The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla

domain of this wonderful science which would not forcibly appeal to us. Yet to me it seems, that of all the many marvelous things we observe, a vacuum tube, excited by an electric impulse from a distant source, bursting forth out of the darkness and illuminating the room with its beautiful light, is as lovely a phenomenon as can greet our eyes. More interesting still it appears when, reducing the fundamental discharges across the gap to a very small number and waving the tube about we produce all kinds of designs in luminous lines. So by way of amusement I take a straight long tube, or a square one, or a square attached to a straight tube, and by whirling them about in the hand, I imitate the spokes of a wheel, a Gramme winding, a drum winding, an alternate current motor winding, etc. (Fig. 198). Viewed from a distance the effect is weak and much of its beauty is lost, but being near or holding the tube in the hand, one cannot resist its charm. Fig. 198. [Pg 373] In presenting these insignificant results I have not attempted to arrange and co-ordinate them, as would be proper in a strictly scientific investigation, in which every succeeding result should be a logical sequence of the preceding, so that it might be guessed in advance by the careful reader or attentive listener. I have preferred to concentrate my energies chiefly upon advancing novel facts or ideas which might serve as suggestions to others, and this may serve as an excuse for the lack of harmony. The explanations of the phenomena have been given in good faith and in the spirit of a student prepared to find that they admit of a better interpretation. There can be no great harm in a student taking an erroneous view, but when great minds err, the world must dearly pay for their mistakes. [Pg 374]