Tesla's Experiments - The Air As A Conductor

http://teslacollection.com/tesla_articles/1893/the_electrician/nikola_tesla/notes_tesla_s_experiments_the_air_as_a_conductor

The electrician

January 6, 1893

Text pending to repair

THE ELECTRICIAN: A WEEKLY ILLURTBATED JOURNAL OI' ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE. __l Pll.lCl` l`U URPENCE No. 764__v0L_ XXX. FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1s9;;_ ,,_,_,,,, NOTES .__¢_ Ir is hard to imagine what a dynamo or an are lamp would be like if the air, instead of being an insulator, were a con- ductor; but a \non\ent’s thought is enough to show how important the passive properties of air are to electricians. Mr. Tnsns, in an article we publish this week, maintains that, under certain exceptional circumstances, the air by no means possesses the convenient properties usually assigned to it. With alternating currents of great rapidity, it appears not only that the distribution of the current is altered in conse- quence of the “skin eli'ect,” hut that the uir near the cen- ductors receives and dissipates part of the energy of the current. Some of tho cxperiinents Mr, Tnsm mentions are very remarkable, although none of them ure quantitative, and no definite conclusion can be drawn from them. The amount of energy which various air motions actually represent would be an interesting matter to find out, but we are not aware that anyone has yet measured the energy ol' a. musical sound, or of any less regular air disturbance.