Supporting Science

Nikola Tesla – the Tesla Coil
Energy for the 21st Century and Beyond

Nikola Tesla, in his investigation into high-frequency electricity phenomena, needed a way to go beyond the limitations of the iron-coil transformer to generate higher frequency radio waves. His inspiration lead him to invent a special transformer, without the iron-core, which allowed the secondary coil to be free to oscillate or “electrically vibrate” into higher and higher frequencies. The infamous Tesla Coil (invented 1891) is an air-core resonating transformer became the forerunner of the radio-frequency coil and allowed the “Radio Age” to take one of it’s first formative steps.

Tesla coils as spark radio transmitters have been phased out since the late 1950’s, but have been miniaturized and today, form the heart of every television, radio and VCR.

You can think of the coil as a string on a musical instrument. If you pluck the string then it will vibrate with a certain frequency, which is based on the length of the string. This is a “resonant frequency”. After all, isn’t music is based on the science of vibrations?

Now a basic principle of electrical engineering is that the ground is an electrical sinkhole, where energy returns to. But what would happen if the ground was suddenly reversed and became a source of energy? When electricity is “sunk” into the ground it travels much like a ripple in a pool of water, traveling through the earth and bouncing back to the point of origin. By correctly timing the discharge of electricity from a Tesla coil, you can continue amplifying your electric ripple until it builds up to great strength.

“Electric current, after passing into the earth travels to the diametrically opposite region of the same and rebounding from there, returns to its point of departure with virtually undiminished force. The outgoing and returning currents clash and form nodes and loops similar to those observable on a vibrating cord. To traverse the entire distance of about twenty-five thousand miles, equal to the circumference of the globe, the current requires a certain time interval, which I have approximately ascertained. In yielding this knowledge, nature has revealed one of its most precious secrets, of inestimable consequence to man. So astounding are the facts in this connection, that it would seem as though the Creator, himself, had electrically designed this planet just for the purpose of enabling us to achieve wonders which, before my discovery, could not have been conceived by the wildest imagination.” — Nikola Tesla

To Tesla, earth or ground was a better conductor of electrical energy than was the air or atmosphere! He was a brilliant pioneer investigating new avenues of mechanical and electrical resonances and introducing new ways to use electrical energy. He always seemed to have an intuitive connection to the future—thinking of new and better ways to move planet Earth into an advanced age of electronics.