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Teleforce was Nikola Tesla's charged particle beam projector, first mentioned publicly in the New York Sun, July 10, 1934.

Introduction

The term teleforce refers to Nikola Tesla's macroscopic charged particle beam projector. The device was based upon a large Van de Graaff generator of unique design and a special type of open-ended vacuum tube. It comprised a system for the acceleration of minute tungsten or mercury particles to a velocity of about 48 times the speed of sound. The projectiles were propelled out of the tube by electrostatic repulsion.

From Tesla's words, written in a letter to J. P. Morgan, Jr., on November 29, 1934 it can be seen the device was intended for use in national defense.

“I have made recent discoveries of inestimable value. . . . The flying machine has completely demoralized the world, so much that in some cities, as London and Paris, people are in mortal fear from aerial bombing. The new means I have perfected afford absolute protection against this and other forms of attack. . . . These new discoveries, which I have carried out experimentally on a limited scale, have created a profound impression. One of the most pressing problems seems to be the protection of London and I am writing to some influential friends in England hoping that my plan will be adopted without delay. The Russians are very anxious to render their borders safe against Japanese invasion and I have made them a proposal which is being seriously considered.”

Critical inventions

According to Tesla production of the particle beam is dependent upon four inventions of the following nature:

1. A method and apparatus for producing rays and other manifestations of energy in free air, eliminating the high vacuum necessary at present for the production of such rays and beams. This is accomplished with a novel form of high vacuum tube, one end of which is open to the atmosphere. The projectiles are accelerated in a vacuum and then conducted into the atmosphere through a valvular conduit.
2. A method and process for producing very great electrical force in the range of 60,000,000 volts to propel the particles to their objective. Tesla specified that this could be done with a large electrostatic generator on a new principle and of very great power, in many respects similar to a Van de Graaff generator. In place of a charge-carrying belt it employs a circulating stream of desiccated air that is propelled through a hermetically sealed ductwork by a Tesla disc blower. A Wardenclyffe type apparatus could also be used for this purpose
3. A method for amplifying this process in the second invention. The exterior of the high potential terminal is equipped with numerous bulbs of some insulating material each containing, “an electrode of thin metal sheet suitable rounded” and “exhausted to the highest vacuum obtainable.”
4. A new method for producing a tremendous electrical repelling force. It appears this would be applied to the projector or gun element of the system in the form of “provisions for imparting to a minute particle an extremely high charge.” While the specific details about this aspect of the design are not readily apparent, it seems that strict attention to the fulfillment of requirements 1, 2 and 3 is critical to success. In Tesla’s words, “by the application of my discoveries it is possible to increase the force of repulsion more than a million times and what was heretofore impossible is rendered easy of accomplishment.” ,

The tube would project a single row of highly charged particles and there would be no dispersion, even at great distance. Because the cross section of the charge carriers could be reduced to almost microscopic dimensions and since the charged particles would self-focus via "gas focusing," an immense concentration of energy, practically irrespective of distance, could be attained. In 1940 Tesla estimated that each station would cost no more than $2,000,000 and could have been constructed in a few months.

Quotes

• “When put in operation Dr. Tesla said this latest invention of his would make war impossible. This death-beam, he asserted, would surround each country like an invisible Chinese wall, only a million times more impenetrable. It would make every nation impregnable against attack by airplanes or by large invading armies.

“But while it will make every nation safe against any attack by a would-be invader, Dr. Tesla added, the death-beam by its nature could not be employed similarly as a weapon for offense. For this death-beam, he explained, could be generated only from large, stationary and immovable power plants, stationed in the manner of old-time forts at various strategic distances from each country's border. They could not be moved for the purposes of attack.

“An exception, however, he added, must be made in the case of battleships, which, he said, would be able to equip themselves with smaller plants for generating the death-beam, with enough power to destroy any airplane approaching for attack from the air.”

• “The beam of force itself, as Dr. Tesla described it, is a concentrated current—it need be no thicker than a pencil—of microscopic particles moving at several hundred times the speed of artillery projectiles. The machine into which Dr. Tesla combines his four devices is, in reality, a sort of an electrical gun.

“He illustrated the sort of thing that the particles will be by recalling an incident that occurred often enough when he was experimenting with a cathode tube. Then, sometimes, a particle larger than an electron, but still very tiny, would break off from the cathode, pass out of the tube and hit him. He said he could feel a sharp, stinging pain where it entered his body, and again at the place where it passed out. The particles in the beam of force, ammunition which the operators of the generating machine will have to supply, will travel far faster than such particles as broke off from the cathode, and they will travel in concentrations, he said.

“As Dr. Tesla explained it, the tremendous speed of the particles will give them their destruction-dealing qualities. All but the thickest armored surfaces confronting them would be melted through in an instant by the heat generated in the concussion.

• “My invention requires a large plant, but once it is established it will be possible to destroy anything, men or machines, approaching within a radius of 200 miles. It will, so to speak, provide a wall of power offering an insuperable obstacle against any effective aggression.

“I want to state explicitly that this invention of mine does not contemplate the use of any so-called "death rays." Rays are not applicable because they cannot be produced in requisite quantities and diminish rapidly in intensity with distance. All the energy of New York City (approximately two million horsepower) transformed into rays and projected twenty miles, could not kill a human being, because, according to a well known law of physics, it would disperse to such an extent as to be ineffectual.

“My apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that nothing can resist. This wonderful feature will make it possible, among other things, to achieve undreamed-of results in television, for there will be almost no limit to the intensity of illumination, the size of the picture, or distance of projection.”

• In reference to, “his atom-smashing tube,” . . . it is not an experiment. “I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world.”

• “As though I am poor with words. I still didn't explain it enough what would be necessary to increase up to twelve stations: eight of them, each of the same construction like at Wardenclyffe and only 20 meters high--a ball five meters in diameter--the station would be using diesel oil for energy with mechanical action--my air turbines, steam powered, electrically or other manners of transforming into alternating electrical current with sixty million volts pressure without danger. . . . In my attempts with an effective 20 million volts . . . penetrated two meters in depth and terrible damage . . .”

External links

• On Roentgen Rays Electrical Review, New York, March 11, 1896. (DOC format)
• Possibilities of Electro-Static Generators Scientific American, March, 1934. (DOC format)
• Tesla Invents Peace Ray New York Sun, July 10, 1934
• 'Death Ray' for Planes New York Times, September 22, 1940.
• Tesla Tries To Prevent World War II by John J. O'Neill
• Question and answer : Ask Dr. Seifer MetaScience Productions.
• "Tesla's Death Ray, A Reconstructive Postulate," by Timothy Ventura

References

1. Tesla, Nikola, “New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy Through Natural Media.”
2. Nikola Tesla's Teleforce & Telegeodynamics Proposals Leland Anderson and Gary Peterson, editors, Twenty First Century Books, 1998.
3. ”'Death Ray' for Planes,” New York Times, September 22, 1940
4. “Tesla, at 78, Bares New ‘Death Beam’,” 11 July 1934 New York Times, July 11, 1934.
5. ”Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla’s Claim On 78th Birthday,” New York Herald Tribune, July 11, 1934, pp. 1, 15.
6. “A Machine to End War,” Liberty, February 1935.
7. ”Sending of Messages to Planets Predicted by Dr. Tesla On Birthday,” New York Times, July 11, 1937, p. 13, c. 2.
8. Correspondence from Nikola Tesla to Sava Kosanović, New York, N.Y., March 4, 1941

This article or an earlier version based on text from Twenty First Century Books' Tesla FAQ, submitted to this encyclopedia by the original author.

• Nikola Tesla