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Tesla's New York Laboratory Up For Sale
Ziest points us to NY Times piece on the battle over the site of Nicola Tesla's last failed experiment. Tesla's laboratory, called Wardenclyffe, located on Long Island, has been put up for sale by its current owner, Agfa Corp. Local residents and Tesla followers were alarmed by a real estate agent's promise that the land, listed at $1.6 million, could "be delivered fully cleared and level." Preservationists want to create a Tesla museum and education center at Wardenclyffe, anchored by the laboratory designed by Tesla's friend, Stanford White, a celebrated architect. "In 1901, Nikola Tesla began work on a global system of giant towers meant to relay through the air not only news, stock reports and even pictures but also, unbeknown to investors such as J. Pierpont Morgan, free electricity for one and all. It was the inventor's biggest project, and his most audacious. The first tower rose on rural Long Island and, by 1903, stood more than 18 stories tall. ... But the system failed for want of money, and at least partly for scientific viability. Tesla never finished his prototype tower and was forced to abandon its adjoining laboratory."
We'll level the place. We still can't figure out how some of his projects worked and much of his work was seized after his death, according to the History channel. Might as well level it and trash any chance at learning his knowledge while we're at it. Brilliant man.
How would these towers effectively transmit electricity? I'm having trouble seeing how this would work effectively given the inverse square law. Either the towers would only be able to cover a small amount of area or the area directly around the tower would be really unpleasant. Either way, this wouldn't be as efficient as wire transmission. Or am I missing something?
Subscription-free, minus the pictures and maps.
A Battle to Preserve a Visionary's Bold Failure
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: May 4, 2009
In 1901, Nikola Tesla began work on a global system of giant towers meant to relay through the air not only news, stock reports and even pictures but also, unbeknown to investors such as J. Pierpont Morgan, free electricity for one and all.
It was the inventor's biggest project, and his most audacious.
The first tower rose on rural Long Island and, by 1903, stood more than 18 stories tall. One midsummer night, it emitted a dull rumble and proceeded to hurl bolts of electricity into the sky. The blinding flashes, The New York Sun reported, "seemed to shoot off into the darkness on some mysterious errand."
But the system failed for want of money, and at least partly for scientific viability. Tesla never finished his prototype tower and was forced to abandon its adjoining laboratory.
Today, a fight is looming over the ghostly remains of that site, called Wardenclyffe - what Tesla authorities call the only surviving workplace of the eccentric genius who dreamed countless big dreams while pioneering wireless communication and alternating current. The disagreement began recently after the property went up for sale in Shoreham, N.Y.
A science group on Long Island wants to turn the 16-acre site into a Tesla museum and education center, and hopes to get the land donated to that end. But the owner, the Agfa Corporation, says it must sell the property to raise money in hard economic times. The company's real estate broker says the land, listed at $1.6 million, can "be delivered fully cleared and level," a statement that has thrown the preservationists into action.
The ruins of Wardenclyffe include the tower's foundation and the large brick laboratory, designed by Tesla's friend Stanford White, the celebrated architect.
"It's hugely important to protect this site," said Marc J. Seifer, author of "Wizard," a Tesla biography. "He's an icon. He stands for what humans are supposed to do - honor nature while using high technology to harness its powers."
Recently, New York State echoed that judgment. The commissioner of historic preservation wrote Dr. Seifer on behalf of Gov. David A. Paterson to back Wardenclyffe's preservation and listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
On Long Island, Tesla enthusiasts vow to obtain the land one way or another, saying that saving a symbol of Tesla's accomplishments would help restore the visionary to his rightful place as an architect of the modern age.
"A lot of his work was way ahead of his time," said Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center, a private group in Shoreham that is seeking to acquire Wardenclyffe.
Dr. Ljubo Vujovic, president of the Tesla Memorial Society of New York, said destroying the old lab "would be a terrible thing for the United States and the world. It's a piece of history."
Tesla, who lived from 1856 to 1943, made bitter enemies who dismissed some of his claims as exaggerated, helping tarnish his reputation in his lifetime. He was part recluse, part showman. He issued publicity photos (actually double exposures) showing him reading quietly in his laboratory amid deadly flashes.
Today, his work tends to be poorly known among scientists, though some call him an intuitive genius far ahead of his peers. Socially, his popularity has soared, elevating him to cult status.
Books and Web sites abound. Wikipedia says the inventor obtained at least 700 patents. YouTube has several Tesla videos, including one of a break-in at Wardenclyffe. A rock band calls itself Tesla. An electric car company backed by Google's founders calls itself Tesla Motors.
Larry Page, Google's co-founder, sees the creator's life as a cautionary tale. "It's a sad, sad story," Mr. Page told Fortune magazine last year. The inventor "couldn't commercialize anything. He could barely fund his own research."
Wardenclyffe epitomized that kind o
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Then someone will assume it's a Labrador Retriever, and PETA will get involved.
Seems like this would be right up his alley. He always said he wants scientists to be appreciated like sports stars. Here's his chance to enshrine one of the most famous and far thinking of them all.
It appears there's a circular spot that had something there...
Tesla's Laboratory?
You really want a site that often covers technical issues to avoid polysyllabic words? Okay, I'll try:
Your post makes me sad.
and use it to figure out how to manufacture a pork samich without a bone in it. i will be rich.
Seriously... Blowing a couple of million bucks on the site, along with perhaps a reconstructed museum and tower, is honestly a good way to waste Federal money. There's a big war bill coming out of the House, and get the New York delegation to stuff some money in there for a national museum, and while we're at it, have the President declare it as a national heritage site.
There will be some dopes at the National Review that will bitch about it, but even hard righties like me love national parks and the story of American industrialization and research. It's a lot better than Woodstock. I'd plug it on my right wing site, for sure.
Come on libs, spend some money and save this place!
This is my sig.
I'd ride mine down to cash in my winning lottery ticket, buy the land, and endow part of the fund needed to launch a world-class museum. You can visit Edison's lab in Greenfield Villiage (Henry Ford Musuem, etc) in Dearborn, Michigan - which, if you ever get the chance, do it - you won't be disappointed, I guarantee.
It would be shame if Tesla doesn't become similarly remembered.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
How would these towers effectively transmit electricity? I'm having trouble seeing how this would work effectively given the inverse square law.
I'm not Tesla but I can take a guess.
I think the idea was to couple to the ionosphere - treating the conductive ground and one of the layers of the conductive ionosphere as the two walls of a resonant cavity and pumping one of its resonances. The energy would not propagate away into space but would stay in the cavity until removed by a load or resistive losses due to the imperfect conduction of the cavity walls and its contents (dirt, buildings, birds, people, ...). It would be an extremely high impedance - enormous voltage (because of a nontrivial voltage gradient - in the ballpark of the atmospheric DC bias - multiplied by an enormous height) combined with minuscule currents through the tiny (though physically large) apacitances.
At the relatively low (compared to radio) frequencies involved you wouldn't have appreciable currents in anything that wasn't also a resonator and strongly coupled to the cavity (by being tall and broad at the top), i.e. a "raised capacitance" (Tesla's term for that big sphere-ish conductive shape on the top of the structure) and a big coil between it and ground, forming a tank circuit tuned to the carrier frequency and cavity resonance.
Buildings and metal towers might have nontrivial unintentional currents. But they'd be reactive currents because of the low resistance of the buildings' structural members. So they wouldn't suck out much power - just shift the phase of the power carrier signal in the area near them.
But a resonant circuit between a big raised conductor and ground would be able to efficiently power out of the cavity and couple it to a secondary coil around the main coil - shifting the voltage/current ratio from the extraordinarily high impedance of the transmission system to a lower impedance more convenient for use (though still at the carrier frequency so probably in need of rectification or other frequency conversion).
At least I think that may be what he intended. Whether it would work or not is still "up in the air", pun intended.
One nice thing: At the frequency involved you shouldn't be interfering with any existing information services. If the losses are low enough for it to be practical for power transmission it would be constantly "ringing" from lighting excitation. (Or maybe that's the ELF band where the US is talking to submerged submarines...)
(Heh. Thinking about this I just recognized the details of the broadcast power that was a throwaway background item in Eric Frank Russel's novel _Wasp_. Cars were "dinos" with the car body for "raised capacitance" and a dynamotor for frequency conversion. Disconnecting the "intake lead" and striking it against an "earth terminal" would produce a thin thread of arc if the distant power transmitter was on. And the energy density necessary to operate an automobile on this was completely ignored, of course. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The building's dark interior was littered with beer cans and broken bottles. Flashlights revealed no trace of the original equipment, except for a surprise on the second floor. There in the darkness loomed four enormous tanks, each the size of a small car. Their sides were made of thick metal and their seams heavily riveted, like those of an old destroyer or battleship. The Agfa consultant leading the tour called them giant batteries.
"Look up there," said the consultant, Ralph Passantino, signaling with his flashlight. "There's a hatch up there. It was used to get into the tanks to service them."
Tesla authorities appear to know little of the big tanks, making them potential clues to the inventor's original plans.
Boy are they going to be surprised when they open them and find hundreds of hats, dead cats and human corpses with huge bone claws on their hands crammed in there.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
What? yes, every person that listens takes power. It's a minute amount of power but it does. In this case it weakens the range of the broadcast.
Do you even think about what you are saying? If that where true we would all be powering our devices from radio signal. You are saying 50K watts of power can power infinite devices, ir be broad cast to an infinite amount of radios with degrading the signal.
THINK!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I work across the street from his old lab (on Tesla st no less) The place is in serious disrepair, but it would be nice to see it preserved. His transmission towers are in wreckage all over the DEC property on the south side of 25a in rocky point.
Last I heard 1 week ago the museum was a go, guess things change.
The Lunatick, Carpe Corpus!
This perhaps the single greatest opportunity ever to cross paths with Slashdot!
If we each pitch in a buck a piece...
Can you imagine the fun a few million /.ers can have with this stuff?
Projects/experiments can be decided democratically (!) via the moderating system and we can further fund the entire project from the click-throughs generated by poster signatures.
Sure, $1.6m to buy the land.
Then what is your plan to pay property taxes, or upkeep to meet building codes?
You're talking a lot more than $1.6M even just to keep it as is, never mind building a museum...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm no electrical genius, however I am a realist, and I do believe in progress. We live in a world today where everyone expects every product or technology to 'just work'. If its not perfect, or doesn't do what it was intended to do at 100% efficiency the first time around, the internet experts are the very first ones to run screaming. You talk about Tesla's inventions as if A) You could have done it better and B) the concepts and technologies would have never improved! Its a shame that many of his inventions came to a halt. Not because they were insanely awesome (for the time they were), or because they worked with such flawless efficiency (some did). But more because of what the rest of the world has missed out on, which is 'what those inventions COULD have become'. Take for example an early 1902-1910 V8 internal combustion engine, versus a modern day V8 internal combustion engine. Back then they created a whopping ~30hp from as much as 3500-7700cc (200-474cu) engines and the automobiles they were eventually on used massive copper piping that made the cars as heavy or heavier than a modern day F-450. Now with todays advances, a 281cu (4601cc) V8 can be built to produce thousands of horsepower somewhat reliably (and by reliable, I mean several track runs). So imagine a world where some of Tesla's more 'looney' inventions may have experienced similar advances? Maybe we (as internet experteers) don't understand electrical theory quite like he did. Maybe we're not smart enough to make wireless power transmission more efficient. But someone might be, or might have been. What would the world be like today? It would be a completely different place, thats for sure.