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.He faced the color drama of the sky as ifaddressing the red-glowing orb as it flung its amorphousmasses of hue, tint and chrome across the domed vault ofheaven.Suddenly the animated figure of Tesla snapped into a rigidpose as if he had fallen into a trance.Szigeti spoke tohim but got no answer.Again his words were ignored.Thefriend was about to seize the towering motionless figureand shake him into consciousness when instead Tesla spoke."Watch me!" said Tesla, blurting out the words like a childbubbling over with emotion: "Watch me reverse it." He wasstill gazing into the sun as if that incandescent ball hadthrown him into a hypnotic trance.Szigeti recalled the image from Goethe that Tesla had beenreciting: "The glow retreats.It yonder hastes, newfields of life exploring" a poetic description of thesetting sun, and then his next words-- "watch me! watch mereverse it." Did Tesla mean the sun? Did he mean that hecould arrest the motion of the sun about to sink below thehorizon, reverse its action and start it rising againtoward the zenith?"Let us sit and rest for a while," said Szigeti.He turnedhim toward a bench, but Tesla was not to be moved."Don't you see it?" expostulated the excited Tesla."Seehow smoothly it is running? Now I throw this switch--and Ireverse it.See! It goes just as smoothly in the oppositedirection.watch! I stop it.I start it.There is nosparking.There is nothing on it to spark.""But I see nothing," said Szigeti."The sun is notsparking.Are you ill?""you do not understand," beamed the still excited Tesla,turning as if to bestow a benediction on his companion."Itis my alternating-current motor I am talking about.I havesolved the problem.Can't you see it right here in front of41me, running almost silently? It is the rotating magneticfield that does it.See how the magnetic field rotates anddrags the armature around with it? Isn't it beautiful?Isn't it sublime? Isn't it simple? I have solved theproblem.Now I can die happy.But I must live, I mustreturn to work and build the motor so I can give it to theworld.No more will men be slaves to hard tasks.My motorwill set them free, it will do the work of the world."Szigeti now understood.Tesla had previously told him abouthis attempt to solve the problem of an alternating-currentmotor, and he grasped the full meaning of the scientist'swords.Tesla had never told him, however, about his abilityto visualize objects which he conceived in his mind, so itwas necessary to explain the vision he saw, and that thesolution had come to him suddenly while they were admiringthe sunset.Tesla was now a little more composed, but he was floatingon air in a frenzy of almost religious ecstasy.He had beenbreathing deeply in his excitement, and the overventilationof his lungs had produced a state of exhilaration.Picking up a twig, he used it as a scribe to draw a diagramon the dusty surface of the dirt walk.As he explained thetechnical principles of his discovery, his friend quicklygrasped the beauty of his conception, and far into thenight they remained together discussing its possibilities.The conception of a rotating magnetic field was amajestically beautiful one.It introduced to the scientificworld a new principle of sublime grandeur whose simplicityand utility opened a vast new empire of usefulapplications.In it Tesla had achieved the solution whichhis professor had declared was impossible of attainment.Alternating-current motors had heretofore presented whatseemed an insoluble problem because the magnetic fieldproduced by alternating currents changed as rapidly as thecurrent.Instead of producing a turning force they churnedup useless vibration.Up to this time everyone who tried to make an alternating-current motor used a single circuit, just as was in directcurrent.As a result the projected motor proved to be likea single-cylinder steam engine, stalled at dead center, atthe top or bottom of the stroke [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]