The World Wireless System was a turn of the 20th century proposed telecommunications and electrical power delivery system designed by inventor

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
'' Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

and its atmosphere as electrical conductors. He claimed this system would allow for "the transmission of electric energy without wires" on a global scale as well as point-to-point wireless telecommunications and

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

. He made public statements citing two related methods to accomplish this from the mid-1890s on. By the end of 1900 he had convinced banker

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became know ...

to finance construction of a wireless station (eventually sited at Wardenclyffe) based on his ideas intended to transmit messages across the Atlantic to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and to ships at sea. His decision to change the design to include

wireless power transmission Wireless power transfer (WPT), wireless power transmission, wireless energy transmission (WET), or electromagnetic power transfer is the transmission of electrical energy without wires as a physical link. In a wireless power transmission system, ...

to better compete with

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi b ...

's new radio based telegraph system was met with Morgan's refusal to fund the changes. The project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational. During this period Tesla filed numerous patents associated with the basic functions of his system, including transformer design, transmission methods, tuning circuits, and methods of signaling. He also described a plan to have some thirty Wardenclyffe-style telecommunications stations positioned around the world to be tied into existing telephone and telegraph systems. He would continue to elaborate to the press and in his writings for the next few decades on the system's capabilities and how it was superior to radio-based systems. Despite claims of having "carried on practical experiments in wireless transmission",Electrocraft. Volume 6. 1910, p. 389 there is no documentation he ever transmitted power beyond relatively short distances and modern scientific opinion is generally that his wireless power scheme would not have worked.

History

Origins

Tesla's ideas for a World Wireless system grew out of experiments beginning in the early 1890s after learning of Hertz's experiments with electromagnetic waves using induction coil transformers and spark gaps. He duplicated those experiments and then went on to improve Hertz's wireless transmitter, developing various alternator apparatus and his own high tension transformer, known as the

Tesla coil A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low- current, high-frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of differe ...

. His primary interest in wireless phenomenon was as a power distribution system, early on pursuing wireless lighting. From 1891 on Tesla was delivering lectures including "'' Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency''" in 1892 in London and in Paris and went on to demonstrate "wireless lighting" in 1893 including lighting

Geissler tube A Geissler tube is an early gas discharge tube used to demonstrate the principles of electrical glow discharge, similar to modern neon lighting. The tube was invented by the German physicist and glassblower Heinrich Geissler in 1857. It co ...

s wirelessly.

One-wire transmission

The first experiment was the operation of light and motive devices connected by a single wire to one terminal of a high frequency

induction coil An induction coil or "spark coil" ( archaically known as an inductorium or Ruhmkorff coil after Heinrich Rühmkorff) is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. p.98 ...

, performed during the 1891 New York City lecture at

Columbia College Columbia College may refer to one of several institutions of higher education in North America: Canada * Columbia College (Alberta), in Calgary * Columbia College (British Columbia), a two-year liberal arts institution in Vancouver * Columbia In ...

. While a single terminal

incandescent lamp An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

connected to one of an induction coil's secondary terminals does not form a

closed circuit Closed circuit can refer to: *Closed-circuit television *Closed-circuit radio *Rebreather – breathing sets * ''Closed Circuit'' (1978 film), a 1978 Italian film * ''Closed Circuit'' (2013 film), a 2013 British thriller film *An electric circuit ...

"in the ordinary acceptance of the term"Martin, Thomas Commerford, "The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla", ''The Electrical Engineer,'' New York, 1894; "On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena," February 24, 1893, before the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memor ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, March 1893, before the

National Electric Light Association The National Electric Light Association (NELA) was a national United States trade association that included the operators of electric central power generation stations, electrical supply companies, electrical engineers, scientists, educational i ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. the circuit is closed in the sense that a return path is established back to the secondary by

capacitive coupling Capacitive coupling is the transfer of energy within an electrical network or between distant networks by means of displacement current between circuit(s) nodes, induced by the electric field. This coupling can have an intentional or accident ...

or '

displacement current In electromagnetism, displacement current density is the quantity appearing in Maxwell's equations that is defined in terms of the rate of change of , the electric displacement field. Displacement current density has the same units as electr ...

'. This is due to the lamp's filament or refractory button

capacitance Capacitance is the capability of a material object or device to store electric charge. It is measured by the change in charge in response to a difference in electric potential, expressed as the ratio of those quantities. Commonly recognized a ...

relative to the coil's free terminal and environment; the free terminal also has capacitance relative to the lamp and environment.

Wireless transmission

The second result demonstrated how energy can be made to go through space without any connecting wires. The wireless energy transmission effect involves the creation of an electric field between two metal plates, each being connected to one terminal of an induction coil's secondary winding. A

gas discharge Electric discharge in gases occurs when electric current flows through a gaseous medium due to ionization of the gas. Depending on several factors, the discharge may radiate visible light. The properties of electric discharges in gases are studied i ...

tube was used as a means of detecting the presence of the transmitted energy. Some demonstrations involved lighting of two partially evacuated tubes in an alternating electrostatic field while held in the hand of the experimenter.

Development

APPARATUS FOR TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY

While formulating his theories in the early 1890s Tesla discarded the idea of using radio waves.earlyradiohistory.us, Thomas H. White, Nikola Tesla: The Guy Who DIDN'T "Invent Radio", November 1, 2012
/ref> He did not necessarily believe that radio waves existed as theorized by Maxwell,Nikola Tesla, The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, June 1, 1900
/ref> and he agreed with what most physicists were saying at the time: that radio waves would travel in a

straight line In geometry, a line is an infinitely long object with no width, depth, or curvature. Thus, lines are one-dimensional objects, though they may exist in two, three, or higher dimension spaces. The word ''line'' may also refer to a line segment ...

in the same way that visible light travels, limiting their use for long-range communication. (Radio waves do travel in a straight line, but this was many years before the discovery that the ionosphere would reflect certain radio waves making

skywave In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvature ...

communication of shortwave frequency bands possible over long distances.) He believed that transmitting electrical signals beyond a line-of-sight distance would require the use of planet Earth as a conducting medium to overcome this limitation. By the end of 1895, he made statements to the press about the possibility that "''Earth's electrical charge can be disturbed, and thereby electrical waves can be efficiently transmitted to any distance without the use of cables or wires''", and that the electrical waves can be used to transmit "''intelligible signals''" and "''motive power''." On April 11, 1896, he stated that "''messages might be conducted to all parts of the globe simultaneously''" using electric waves "''propagated through the atmosphere and even the ether beyond''." In September 1897 he applied for a patent on a wireless power transmission scheme consisting of transmitting power between two tethered balloons maintained at 30,000 feet, an altitude where he thought a conductive layer should exist.Carol Dommermuth-Costa, Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius, Twenty-First Century Books, 1994, pp. 85–86 Between 1895 and 1898, he constructed a large resonance transformer in his

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

lab called a

magnifying transmitter A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. It is used to produce high- voltage, low- current, high- frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of diffe ...

to test his earth conduction theories.''My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla'', Hart Brothers, 1982, Ch. 5, In 1899 he carried out large scale experiments at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Based on his measurements there, he concluded that the Earth was "''literally alive with electrical vibrations.''" He noted that lightning strikes indicate that the Earth is a large conductor with waves of energy traveling around it. He constructed a large magnifying transmitter measuring in diameter which could develop a working potential estimated at 3.5 million to 4 million volts and was capable of producing electrical discharges exceeding in length. With it he tested earth conduction and lit incandescent electric lamps adjacent to his lab in demonstrations of wireless power transmission. Upon returning to

from Colorado Springs in 1900 he sought venture capitalists to fund what he viewed as a revolutionary wireless communication and electric power delivery system using the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

as the conductor. By the end of 1900 he had gained the attention of financier

who agreed to fund a pilot project (later to become the Wardenclyffe project) which, based on his theories, would be capable of transmitting messages,

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

, and even facsimile images across the Atlantic to

and to ships at sea. Morgan was to receive a controlling share in the company as well as half of all the patent income. Almost as soon as the contract was signed Tesla decided to scale up the facility to include his ideas of terrestrial

to better compete with

's radio based telegraph system.Marc J. Seifer, Nikola Tesla: The Lost Wizard, from: ExtraOrdinary Technology (Volume 4, Issue 1; Jan/Feb/Mar 2006)
/ref> Morgan refused to fund the changes and, when no additional investment capital became available, the project at Wardenclyffe was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational. Construction of the Wardenclyffe "wireless plant" in Shoreham started towards the end of 1901 and continued for the next three years. The plant included a

Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in additio ...

–designed brick building, a wood-framed tower tall with a in diameter "cupola" on top, and a shaft sunk into the ground with sixteen iron pipes driven "one length after another" below the shaft in order for the machine, in Tesla's words, "to have a grip on the earth so the whole of this globe can quiver". Funding problems continued to plague Wardenclyffe and by 1905-1906 most of the site's activity had to be shut down.

Elements

Through the latter part of the 1890s and during the construction of Wardenclyffe, Tesla applied for patents covering the many elements that would make up his wireless system. The system he came up with was based on electrical conduction with an electrical charge being conducted through the ground and as well as through a theorized conducting layer in the atmosphere.W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, Princeton University Press. 2013, p. 210 The design consisted of a grounded

as a resonance transformer transmitter that he thought would be able to create a displacement of Earth's electric charge by alternately charging and discharging the oscillator's elevated terminal. This would work in conjunction with a second Tesla coil used in receive mode at a distant location, also with a grounded helical resonator and an elevated terminal. He believed that the placement of a grounded resonance transformer at another point on the Earth's surface in the role of a receiver tuned to the same frequency as the transmitter would allow electric current to flow through the Earth between the two. He also believed waves of electric current from the sending tower could be made to reflect back from the far side of the globe, resulting in amplified stationary waves of electric current that could be utilized at any point on the globe, localizing power delivery directly to the receiving station. Another aspect of his system was electricity returned via "an equivalent electric displacement" in the atmosphere via a charged conductive upper layer that he thought existed, a theory dating back to an 1872 idea for a proposed wireless transmission-reception system developed by

Mahlon Loomis Mahlon Loomis (21 July 1826 – 13 October 1886) was an American dentist and inventor known for proposing a wireless communication and electric power generating system based on his idea that there were electrically charged layers in the earth's ...

.Thomas H. White, Nikola Tesla: The Guy Who DIDN'T "Invent Radio", earlyradiohistory.us, November 2012
/ref> The current was thought to be usable at the receiver for telecommunications, and to drive electrical devices.Ratzlaff, John T., ''Dr. Nikola Tesla Complete Patents''; ''System of Transmission of Electrical Energy'', September 2, 1897, , March 20, 1900. Tesla told a friend his plans included the building of more than thirty transmission-reception stations near major population centers around the world, with Wardenclyffe being the first. If plans had moved forward without interruption, the Long Island prototype would have been followed by a second plant built in the British Isles, perhaps on the west coast of Scotland near Glasgow. Each of these facilities was to include a large

of a design loosely based on the apparatus assembled at the Colorado Springs experimental station in 1899.

Claimed applications

Tesla's description of his wireless transmission ideas in 1895 includes its humanitarian uses in bringing abundant electrical energy to remote underdeveloped parts of the world, as well as fostering closer communications amongst nations. In his June, 1900

Century Magazine ''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associat ...

article "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", he elaborated on the properties of the Earth and on the principles of a system which could use the Earth as the medium for communication and the transmission of power without wires. He wrote that communications at any distance was practicable. He also noted this same process could be used to locate maritime objects such as icebergs or ships at sea and that "electrical movement of such magnitude" could communicate with other planets. In 1909 Tesla stated: :"It will soon be possible, for instance, for a business man in New York to dictate instructions and have them appear instantly in type in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up from his desk and talk with any telephone subscriber in the world. It will only be necessary to carry an inexpensive instrument not bigger than a watch, which will enable its bearer to hear anywhere on sea or land for distances of thousands of miles. One may listen or transmit speech or song to the uttermost parts of the world." He also believed that high potential electric current flowing through the upper atmosphere could make it glow, providing night time lighting for transoceanic shipping lanes. He elaborated on World Wireless in his 1919 ''Electrical Experimenter'' article titled " The True Wireless", detailing its ability for long range telecommunications and putting forward his view that the prevailing theory of radio wave propagation was inaccurate. :"The Hertz wave theory of wireless transmission may be kept up for a while, but I do not hesitate to say that in a short time it will be recognized as one of the most remarkable and inexplicable aberrations of the scientific mind which has ever been recorded in history."

Feasibility

Tesla's demonstrations of wireless power transmission at Colorado Springs consisted of lighting incandescent electric lamps positioned nearby the structure housing his large experimental magnifying transmitter, with ranges out to from the transmitter. There is little direct evidence of his having transmitted power beyond these photographically documented demonstrations. He would claim afterwards that he had "carried on practical experiments in wireless transmission". He believed that he had achieved Earth electrical resonance that, according to his theory, would produce electrical effects at ''any'' terrestrial distance. There have been varied claims over the years regarding Tesla's accomplishments with his wireless system. His own notes from Colorado Springs are unclear as to whether he was ever successful at long-range transmission. Tesla made a claim in a 1916 statement to attorney Drury W. Cooper that in 1899, he collected quantitative transmission-reception data at a distance of about .Cooper, Drury W., internal document of the law firm Kerr, Page & Cooper, New York City, 1916. (Cited in } Tesla biographer John J. O'Neill made a claim in his 1944 book ''Prodigal Genius: The life of Nikola Tesla'' that in 1899 at Colorado Springs, Tesla lit 200 incandescent lamps at a distance of . Scientist and engineers working in the field note that Tesla's ideas of transmitting large amounts of power long range would never have worked since he generally misunderstood the physics involved, over-estimated the conductivity of the Earth and the atmosphere, and vastly underestimated the loss of power over distance.Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla. pp. 471–72

Related patents

* SYSTEM OF ELECTRIC LIGHTING, April 25, 1891, , June 23, 1891. * MEANS FOR GENERATING ELECTRIC CURRENTS, August 2, 1893, , February 6, 1894. * ELECTRICAL TRANSFORMER, March 20, 1897, , November 2, 1897. * METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING MECHANISM OF MOVING VESSEL OR VEHICLES, July 1, 1898, November 8, 1898. * SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY, September 2, 1897, , March 20, 1900. * APPARATUS FOR TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY, September 2, 1897, , May 15, 1900. * METHOD OF INTENSIFYING AND UTILIZING EFFECTS TRANSMITTED THROUGH NATURAL MEDIA, June 24, 1899, , November 5, 1901. * METHOD OF UTILIZING EFFECTS TRANSMITTED THROUGH NATURAL MEDIA, August 1, 1899, , November 5, 1901. * APPARATUS FOR UTILIZING EFFECTS TRANSMITTED FROM A DISTANCE TO A RECEIVING DEVICE THROUGH NATURAL MEDIA, June 24, 1899, , November 5, 1901. * APPARATUS FOR UTILIZING EFFECTS TRANSMITTED THROUGH NATURAL MEDIA, March 21, 1900, , November 5, 1901. * METHOD OF SIGNALING, July 16, 1900, , March 17, 1903. * SYSTEM OF SIGNALING, July 16, 1900, , April 14, 1903. * ART OF TRANSMITTING ELECTRICAL ENERGY THROUGH THE NATURAL MEDIUMS, May 16, 1900, , April 18, 1905. * ART OF TRANSMITTING ELECTRICAL ENERGY THROUGH THE NATURAL MEDIUMS, April 17, 1906, Canadian Patent 142,352, August 13, 1912. * APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING ELECTRICAL ENERGY, January 18, 1902, , December 1, 1914.

Notes

External links

PBS Tesla Master of Lightning
Tower of Dreams, global wireless telecommunications * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wireless Energy Transmission Wireless energy transfer Broadcast engineering History of telecommunications Mass media technology Inventions by Nikola Tesla