@BEP: hmm... well, I've seen a few versions that had fairly large asymmetrical
"rings" around the toroid, which in turn had their own coils wound around them...
And in general there's a lot more of such devices that don't show the coils as they
are "hidden" inside the core(s).
Although I can't be completely sure at this point, I think the "fan blades"
or "triangular-ish rings" were probably induction core elements.
Can you tell me what these specific types were used for, or are you not allowed to?
(After all, most Betatrons were intended to produce x- or gamma- rays for medical
or research purposes, so if it was in a radiology department or something, or if some
radiation shielding was used, or if lower energies were used, then that could explain
why no fuss was made over the radiation.)
Asymmetrical core elements can help to "concentrate" flux in certain regions,
which can in some cases increase efficiency of the induced accelleration.
So my guess at this point is that that is what those asymmetrical "accordion bellow"-
like "rings" were intended to do...
May I ask whay you did "back then" that you worked with these devices?
@Forest: Aha, the famous longtitudional waves eh?
Yeah, I know the story. Would be nice if someone could finally build a device
that produces OU based on collection of this alleged longtitudional "radiant" energy.
But despite the masses of speculative documentation, the majority of which is
nothing more than modern mythology, there's only a few that seem to be doing
active experiments trying to achieve it, and so far only one or two who believe
they're close and actually show interesting or at least anomalous test results.
A great many get overexcited about that TPU thing, which many associate with
Tesla's "radiant energy" hints, but which realistically speaking has been around for many
years now and as far as I know still is not powering any homes or cars or anything,
except perhaps for the bank account and ego of that Marks person. Then there's
that "elemental rod" thing which according to relatively new info is based on Tesla's
longtitudional wave research somehow, and which according to the sparse information
provided does work...
But the greater majority of the discussions on fora as well as "information" on many
websites that idolise Tesla as the Jesus of electricity consist of repetitions of
information that has been around (and repeated) since Tesla's own time, mixed
with peoples' own interpretations, often muddled by the fact that most people are
not, like Tesla was, multilingual Europeans, and therefore linguistic flexibility and
creative use of literal or figurative speech in combination with literal or figurative
translation of terms from other languages to formally correct yet not normal English
like Tesla used and which just "beams" off his papers is often overlooked or mis-
understood. Also, if one studies Tesla's writings over the years it is very clear
that as time and his experiments progressed, so did his understanding of electrics,
and hypotheses he used in his early days were often replaced by ones that
better fitted his later experiments, while Telsa did not at all explain his new
views on the matter every time he progressed in his paradigm. Some people
nowadays seem to think that what he said in his early days necessarily remained
valid in his later days, and that his hypothesising about radiant energy was
always the same, never changed, and everything he said about it needs
to be taken extremely literally.
Well, what about Tesla's statements that he had "received communication from Mars"?
He did, you know. In his terminology. He was receiving radio signals that he managed
to correllate with the position of Mars in the sky, and concluded the signals must be
coming from Mars. So far so good. But then he spoke to the press in his typical
Teslaesque English-with-a-very-strong-multilingual-European-twist, and told the
press he was receiving communication. The press, as did just about everyone else,
understood this to mean that Tesla believed he had been communicating with Mars,
and communicating means talking to, and so Tesla had just claimed he had been
talking to Martians! But he never did claim that. He just said he had received signals
from the direction of Mars, and "receiving signals" or "engaging in radio communication"
in his mind were nearly identical concepts. Tesla was notorious for his use of language.
That common Americans did (and do) not realise that "communicating by radio"
and "sending or receiving radio signals" are actually the same thing seems to arise
from a tradition of quite literal language use and of course the fact that most Americans
speak only US English, which does not give them the insight in comparative connotation
and interpretation of words that most multilingual people will recognise to a degree,
was something Tesla hardly ever took into account when he spoke to people.
I believe this different approach to language plays a large role in both the difficulty that
people have with understanding what Tesla meant to say, as well as in his idolisation
and mythologisation. Aside from that, the recurring misunderstanding of Tesla's statements
and successive unjustified criticism he sometimes received, in my opinion, caused him
to spend increasingly less time trying to make the public understand what he was trying to
do, and kept most of the more important developments in his theoretical understanding
of electrodynamics and cosmology "under his hat" as he grew older. That, plus of course
the opposition he encountered from Edison and others in many of his projects, which
obviously did not help.
It is good to see that Telsa is now getting the credit he deserves for many
inventions and discoveries, from the radio that Marconi stole from him, through
AC that Edison tried to first ban and then steal from him, to the Niagara generators,
and beyond.
But nevertheless there seems to be a large cult-like society of Tesla worshippers
that do talk about how great he was and how he made free energy devices,
but that don't seem to be able to actually replicate a working "radiant energy"
device that really does produce energy.
That, to me, seems a bit like a rocket club that idolises Werner von Braun,
and discusses Werners ideas about rocket propulsion every week,
and has been doing so for decades, but does not spend the majority
of their time actually building a rocket and launching it.
A bit like Trekkies but instead of the Kirk and Enterprise fixation they
have a Tesla and Radiant Energy fixation... But they'll never fly a starship,
never see the Federation in reality, never meet a Vulcan, yet they do
speak Klingon and they do know every detail about the fictional physics of
the USS Enterprise.
Sorry for the rant, by the way.
