That Nikola Tesla that he was an eccentric character is certainly nothing new, even if of all the rumors about him one periodically returns to circulate with alarmist tones, namely the one relating to the alleged invention of a machine to generate earthquakes. Tesla – according to supporters of this theory – would have voluntarily created an “oscillator” to trigger earthquakes at will and this same technology, years later, would also be used in the HAARP antenna system for the same purpose. But how much truth is there in this whole story? As we will see, very little, but first it is necessary to say a few words about how the device works.
What was Nikola Tesla’s oscillator
At the end of the 19th century Nikola Tesla was studying alternative methods for produce electricity and, among others, he dedicated himself to the project ofmechanical steam oscillatorpatented in 1893. Its operation is conceptually simple: liquid is injected inside the cylinder high pressure steam and that puts a piston. This is connected to magnets and, oscillating, slides inside fixed copper wire coils. From a physical point of view, a magnet moving inside a coil generates electric current — in this case we are talking more specifically about alternating current.
Tesla’s idea, however, was not only this: to minimize the amount of energy required to move the piston he managed to exploit the resonance. To understand the concept of resonance we can take a swing as an example: by pushing it at the right time it is possible to make it go very high without spending a lot of energy. He did the same inside the oscillator, injecting jets of steam at the right time and allowing resonance with the oscillation of the piston. This would have allowed Tesla to produce large amounts of energy using little steam.
Having reached this point, however, some might wonder what this whole story has to do with earthquakes, but we’ll get to that shortly.
Documented incidents related to the oscillator
In the years following the patent, two distinct episodes related to the oscillator were reported, handed down from different sources and at different times.
The first dates back to an article in 1912 of the reporter Allan L. Bensonpublished on The World Today: Benson wrote that Tesla took his instrument to a nearby construction site, climbing to the tenth floor and hooking it to a structural beam. Tesla progressively increased the oscillation frequency until reach the resonant frequency of the buildingcausing the entire structure to oscillate. To avoid the collapse, it was Tesla himself who disconnected the oscillator and stopped the test.
The second episode emerges from a direct statement from Tesla to New York World-Telegram In the July of 1935: the inventor claimed that one of his instruments under study had generated violent vibrations that brought police and ambulances near his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St. in New York, in an episode that he placed around the 1898. On that occasion Tesla declared that he had destroyed the car with a hammer and that he had told the police that the person responsible for the vibrations would have been a small earthquake.
After these tests, Tesla’s idea was shelved but, even today, a small part of public opinion is convinced that Tesla designed a machine to cause earthquakes at will anywhere in the world.
Truth or lie? Earthquakes have geological origins
At this point it is important to contextualize the credibility of these anecdotes. W. Bernard Carlsonin his academic biography published by Princeton University Press, shows how Tesla was a skilled self-promoter that he deliberately cultivated his image as an eccentric genius, and that his public statements in the last years of his life they don’t always find a response in documents. The episode of “earthquake” was told by Tesla only decades after the fact, in the context of press interviews tied to his birthday and designed to keep his public name alive. As confirmed by Mythbusters in one of their experiments, the vibration obtainable with a machine similar to Tesla’s is comparable to the passage of a large truck on the road – certainly nothing similar to a violent natural earthquake.
Also because – it is good to remember – Earthquakes have a geological origin: these are faults which, through various mechanisms, are activated at a greater or lesser depth.
Even further from reality is the theory linking the Tesla oscillator to the HAARP system. It is a research station designed to study the ionosphere and consists of a set of 180 antennas in Alaska. There is no authoritative scientific publication that supports its use to induce earthquakes. The reality, as often happens with conspiracy theories related to Tesla, is decidedly less sensational than it might seem at first glance.
