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INVENTIONS ON NIKOLA TESLA,

But by far the better way—the ideal way—would be to reachsufficiently high frequencies. The higher the frequency, theslower would be the exchange of the air, and I think that a fre-quency may be reached, at which there would be no exchangewhatever of the air molecules around the terminal. We w r ouldthen produce a flame in which there would be no carrying awayof material, and a queer flame it would be, for it would be rigid!With such high frequencies the inertia of the particles would comeinto play. As the brush, or flame, would gain rigidity in virtueof the inertia of the particles, the exchange of the latter wouldbe prevented. This would necessarily occur, for, the number ofimpulses being augmented, the potential energy of each woulddiminish, so that finally only atomic vibrations could be set up,and the motion of translation through measurable space wouldcease. Thus an ordinary gas burner connected to a source ofrapidly alternating potential might have its efficiency augmentedto a certain limit, and this for two reasons—because of the addi-tional vibration imparted, and because of a slowing down of theprocess of carrying off. But the renewal being rendered difficult,a renewal being necessary to maintain the burner , a continuedincrease of the frequency of the impulses, assuming they couldbe transmitted to and impressed upon the flame, would result inthe “extinction” of the latter, meaning by this term only thecessation of the chemical process.

I think, however, that in the case of an electrode immersed ina fluid insulating medium, and surrounded by independent car-riers of electric charges, which can be acted upon inductively, asufficient high frequency of the impulses would probably resultin a gravitation of the gas all around toward the electrode. Forthis it would be only necessary to assume that the independentbodies are irregularly shaped; they would then turn toward theelectrode their side of the greatest electric density, and thiswould be a position in which the fluid resistance to approachwould be smaller than that offered to the receding.

The general opinion, I do not doubt, is that it is out of thequestion to reach any such frequencies as might—assuming someof the views before expressed to be true—produce any of the re.suits which I. have pointed out as mere possibilities. This may beso, but in the course of these investigations, from the observationof many phenomena, I have gained the conviction that these fre-quencies would be much lower than one is apt to estimate at