FluidicsThe fluidic valve, which Te

Fluidics
The fluidic valve, which Tesla calls a valvular conduit, allows easy flow in one direction but in the other
the flow gets hung up in dead-end chambers (buckets) where it gets spun around 360 degrees, thus
forming eddies, or countercurrents that stop the flow as surely as if a mechanical valve were moved
into the shut position. The spinning rotor creates plenty of suction to pull fuel and air into the
combustion chamber. Tesla notes that after a short lapse of time the chamber becomes heated to such
a degree that the ignition device may be shut off without disturbing the established regime. In other
words; it diesels. The disk-turbine motor principle in reverse becomes a very efficient pump. (Tesla's
Patent No. 1,061,142)
Fluid drive
The disk turbine principle is employed in the speedometer, which presents the problem of having to
turn the rotary motion of a vehicles wheels to angular motion in order to push a spring-loaded indicator
needle over a short arc. Tesla's solution: the speedometer cable connects to a disk which spins in
interface with a second disk, imparting spin to the fluid in between and, hence, to the second disk
which moves the needle. Interface two disks of different sizes in a fluid medium and any desired ratio
between speeds of rotation may be obtained by proper selection of the diameters of the disks,
observes Tesla in his patent, thus anticipating in 1911 the fluid-drive automatic transmission.
Tesla First worked on his turbine early in his career, believing it would be a good prime mover for his
alternating-current dynamos, far superior to the reciprocal steam engines that were the workhorses of
that era. But he did not get down to perfecting and patenting it until after the collapse of his global
broadcasting scheme (1909). By this time the internal-combustion piston engine was firmly rooted in
Western power mechanics. Tesla referred to organized opposition to his attempts to introduce the
superior engine, and so have others who have made the attempt since. But Tesla still saw a glorious
future for his turbine. To his friend, Yale engineering professor Charles Scott, Tesla predicted, "My
turbine will scrap all the heat engines in the world." Replied Scott, "That would make quite a pile of
scrap."
2. Spark-Gap Oscillator:
Tesla was central in establishing the 60 cycle alternating current power system still in use today. Yet
he suspected that the more striking phenomena resided in the higher frequencies of electric vibration.
To reach these heights, he first tried dynamos spun at higher speeds and having a greater number of
poles than any that had existed before. One having as an armature a flat, radially grooved copper disk
achieved 30,000 cycles, but Tesla wanted to go into the millions of cycles.
It occurred to him that this vibratory capability was to be found in the capacitor. With a capacitor circuit,
the spark-gap oscillator, he did indeed achieve the higher frequencies, and he did so by non
mechanical means. The circuit was promising enough for him to patent it as A Method of and
Apparatus for Electrical Conversion and Distribution, for Tesla saw in it the possibility of a whole new
system of electric lighting by means of high frequencies. Though it was quickly succeeded by the Tesla
http://www.frank.germano.com/lostinventions.htm (3 of 28)2004/11/22 09:47:22 AM
the lost inventions of Nikola Tesla
coil and is not numbered among the more famous of the lost inventions, the spark-gap oscillator is
pivotal for Tesla as the invention that launched him into his career in high frequencies.
How it works
The capacitor. There are only a few basic building blocks of electrical circuitry. The capacitor is one of
them. Tesla didn't invent it, it had been around for some time, arguably for millennia, but he did
improve upon it in three of his patents. Also called condenser, the common capacitor is just a sandwich
of conductive and nonconductive layers that serves the purpose of storing electrical charge. The
simplest capacitor has just two conductive sheets separated by a single sheet of insulation. In the
capacitor shown, the conductive elements are two metal plates.
The insulation between them is oil. In the official vocabulary, the plates are indeed called plates and
the insulative layer (oil, glass, mica, or whatever) is called the dielectric. Connect the two terminals of a
capacitor into a circuit where there is plus-minus electrical potential, and charge builds on the plates,
positive on one, negative on the other. Let this charge build for a while, and then connect the two
plates through some resistance, a coil, say, and the capacitor discharges very suddenly. Tesla said,
The explosion of dynamite is only the breath of a consumptive compared with its discharge. He went
on to say that the capacitor is the means of producing the strongest current, the highest electrical
pressure, the greatest commotion in the medium.
The capacitor's discharge is not necessarily a single event. If it discharges into a suitable resistance,
there is a rush of current outward, then back again, as if it were bouncing off the resistance, then out,
and back and so forth until it peters out. The discharge is oscillatory, a vibration. The vibration can be
sustained by recharging the capacitor at appropriate intervals. When Tesla talks of the capacitor's
discharge causing commotion in the medium, he means a vibration or mix of vibrations. The character
of this vibration is determined in part by the capacity of the capacitor, that is, how much charge it will
hold. This is a function of it size, the distance between plates, and the composition of the dielectric.
Upon discharge there would be, typically, a fundamental vibration, some harmonics, and perhaps other
commotion, maybe musical, maybe not. Additional circuitry can tame the vibration to a pure tone.
The medium
When Tesla speaks of commotion in the medium, what is the medium? In Tesla's time it was an article
of faith that there existed a unified field that permeated all being called the ether. The ether as the
electric medium still is an article of faith in some circles, but in official science its existence is presumed
to have been disproved in the laboratory. Nevertheless, this conviction about an ether ran very deep,
not only among scientists but among all thinkers, until only about forty-some years ago when particle
theory, E=MC2, and, finally Hiroshima firmly established the new faith. Tesla said the electron did not
exist.
The materialistic concept of these little particles running through conductors is alien to Tesla electric
theory. Here is the Quaker writer Rufus Jones on the ether in 1920: An intangible substance which we
call ether - luminiferous (light-bearing) aether - fills all space, even the space occupied by visible
objects, and this ether which is capable of amazing vibrations, billions of times a second, is set