Dr. Nikola Tesla On Albert Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity
“I want to be emphatic in my condemnation of the idea that atomic energy will ever be our source of power. This is an illusory idea against which I have preached for years. In my experiments with peculiar vacuum tubes operated under tensions of 12,000,000 volts atoms are shattered, but there is no liberation of energy observable such as would be expected according to modern theories. But even if the latter were true, it still would take much more energy to disintegrate the atom than can be recovered by harnessing the liberated energy, however great it might be.
“What I am referring to is an entirely new principle which I have already experimentally demonstrated…“
“What is ‘thought’ in relativity, for example, is not science, but some kind of metaphysics based on abstract mathematical principles and conceptions which will be forever incomprehensible to beings like ourselves whose whole knowledge is derived from a three-dimensional world.”
–Nikola Tesla
“Great Scientific Discovery Impends.” Sunday Star. Washington D.C., May 17, 1931:
“The idea of atomic energy is illusionary, but it has taken so powerful a hold on the minds that, although I have preached against it for 25 years, there still are some who believe it to be realizable.
“I have disintegrated atoms in my experiments with a high potential vacuum tube I brought out in 1896, which I consider one of my best inventions. I have operated it with pressures ranging from 4,000,000 to 18,000,000 volts. More recently I have designed an apparatus for 50,000,000 volts which should produce many results of great scientific importance.
“But as to atomic energy, my experimental observations have shown that the process of disintegration is not accompanied by a liberation of such energy as might be expected from the present theories.”
–Nikola Tesla
“Tesla, 75, Predicts New Power Source.” New York Times, July 5, 1931.
“Tesla contradicts a part of the relativity theory emphatically, holding that mass is unalterable; otherwise, energy could be produced from nothing, since the kinetic energy acquired in the fall of a body would be greater than that necessary to lift it at a small velocity.
“It is within the bounds of possibility that Einstein’s mathematics of speeds greater than light may be wrong. Tesla has been right many times during the past, and he may be proven right in the future. In any event, the statement that there are speeds faster than light is a tremendous one, and opens up entirely new vistas to science.”
-Hugo Gernsback.
“Faster Than Light!” Science & Mechanics. November, 1931.
“We read a great deal about matter being changed into force and force being changed into matter by the cosmic rays. This is absurd. It is the same as saying that the body can be changed into the mind, and the mind into the body. We know that the mind is a functioning of the body, and in the same manner force is a function of matter. Without the body there can be no mind, without matter there can be no force.
“Einstein has for years developed formulas explaining the mechanism of the cosmos. In doing this he overlooked an important factor, namely the fact that some of the heavenly bodies are increasing in distance from the sun. This is the same as writing a business letter and forgetting the subject you wish to write about. In order to explain this phenomenon Einstein has invented the quantity “lambda,”
“My theory of gravitation explains this phenomenon perfectly.”
–Nikola Tesla
Tesla’s statement relating to force and matter, to Einstein’s theories, and Tesla’s own theory of gravitation. Courtesy of Nikola Tesla Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. April 15, 1932.
“It might be inferred that I am alluding to the curvature of space supposed to exist according to the teachings of relativity, but nothing could be further from my mind. I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved, is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.”
–Nikola Tesla
“Pioneer Radio Engineer Gives Views On Power.” New York Herald Tribune, September 11, 1932.
“I have smashed probably trillions of atoms and have definitely determined that they contain no available energy. The theory that they do is a futile dream. But the new cosmic power, the harnessing of the energy of the universe to the machinery of men, that is not a dream.”
–Nikola Tesla
“Device To Harness Cosmic Energy Claimed By Tesla.” New York American, November 1, 1933:
“[The Theory of Relativity] is a mass of errors and deceptive ideas violently opposed to the teachings of great men of science of the past and even to common sense.
“The theory wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists. Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved.”
–Nikola Tesla
In support of his statement he cited a number of experiments he had conducted, he said, as far back as 1896 on the cosmic ray. He has measured cosmic ray velocities from Antarus, he said, which he found to be fifty times greater than the speed of light, thus demolishing, he contended, one of the basic pillars of the structure of relativity, according to which there can be no speed greater than that of light.
“Tesla, 79, Promises to Transmit Force.” New York Times, July 11, 1935.
“According to the relativists, space has a tendency to curvature owing to an inherent property or presence of celestial bodies. Granting a semblance of reality to this fantastic idea, it is still self-contradictory. Every action is accompanied by an equivalent reaction and the effects of the latter are directly opposite to those of the former. Supposing that the bodies act upon the surrounding space causing curvature of the same, it appears to my simple mind that the curved spaces must react on the bodies and, producing the opposite effects, straighten out the curves. Since action and reaction are coexistent, it follows that the supposed curvature of space is entirely impossible. But even if it existed it would not explain the motions of the bodies as observed. Only the existence of a field of force can account for them and its assumption dispenses with space curvature. All literature on this subject is futile and destined to oblivion. So are also all attempts to explain the workings of the universe without recognizing the existence of the ether and the indispensable function it plays in the phenomena.”
–Nikola Tesla
“Dynamic Theory Of Gravity.” July 10, 1937 (Prior to interviews with the press on his 81st birthday observance.).
