by Orrin E. Dunlap Jr.

New York Times

April 8th, 1934

An Inventor's Seasoned Ideas

Nikola Tesla, Pointing to 'Grievous Errors' of the Past, Explains Radio as He Sees It at Age of 77

“I consider this extremely important,” said Mr. Tesla. “Light cannot be anything else but a longitudinal disturbance in the ether, involving alternate compressions and rarefactions. In other words, light can be nothing else than a sound wave in the ether.”

This appears clearly, Mr. Tesla explained, if it is first realized that, there being no Maxwellian ether, there can be no transverse oscillation in the medium. The Newtonian theory, he believes, is in error, because it falls entirely in not being able to explain how a small candle can project particles with the same speed as the blazing sun, which has an immensely higher temperature.

“We have made sure by experiment,” said Mr. Tesla, “that light propagates with the same velocity irrespective of the character of the source. Such constancy of velocity can only be explained by assuming that it is dependent solely on the physical properties of the medium, especially density and elastic force.

Micro-Wave Possibilities.

Coming now to the wireless waves, it is still true that they are of the same character as light waves, only they are not transversal but longitudinal. As a matter of fact, radio transmitters emit nothing else but sound waves in the ether, and if the experts will realize this they will find it very much easier to explain the curious observations made in the application of these waves.

“It being a fact that radio waves are essentially like sound waves in the air, it is evident that the shorter the waves the more penetrative they would be. In 1899 I produced electromagnetic waves from one to two millimeters long and observed their actions at a distance. There has been a great hope expressed by various workers that introduction of these waves will have a revolutionary effect, but I am not sharing the opinion. They will be used, of course, but to a very limited extent. It is manifest that applications of the very short waves will not produce any appreciable effect upon the wireless art.”

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