Description

IN MID-JANUARY, 1900, Nikola Tesla returned to New York City after spending eight months and $100,000 building an electrical research experimental station at Colorado Springs. There, in the shadow of Pike's Peak, he produced the greatest point-to-point electric discharge ever achieved by man—sparks 100 feet in length. He spoke of attempting to communicate with Mars, and of sending power to ships at sea. The scientific fraternity, jarred by reports of his receiving "signals" of extra-terrestrial origin those dark cold nights in Colorado snapped, "If Tesla really has something, let him demonstrate it out in the open for all to witness."
With successful completion of experiments and a rapidly growing list of radio patents, Tesla felt he was riding the crest of a new technology. He envisioned a world radio center comprising all the artifices that we now have today—interconnected radio-telephone networks, synchronized time signals, instantaneous stock reports, pocket receivers, private communications, press radio service—or, in his words, a World System of intelligence transmission.