Tesla: Master of Lightning Page #9

It even described a means of

changing the weather

by super-heating portions of the

upper atmosphere with microwave energy.

Tesla proposed that it might be

possible to modify the weather

by using radio waves.

I believe that this is impossible.

Ionospheric modification is still

in its early experimental stages.

But microwave technology has

already made it possible

to transmit wireless power

with the use of satellites.

We go to Alaska, and in Alaska

there is natural gas.

In order to send it somewhere

you have to create a pipeline.

That's very expensive. So we said,

all right, let's go into Alaska,

create microwaves from the natural

gas, send them to a satellite

at a particular geosynchronous orbit,

put a reflector there and send it to Japan.

And in Japan, you get an antenna

which transforms these microwaves

into 60 Hz and you get electricity.

So you make actually Tesla's dream.

The scientific man does not aim

at an immediate result.

He does not expect that his advanced

ideas will be readily taken up.

His work is like that of the planter:

for the future.

His duty is to lay the foundation

for those who are to come,

and point the way.

He was special; he was unique.

He was unusual in all sorts of ways.

And if we are to understand

our own creativity,

our own ability to invent

there is an awful lot to be learned by

studying the way in which he created.

The day when we shall know

exactly what electricity is

will chronicle an event

probably greater,

more important, than any other recorded

in the history of the human race.

Then, it will be a mere

question of time

when men will succeed in

attaching their machinery

to the very wheelwork of nature.

See the excitement coming!

Kate O'Hara & Serkan Yilmaz

To learn more about Nikola Tesla

visit PBS online at pbs.org

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