, peace will be assured. But, no matter to what degree of perfection rapid-fire guns, high-power cannon, explosive projectiles, torpedo-boats, or other implements of war may be brought, no matter how destructive they may be made, that condition can never be reached through any such development. All such implements require men for their operation; men are indispensable parts of the machinery. Their object is to kill and to destroy. Their power resides in their capacity for doing evil. So long as men meet in battle, there will be bloodshed. Bloodshed will ever keep up barbarous passion. To break this fierce spirit, a radical departure must be made, an entirely new principle must be introduced, something that never existed before in warfare—a principle which will forcibly, unavoidably, turn the battle into a mere spectacle, a play, a contest without loss of blood. To bring on this result men must be dispensed with: machine must fight machine. But how accomplish that which seems impossible? The answer is simple enough: produce a machine capable of acting as though it were part of a human being—no mere mechanical contrivance, comprising levers, screws, wheels, clutches, and nothing more, but a machine embodying a higher principle, which will enable it to per form its duties as though it had intelligence, experience, judgement, a mind! This conclusion is the result of my thoughts and observations which have extended through virtually my whole life, and I shall now briefly describe how I came to accomplish that which at first seemed an unrealisable dream.

We do not want the greatest power in an absolute sense but in a relative sense; the maximum rate of energy delivery. (See also “Rare Notes Oct 15th, 1901”) Thus we need only few “individuals”. That is why Tesla uses capacitors, to store energy and to release it in the shortest possible time. That way we need little energy (Joules) and get a lot of power (Watts).
The next subject is “machine must fight machine”; one machine must create electrical effects in another machine, as if it had a mind. That way we create an entirely new distribution system for electrical energy.
I’ll leave that for part 5 “Telautomatics”.

Still so much more to come.