“It was evident to me that wireless transmission of energy, if it could ever be accomplished, is not an invention; it is an art. Bell’s telephone, Edison’s phonograph, or my induction motor were inventions, but the wireless transmission of energy is an art that requires a great many inventions in combination.
“We are living on a planet that is rushing through space; this planet is partly conducting and partly insulating. If it were all conducting, or if it were all insulating, we could not transmit energy without wire. It is only because it is partly conducting and partly insulating that a glorious future for man is reserved through the application of this art.”
–Nikola Tesla
(From a pre-hearing interview with Nikola Tesla and his legal counsel in 1916 to protect his radio patents from the Guglielmo Marconi and the Marconi Company.)
[Fig. 1]:
“We are living on a planet of well-nigh inconceivable dimensions, surrounded by a layer of insulating air above which is a rarefied and conducting atmosphere. This is providential, for if all the air were conducting the transmission of electrical energy thru the natural media would be impossible.” –NT[Fig. 2]:
“Famous Scientific Illusions.” Electrical Experimenter, February, 1919.
“My early experiments have shown that currents of high frequency and great tension readily pass thru an atmosphere but moderately rarefied, so that the insulating stratum is reduced to a small thickness as will be evident by inspection of [Fig. 2], in which a part of the earth and its gaseous envelope is shown to scale. If the radius of the sphere is 12½”, then the non-conducting layer is only 1/64″ thick and it will be obvious that the Hertzian rays cannot traverse so thin a crack between two conducting surfaces for any considerable distance, without being absorbed.” –NT
