2003-04-22 COLORADO'S MAN-MADE LIGHTNING by Pam North The year was 1899, and history was made in Colorado by a world-famous Serbian-American inventor, scientist and electrical engineer named Nikola Tesla (1856-1943). Tesla's goal was to perfect a method of transmitting messages from Pikes Peak to Paris, and he had constructed an odd-looking barn-like structure with wood-braced walls, topped with an 80-foot framework tower. A metal mast with a 3-foot copper ball at its tip reached skyward from the tower, making the total height over 200 feet from the ground. Within the building's interior were brass bars roughly the size of two-by-fours, and at the center of the project was a cylindrical transformer wound with 40,000 linear feet of wire. Other electronic equipment was installed to make it a functioning laboratory. Tesla instructed his assistant, Kolman Czito, to close a certain switch, and immediately a crackling sound filled the air, followed by a sharp snap. The copper ball was surrounded by blue electrical flames, and a surge of power ensued. More snapping sounds followed, building in volume and speed until they resembled staccato artillery fire; the noise could be heard 15 miles distant. Strange smells resulted from the ionized air, and the sparks rioting around the transformer cast a blue light everywhere. At the mast's tip, tongues of flames began to flicker, growing in length and width as the high-voltage energy intensified, and it seemed that an explosion was surely imminent. Then, for a split-second, lightning (man-made and using millions of volts) stretched 130 feet toward the ground. It was a feat created for the first and so far only time in history. Abruptly the display stopped, causing Tesla to inquire angrily if Czito had reversed the switch. Colorado Springs, its lights visible in the distance only moments before, had suddenly disappeared into blackness. The night crew at the Colorado Springs Electric Company had a fire in their generator to extinguish, and they felt less than kindly toward Tesla's experiment when he called to request that his power be restored, but his apology and offer to rebuild their generator finally cajoled them into again providing him with electricity. While regarded by some as eccentric and even crazy, Tesla was a clever inventor, and is responsible for many of the innovations that add to our comfort and convenience today. He devised the now commonly used induction motor, and the polyphase alternating current system for the transmission of electrical energy. The first practical application for the latter took place in Telluride, Colorado when power was transmitted from a hydroelectric plant to a local mine, laying the foundation for modern power. Tesla's principles of developing high voltage in a coil are now an integral part of the automobile ignition system. He also demonstrated that it was possible to transmit electrical energy through the air; his experiment to do so lit 200 incandescent lamps 26 miles from his laboratory. He was the first to realize that radio waves originated from distant objects external from the earth, and he was the brilliant force behind the telephone repeater, wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights, alternating current power system, and rotating magnetic field principle. Tesla ran out of money within a year after his lightning experiment, forcing him to leave his Colorado Springs laboratory and return to New York to engage in more mundane and immediately practical research. His personally-created lightning, however, remains his most spectacular accomplishment. Photo for article is at: http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/ Caption: Nikola Tesla made his own lightning here in Colorado.