Tesla, the teleforce, and old school

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 6:06 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleforce

I remembered reading about this a little bit back, seems a fascinating concept. There's apparently a book that has one of hte original papers in it, thought I'd see if there was anything in it.

In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone had any idea how a "macroparticle," of perhaps a few dozen atoms, rather than a single one, would behave any differently as far as dispersion and range. Basically, would this thing have any more range than conventional particle beams?

On the other note, Tesla was part of a generation of scientists and inventors that, while they had some schooling, everything was so new, there were no rules. While I'd have to admit that there's not much left to learn these days, you rarely find someone like Tesla who sat tinkering and worked out such wild ideas. I suppose this is a mixed bag. The current frontiers of science are mostly biological, and I'll pass on Frankenstien.

Still, there's a feeling that modern education is stifling innovation, as bureaucracies normally do, and this is bad for America and the world. There will be precious few Teslas in the years ahead, but they will be the ones to move us forward.

Professor Science · Post by **Professor Science** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:58 pm

I read about this awhile ago and was tickled by the proposition of a hard vacuum chamber with an open end to atmosphere.

pfrit · Post by **pfrit** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:28 pm

Professor Science wrote:I read about this awhile ago and was tickled by the proposition of a hard vacuum chamber with an open end to atmosphere.

Theoretically, that is quite possible. You just need to find a barrier that is transparent to what you are emitting and "opaque" to air. From a practical, engineering point of view, I don't see how you can do it. BTW, I believe he was supposed to have built and tested it. I am, however, quite willing to believe that he lied about it.

Professor Science · Post by **Professor Science** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:20 pm

Well, i suppose if you have a barrier that requires greater than x eV to penetrate, your crazy particles of doom which are most likely far more energized than x eV should be able to get through, and atmosphere will be blocked out, but how do you get a barrier that isn't solid matter block neutral charges?

maybe a combined high strength electric field and magnetic field combo? the electric field seperates the neutral molecules and the magnetic field keeps the doom particles on course?

pfrit · Post by **pfrit** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:23 pm

Professor Science wrote:Well, i suppose if you have a barrier that requires greater than x eV to penetrate, your crazy particles of doom which are most likely far more energized than x eV should be able to get through, and atmosphere will be blocked out, but how do you get a barrier that isn't solid matter block neutral charges?

maybe a combined high strength electric field and magnetic field combo? the electric field seperates the neutral molecules and the magnetic field keeps the doom particles on course?

I agree. Possible, but really impractical/impossible.

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:25 pm

Do you think that maybe a Plasma Window would work? It will hold up to about 9 atmospheres while allowing electron and laser beams to pass. I wonder if a matter stream would pass or if it would simply destroy the window?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_window

Stoney3K · Post by **Stoney3K** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:08 pm

Professor Science wrote:Well, i suppose if you have a barrier that requires greater than x eV to penetrate, your crazy particles of doom which are most likely far more energized than x eV should be able to get through, and atmosphere will be blocked out, but how do you get a barrier that isn't solid matter block neutral charges?

maybe a combined high strength electric field and magnetic field combo? the electric field seperates the neutral molecules and the magnetic field keeps the doom particles on course?

I'd be pretty curious about the effective range of such a thing. Once the charged particles were to leave the vacuum chamber, they would ionize the air in the path of the beam, dramatically reducing the beam's range.

The particle beam would lose a lot of energy through heating of the surrounding air, and other side effects (e.g. arcing) might mess up the confinement of the particle beam at longer ranges altogether.

I think it would be more like the "Heat Ray" from War of the Worlds...

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:44 pm

I'd be pretty curious about the effective range of such a thing. Once the charged particles were to leave the vacuum chamber, they would ionize the air in the path of the beam, dramatically reducing the beam's range.

That's what I was wondering about. Supposedly the heavier particle would help, much like heavier bullets have a better ballistic coefficient. I don't know much about particle physics though, and this is really pushing the boundary.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:13 pm

Tesla did a LOT of work with Q multiplication.

I can tell you from studying his work that he did not understand it. At least at the time he was doing his most interesting work.

You might like this book which has a section of Tesla in his own words:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/093281 ... 0932813194

If you understand electronics you can see where he went wrong.

BTW the book also has a lot of craziness in it which is also amusing.

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:50 pm

I can't resist Kunkmeister's comment on modern education:

"Still, there's a feeling that modern education is stifling innovation ..."

Oh, yeah!

I wonder how many forum participants would have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and been drugged into submission?

I'm not sure teachers are as much to blame as administrators. Someone inclined to be an administrator likes rules and order and ... well, the next part of that quote had to do with bureaucracies. The mystery is solved.

Innovators often cross disciplines ... they make connections others don't see and they, by definition, reach further than people did before. A system that teaches kids to reach only as far as the system defines as correct will probably do as trained. One that compartmentalizes knowledge into English, Math, History, Science, etc, and does not learn the joy of connecting these and exploring outside these limits will be bored stiff.

I was, until I went home and did things like cracking open an encyclopedia and picking a subject at random (we didn't have the internet then).

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:06 pm

As to the specifics of the invention ... I see the same practical limitations as the rest of you regarding the open-ended vacuum tube, but offer the following.

The idea is perfectly practical in space. The ion engines of DS-1 and similar probes are essentially this sort of thing.

Dr. Bussard faced a similar problem with getting a relativistic electron beam into a chamber containing sufficient gas to make his REB-heated QED engine. The e-beam needs to be made in a vacuum, but the region to transfer electron energy to the gas needs some density. He thought it might be possible to pass the electrons thru a metal membrane (see the Rutherford scattering experiment). A small orifice might also work ... the onrushing electrons would prevent gas from making it thru.

Generally, one can open a small orifice to a vacuum chamber. A sufficiently small orifice will work in the "critical flow" regime, flow independent of pressure differential above a certain limit. This is how gas is introduced to instruments such as mass spectrometers.

A sufficiently hot plasma will, at atmospheric pressure, have a density that might pass for a vacuum. Say you hit 100 x ambient temperature (27300 K ... in the range of lightning bolts and electric arcs). Density will be like a hundredth of an atmosphere STP.

Plasma cannon have been built and tested in the atmosphere. I don't know if they qualify as open-ended vacuum tubes ... in fact I doubt it.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:30 pm

I got a book on interlibrary loan that has Tesla's original paper in it. The solution for the open ended vacuum tube is rather simple. There is one tube inside of another. Through the gap is passed a high velocity gas jet, the diagram shows desiccated air. Gas laws take affect, and you get a vacuum inside the inner tube. I'm sure there are other ways to do this sort of thing, but it seems that this part isn't the problem.

He also talks about a 1000 cm sphere for the charge source. I'm sure there's a few modern methods that can do that.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:00 am

That paper is surprisingly short. Got it all read, and the commentary already.

The book I have, BTW, is "Nikola Tesla's Teleforce and Telegeodynamics Proposals" edited by Leland I. Anderson from Twenty First Century Books.

There are also pictures of the charge generator thing, which I get the impression is pretty much a Van De Graff generator or some such. He put vacuum tubes with a simple single electrode in them on the sphere, with the electrodes conducting to it though in vacuum. Instead of a belt generator for the charge, it's a dry air stream pumped through pipes(I'd imagine he used one of his turbines).

The single ended tube is attached too, this presumably helps set it up for electrical conduction to the particles. Somewhere in there I imagine is an electrode, possibly a wire spool like in a MIG welder. Bring in the material, charge it, and it zips out the tube. He recommended a particle size about 800 times the atomic diameter or less. He does think that combined with the larger mass and speed, it will have enough range to be useful, 200 miles is referenced in the news articles talking about the thing.

For modern purposes, I'm wondering about the plasma window Aero mentioned or something like that would work. His jet tube might be the most practical though. I'd add a magnetic lens or two, might help with focusing the beam and such. I'd imagine there are some modern alternatives to the sphere. Perhaps a rail gun type arrangement? The wire spool would creep up until it arcs with the rails, breaking off a small particle and zipping it up through the orifice. Not sure how to drive the rails, but I'm sure you could get it to work.

Dangit! Now I want to build a death beam. I can't expect to shoot down planes and missiles, but still, zapping things from a couple hundred yards would be fun.