Earthquake Machine

Tesla's Earthquake Machine

Excerpt from the New York World: Telegram, July 11, 1935 -

Nikola Tesla revealed that an earthquake which drew police and ambulances to the region of his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, in 1898, was the result of a little machine he was experimenting with at the time which "you could put in your overcoat pocket." The bewildered newspapermen pounced upon this as at least one thing they could understand and Nikola Tesla, "the father of modern electricity" told what had happened as follows:

Tesla stated, "I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound. I asked my assistants where did the sound come from. They did not know. I put the machine up a few more notches. There was a louder cracking sound. I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. "Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. That's all they ever knew about it."

Some shrewd reporter asked Dr. Tesla at this point what he would need to destroy the Empire State Building and the doctor replied: "Vibration will do anything. It would only be necessary to step up the vibrations of the machine to fit the natural vibration of the building and the building would come crashing down. That's why soldiers break step crossing a bridge."

"On the occasion of his annual birthday celebration interview by the press on July 10, 1935 in his suite at the Hotel New Yorker, Tesla announced a method of transmitting mechanical energy accurately with minimal loss over any terrestrial distance, including a related new means of communication and a method, he claimed, which would facilitate the unerring location of underground mineral deposits. At that time he recalled the earth-trembling "quake" that brought police and ambulances rushing to the scene of his Houston Street laboratory while an experiment was in progress with one of his mechanical oscillators..."

Excerpt from: "Tesla: Man Out of Time"

by Margaret Cheney

He attached an oscillator no larger than an alarm clock to a steel link 2' long and 2" thick. "For a long time nothing happened, but at last the great steel link began to tremble, increased its trembling until it dilated and contracted like a beating heart, and finally broke. Sledgehammers could not have done it", he told a reporter, "crowbars could not have done it, but a fusillade of taps, no one of which would have harmed a baby, did it."

Pleased with this beginning, he put the little oscillator in his coat pocket. Finding a half-built steel building in the Wall Street district, 10 stories high with nothing up but the steelwork, he clamped the oscillator to one of the beams. "In a few minutes I could feel the beam trembling. Gradually the trembling increased in intensity and extended throughout the whole great mass of steel. Finally the structure began to creak and weave, and the steelworkers came to the ground panic-stricken, believing that there had been an earthquake. Before anything serious happened, I took off the oscillator, put it in my pocket, and went away. But if I had kept on 10 minutes more, I could have laid that building flat in the street. And with the same oscillator I could drop Brooklyn Bridge in less than an hour."

"Nikola Tesla, at 79, Uses Earth to Transmit Signals; Expects to have $100,000,000 Within Two Years" ~ Here Tesla tells the story of the earthquake generated by the mechanical oscillator in his NYC laboratory in 1898, which brought the police there to stop him. They entered the lab just in time to see Tesla swing a sledge hammer and smash the tiny device, which was mounted on a girder: Nikola Tesla revealed that an earthquake which drew police and ambulances to the region of his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, in 1898, was the result of a little machine he was experimenting with at the time which "you could put in your overcoat pocket."

The bewildered newspapermen pounced upon this as at least one thing they could understand and "the father of modern electricity" told what had happened as follows: "I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound."

"I asked my assistants where did the sound come from. They did not know. I put the machine up a few more notches. There was a louder cracking sound. I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. "Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. That's all they ever knew about it."

Some shrewd reporter asked Dr. Tesla at this point what he would need to destroy the Empire State Building and the doctor replied: "Vibration will do anything. It would only be necessary to step up the vibrations of the machine to fit the natural vibration of the building and the building would come crashing down. That's why soldiers break step crossing a bridge." 

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