Inventions: The Tesla Coil
1891
The inventor,Nikola Tesla had dreamed of supplying
the world with electricity,wirelessly.
Tesla developed a device in 1891 which
could produce bolts of high voltage electricity
known as The Tesla coil.The device has a primary coil
which passes a current onto a secondary coil
creating a high voltage and low current which shoots out
a lightning-like discharge.
Tesla,put on demonstrations showing how the Tesla Coil
could be used to power lightbulbs wirelessly nearby.
He also held the light bulbs up close to the Tesla Coil
powering them without harm to himself.
From 1899 to 1900 Tesla built a
new laboratory in Colorado Springs and it is here
that he built a larger version of his Tesla Coil called the
Magnifying Transmitter.
It measured 51 feet or 15.5 meters in diameter
and could reach outputs of up to 12 million volts.
With this new version of The Tesla Coil the inventor could light up
3 incandescent bulbs at 100 feet or
30 meters away.
One night, The Magnifying Transmitter
overloaded during an experiment. Burning out the power station and
turning the town dark, terrifying the locals.
In 1901 with funding from business men,Tesla built
his next larger transmitter this time,in New York,Maine,
The Warden Cliff Tower.
Tesla had acquired the investment by pitching his proposed
"World Wirelss System" as a way of communicating across the world
by brodcasting messages as well as delivering electricity
wirelessly. Physicist
and radio pioneer
Guglielmo Marconi would send the first atlantic
wireless transmittion in 1901 using Tesla's
ideas but Tesla was not interested in wireless messages
as much as wireless power.
Nevertheless,while wireless messaging worked there was no
proof that wireless power could work beyond a short range.
By 1904,Tesla's investors had pulled out
and with staggering debts The Warden Cliff Tower
was eventually demolished in 1917.
In the early 20th century,The Tesla Coil would be used
for a number of things including radios,medicine,
x-rays,electrotherapy and for entertainment
but in the present day The Tesla Coil has been replaced
by more modern circuitry.
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