Here is my suggestion to the BBC for a future episode of "Connections",
which of course will have to await the positive conclusion of ongoing
developments.
Tesla was out of the 'mainstream' for most of his career, and had the
importance of his work officially marginalized (at high levels) from
many concurrent discoveries, which are credited to others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
In 1930 Bothe and Becker found that when the low-penetrating radiation
from radium hit beryllium, an unusually high-penetrating form of
radiation was produced.
At first, this radiation was thought to be gamma radiation, but later in
1932 Madame Curie showed that if this unknown radiation fell on paraffin
it could eject protons of very high energy which is not easily done with
gamma radiation.
Finally in the same year, James Chadwick performed experiments showing
that the gamma ray hypothesis was untenable. He suggested that in fact
the new radiation consisted of uncharged particles of approximately the
mass of the proton, and this uncharged particle he called the "neutron",
a word that had already been in circulation for some years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chadwick
Tesla wrote, but *earlier* in this the same year (1932):
"I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive
device. Cosmic ray investigation is a subject that is very close to me.
I was the first to discover these rays and I naturally feel toward them
as I would toward my own flesh and blood. I have advanced a theory of
the cosmic rays and at every step of my investigations I have found it
completely justified.... All of my investigations seem to point to the
conclusion that they are small particles, each carrying so small a
charge that we are justified in calling them *neutrons.*"
What did Tesla's device look like? Hmm... shall we say, not unlike a
simpler version of the Av plug modification of Dr. Stiffler. "Stick an
antenna up in the air, and wire it to one side of a capacitor, the other
going to a good earth ground, and the potential difference will then
charge the capacitor. Connect across the capacitor some sort of
switching device so that it can be discharged at rhythmic intervals, and
you have an oscillating electric output." Moray then expanded on Tesla's
idea to use high-voltage capacitance to create ionic oscillation; and
now Stiffler has expanded this with the use of LEDs, which may be both
an active device as well as a load... The point being that when the LEDs
combine with the open ended coil, where a large spatial volume of "stray
capacitance" which forms what can best be called a 'halo' over the
circuit, and this spatial antenna might operate as a receiver of cosmic
radiation (or ZPE).
T: "All of my investigations seem to point to the conclusion that they
are small particles, each carrying so small a charge that we are
justified in calling them neutrons."
[OK -was T wrong here? probably if you are in the mainstream, or was he
seeing something else which is similar but more evanescent... remember
that only months later news of Chadwick's work indicates high mass and
no charge, to that kind of what we know today as the "neutron" - but the
T also added:
"They move with great velocity, exceeding that of light." which has the
ring of Tesla's neutron being the neutrino. And yes, folks, he did name
it first, so today, it may turn-out that "everyone is out-of-step but
Tesla." ... to misquote the drill-Sergeant.
[There is (controversial) evidence that the solar neutrino anomaly may
be related to a flavor-dependent violation of the equivalence principle,
and/or also related to a "superluminosity" conversion, or the 'flipping'
of a superluminous massless particle over to a massive particle at
lightspeed.]
T:"More than 25 years ago I began my efforts to harness the cosmic rays
and I can now state that I have succeeded in operating a motive device
by means of them. I will tell you in the most general way, the cosmic
ray ionizes the air, setting free many charges ions and electrons. These
charges are captured in a condenser which is made to discharge through
the circuit of the motor. I have hopes of building my motor on a large
scale, but circumstances have not been favorable to carrying out my plan."
(reported in the "Brooklyn Eagle" July 10, 1932. )
"The attractive features of the cosmic rays is their constancy. They
shower down on us throughout the whole 24 hours, and if a power plant is
developed to use their power it will not require devices for storing
energy as would be necessary with devices using wind, tide or sunlight."
Now it is not clear if Tesla's 'cosmic rays' might in fact refer to some
form of ZPE, instead of 'neutrinos' nor if his mechanism -and that of
Dr. Stiffler- might operate to effectively catalyze the conversion
(flipping) of solar neutrinos over to a form of radiation which is then
captured.
The downside of all this speculation, if it is dependent on the
neutrino, is that Robin is probably correct about the limits of (cosmic)
energy which can be captured this way. It may be as little as 40 watts
per meter^2.
On the plus side, the average home rooftop in the USA could still power
the house, in an optimized system. This could possibly happen with solar
panels which are augmented during the day, and solely powered at night
by LED arrays. That does not seem likely given the present cost
structure of LEDs (or solar cells) - until you calculate how little
actual raw material is used in them.
Supply and demand to the rescue? Oil at $200 barrel creates lots of
demand for alternatives.
Jones
