After the success of the Niagara project, Tesla had time for his favorite venture, experimentation. Back in his New York City lab, Tesla dove head first into exploring high-frequency electricity as a number of recent breakthroughs had opened doors to the high-frequency phenomenon. In 1873 English experiments proved mathematically that light was electromagnetic radiation, ergo; light was electricity, vibrating at very high frequencies. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz of Germany confirmed through experimentation that an electric spark generates electromagnetic waves into space. These discoveries identified radio waves and opened a new chapter in what was possible with electricity.
Tesla knew that higher frequencies would have many technological advances such as brighter lighting, easily transmitted energy, and energy that was less dangerous as it could pass through a person harmlessly. Tesla’s initial goal was to approximate the frequency of sunlight and develop lamps that were brighter and more well-configured. He hoped this would eliminate his old nemesis Edison and his incandescent lamp which only took advantage of 5% of the available energy. Tesla’s initial experiments were to develop rotary AC generators that operated at much higher speeds. His first generators began to fly apart at 20,000 cycles per second, which was far short of his goal. Then in 1891 he patented what we now know as the Tesla Coil that took sixty-cycle per second household current and amplified it to hundreds of thousands of cycles per second. In addition to extremely high frequencies, they coils also produced very high voltages.
With these new found high frequencies Tesla was able to produce the first xenon and fluorescent lamps as well as the first x-ray photographs. Achievements in their own right, these discoveries paled in comparison to his November 1890 illumination of a vacuum tube wireslessly, Tesla had transmitted energy through the air. This began Tesla’s life-long work on the wireless transmission of energy. Soon, he discovered that he could transmit and receive powerful radio signals by tuning them to resonate at the same frequency. By 1895 Tesla was ready to transmit a signal to West Point, NY a distance of over 50 miles. However, tragedy stuck when the building that housed his lab was burnt to the ground, destroying all of his work.
The timing could not have been any worse as Guglielmo Marconi was hard at work in England developing a wireless telegraph system. Marconi had taken out the first telegraphy patent in England in 1896 on a two-circuit system that many did not believe would work. Later he set up a long-distance test using a Tesla coil to transmit signals across the English Channel. Meanwhile Tesla has applied for a basic radio patent in 1897 that was granted in 1900. Marconi had applied for a patent in America on November 10, 1900 but was turned down along with several revisions based on priority to Tesla and other inventors.
In 1900, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd. was thriving partially because of Marconi’s connections to English aristocracy and British Marconi stock had soared from $3 to $22 per share. Thomas Edison invested in Marconi’s company and became a consulting engineer for American Marconi. Then on December 12, 1901, Marconi transmitted a signal across the Atlantic Ocean. An engineer working for Tesla claimed, “Looks as if Marconi has the jump on you,” Tesla calmly replied, “Marconi is a good fellow, let him continue his work, he is using seventeen of my patents.”
Tesla’s calm attitude toward Marconi was changed in 1904 when the U.S. Patent Office without notice reversed its previous decision and gave Marconi a patent and recognition for inventing the radio. No explanation was ever given to Tesla, however, an explanation was not needed as it was publicized that Marconi gave heavy financial backing to the American government. Tesla, as always, was engulfed in many other projects and didn’t give Marconi much thought until he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1911 which infuriated Tesla to the point of suing the Marconi Company for infringement. It wasn’t until a few months after Tesla’s death in 1943 that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s radio patent number 645,576. Just as Marconi had used his wealth to attain the patent, it was lost for as simultaneously the Marconi Company was suing the United States government over use of its patents in World War I. The court was able to avoid the case completely by restoring Tesla’s priority to the patent over Marconi.
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