THE TESLA INTERVIEW
Marc J. Seifer, Ph.D. MetaScience Publications, Box 32,Kingston, RI 02881
July 10, 1911

     It was a warm winter morning in the new millennium. The seeker hailed a cab for the New York Public Library, strolled over to Bryant Park and waited as he was told. It was not too long before he noticed a tall, exceedingly thin gentleman feeding pigeons at a nearby bench. The man wore a long black coat, colorful scarf, and a derby hat with ear flaps. With a gleam in his eye, he looked over. "Seeker?" he asked, and the initiate nodded. "Come," the wizard motioned. There could be no doubt, it was Tesla. Considering the hobble to his gait and his advanced age, there still was a perceptible bounce to his stride. Nodding to an elderly couple who seemed to know him, the wizard grabbed two segues, exited the park and led his visitor down 5th Avenue to the Hotel St. Regis. Motoring up a ramp, they parked their vehicles and entered the foyer, taking their seats beneath a painting of John Jacob Astor where Part I of this interview took place.

Seeker: From the Tesla archives we have obtained an interview with you from The New York Times July 11, 1933 where it states, and I quote, "Inventor says his health and mind are better than ever -- expects to live beyond 140." You were born in Croatia in 1856 and were 77 at the time. How does it feel to have been on this planet for so long?

Tesla: I never think of my age. Really, you know, even now, I'm still a youngster. Knowing that I have descended from a people who came from the mountains of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia who lived to 110 or 120 -- we even had one relative who made it to 140, -- I began from the start with the plan to outlive each of them. I feel mentally stronger and more fit than ever.

Seeker: How do you do it?

Tesla: First of all, it is not as uncommon as you think. Humans are a simply machines who must follow natural law. An individual who is an offender of the law is a machine that has been degraded so that its responses are no longer accurate and death ensues at an earlier age. The recent story about that French lady who the media said was the oldest living person who died at the age of 120 was poppycock. There are many people today living in mountain villages in Europe and South America who are easily 140. I believe that aging is caused by bacteria on the skin. These can be eradicated by taking electrical baths, which I do daily.

Seeker: An electric bath?

Tesla: I step aboard a special platform which can transmits millions of volts through my body. This is at a very low power, but very high frequency, as much as 80 million oscillations a second. The electricity, for the most part, travels around the surface throwing off unwanted molecules with extreme vigor. I believe that electrotherapy can also be used to cure numerous ills, particularly cancer. The idea would be to find a resonant frequency for the corresponding virus or tumor and rattle it with such a high intensity that its molecular structure would be shattered asunder.

Seeker: All one needs is an electrical bath, and that's it, you live to 140?

Tesla: That's a key component. For my ancestors and those others who have survived well past 100 who are not bombarded by the disease one finds in the urban environment, there are other factors which include exercise, I walk ten miles a day, pure thoughts, abstinence, hard work, an occasional glass of wine, and a strict diet of a product I call factor actus.

Seeker: Which is?

Tesla: It's a simple health potion equivalent to the protein value of a dozen eggs, made from twelve vegetables including white leeks, cabbage hearts, flower of cauliflower, white turnips and lettuce hearts. The product can be eaten warm in a soup or as a powdered substance added to purified water. I also recommend fish, stewed prunes marinated in honey and fresh oranges.

Seeker: What about sleep?

Tesla: Oh, I don't sleep. Sleep is a racial habit growing out of the fact that humans spend half their life in darkness due to the rotation of the earth. Sometimes I doze for an hour or so, and once in a long while, perhaps once in a year, I have a long sleep of five, six or seven hours. When I awake from that I am so full of energy that I have to work it off!

Seeker: What about naps.

Tesla: That was Tom Edison's trick. He used to stay awake around the clock until he nodded out, and then he would sleep on a problem. Tom used to hold two rocks in his hands and sleep over a bucket. And if he got the answer he was looking for in his sleep, he would drop the rocks, and the racket would wake him up. I admit I also doze during the day when I get tired, but that is mainly to recharge my batteries. Unlike Edison, I do my work while I'm conscious.

Seeker: You are credited with a long list of inventions. We've even heard you developed waterwheels at age five. Can you give us an easy summary of the inventions you lay claim to?

Tesla: I didn't invent anything. I discovered and created. Below is a modest list of some of my achievements:

1. Rotating magnetic field.
2. Induction motor.
3. AC power transmission, transformers, alter-
nators, turbines.
4. Commutators, and regulators for dynamo
machines.
5. Electric meter.
6. Electric arc lamp
7. Fluorescent and neon lights.
8. Radio tubes and precursor to TV tube.
9. Refrigeration devices.
10. Ozone producing machines.
11. Electrical igniter for gas engines.
12. Lasers
13. Dematerialization devices.
14. Particle beam weapons.
15. Wireless transmission.
16. Cellular telephone, scramblers, encryption
devices.
17. Remote control.
18. Radar, stealth technology.
19. Lightning protectors.
20. Artificial intelligence and automatons.
21. Oscillators and Tesla coil.
22. Steam turbines.
23. Bladeless pumps.
24. Water fountain.
25. Hovercraft.
26. Reactive jet dirigibles, flying wing designs.
27. Helicopter-airplanes.
28. Magnifying transmitter.
29. Fueless planes and automobiles.
30. Weather control devices.
24. Method for obtaining fertilizer from nitrogen
in the air.
31. Electro-therapeutics.
32. Electric bath.
33.Teleogeodynamics & earthquake machines.
34. Speedometers and tachometers.
35. Cosmic ray generators for power tranmis-
sion between planets.

Seeker: That's quite a list. How do you think it compares with Edison.

Tesla: Edison invented. I discovered.

Seeker: If you had it to do all over again, would you forgo working with Edison?

Tesla: Of course not. Edison had the most advanced electrical operations at that time. It was an invaluable experience.

Seeker: What was it like to meet him?

Tesla: My first encounter was a memorable event. He was at that time, the most famous man in the world, known then as the Napoleon of Invention. I was amazed at this wonderful man who without early advantage or scientific training had accomplished so much. But after working with him, round the clock, day in and day out, I became frustrated. If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where the needle might be, but rather, would examine every straw, straw after straw like a diligent bee until he found the object of his search. It was almost sad to watch him at these times, when with a little theory and mathematical calculation, he would have saved 90% of his labor.

Seeker: Why did you leave his employ?

Tesla: Let's just say we had a misunder-standing. Edison was simply incapable of comprehending my alternating current electrical system. At the time, he had over 1,000 small direct current power stations dotted around the country. I tried to show him that by using AC, all of those stations could be scrapped, and electricity could be sent from one central source. He would hear none of it. The invention was too new. I had no publications on it. So I pulled back and suggested I redesign his DC system instead. I knew I could increase its efficiency at least 15%. The manager said "There's $50,000 in it if you succeed." And when I did, and tried to collect, Edison laughed and said it was a joke, that I didn't understand American humor. That was the last time we worked together. And pretty soon after that, my AC system became the standard, and Edison's DC system went the way of the passenger pigeon.

Seeker: Is it true that he electrocuted cats and dogs in order to win the battle of the currents?

Tesla: Most definitely, and a cow and even a rogue elephant! The problem at the time was how to harness a current that changed its direction of flow at many times per second into a unidirectional flow. No one could do it before me, so the electricians of the day simply eliminated the up flow and only used the downflow current. This became known as direct current. The advantage of direct current was that electricity could now be harnessed to light bulbs and run electrical equipment, but at a great price of efficiency. What I did was figure out how to eliminate the commutator which caused the current to go direct, and use alternating current in its natural state.

Seeker: What was the difference in outcome?

Tesla: With Edison's system, and a similar system that the Westinghouse company was using, one would need a power station for every mile of lighting. So, for instance, if one wanted to light the city of New York, one would need a dozen or more electrical plants for every square mile of homes, and even then, the power dropped off with distance. Thus, if a home was near the plant, it's lightbulbs shone brightly, but if you lived, say three quarters of a mile away, your bulbs were dim. And, what's more, this systems could only be used for lighting, not for running machinery.

Seeker: Then how did they power factories in those days?

Tesla: By being close to a power source which usually was a river. In the early 1890's during the height of the battle of the currents, the great industries of the day were all planning on moving to the banks of the Niagara, because that is where the power was. Edison was upset that we had a competing system, as I had already sold the system to Westinghouse, so he got a man on death row sentenced to die by alternating current. It was Edison's hope that the public would be so afraid of my AC system that they would keep his DC instead.

Seeker: What happened?

Tesla: Well, the first thing I did was figure out how to send AC through breathing organisms without gaining injury. I toured the world explaining my system and at the same time sent hundreds of thousands of volts through my own body without harming myself. By increasing the frequency and dropping the power to a whisper, it became child's play. Nevertheless, the current was still strong enough to illuminate wireless cold lamps which I held in my hand. That was another reason why Edison was so upset with me.

Seeker: Because the lamps were cold?

Tesla: Yes. I had removed his precious filament. You see the common electric light wastes 95% of its energy in heat. Try touching an Edison bulb when it is on, and you will see what I mean. I realized that the vacuum in the bulb was more important than the filament. It's one of my most important discoveries, namely, that when electro-magnetism reaches a certain high frequency it creates light. Now almost all major buildings are lit by my fluorescent lights. They use less power, are cold to the touch, and the bulbs almost never have to be changed.

Seeker: Then why did you give up your royalty clause?

Tesla: Because Westinghouse, like Edison, had over 1000 of his own small power plants providing electricity for lighting to a few hundred homes a piece, and these plants were making money. My system threatened this profitable scheme, so I had conflicts with some of their engineers. I told Westinghouse that money was not the issue. They had to change over to my system, and to make my point, I ripped up the royalty clause. In the long run it hurt me financially, but I wouldn't feel the effects for nearly a decade, as I was still receiving compensation on the invention, and revenues from other patents I had.
And, so my AC polyphase system was put in at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and at Niagara Falls in 1897, and the system is still used essentially unchange today. Gates' system is clearly inferior, just ask any computer animator or graphics designer, but it is not so obvious as to why it is inferior, so he was able to prevail in the short run. His chip maker, Intel, is also figuring out how to make faster and faster chips. However, their foundation is wrong. The Macintosh starts with a more elegant premise, so it is my belief that in the long run, all computers will be run on Macintosh based disk operating systems. Obviously Gates knows he had an inferior disk operating system, but his pride was involved and he was too afraid to scrap the system to take on the better foundation. It is sad, although from a business point of view, he's still way ahead.
Seeker: According to your speech at Niagara, the system of AC electrical transmission that we use today, your system, was also obsolete.

Tesla: Not the whole system, but the means for transmitting electrical power over long distances was obsolete. Look what happened with that ice storm a few winters back in the northeast in Maine and Canada. The power lines broke and tens of thousands of people were without power for weeks in the dead of winter. My idea was to do away with long-distance power lines entirely.

Seeker: Is that really possible?

Tesla: Of course. I had built my first wireless power transmission station in Colorado Springs in 1899 to study the principle, and then I moved back to New York and erected my second station out on Long Island.

Seeker: Wardenclyffe.

Tesla: Yes. The idea was to erect a large transmission tower which could do a variety of things. For instance, if a similar tower were placed in England, which was my plan, than energy could be jumped from the Long Island plant over the Atlantic to the receiving tower in England. From there the electricity could be transmitted either by means of wireless to the local dwellings or by conventional means, that is, but using wires. Mostly, the idea would be to locate receiving plants at distant places that were not near sources of power.

Seeker: But Wardenclyffe was not near a water fall.

Tesla: True enough. But this was really an experimental station. My full plan involved the erection of a source plant at Niagara, and I had designs with both the American and Canadian power companies to put this in but other complications prevented me.

Seeker: You claimed in 1900 that you had a wireless telephone?

Tesla: That was nothing new. I also had facsimile machines. All of the principles to what today is called the cellular phone is in my patents. I told Morgan at the time....

Seeker: J. P. Morgan?

Tesla: J.P. Morgan was the son. This was J. Pierpont Morgan, the father, that I could create an unlimited number of separate wireless channels, but he didn't believe me.

Seeker: Was that because Marconi sent his message across the Atlantic before you got the chance?

Tesla: That was part of it. I told Mr. Morgan that the microbe was using outmoded equipment based in large measure on the work of Heireich Hertz, even if he did pirate my oscillators, and that he was merely trying to send Morse code, dots and dashes across the seas, where I was going to transmit voice, light, pictures and power. I had already calculated that Hertz' system was not conducive. That is why I invented a continu-ous wave oscillator because that was the only way to go. Today, no-one uses Hertzian frequencies to transmit radio, wireless television and cellular conversations, they all use Tesla waves.

Seeker: How did you create an unlimited number of separate wireless channels?

Tesla: By using what John Hays Hammond Jr. called my prophetic genius patent. This was achieved by combining frequencies. Let me give you an example. Say you have an oscillator which produces ten frequencies. You then have ten channels. Do you see?

Seeker: Yes.

Tesla: Then how do you create more channels?

Seeker: Hey, who's asking the questions! I don't know. How?

Tesla: By inventing a receiver that is receptive to a combination of frequencies. If the receiver works when it is activated by two separate frequencies, then you have 10 times 10 or 100 channels. If it is three frequencies, there are 1000 possible channels, and so on. In reality, we are already starting off with thousands of channels, so when you multiply the frequencies, you see that there are a virtually unlimited number of possible stations. That is how every person on the planet can have their own cellular phone, and that is my invention.

Seeker: How do we know that is true?

Tesla: First of all, it is in my patents, but also, I displayed this principle in my remote controlled boat which I showed at Madison Square Garden in 1898.

Seeker: So, you invented remote control as well?

Tesla: And selective tuning and telautomatics. The whole idea of thinking machines can be traced back to my boat whose patents I displayed in the electrical journals at that time. Now we see this applications in dozens of ways, such as in beepers, garage door openers, remote controlled toy cars, airplanes and boats, the television remote, and so on, all based on that patent. One can also see that telephone scramblers and computer encryption devices, cable and satellite station blockers are also based on this simple principle of using multiple frequencies.

Seeker: And you say humans are simply biological automatons too?

Tesla: Essentially, yes. Man, however, is not an ordinary mass consisting of spinning atoms and molecules and containing merely heat-energy. He is a mass possessed of certain higher qualities by reason of the creative principle of life which he is endowed. His mass, as the water in an ocean wave, is being continuously exchanged, new taking the place of the old.