Allemande
29-07-2005, 16:53
Source: Allemande Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) World Service
Dateline: April 1st, 2005
Researchers at Allemande's University of New Bayonne have discovered a way to create an impenetrable defence shield - using technology invented in the 1930's.
Last year, archivists at the University's Nikola Tesla College of Electrical Engineering discovered a heretofore uncatalogued trunk full of papers submitted by the College's eccentric namesake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla), who visited Allemande in 1940, just three years before his death in 1943.
Historians had believed that all of Tesla's papers were seized by the FBI upon the death of the famous scientist, who in his final years lived as a near-recluse, in a virtual state of poverty. But apparently moved by the College's decision to adopt his name following a month of lectures there in the fall of 1940, as well as by the strength of the global disarmament movement then prevalent within Allemande at the time, Tesla willed that his papers be given to the College following his death.
A colleague of his, unaware of J. Edgar Hoover's seizure order, honoured Tesla's wishes by shipping the trunk of documents to Allemande in 1958, fifteen years later. It appears that Tesla had asked him to hold the documents in his attic, which had had done, only to forget about the documents until he sold his home on Long Island in preparation for a move to California.
"We know that he opened the chest and was aware of its contents," said Dr. Jean Frieze, an Assistant Dean at the College, "Because he said in his accompanying letter that he had read Tesla's will, a copy of which was included with the papers."
Unfortunately, the trunk arrived in the middle of a major renovation by the College, and so was sent off to storage through a clerical error before anyone had a chance to realise what it contained.
Then, last year, archivists charged with the task of ensuring that all of the College's papers were available in electronic format, opened the case and were surprised to see that it contained "thousands of pages" of notes, diagrams, and scientific journals.
Included in the papers were a full set of plans - with comments - for Tesla's so-called "Peace Ray". The Croatian-born scientist had announced to the world in 1934 that he had built a device that would "make war obsolete" and was readily affordable to any country that wished to build it.
"But people didn't believe him," said Frieze, "Because of the damage done to his reputation by the Wardenclyffe fiasco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower) and slanders perpetrated against him by his detractors, most notably Thomas Edison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison)."
Edison and Tesla were rivals from the day Edison reneged on an offer to pay Tesla $50,000 upon completion of work Tesla performed on his continuous current dynamos. Then came the famous "War of Currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents)", in which Edison advocated direct current (DC) vs. Tesla's advocacy of (AC). Tesla and his backer (Westinghouse) ultimately won, and Edison never forgave him.
"Unfortunately Tesla suffered from both chronic depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder), the latter quite possibly triggered by some of his early work with polyphase systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphase_system), where he didn't have the benefit of some of today's occupational safety measures," explained Frieze. "Since people didn't understand OCD, they thought that Tesla was crazy."
Consequently Tesla became, in the minds of the public, the prototype "mad scientist". But this may not have been entirely his doing.
"Edison and General Electric were early investors in the motion picture industry," said Horace LeRoy, film critic for the Lausenne Times. "When stories like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were put to film, it's no accident that the mad scientists they depicted all resembled Tesla. Not only did that image resonate with the public, but it was Edison's last revenge against his arch-rival, one that continues to blacken Nikola Tesla's name long after both men passed away."
In 1934, Tesla proclaimed in a letter to J.P. Morgan, Jr., proclaimed that he had devised a weapon that could create a "Chinese Wall of Defence".
"But it is not an experiment ... I have built, demonstrated, and used it," Tesla claimed in his letter to Morgan. "Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."
A close personal friend of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain), a noted critic of imperialism, and a disciple of the Vedic philosophy of Swami Vivekananda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda), Tesla hated war and thought that it could be prevented through technology. In 1934, he declared that he had accomplished this feat (http://www.tesla-coil-builder.com/Articles/july_10_1934.htm).
"Sadly, because of his reputation, very few people believed him," said Frieze.
Tesla tried to tell the world about his idea (http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/machine.htm), but to little avail. The closest he came was to gain the support of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/res_art12.html), who actually considered deploying Tesla's system in defence of the British Isles, at a cost of $30,000,000, but this effort came to an end after Chamberlain's failure at Munich in 1938. His successor, Stanley Baldwin, dismissed the scheme as ridiculous and ended the project.
"Now that we have Tesla's papers, the irony of the chain of events that occurred in the late 1930's is painfully obvious," said Frieze. "Chamberlain actually did begin the process of deploying Tesla's system - or at least the early-warning component. The 'radar' system Tesla had first envisioned in 1917 and first constructed in 1934 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar) was to be the 'tripwire' for the 'peace ray' - it would tell the British that an attack was coming so that they could turn on the rest of the system and repel the onslaught."
"Instead," continued Frieze, "Those radar systems saved Britain in another way - by giving the R.A.F. a chance to 'scramble' and meet the Germans on their own terms in the Battle of Britain. Whether they know it or not, the British own their survival to Tesla's genius and Chamberlain's vision."
Upset at the cancellation of his project, Tesla apparently packed away his notes and gave them to a friend for safe keeping. "He told people that another foreign government had already tried once to steal his research," said Frieze. "He must have thought that the plans for his 'peace ray' were safer in a friend's care than in his own possession."
When Tesla was found dead on January 8th, 1943, the FBI instructed the Office of Alien Property to seize, even though Tesla had been a citizen since 1891. J. Edgar Hoover's order was apparently issued at the behest of the War Department, which classified all of his personal effects "Top Secret".
"But that one little chest slipped through their hands," said Frieze. "For years, people believed that Tesla must have in fact been a crackpot, because the Americans surely would have built his 'Peace Ray' if they could. The fact that they didn't was seen as proof of his madness. Now, though, we know that his decision to hide the papers kept them away from everyone - including his own government."
Why did he send them to Allemande, then?
"Tesla was impressed by the fact that Allemande didn't have much of a military in spite of its proximity to Imperial Japan," said noted historian Albert Fromme. "After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of much of our coastal regions, he certainly must have seen our position as naive - which indeed it was - but he also must have figured that, when the war was over, no nation would be more likely to need it and use it for it's intended purpose. I'm sure the warm welcome he got at the University of New Bayonne was also a factor, but overall I believe the support for disarmament to have been his prime motivation."
Dr. Frieze noted that her colleagues were sceptical of the work the archivists found.
"There have been so many urban legends about Tesla," she noted, "And there's that reputation of his. But after digging through his notes, they started thinking, 'Well, maybe this will work,' and that led them to construct the pilot station for a test.
It did work. Tesla's 'Peace Ray' effectively creates an impenetrable defencive barrier that destroys anything that strikes it. "You just turn it on and whatever is on the outside can't get in," said one researcher.
It also extends underground, preventing penetration from below the Earth's surface. "Tesla was very aware of the Earth's conductive properties, and saw that this shield would create a full sphere of protection around the projection station."
Will Allemande keep this weapon secret, and add it to its military arsenal, now that Allemande is no longer as devoted to disarmament as it once was?
"No," said Secretary of State Edith Mayenne. "Nikola Tesla meant this to be his gift to the world, a way for any nation, however small, to fend off invasion. We owe it to his memory to honour his legacy."
But the weapon will be renamed. "We decided that 'Peace Ray' is way too campy," said Frieze, "So we're calling it the 'Inducting Ground-Node Oscillating Radiation Emitter', because that sounds better. Not that the name really means anything, but it's a great acronym."
Dateline: April 1st, 2005
Researchers at Allemande's University of New Bayonne have discovered a way to create an impenetrable defence shield - using technology invented in the 1930's.
Last year, archivists at the University's Nikola Tesla College of Electrical Engineering discovered a heretofore uncatalogued trunk full of papers submitted by the College's eccentric namesake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla), who visited Allemande in 1940, just three years before his death in 1943.
Historians had believed that all of Tesla's papers were seized by the FBI upon the death of the famous scientist, who in his final years lived as a near-recluse, in a virtual state of poverty. But apparently moved by the College's decision to adopt his name following a month of lectures there in the fall of 1940, as well as by the strength of the global disarmament movement then prevalent within Allemande at the time, Tesla willed that his papers be given to the College following his death.
A colleague of his, unaware of J. Edgar Hoover's seizure order, honoured Tesla's wishes by shipping the trunk of documents to Allemande in 1958, fifteen years later. It appears that Tesla had asked him to hold the documents in his attic, which had had done, only to forget about the documents until he sold his home on Long Island in preparation for a move to California.
"We know that he opened the chest and was aware of its contents," said Dr. Jean Frieze, an Assistant Dean at the College, "Because he said in his accompanying letter that he had read Tesla's will, a copy of which was included with the papers."
Unfortunately, the trunk arrived in the middle of a major renovation by the College, and so was sent off to storage through a clerical error before anyone had a chance to realise what it contained.
Then, last year, archivists charged with the task of ensuring that all of the College's papers were available in electronic format, opened the case and were surprised to see that it contained "thousands of pages" of notes, diagrams, and scientific journals.
Included in the papers were a full set of plans - with comments - for Tesla's so-called "Peace Ray". The Croatian-born scientist had announced to the world in 1934 that he had built a device that would "make war obsolete" and was readily affordable to any country that wished to build it.
"But people didn't believe him," said Frieze, "Because of the damage done to his reputation by the Wardenclyffe fiasco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower) and slanders perpetrated against him by his detractors, most notably Thomas Edison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison)."
Edison and Tesla were rivals from the day Edison reneged on an offer to pay Tesla $50,000 upon completion of work Tesla performed on his continuous current dynamos. Then came the famous "War of Currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents)", in which Edison advocated direct current (DC) vs. Tesla's advocacy of (AC). Tesla and his backer (Westinghouse) ultimately won, and Edison never forgave him.
"Unfortunately Tesla suffered from both chronic depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder), the latter quite possibly triggered by some of his early work with polyphase systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphase_system), where he didn't have the benefit of some of today's occupational safety measures," explained Frieze. "Since people didn't understand OCD, they thought that Tesla was crazy."
Consequently Tesla became, in the minds of the public, the prototype "mad scientist". But this may not have been entirely his doing.
"Edison and General Electric were early investors in the motion picture industry," said Horace LeRoy, film critic for the Lausenne Times. "When stories like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were put to film, it's no accident that the mad scientists they depicted all resembled Tesla. Not only did that image resonate with the public, but it was Edison's last revenge against his arch-rival, one that continues to blacken Nikola Tesla's name long after both men passed away."
In 1934, Tesla proclaimed in a letter to J.P. Morgan, Jr., proclaimed that he had devised a weapon that could create a "Chinese Wall of Defence".
"But it is not an experiment ... I have built, demonstrated, and used it," Tesla claimed in his letter to Morgan. "Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."
A close personal friend of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain), a noted critic of imperialism, and a disciple of the Vedic philosophy of Swami Vivekananda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda), Tesla hated war and thought that it could be prevented through technology. In 1934, he declared that he had accomplished this feat (http://www.tesla-coil-builder.com/Articles/july_10_1934.htm).
"Sadly, because of his reputation, very few people believed him," said Frieze.
Tesla tried to tell the world about his idea (http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/machine.htm), but to little avail. The closest he came was to gain the support of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/res_art12.html), who actually considered deploying Tesla's system in defence of the British Isles, at a cost of $30,000,000, but this effort came to an end after Chamberlain's failure at Munich in 1938. His successor, Stanley Baldwin, dismissed the scheme as ridiculous and ended the project.
"Now that we have Tesla's papers, the irony of the chain of events that occurred in the late 1930's is painfully obvious," said Frieze. "Chamberlain actually did begin the process of deploying Tesla's system - or at least the early-warning component. The 'radar' system Tesla had first envisioned in 1917 and first constructed in 1934 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar) was to be the 'tripwire' for the 'peace ray' - it would tell the British that an attack was coming so that they could turn on the rest of the system and repel the onslaught."
"Instead," continued Frieze, "Those radar systems saved Britain in another way - by giving the R.A.F. a chance to 'scramble' and meet the Germans on their own terms in the Battle of Britain. Whether they know it or not, the British own their survival to Tesla's genius and Chamberlain's vision."
Upset at the cancellation of his project, Tesla apparently packed away his notes and gave them to a friend for safe keeping. "He told people that another foreign government had already tried once to steal his research," said Frieze. "He must have thought that the plans for his 'peace ray' were safer in a friend's care than in his own possession."
When Tesla was found dead on January 8th, 1943, the FBI instructed the Office of Alien Property to seize, even though Tesla had been a citizen since 1891. J. Edgar Hoover's order was apparently issued at the behest of the War Department, which classified all of his personal effects "Top Secret".
"But that one little chest slipped through their hands," said Frieze. "For years, people believed that Tesla must have in fact been a crackpot, because the Americans surely would have built his 'Peace Ray' if they could. The fact that they didn't was seen as proof of his madness. Now, though, we know that his decision to hide the papers kept them away from everyone - including his own government."
Why did he send them to Allemande, then?
"Tesla was impressed by the fact that Allemande didn't have much of a military in spite of its proximity to Imperial Japan," said noted historian Albert Fromme. "After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of much of our coastal regions, he certainly must have seen our position as naive - which indeed it was - but he also must have figured that, when the war was over, no nation would be more likely to need it and use it for it's intended purpose. I'm sure the warm welcome he got at the University of New Bayonne was also a factor, but overall I believe the support for disarmament to have been his prime motivation."
Dr. Frieze noted that her colleagues were sceptical of the work the archivists found.
"There have been so many urban legends about Tesla," she noted, "And there's that reputation of his. But after digging through his notes, they started thinking, 'Well, maybe this will work,' and that led them to construct the pilot station for a test.
It did work. Tesla's 'Peace Ray' effectively creates an impenetrable defencive barrier that destroys anything that strikes it. "You just turn it on and whatever is on the outside can't get in," said one researcher.
It also extends underground, preventing penetration from below the Earth's surface. "Tesla was very aware of the Earth's conductive properties, and saw that this shield would create a full sphere of protection around the projection station."
Will Allemande keep this weapon secret, and add it to its military arsenal, now that Allemande is no longer as devoted to disarmament as it once was?
"No," said Secretary of State Edith Mayenne. "Nikola Tesla meant this to be his gift to the world, a way for any nation, however small, to fend off invasion. We owe it to his memory to honour his legacy."
But the weapon will be renamed. "We decided that 'Peace Ray' is way too campy," said Frieze, "So we're calling it the 'Inducting Ground-Node Oscillating Radiation Emitter', because that sounds better. Not that the name really means anything, but it's a great acronym."