Inventions & Experiments
of Nikola Tesla
Tesla says Lodge was first: Marconi, Slaby and others were anticipated
Boston Evening Transcript
Apr 7, 1902 - Pg41
Signor Marconi says regarding an article by Professor Silvanus Thompson, which appered in the Saturday Review, which asserted that Marconi has infringed upon the patents of Lodge, the
principal in Birmingham University, and also that Lodge's patents in this country were applied for and granted before Marconi's: "I do not know wether Mr. Lodge discovered his system before I did
mine. Every time anyone is successfull in scientific work there is always someone else that springs up and claims to have done the same thing long before. This morning I happened to be comparing
some patents-office records, and according to them, Lodge did not apply for patents until 1897, while my application was made in 1896 and granted almost a year before Lodge's. That is all I care
to say. I am too busy just now to take up the other parts of Professor Thompson's article.
Nikola Tesla said in reference to the statement of Professor Thompson that
Professor Lodge had really anticipated Marconi, Slaby and the rest in the discovery of wireless telegraphy: "I know in a general way the Lodge gave first descriptions of
certain devices known as the coherer and the tapper, subsequently used by others. Lodge is a pioneer of great force, and I have myself frequently acknowledged my indebtedness to him in other
lines of work. I disagree with Professor Thompson on the importance he assigns to the coherer and tapper, as I exhaustively tested these devices and proved them inadequate for carrying on
practical quick telegraphy. The coherer is an instrument of wonderful sensitiveness, but there are other devices better suited to use in connection with tunned circuits in all cases in which
reliability of action is an important factor. Quite apart of that, however, the Herzian circuits separated from the ground by spark gaps and choking coils, as used by Lodge and others, are for
all pruposes inoperative, as they permit neither the transmission of effects at considerable distance, nor tunnings".
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