Wardenclyffe Tower

For the Allan Holdsworth album, see Wardenclyffe Tower (album).

Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917) also known as the Tesla Tower, was an

early wireless telecommunications tower designed by Nikola Tesla and intended
for commercial trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, broadcasting, and to
demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wires. The core
facility was not completed due to financial problems and was never fully
operational.

The tower was named after James S. Warden, a western lawyer and banker
who had purchased land for the endeavor in Shoreham, Long Island, about
sixty miles from Manhattan. Here he built a resort community known as
Wardenclyffe-On-Sound. Warden believed that with the implementation of
Tesla's "world system" a "Radio City" would arise in the area. He offered Tesla
200 acres (81 ha) of land close to a railway line on which to build his wireless
telecommunications tower and laboratory facility.

History
Construction

Nikola Tesla began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility ca. 1898 and in
1901 construction began on the land near Long Island Sound. Architect
Stanford White designed the Wardenclyffe facility main building. The tower was
designed by W.D. Crow, an associate of White. Funding for Tesla's project was
provided by influential industrialists and other venture capitalists. The project
was initially backed by the wealthy J. P. Morgan who had invested $150,000 in
the facility (more than $3 million in 2009 dollars).

In June 1902 Tesla moved his laboratory operations from his Houston Street
laboratory to Wardenclyffe. However in 1903, when the tower structure was
near completion, it was still not yet functional due to last-minute design
changes. In addition to commercial wireless telecommunications, Tesla
intended the tower be used to demonstrate how electrical energy could be
transmitted without the need for power lines. A story has arisen that the power
consumption could not be metered and Morgan, who could not foresee any
financial gain from providing free electricity to everyone, balked. Construction
costs eventually exceeded the money provided by Morgan and additional
financiers were reluctant to come forward (Tesla's other major financier was
John Jacob Astor). By July 1904 Morgan (and the other investors) finally
decided they would not provide any additional financing. Morgan also
discouraged other investors from backing the project. In May 1905 Tesla's
patents on alternating current motors and other methods of power transmission
expired, halting royalty payments and causing a severe reduction of funding to
the Wardenclyffe Tower. In an attempt to find alternative funding Tesla
advertised the services of the Wardenclyffe facility but he met with little
success. By this time Tesla had also designed the Tesla turbine at Wardenclyffe
and produced Tesla coils for sale to various businesses.

By 1905, since Tesla could not find any more backers, most of the site's activity
had to be shut down. Employees were laid off in 1906, but parts of the building
remained in use until 1907. In 1908, the property was foreclosed for the first
time. Tesla procured a new mortgage from George C. Boldt, proprietor of the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The facility was partially abandoned around 1911, and
the tower structure deteriorated. Between 1912 and 1915, Tesla's finances
unraveled, and when the funders wanted to know how they were going to
recapture their investments, Tesla was unable to give satisfactory answers.
Newspaper headlines of the time labeled it "Tesla's million-dollar folly." The
facility's main building was breached and vandalized around this time. Collapse
of the Wardenclyffe project may have contributed to the mental breakdown
Tesla experienced during this period. Coupled to the personal tragedy of
Wardenclyffe was the 1895 fire at 35 South 5th Avenue, New York, in the
building which housed Tesla's laboratory. In this fire, he lost much of his
equipment, notes and documents. This produced a state of severe depression
for Tesla.

Post-Tesla era

In 1915, legal ownership of the Wardenclyffe property was transferred to

George Boldt of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for a $20,000 debt (about $400,000
in 2009 dollars).[4] In September 1917 during World War I, the tower was blown
up with dynamite on orders of the United States Government which feared
German spies were using it and that it could be used as a landmark for German
submarines.[5] Tesla was not in New York during the tower's destruction.

George Boldt wished to make the property available for sale. On April 20, 1922
Tesla lost an appeal of judgment versus his backers in the second foreclosure.
This effectively locked Tesla out of any future development of the facility. In
1925, the property ownership was transferred to Walter L. Johnson of Brooklyn.
On March 6, 1939, Plantacres, Inc. purchased the facility's land and
subsequently leased it to Peerless Photo Products, Inc. AGFA Corporation
bought the property from Peerless and is the current owner. The main building
remains standing to this day. Agfa used the site from 1969 to 1992 then closed
the facility. The site has undergone a final cleanup of waste produced during its
Photo Products era. The clean up was conducted under the scrutiny of the New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and paid for by AGFA.
In 2009 they put the property up for sale for $1,650,000. Agfa has advertised
that the land can “be delivered fully cleared and level.” It says it spent $5 million
through September 2008 cleaning up silver and cadmium.

Preservation efforts

On February 14, 1967, the nonprofit public benefit corporation Brookhaven

Town Historical Trust was established. It selected the Wardenclyffe facility to be
designated as a historic site and as the first site to be preserved by the Trust on
March 3, 1967. The Brookhaven Town Historic Trust was rescinded by
resolution on February 1, 1972. There were never any appointments made after
a legal opinion was received; it was never set up properly. On July 7, 1976, a
plaque from Yugoslavia was installed by representatives from Brookhaven
National Laboratory near the entrance of the building. It reads:

IN THIS BUILDING
DESIGNED BY STANFORD WHITE, ARCHITECT
NIKOLA TESLA
BORN SMILJAN, YUGOSLAVIA 1856—DIED NEW YORK, U.S.A. 1943
CONSTRUCTED IN 1901-1905 WARDENCLYFFE
 HUGE RADIO STATION WITH ANTENNA TOWER
187 FEET HIGH /DESTROYED 1917/, WHICH
WAS TO HAVE SERVED AS HIS FIRST WORLD
COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM.
IN MEMORY OF 120TH ANNIVERSARY OF TESLA'S BIRTH
AND 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S.A. INDEPENDENCE

July 10, 1976

The sign was stolen from the property in November 2009. An anonymous
benefactor is offering a $2000 reward if it is returned to the property.

Designation of the structure as a National Landmark is awaiting completion of

plant decommissioning activities by its present owner.

In 1976, an application was filed to nominate the main building for listing on the
National Register of Historic Places. It failed to get approval. The Tesla
Wardenclyffe Project, Inc. was established in 1994 for the purpose of seeking
placement of the Wardenclyffe laboratory-office building and the Tesla tower
foundation on both the New York State and National Registers of Historic
Places. Its mission is the preservation and adaptive reuse of Wardenclyffe, the
century-old laboratory of electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla located in Shoreham,
Long Island, New York. In October 1994 a second application for formal
nomination was filed. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and
Historic Preservation conducted inspections and determined the facility meets
New York State criteria for historic designation. A second visit was made on
February 25, 2009. The site cannot be registered until it is nominated by a
willing owner.

Facility grounds
Wardenclyffe is located near the Shoreham Post Office and Shoreham Fire
House on Route 25A in Shoreham, Long Island, New York. Wardenclyffe was
divided into two main sections. The tower, which was located in the back, and
the main building compose the entire facility grounds. At one time the property
was about 200 acres (0.81 km2). Now it consists of slightly less than 16 acres
(65,000 m2).

The wood-framed tower was 186 feet (57 m) tall and the cupola 68 feet (20.7 m)
in diameter. It had a 55-ton steel (some report it was a better conducting
material, such as copper) hemispherical structure at the top (referred to as a
cupola). Designed by one of Stanford White's associates, the structure was
such as to allow each piece to be taken out if needed and replaced as
necessary. The transmitter itself was to have been powered by a 200 kilowatt
Westinghouse alternating current industrial generator. Beneath the tower, a
shaft sank 120 feet (36.6 m) into the ground. Sixteen iron pipes were placed
one length after another 300 additional feet (94.4 m) in order for the machine, in
Tesla's words, "to have a grip on the earth so the whole of this globe can
quiver."
The main building occupied the rest of the facility grounds. It included a
laboratory area, instrument room, boiler room, generator room and machine
shop. Inside the main building, there were electromechanical devices, electrical
generators, electrical transformers, glass blowing equipment, X-ray devices,
Tesla coils, a remote controlled boat, cases with bulbs and tubes, wires, cables,
a library, and an office. It was constructed in the style of the Italian
Renaissance.

World Wireless System

The transmission of electrical energy

In 1891 and 1892, Tesla had used an oscillatory transformer that bears his
name in demonstration lectures delivered before meetings of the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in New York City" and the Institute of
Electrical Engineers (IEE) in London. Of two striking results that Tesla
demonstrated, one was that the wireless transmission of electrical energy was
possible. A later presentation, titled "On Light and Other High Frequency
Phenomena" (Philadelphia/St. Louis; Franklin Institute in 1893),[17] was a key
event in the invention of radio and could also be said to have begun the
development of Wardenclyffe.

One-wire transmission

In the early presentations, the first experiment to be demonstrated was the

operation of light and motive devices connected by a single wire to only one
terminal of a high frequency induction coil, presented during the 1891 New York
City lecture at Columbia University. While a single terminal incandescent lamp
connected to one of an induction coil’s secondary terminals does not form a
closed circuit “in the ordinary acceptance of the term”, the circuit is closed in the
sense that a return path is established back to the secondary by what Tesla
called “electrostatic induction” (or 'displacement currents'). This is due to the
lamp’s filament or refractory button capacitance relative to the coil’s free
terminal and environment; the free terminal also has capacitance relative to the
lamp and environment. At high frequencies, the displacement current through
these capacitances is sufficient to light the lamp.

Wireless transmission

The second result demonstrated how energy could be made to go through

space without any connecting wires. This was the first step towards a practical
wireless system. The wireless energy transmission effect involved the creation
of an electric field between two metal plates, each being connected to one
terminal of an induction coil’s secondary winding. Once again, a light-producing
device (in this case a gas discharge tube) was used as a means of detecting
the presence of the transmitted energy. "The most striking result obtained"
involved the lighting of two partially evacuated tubes in an alternating
electrostatic field while held in the hand of the experimenter. In Tesla's words,

... I suspend a sheet of metal a

distance from the ceiling on insulating
cords and connect it to one terminal of
the induction coil, the other terminal
being preferably connected to the
ground. Or else I suspend two sheets
as illustrated in Fig. 29 / 125, each
sheet being connected with one of the
terminals of the coil, and their size
being carefully determined. An
exhausted tube may then be carried in
the hand anywhere between the
sheets or placed anywhere, even a
certain distance beyond them; it
remains always luminous.

Here Tesla describes two different

types of wireless transmitter, both
employing a high-tension induction
coil. One had a sheet of metal
suspended from the ceiling and
connected to one of the induction coil’s terminals, with the other terminal being
connected to ground. The other type of transmitter had two sheets of metal
suspended from the ceiling, each being connected to one of the coil’s high-
voltage terminals.

Theory of wireless transmission

While working to develop an explanation for the two observed effects mentioned
above, Tesla recognized that electrical energy can be projected outward into
space and detected by a receiving instrument in the general vicinity of the
source without the need for any interconnecting wires. He went on to develop
two theories related to these observations, which are:
 1. By using two Tesla coil transmitter-receivers positioned at distant points
on the Earth’s surface, it is possible to induce a flow of electrical current
between them.
2. By incorporating a portion of the Earth as part of a powerful dual-
elevated-terminal Tesla coil transmitter an electrical disturbance can be
impressed upon the Earth and detected “at great distance, or even all
over the surface of the globe.”

Tesla also made the assumption that the Earth is a charged body floating in
space.

A point of great importance would be first to know what is the capacity of the
Earth? and what charge does it contain if electrified? Though we have no
positive evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely
electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the Earth is such a
body, for by whatever process it was separated from other bodies—and this is
the accepted view of its origin—it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all
processes of mechanical separation.

Tesla was familiar with demonstrations that involved the charging of Leyden jar
capacitors and isolated metal spheres with electrostatic influence machines (in
modern terms, high-voltage (kV), low-current (μA) electrostatic generators). By
bringing these elements into proximity with each other, and also by making
direct contact followed by their separation, the charge can be manipulated. He
surely had this in mind in the creation of his mental image, not being able to
know that the model of Earth’s origin was inaccurate. The presently accepted
model of planetary origin is one of accretion and collision.

If it be a charged body insulated in space its capacity should be extremely

small, less than one-thousandth of a farad.

We now know that the Earth is a charged body, made so by processes—at

least in part—related to the interaction between the continuous stream of
charged particles called the solar wind that flows outward from the center of our
solar system and Earth’s magnetosphere. And we also know that Tesla's
capacitance estimate was correct: Earth's self-capacitance is about 710
microfarads.[25]

But the upper strata of the air are conducting, and so, perhaps, is the medium in
free space beyond the atmosphere, and these may contain an opposite charge.
Then the capacity might be incomparably greater.

We now also know that Earth's upper atmospheric strata are conducting, or can
be made so.

In any case it is of the greatest importance to get an idea of what quantity of

electricity the Earth contains.

An additional condition of which we are now aware is that the Earth possesses
a naturally existing negative charge with respect to the conducting region of the
atmosphere beginning at an elevation of about 50 km. The potential difference
between the Earth and this region is on the order of 400,000 volts. Near the
Earth's surface there is a ubiquitous downward directed E-field of about 100
V/m. Tesla referred to this charge as the “electric niveau” or electric level.

It is difficult to say whether we shall ever acquire this necessary knowledge, but
there is hope that we may, and that is, by means of electrical resonance. If ever
we can ascertain at what period the Earth's charge, when disturbed, oscillates
with respect to an oppositely electrified system or known circuit, we shall know
a fact possibly of the greatest importance to the welfare of the human race. I
propose to seek for the period by means of an electrical oscillator, or a source
of alternating electric currents...

Some maintain the 200 kW wireless facility would have functioned by the
production and propagation of electromagnetic radiation also known as the
transverse electromagnetic (TEM) radio wave, but this is not the case.

I am not producing radiation in my system; I am suppressing electromagnetic

waves. But, on the other hand, my apparatus can be used effectively with
electromagnetic waves. The apparatus has nothing to do with this new method
except that it is the only means to practice it. So that in my system, you should
free yourself of the idea that there is radiation, that energy is radiated. It is not
radiated; it is conserved.

By Tesla's own account, his earth resonance system works by the creation of
"powerful disturbances" in Earth's natural electric charge. The Wardenclyffe
facility had a dual purpose. In addition to point-to-point telecommunications and
broadcasting it was also intended to demonstrate the transmission of electrical
power on a reduced scale. He stated,

It is intended to give practical demonstrations of these principles with the plant

illustrated. As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New
York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office
in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any
telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing
equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its
bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a
political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an
eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the
same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from
one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one
plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the
transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large
enough to carry conviction.

Wardenclyffe was the first of many installations to be constructed near major

population centers around the world. If Tesla's plans had moved forward without
interruption the Long Island prototype would have been followed by a second
plant built in the British Isles, perhaps on the west coast of Scotland near
Glasgow. Each of these facilities would have included a large magnifying
transmitter of a design loosely based upon the apparatus which Tesla
assembled at the Colorado Springs Experimental Station in 1899.

"... The plant in Colorado was merely designed in the same sense as a
naval constructor designs first a small model to ascertain all the
quantities before he embarks on the construction of a big vessel. I had
already planned most of the details of the commercial plant,
subsequently put up at Long Island, except that at that time the location
was not settled upon. The Colorado plant I have used in determining the
construction of the various parts, and the experiments which were carried
on there were for the practical purpose of enabling me to design the
transmitters and receivers which I was to employ in the large commercial
plant subsequently erected..."

Using a global array of these magnifying transmitters, it was Tesla's plan to

establish what he called the "World Wireless System," providing multi-channel
global broadcasting, an array of secure wireless telecommunications services,
and a long range aid to navigation, including means for the precise
synchronization of clocks. In a more highly developed state he envisaged the
'World System' would expand to include the wireless industrial transmission of
electric power.

At the time the power grid was quite limited in terms of reach and the
Wardenclyffe prototype represented a way to significantly reduce the cost of
"electrifying" the countryside. Tesla called his wireless technique the "disturbed
charge of ground and air method".

There is evidence that Wardenclyffe would have used extremely low frequency
signals combined with higher frequency signals. In practice, the transmitter
electrically influences both the Earth and the space above it. He made a point of
describing the process as being essentially the same as transmitting electricity
by conduction through a wire.

Tesla clearly specified the Earth as being one of the conducting media involved
in ground and air system technology. The other specified medium is the
atmosphere above 5 miles (8.0 km) elevation. While not an ohmic conductor, in
this region of the troposphere and upwards, the density or pressure is
sufficiently reduced to so that, according to Tesla’s theory, the atmosphere’s
insulating properties can be easily impaired, allowing an electric current to flow.
His theory further states that the conducting region is developed through the
process of atmospheric ionization, in which the affected portions thereof are
changed to plasma. The presence of the magnetic fields developed by each
plant’s helical resonator suggests that an embedded magnetic field and flux
linkage is also involved. Flux linkage with Earth’s natural magnetic field is also a
possibility, especially in the case of an earth resonance transmission system.

The atmosphere below 5 miles (8.0 km) is also viewed as a propagating

medium for a portion of the above-ground circuit, and, being an insulating
medium, electrostatic induction would be involved rather than true electrical
conduction. Tesla felt that with a sufficiently high electrical potential on the
elevated terminal the practical limitation imposed upon its height could be
overcome. He anticipated that a highly energetic transmitter, as was intended at
Wardenclyffe, would charge the elevated terminal to the point where the
atmosphere around and above the facility would break down and become
ionized, leading to a flow of true conduction currents between the two terminals
by a path up to and through the troposphere, and back down to the other
facility. The ionization of the atmosphere directly above the elevated terminals
would be facilitated by the use of an ionizing beam of ultraviolet radiation to
form what might be called a high-voltage plasma transmission line. [ed. see
longitudinal waves and waves in plasmas].

In various writings, Tesla explained that the Earth itself behaves as a resonant
LC circuit when it is electrically excited at certain frequencies. At Wardenclyffe
he operated at frequencies ranging from 1,000 Hz to 100 kHz. Tesla found the
frequency range up to 30 – 35 kHz “to be most economical.” Excitation of earth
resonance at a harmonic of the 11.78 Hz fundamental frequency suggests
energy transmission by means of a TM00 spherical conductor “single-wire”
surface wave transmission line mode. A Schumann resonance mode (the
fundamental frequency being about 7.5 to 7.9 Hz) is probably not involved. The
entire Earth can be electrically resonated with a single earth-resonance
transmitter, so an earth-resonance based system would require, at a minimum,
that only one World Wireless System transmitter be constructed. Alternatively,
two distantly spaced transmiter-receiver facilities could be constructed. Such a
system would not be so dependent upon the excitation of an earth-resonance
mode. In either case a surface wave, similar to the Zenneck wave would be
utilized.[33] Artificially induced earth currents would be utilized. According to
Tesla, the planet's large cross-sectional area provides a low resistance path for
the flow of earth currents. The greatest losses are apt to occur at the points
where the transmitting / receiving plants and dedicated receiving stations are
connected with the ground. This is why Tesla stated;

You see the underground work is one of the most expensive parts of the tower.
In this system that I have invented it is necessary for the machine to get a grip
of the Earth, otherwise it cannot shake the Earth. It has to have a grip on the
Earth so that the whole of this globe can quiver, and to do that it is necessary to
carry out a very expensive construction.

To close the circuit a second path is established between the two transmitter-
receiver plants' elevated high-voltage terminals through the rarefied
atmospheric strata above five miles (8 km). The connection is made by some
combination of electrostatic induction and electrical conduction through plasma.
While a number of his wireless patents, including "Apparatus for transmitting
electrical energy," U.S. Patent No. 1,119,732, December 1, 1914, describe a
system which uses the plasma-conduction scheme, his "Art of transmitting
electrical energy through the natural mediums," U.S. Patent No. 787,412, April
18, 1905 and some of his Wardenclyffe design notes from 1901 show the
overall plan also involves electrostatically induce oscillations in the potential
associated with Earth's self-capacitance. The two tower earth-resonance
transmitter is especially designed for this purpose. Tesla wrote,
The specific plan of producing the stationary waves, here-in described, might be
departed from. For example, the circuit which impresses the powerful
oscillations upon the earth might be connected to the latter at two points.

Tesla believed that a fully developed system with large high-power stations
based upon the smaller Wardenclyffe prototype would permit wireless
transmission and reception across large distances with negligible losses.

In the course of this work, I mastered the technique of high potentials

sufficiently for enabling me to construct and operate, in 1899, a wireless
transmitter developing up to twenty million volts. Some time before I
contemplated the possibility of transmitting such high tension currents over a
narrow beam of radiant energy ionizing the air and rendering it, in measure,
conductive. After preliminary laboratory experiments, I made tests on a large
scale with the transmitter referred to and a beam of ultra-violet rays of great
energy in an attempt to conduct the current to the high rarefied strata of the air
and thus create an auroral such as might be utilized for illumination, especially
of oceans at night. I found that there was some virtue in the principal but the
results did not justify the hope of important practical applications. . . .

In spite of ridicule, many of Tesla's ideas have been demonstrated to be

essentially correct. For example he correctly predicted the existence of the
ionosphere and electrical resonance of the Earth-atmosphere system.
Resonance of the earth-ionosphere cavity with a fundamental frequency in the
vicinity of 7.3 Hz was demonstrated in the 1950s as the Schumann resonance.
The latter phenomenon was named after Schumann, for although Tesla had
detected a resonance of the Earth-atmosphere system, he was not taken
seriously in his time. Furthermore, Tesla appears to have excited a different
terrestrial resonance mode with a fundamental frequency of 11.78 Hz.

Electrical transmission and reception

Tesla's early experiments involved the propagation of ordinary radio waves, that
is to say Hertzian waves, electromagnetic waves propagated through space
without artificial guide.

In 1919 Nikola Tesla wrote,

The popular impression is that my wireless work was begun in 1893, but as a
matter of fact I spent the two preceding years in investigations, employing forms
of apparatus, some of which were almost like those of today. It was clear to me
from the very start that the successful consummation could only be brought
about by a number of radical improvements. Suitable high frequency generators
and electrical oscillators had first to be produced. The energy of these had to be
transformed in effective transmitters and collected at a distance in proper
receivers. Such a system would be manifestly circumscribed in its usefulness if
all extraneous interference were not prevented and exclusiveness secured. In
time, however, I recognized that devices of this kind, to be most effective and
efficient, should be designed with due regard to the physical properties of this
planet and the electrical conditions obtaining on the same.
One of the requirements of the World Wireless system is the construction of
resonant receivers.[44] The grounded helical resonator of a Tesla Coil and an
elevated terminal can be used in receive mode.[45][46][47][48][49][50] Tesla himself
repeatedly demonstrated the wireless transmission of electrical energy from a
Tesla coil transmitter to a Tesla coil receiver. These concepts and methods are
part of his wireless transmission system (US1119732 — Apparatus for
Transmitting Electrical Energy — 1902 January 18). Tesla made a proposal that
there would be many more than thirty transmission-reception stations
worldwide.

In the principle form of Tesla system receiver, a Tesla coil receiving

transformer[52][53][54][55] acts as a step-down transformer with high current output.
The parameters of a Tesla Coil transmitter are identically applicable to it being a
receiver (e.g.., an antenna circuit), due to reciprocity.

[Impedance, generally though, is not applied in an obvious way; for electrical

impedance, the impedance at the load (e.g.., where the power is consumed) is
most critical and, for a Tesla Coil receiver, this is at the point of utilization (such
as at an induction motor) rather than at the receiving node. Complex impedance
of an antenna is related to the electrical length of the antenna at the wavelength
in use. Commonly, impedance is adjusted at the load with a tuner or a matching
networks composed of inductors and capacitors.]

In another form of receiving circuit the two input terminals are connected to a
device designed to reverse polarity at predetermined intervals of time and
charge a capacitor. This form of Tesla system receiver has means for
commutating the current impulses in the charging circuit so as to render them
suitable for charging an energy storage device, a device for closing the
receiving-circuit, and means for causing the receiver to be operated by the
accumulated energy.

Researchers experimenting with Tesla's wireless energy transmission system

design have made observations that may be inconsistent with a basic tenet of
physics related to the scalar derivatives of the electromagnetic potentials, which
are presently considered to be nonphysical.

The intention of the Tesla world wireless energy transmission system is to

combine electrical power transmission along with broadcasting and point-to-
point wireless telecommunications, and allow for the elimination of many
existing high-tension power transmission lines, facilitating the interconnection of
electrical generation plants on a global scale.

One of Tesla's patents suggests he may have misinterpreted 25–70 km nodal

structures associated with cloud-ground lightning observations made during the
1899 Colorado Springs experiments in terms of circumglobally propagating
standing waves instead of a local interference phenomenon of direct and
reflected waves.[65]

Regarding the recent notion of power transmission through the earth-

ionosphere cavity, a consideration of the earth-ionosphere or concentric
spherical shell waveguide propagation parameters as they are known today
shows that wireless power transmission by direct excitation of a Schumann
cavity resonance mode is not realizable. "The conceptual difficulty with this
model is that, at the very low frequencies that Tesla said that he employed (1-
50 kHz), earth-ionosphere waveguide excitation, now well understood, would
seem to be impossible with the either the Colorado Springs or the Long Island
apparatus (at least with the apparatus that is visible in the photographs of these
facilities)."

On the other hand, Tesla's concept of a global wireless electrical power

transmission grid and telecommunications network based upon energy
transmission by means of a spherical conductor transmission line with an upper
three-space model return circuit, while perhaps not practical for power
transmission, is feasible, defying no law of physics. Global wireless
transmission by means of a spherical conductor “single-wire” surface wave
transmission line and a propagating TM00 mode may also be possible, a
feasibility study using a sufficiently powerful and properly tuned Tesla coil earth-
resonance transmitter being called for.

Common misconceptions

Propagation mode

It was once thought the 200 kW Wardenclyffe prototype World Wireless station
would have functioned by the production and propagation of electromagnetic
radiation also known as the transverse electromagnetic (TEM) radio wave, but
this is not the case. The World Wireless System actually works by the creation
of powerful disturbances in Earth's natural electric charge and TM 00 mode
propagation over a spherical single conductor transmission line.

I am not producing radiation in my system; I am suppressing electromagnetic

waves. But, on the other hand, my apparatus can be used effectively with
electromagnetic waves. The apparatus has nothing to do with this new method
except that it is the only means to practice it. So that in my system, you should
free yourself of the idea that there is radiation, that energy is radiated. It is not
radiated; it is conserved.

World System functionality

It is believed by some that World Wireless System technology is intended only

for wireless power transmission. The prototype Wardenclyffe installation and the
second facility planned in Scotland had a dual purpose. Their primary function
was worldwide broadcasting and trans-Atlantic point-to-point wireless
telecommunications. The prototype system was also intended for proof-of-
concept wireless power transmission demonstrations, although on a greatly
reduced scale.

It is intended to give practical demonstrations of these principles with the plant

illustrated. As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New
York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office
in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any
telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing
equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its
bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a
political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an
eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the
same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from
one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one
plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the
transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large
enough to carry conviction.

Schumann Cavity resonance hypothesis

It has been proposed the World Wireless System involve energy transfer by
means of a concentric spherical shell waveguide composed of Earth's surface
and the ionosphere. This is known as the Schumann Cavity. Natural lightning
excites Schumann resonances that are observed at the lowest few resonance
frequencies (about 8 Hertz and multiples of that). Their measured Q's of order 5
to 10 suggest that the electrical disturbances produced by lightning make a few
circuits of the Earth before damping out, and create a fairly definite terrestrial
standing wave of a few cycles duration.

The conceptual difficulty with this model is that, at the very low frequencies that
Tesla said that he employed (1-50 kHz), earth-ionosphere waveguide excitation,
now well understood, would seem to be impossible with the either the Colorado
Springs or the Long Island apparatus (at least with the apparatus that is visible
in the photographs of these facilities).

The maximum recommended operating frequencies of 25 kHz as specified by

Tesla is far above the highest easily observable Schumann resonance mode
(this is the 9th overtone) that exists at approximately 66.4 Hz. Tesla's selection
of 25 kHz is wholly inconsistent with the operation of a system that is based
upon the direct excitation of a Schumann resonance mode.

Ionospheric conduction

It is believed by some the atmospheric path used in the two-conductor method,

i.e., the "second path," is the ionosphere, the uppermost strata of Earth's
atmosphere starting at approximately 30 miles (48 km) in daytime and
approximately 55 miles (89 km) at night. The atmospheric strata through which
energy can be transmitted has a barometric pressure of 75 mm, equivalent to
an elevation of about 15 miles (24 km). World Wireless System apparatus
allows this elevation to be reduced down to approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km).

A Variant Receiver

A variant was suggested by Tesla for exploiting the vertical voltage gradient in
the Earth's atmosphere.
A variant was suggested that could utilize the phantom loop effect to form a
circuit to induct energy from the Earth's magnetic field and other radiant energy
sources (including, but not limited to, electrostatics).

A Tesla Coil can receive electromagnetic impulses from atmospheric electricity

and radiant energy, besides normal wireless transmissions.

The charging-circuit can be adapted to be energized by the action of various

other disturbances and effects at a distance. Arbitrary and intermittent
oscillations that are propagated via conduction to the receiving resonator will
charge the receiver's capacitor and utilize the potential energy to greater effect.

Various radiations can be used to charge and discharge conductors, with the
radiations considered electromagnetic vibrations of various wavelengths and
ionizing potential.

Radiant energy throws off with great velocity minute particles which are strongly
electrified and other rays falling on the insulated-conductor connected to a
condenser (i.e., a capacitor) can cause the condenser to indefinitely charge
electrically.

The helical resonator can be "shock excited" due to radiant energy disturbances
not only at the fundamental wave at one-quarter wave-length but also is excited
at its harmonics.

The output power from these devices, attained from Hertzian methods of
charging, is low, but alternative charging means are available.

Hertzian methods can be used to excite a the receiver with limitations that result
in great disadvantages for utilization, though. The methods of ground
conduction and the various induction methods can also be used to excite the
receiver, but are again at a disadvantages for utilization.

The receiver utilizes the effects or disturbances to charge a storage device with
energy from an external source (natural or man-made) and controls the
charging of said device by the actions of the effects or disturbances (during
succeeding intervals of time determined by means of such effects and
disturbances corresponding in succession and duration of the effects and
disturbances). The stored energy can also be used to operate the receiving
device. The accumulated energy can, for example, operate a transformer by
discharging through a primary circuit at predetermined times which, from the
secondary currents, operate the receiving device.

With regard to Tesla's statements on the harnessing of natural phenomena to

obtain electric power, he stated:

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable
at any point of the universe. — "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High
Potential and High Frequency" (February 1892)
The Particle Beam Invention
Main articles: Teleforce, Particle beam weapon, and Directed-energy weapon

Related to the operation and utilization of Wardenclyffe Tower was Nikola

Tesla's work on a macroscopic charged particle beam weapon called Teleforce
in the 1930s. A Wardenclyffe styled facility which included the weapon was
contemplated by Tesla. He offered it to Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing
Company in early 1934. It was also offered to the US War Department, Great
Britain, and Yugoslavia. A descriptive 17-page type-written document on Tesla's
office letterhead titled, "New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive
Energy Through Natural Media", which presently exists in the Nikola Tesla
Museum archive in Belgrade, shows that his macroscopic particle beam, also
dubbed the "Peace Ray" or the "death ray" by contemporary media, was a
narrow stream of charged macroscopic clusters of atomic mercury or tungsten
accelerated by high voltage, produced by either a huge Van de Graaff generator
or Tesla Coil.

Telefunken Station
After Wardenclyffe, Tesla built the Telefunken Wireless on the South Shore of
Long Island. Some of what he wanted to achieve at Wardenclyffe was achieved
with the Telefunken Wireless. In West Sayville, Long Island, New York, Tesla
assisted in the building of three 600-foot (180 m) radio towers, creating the
western wireless communication station in a North America and Europe
network.
Quotes
 "As soon as [the Wardenclyffe facility is] completed, it will be possible for
a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them
instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be
able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the
globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An
inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to
hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political
leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an
eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In
the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be
transferred from one to another place ..." – Nikola Tesla, "The Future of
the Wireless Art," Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony, 1908, pg. 67-71.

 "It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering,

only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! [...] Humanity is
not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen
searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present
world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being
helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by
want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that
it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations,
through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all
that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted,
suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more
triumphantly from the struggle." – Nikola Tesla, "The Transmission of
Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace,"
Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905.

Related patents
 "Means for Generating Electric Currents," U.S. Patent 514,168, February
6, 1894
 "Electrical Transformer," U.S. Patent 593,138, November 2, 1897
 "Method Of Utilizing Radiant Energy," U.S. Patent 685,958 November 5,
1901
 "Method of Signaling," U.S. Patent 723,188, March 17, 1903
 "System of Signaling," U.S. Patent 725,605, April 14, 1903
 "Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Mediums,"
U.S. Patent 787,412, April 18, 1905
 "Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy," January 18, 1902, U.S.
Patent 1,119,732, December 1, 1914

 Hansell, U.S. Patent 2,389,432, Communication system by pulses

through the Earth.
 Leydorf, G. F., U.S. Patent 3,278,937, "Antenna near field coupling
system". 1966.