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This is the transcript of an extended three day interview of Nikola Tesla conducted by his legal counsel in 1916 in preparation for expert testimony in impending radio patent cases.  In an account that was never intended for publication, Tesla describes his pioneering investigations into the nature of alternating currents as applied to wireless transmission.  In a style uniquely his own, he carefully traces his work from the first high frequency alternators that were constructed at his Grand Street laboratory in New York City, and their associated tuned circuits through the establishment of his huge broadcasting facility, the mighty Wardenclyffe Plant, located at Shoreham, Long Island.  Among the variety of topics discussed are: high frequency alternators, experiments with wireless telegraphy and telephony, mechanical and electrical oscillators, the Colorado experiments, theory and technique of energy transmission, the Long Island plant, and arrangements for receiving.  The previously untold story found within the pages of this remarkable book has been described by the prominent Tesla researcher James Corum as a "veritable Rosetta stone" for tracing the technical thoughts of one of our most distinguished engineering scientists.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Preface
Introduction

Section

1. High Frequency Alternators
2. Experiments with Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony
3. Mechanical and Electrical Oscillators
4. Apparatus for Transformation by Condenser Discharges; Damped Waves
5. Apparatus for Transformation by Condenser Discharges; Continuous Waves
6. Colorado Experiments
7. Theory and Technique of Energy Transmission
8. Long Island Plant
9. Arrangements for Receiving
10. Rediscussion/Clarification of Selected Remarks

Appendix

1. Fig. 1. Photograph of Tesla with alternator in offices of The Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., May 10, 1938.
2. Fig. 2. Photograph of 1915 shipboard transmitter employing the Tesla spiral form of antenna transformer coil.
3. Tesla's description of Long Island plant and inventory of the installation as reported in 1922 foreclosure appeal proceedings.

In this, the third book of the Tesla Presents Series, engineer-historian Leland Anderson provides the transcript of the 1902 U.S. Patent Interference investigation concerning Tesla's System of Signaling.  The document, "Nikola Tesla vs. Reginald A. Fessenden," which is no longer on file at the U.S. Patent Office, contains Tesla's own depositions as well as those of his closest and most trusted associates, George Scherff and Fritz Lowenstein.  Included is material on the history of radio-controlled devices, the first practical form of these being Tesla's radio-controlled "telautomaton" ? an operational boat first demonstrated to the public at Madison Square Garden in 1898. In addition to describing Tesla's "individualization" techniques for obtaining secure noninterferable radio communications?the patent is today recognized as the fundamental AND logic gate, a critical element of every digital computer?the interference record also reveals that essential features of the spread-spectrum telecommunications techniques known as frequency-hopping and frequency-division multiplexing have their roots in the resulting patents. Furthermore, there are new disclosures by Tesla on the operation of his large high voltage radio-frequency oscillators at both the Houston Street laboratory and the Colorado experimental station. Rarely in the history of science do we encounter such opportunities to gain deep insight into the fundamental ideas and concepts of an esteemed scientist/inventor.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
Introduction
  Nikola Tesla's technological legacy
     The setting
Tesla-Fessenden U.S. Patent Office Interference Case Transcript
Remote Control and The AND Logic Gate
  The beginnings of remote control
     Remote-controlled devices
     Tesla's wireless-controlled boats
     Need for secure control
     Tesla's "individualization" concept
     Later contenders
     Guided weapons
  The AND logic gate
     Electronic elements
     Non-electronic elements
       Fluid logic elements
         Tesla turbine
     High frequency, high voltage, conjoint oscillations
       demonstrating the AND function
     Progenitor of the computer industry
Appendix
     A. U.S. Patent No. 613,809, "Method and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessel or Vehicles," Nov. 8, 1898.
     B. U.S. Patent No. 645,576, "System of Transmission of Electrical Energy," Mar. 20, 1900.
     C. U.S. Patents, Nos. 685,953, 685,954, 685,955, and 685,956, Nov. 5, 1901, on utilizing effects transmitted through natural media.
     D. The AND logic-gate patents
       U.S. Patent No. 723,188, "Method of Signaling," Mar. 17, 1903.
       U.S. Patent No. 725,605, "System of Signaling," Apr. 14, 1903.
     E. U.S. Patent No. 787,412, "Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Mediums," Apr. 18, 1905.
     F. "Inductorium"
     G. Tesla correspondence with Benjamin Franklin Miessner
Afterword
Index

In the 1930s the unorthodox inventor Nikola Tesla announced to the world a pair of novel inventions.  The first was "teleforce," a particle-beam projector which Tesla intended to be used as an instrument of national defense. A year later, in 1935, Tesla claimed a method of transmitting mechanical energy with minimal loss over any terrestrial distance, providing a new means of communication and a technique for the location of subterranean mineral deposits. He called this system for mechanical power transmission "telegeodynamics." Here, these two important papers, hidden for more than 60 years, are presented for the first time. The underlying principles behind teleforce and telegeodynamics are fully addressed.  In addition to copies of the original documents, typed on Tesla's official stationery, this work also includes two Reader's Aid sections providing guidance through the more technical aspects of each paper.  The actual texts are followed by Commentary sections which provide historical background and functional explanations of the two devices.  Significant newspaper articles and headline accounts are provided to document the first mention of these proposals. A large Appendix provides a wealth of related material and background information, followed by a Bibliography section and Index.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction
Nikola Tesla's Teleforce Proposal
     Reader's Aid
     New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy Through Natural Media. By Nikola Tesla
     Commentary
     New York Times, September 22, 1940, "'Death Ray' for Planes"
Nikola Tesla's Telegeodynamics Proposal
     Reader's Aid
     Relative Merits of the Lucas Method of Prospecting by Detonations of Explosive Compounds and of The Tesla Method of Prospecting by Isochronous Oscillations Theoretically Considered. By Nikola Tesla
     Tesla correspondence from George Scherff, June 17, 1937
     Commentary
     New York Times, July 11, 1935, "Tesla, 79, Promises to Transmit Force"
Appendix
  Teleforce Proposal
     Possibilities of Electrostatic Generators. By Nikola Tesla
     Tesla Correspondence to J. P. Morgan, Jr., November 29, 1934
  Telegeodynamics Proposal
     Tesla correspondence from George Scherff, April 19, 1918
     Address Before The New York Electrical Society, "Mechanical and Electrical Oscillators" by Nikola Tesla
     Electric Generator ? U.S. Patent No. 511,916
     Reciprocating Engine ? U.S. Patent No. 514,169
     Steam Engine ? U.S. Patent No. 517,900
     Mechanical Therapy by Nikola Tesla
     Detroit Free Press, Jan. 18, 1896, "Tesla's Health Giver"
Bibliography
  Teleforce
  Telegeodynamics
Afterword

Following Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents. This book is the second in the four part Tesla Presents series containing previously unavailable material on the pioneering work of Nikola Tesla in field of radio frequency electrical engineering. While first delivered under the title "On the Streams of Lenard and Roentgen with Novel Apparatus for Their Use" the information presented in the lecture goes far beyond this topic. In addition to his opening remarks on X-ray discovery, a major portion of Tesla's commentary deals with the high power radio-frequency resonant power supplies of his own design, used in conjunction with his work. There are also clear descriptions of electro-mechanical stroboscopic instruments that Tesla designed for the measurement of frequency and phase.  Other topics include wireless receiving methods and the genesis of Tesla's 1937 particle beam tube.  During the talk Tesla had displayed approximately 120 drawings of specially constructed vacuum tubes, many being of the Lenard type and also the single-electrode type of his own design.  Among the drawings are tubes used in his wireless communications experiments. Enhanced photographs of these images are among the 32 illustrations which fill out this fine addition to the Tesla cannon.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Figures
Editorial Remarks
Preface
Introduction
Background
     Setting
     Skirmishes on non-publication of lecture
Lecture Commentary
     High frequency apparatus
     Lenard and Roentgen rays
     Harmful actions from Lenard and Roentgen tubes
The Lecture:
     Section I ? Improved Apparatus for the Production of Powerful Electrical Vibrations; Novel Frequency Measurement Methods.
     Section I Addendum ? Wireless Telegraphy Receiving Methods.
     Section II ? The Hurtful Actions of Lenard and Roentgen Tubes.
     Section III ? The Source of Roentgen Rays and the Practical Construction and Safe Operation of Lenard Tubes.
Appendix
     Contemporary reviews of lecture
Acknowledgements
Sponsorship
Index

"One of the best bibliographies I have seen on anyone... Every Tesla buff should have a copy... If anyone had doubts about Tesla's contribution to radio and electricity...this should satisfy them.... -- Antique Wireless Association Bulletin, December 1980

On June 21, 1943 the Supreme Court of the United States held the broad claims of Guglielmo Marconi's patent for improvements in apparatus for wireless telegraphy to be invalid. First written for publication by the Antique Wireless Association, this monograph shows how the nation's high court arrived at its decision. It provides an answer to the continuing argument regarding the popular misconception that Marconi invented radio.

Excerpt:

Ball lightning, spherical plasmoids, foudre sph?rique, and kugelblitz are some of the names given to luminous spheres which are sometimes seen during lightning storms accompanying cloud-to-ground strokes.  Their reported size varies from that of a tennis ball to a basketball and persisting from a few to several seconds.  They bounce on the ground and sometimes float in air.  Published observations have appeared in the literature for 200 years, but an exact explanation of the mechanism of their formation is yet debated in the literature.  Some of the very early accounts have perhaps given rise to the current divergence of opinion about their properties.  One familiar early woodcut illustration shows a lightning fireball coming into a barn.

In 1883, Heinrich Hertz made an observation that every strong initial lightning discharge leaves a cloud which is luminous.  Maximilian Toepler, reporting on a detailed series of experiments and observations, also concluded that ball lightning is attributed to the formation of a conductive gas channel after an initial lightning stroke in which an invisible weak after current occurs.  At the point where a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge and a counter stroke from the ground meet, an afterglow in the form of ball lightning may occur.  The ball disappears when the supply of current ceases or when a second cloud-to-ground lightning discharge occurs.