Excerpt from book:

“Armstrong saw his chance to hit back when the visiting professor, in the course of demonstrating spark discharges from a helical coil grounded at one end and free at the other, incautiously stated that no one could take the discharges on the bare hand, particularly when grounded, without suffering severe shock…”

Armstrong succeeds by: “I took hold of the ungrounded terminal first, thus throwing the whole system out of resonance because of the extra capacity and then took hold of the ground-wire. After the first slight shock on touching the ground I felt nothing of any consequence.”

Can anyone explain this for me? I am no master at engineering or physics but am curious to know more on how this was possible.

a) Did Armstrong have to be elevated first, like on a platform, then step off the ground?
b) What was the ungrounded terminal he spoke of?
c) Did he touch the sparks with his bare hand or was it a rod – like the ones some use today?

If one could even direct me to a video on Youtube, or such, showing this, that would be much appreciated!

Chosen Answer:

The best way to touch a Tesla coil is not at all.

a. Yes
b. Every source of electrical power has a positive and a negative. One side of the Tesla coil was grounded for convenience, like a car battery is grounded to the car metal chassis. The other side of the Tesla coil is therefore the “hot wire”. Also this is similar lightning discharging from the clouds to ground.
c. wait for it …

The Tesla coil is a spark coil similar to the ignition coil in automobiles, only much bigger.

When Armstrong grabbed the ungrounded terminal, he was ungrounded too. He was like a giant capacitor and he absorbed the electric charge from Tesla coil, which lowered the voltage tremendously. The human body has a very large surface area so the charge distributed itself along the surface of his body. Human skin has a lot of resistance so some of the energy in the charge was dissipated and this also lowered the voltage.

He said “throwing the whole system out of resonance” – partly true, his body added capacitance and resistance to the Tesla coil. Today we say he put a large load on the secondary of the Tesla coil, and thus the voltage out of the Tesla coil dropped to a much lower level. We would call this an RC network. Schematically it would two parallel RC networks in series. The first network would be a capacitor C1 and resistor R1 in parallel. The second network would be a capacitor C2 and resistor R2 in parallel. C1 is the body capacitance, R1 is the skin resistance. C2 is the capacitance to ground and R2 is the resistance to ground. R2 is a very high value.

Shortly afterward he grabbed the ground wire, and he felt a shock because the voltage on his body relative to the ground wire was still higher than 1500 volts, which is the lowest generally recognized voltage for static electricity fields for a human to detect a shock.

This connection reduced C2 to 0 and R2 to 0, so all that was left was C1 – body capacitance – and R1 – skin resistance. R1 is low enough that charge coming from the Tesla coil could not increase the voltage enough to rise to high enough levels to cause sparks.

Why was he so confident ? The current coming out of a Tesla coil, in those days, was a very tiny current. So by connecting a low resistance – his body – to the output of the Tesla coil, all that tiny current flowed through his skin and was not lethal.

You should never try this with most of today’s Tesla coils, as these are designed to handle much higher power levels and thus the voltages coming out will be dangerous.

Now for part c.
c) Did he touch the sparks with his bare hand or was it a rod – like the ones some use today?

“Did he touch the sparks with his bare hand…”

Sort of. When he reached to touch the ungrounded terminal, sparks would have jumped to his hand at first. Once he touched the metal of the terminal, the sparks would stop as all the current coming from the Tesla coil now flowed into his body.

” … or was it a rod – like the ones some use today?

He did not use a rod. Today people use a rod because that way the spark hits the rod and the current flows into the skin of the hand. The spark is a current of very small cross-sectional area, and when it hits the skin it is like a pin, its a very small area and so it hits hard and it hurts. With a rod in the hand, the same current flows from the rod into a larger area, so the electrical pressure is spread over a larger area, which reduces the voltage affecting any small area. Also the rod allows the person to stand a safer distance from the Tesla coil.

He also only proved half of what the physicist said :
“…no one could take the discharges on the bare hand, particularly when grounded, without suffering severe shock…”

“…no one could take the discharges on the bare hand …”
He proved the physicist wrong for an ungrounded situation.

But wait :

“…no one could take the discharges on the bare hand, particularly when grounded …”
Armstrong did not ground himself first by touching the grounded terminal. Had he done this, he would have gotten a very nasty shock when he reached for the ungrounded terminal.

===== warning

The skin of the human body conducts electricity, but it is a high-resistance conductor, and it also serves as a high-resistance barrier to the interior of the human body. Electricity from high voltage sources that can supply high current levels will penetrate the skin and then current will flow through the tissues within the body. This is what causes muscles to contract and spasm beyond the control of the person. Voltages higher than 50 volts, DC or AC, are considered able to cause this to happen.
If the current flows through the torso and into the heart muscle, it can cause the heart muscle to spasm or stop.

dang it, can’t add any more, hit the limit
by: Tony RB
on: 25th February 13

Chosen Answer:

I blindly trust government,Tesla’s paper’s were probably useless, and were a waste of time confiscating after he died. How could the military use HAARP to charge the ionosphere to steer storms, it’s not like the storms are electrical. Militarily there is no advantage to it, and they do not have the funds to build something like HAARP.

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/haarp_mind_weather_control.htm

http://www.truthistreason.net/haarp-hurricane-irene-and-the-dc-earthquake-connected

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_11_15/Was-Hurricane-Sandy-an-inside-job-Why-governments-manipulate-the-weather/

http://www.infowars.com/secret-weather-weapons-can-kill-millions-warns-top-russian-politican/

by: joe
on: 31st March 13

Chosen Answer:

There are no significant technical problems left, current technology could meet all our personal transport needs now.

Electric cars naturally outperform comparable infernal combustion, max torque from 0rpm, from cold etc, simple efficient transmission, no waste heat … see tesla http://www.teslamotors.com

Modern batteries can give a range >200miles and be recharged in 10 minutes see http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com
they do NOT catch fire, see A123 in Killacycle crash, http://www.killacycle.com

Distributed battery storage around the grid will actually improve the capacity, especially for use of variable renewable power sources, see vehicle to grid technology http://www.acpropulsion.com/Veh_Grid_Power/Veh_grid_power.htm (a car that can store enough energy for 200miles, but typically does less than 20 a day, has a lot spare to sell back at peak demand periods)
And you can refuel at home or work, and give yourself a UPS for free.

the big problem is in the brains of those controlling and marketing the car industry, supported by a brainless compliant media dependent on their advertising revenue. And the political pressure of the oil companies
by: fred
on: 7th January 08

Chosen Answer:

Lots of people are working on such things. Some of it is encouraging, but nothing actually works yet. Here is one: http://www.cheniere.org/misc/astroboots.htm
by: SmartAZ
on: 19th August 12

Chosen Answer:

Nikola Tesla was not into electricity for the money or fame, but rather for the people. He wanted to help provide inexpensive clean energy for all. Unfortunately, “The Powers That Be” were already gaining a strong choke hold on America and had other plans.

Tesla attempted to harness the energy from Earths electromagnetic grid. He was aware that the earth forms a giant generator whose energy can be tapped if one could cut through its magnetic field.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/doug_teslat.htm

When Tesla was working on his Wardenclyffe project (Power Tower), Some International Bankers of Europe, had already Shanghaied the U.S. government and the economy by taking control of the U.S. Monetary system. In 1913, they created the privately held, Federal Reserve Bank, and railroaded the President and Congress into accepting it as the Central Bank. Any project that could provide “Free Energy” to the populous was no friend of theirs since it would interfere in their quest for money, power and control of the people. They had already put their stakes in the internal combustion engine and oil. An energy they could monopolize and use to control and enslave the people. Coincidently, it is some of those same people’s families who run the world today to its detriment.

I didn’t hear about Nikola Tesla until I was in college. I didn’t read about him from any text book either, but instead heard about him from my electronics instructor. Since then, I have tried to understand why our education system is deliberately trying to keep us in the dark on this subject as well as others. In extreme cases we may even find ourselves being lied to. Apparently, those who have gained power, do not consider the populous, of a high enough a blood line, to be given true knowledge. Instead, we are fed, misleading and contradictory information, to baffle and bewilder us: thus keeping us in check, as their servants and no more.

It is said that Tesla often used ancient Sanskrit terminology to describe natural phenomena. He was versed in the nature of matter, antimatter, and the makeup of atomic structure that are described in the Vedas; a collection of writings, found in India, consisting of, among other things, dissertations on science and the nature of reality. The writings date back thousands of years and are thought, by Hindu, “not human compositions”.

http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/index.htm

Aside from some of Tesla’s more well known achievements, there are some areas of his work that have been deemed “Top Secret” and “Classified” by our government. Some of those areas include teleportation of people and inanimate objects, invisibility, and time travel.

List of Tesla patents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_patents

Upon Tesla’s death, much of his writings and work were confiscated by our government, on the grounds of national security; it was during WWII. Still, many of his published works, in the form of patents, are available from the U.S. patent office.

A story of the Man and “The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla”

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/tesla.htm

by: Joe_Pardy
on: 14th December 07

Chosen Answer:

It was not all that much power in Colorado Springs, though it may have seemed a lot back then. I long ago read Tesla’s own book which told the story but from memory I think there was some issue that caused the generator to fail, caused by voltage effects associated with resonance. Also from memory the generator was 10 or 100kW. The internet has so many different stories and slants that it is difficult to make any sense of it. While many stories say it was the Colorado Springs town supply he used, my memory was it was a special high frequency alternator of his own. It may even have been two separate events. I found the Tesla writings difficult to understand becauses they were deliberately vague with key stuff missing, and of a time before a lot of current terminology. It is the lack of understandable detail that makes people think that some secret may be hidden there.

Normally generators fail when the windings get too hot from delivering more current than the generator is designed for. This is easy to protect against, using fuses or circuit breakers etc to disconnect the excess load. This also protects against any improper current that might flow from an external source connected to the generator.
by: Ecko
on: 10th December 12

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” -Albert Einstein

Chosen Answer:

The next generation of electromagnetic weapon is already here, and almost no one has
heard about it.
Check out information on Project HAARP. It started as a secret research project based
in Alaska, designed to test the effects of beaming high energy EM waves into the ionosphere.
It has evolved into a weapon that can do some amazing things, including giving a country
the ability to wage war from far, far away by influencing the weather, destroying aircraft,
disrupting communications and power distribution, and get this: mind control!
Several governments now have portable versions of the HAARP technology. It may have
even been used secretly in the Iraq war, explaining the reason why tens of thousands of
iraqi soldiers simply surrendered.
What is more devastating than a weapon that is invisible, which no one can track or shield for, and avoids
loss of life on the side of the user?
by: Civil
on: 15th December 09

Chosen Answer:

There is this phenomenon called sonoluminescence, where a spherical glass container full of water is harmonized by speakers to 20 KHz. An air bubble introduced into the water becomes hot and bursts into light when it reaches the center of the glass container. The temperature of the air bubble is heated to over 30,000 degrees celcius, roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun. According to conventional laws of physics, it would require trillions of times more energy than what is used to produce the sound that harmonizes the glass.

There are tons of theories on what could be causing this phenomenon, none which can be explained by conventional laws of physics. Cold fusion scientists use this phenomenon as a basis for cold fusion theories.

In nature, pistol shrimp have been observed to this phenonmenon to stun their prey. The snap sound produced by the super heated bubble can reach 230 db, which is louder than a blue whale and can be heard for miles. This makes a lowly shrimp the loudest animal on earth.

The mere fact that this phenomenon exists and is easily proven in classrooms around the globe proves that free perpetual energy is available all around us. Tesla was right. We just need to learn how to harness it.
by: Bob
on: 21st November 10

Chosen Answer:

yes from the greys
by: Ancient Aliens Are Coming
on: 15th February 13

Chosen Answer:

hey… tesla was a romanian, not a soviet… and romania became soviet by force, when the communists won the elections by fraude…. so, anyway, as i was saying, tesla is so unkown because:
1. he came from a little country who was under soviet abusive occupation for 50 yrs (there are many brilliant romaninans but so few are known… )

2. his work was in a field that not many people have heard of and even fewer understand it

3. his research was secret.. we don’t know even in these days (or at least the public opinnion doesn’t know) what are the projects he was working at

4. which is more interesting: scientific stuff or tv ?
by: scoobie doo scks
on: 26th July 06