Tesla, Father of Radio

I have followed with interest Radio-Electronics' “Antique Radios” column, but I was disappointed with the treatment of Tesla in the installment that appeared in the March issue. Far from being among the inventors “who worked with electricity, but were not involved with wireless,” Yugoslav-born Nikola Tesla, as early as his lecture at the Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia, in March, 1893, suggested a system consisting of “an electrical oscillator, or source of alternating current,” one of the terminals of which would connect to Earth, the other to “an insulated body of large surface.” That, he thought, might be used to transmit “intelligence, or perhaps even power, to any distance....I am firmly convinced that this can be done and hope that we shall live to see it done.”

Tesla continued, taking out several patents, and in 1899 gave a demonstration of radio remote control in Madison Square Garden, New York City. Model boats in a large tank were started, steered, and stopped by radio waves from a short distance.

If that is so, why then isn't Tesla hailed as the inventor of radio? Hugo Gernsback had the answer. In his article “Nikola Tesla, the Father of Wireless,” written on the occasion of Tesla's death, (January 7, 1943) he says:

“By 1900 Tesla had patented a wireless system, much of which was used later to make commercial wireless possible....These very means were used much later by Marconi and others who appropriated Tesla's ideas.

“Tesla in due time brought suit against Marconi, but could not establish his patent rights in court and blamed his failure on the paucity of technical knowledge of the times, of the lawyers and the court. When, many years later, his language had become clear, even to a mediocre technician, his patents had run out. Nevertheless, there would have been no wireless transmission without Tesla's fundamental work.”

Gernsback did not know it, but at that very time, proceedings that would rectify the injustice were under way. On June 21, 1943, the Supreme Court disallowed Marconi's fundamental patent, on the basis of “earlier work by Tesla” and others. It's a true pity that Tesla did not live six more months!

Not only did Tesla outline the concepts - he was active in developing the instruments used in practical work. He devised the rotary spark gap and was the inventor of the oscillating arc, later adapted and used by de Forest for phone and in much marine telegraphy. He pioneered the high-frequency generator, used by Fessenden in the first telephone broadcast, and which became the standard high-power transmitter until it was superseded by tubes in the 1920's.

FRED SHUNAMAN (former Editor, Radio-Electronics)

Radio Electronics - June 1987

Germs of superconductivity

Recent breakthroughs in superconductor technology appear to be one of the hottest items in science [“Science Newsfront,” June]. You state that Onnes's 1911 investigations in this field were the first, but you may find it interesting to know that Nikola Tesla was concerned with low-resistance electrical circuits and proposed immersing them in “liquid air.” Tesla was awarded a patent in 1901 for “Increasing the Intensity of Electrical Oscillations.” Although Tesla was not a chemist and did not come up with new low-resistance materials, his pioneering of supercooled circuits as a means of improving the carrying capacity of an electrical conductor may have spawned the germ from which superconductor science evolved.

Harry Goldman
Tesla Coil Builders Assn.
Glens Falls, N.Y.

Popular Science - August, 1987

Tesla's first again

The excellent article “X-Wing and Tilt-Rotor: Hybrid Aircraft That Get Up and Go” [July] brought to mind Nikola Tesla's 1927 patent for a vertical-takeoff-and-landing apparatus [drawing above]. Like many of Tesla's ideas, it preceded the technology that brought it to fruition by many years.

Harry Goldman (address withheld)

Popular Science - September, 1987

Niagara Falls Review,
Wednesday, July 29, 1987 5

Tesla deserves just dues

Canada Post, on June 25, issued a stamp recognizing Reginald Fessenden for AM radio in 1906 with original principals by Nikola Tesla in 1893. It was Tesla, not Marconi, who invented the first radio. It was Tesla, not Edison, who devised the system of electric power distribution now used throughout the world. The powers-that-be have done everything to discredit Tesla, including keeping his marker in Niagara Falls, Ontario and his statue in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in darkness at night.

Herbert C. Force