UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles I, Robot: Nikola Tesla’s Telautomaton A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Kendall Milar Thompson 2015 © Copyright by Kendall Milar Thompson 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION I, Robot: Nikola Tesla’s Telautomaton by Kendall Milar Thompson Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Matthew Norton Wise, Chair In 1898 at the Electrical Exposition in Madison Square Gardens, Nikola Tesla presented his most recent invention, the telautomaton. The device, a radio remote controlled boat, was roughly three feet in length with blinking antennae and was propelled by a small motor and rudder. At the Exposition, Tesla directed audience members to ask the device mathematical questions, and it would respond by blinking the lights on its antennae an appropriate number of times. Tesla’s display gave the illusion of an automaton; moving independently and mysteriously responding to mathematical questions with no apparent operator. Tesla and his telautomaton were at the intersection of major developments of nineteenth and early twentieth century physiology and physics. Thomas Henry Huxley, a physiologist, stimulated a debate among scientists about the extent human automatism. These debates centered on developments in physiology that suggested that there was no place for the soul in the brain; no energy was lost, and even with brain damage humans were able to function. The absence of energy loss created a ii problem in conservation of energy in physics. Some physicists were involved in this debate, attempting to determine whether any energy was lost or added as a result of free will. Yet, all physicists were involved in a debate about the form of the ether, a medium that theoretically permeated everything. Electromagnetic waves, including the radio waves that controlled the movement of Tesla’s telautomaton, were predicted to pass through the ether, a medium that permeated everything. The theories of some of these physicists attempted to combine ideas on the ether on communication between body and mind. Tesla attempted to synthesize several theories on the ether and eventually developed his own. His involvement with electrical healing experiments paralleled experiments in electrical mesmerism carried out by some British physicists that took an interest in psychical research. Tesla’s telautomaton highlights the research in communication carried out at the turn of the century; communication between mind and body, through telegraphs and through spiritual mediums. iii The dissertation of Kendall Milar Thompson is approved. Anthony Friscia Joan Waugh Kevin Lambert Theodore M. Porter Matthew Norton Wise, Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... viii Vita .................................................................................................................................................. x Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Tesla’s Telautomaton .................................................................................................. 16 Tesla as an Automaton Tesla as Electrical Engineer Tesla and Wireless The Telautomaton The Electrical Exposition Reception of the Telautomaton Military Applications Chapter 2: “I see, therefore I am”: ................................................................................................ 59 Thomas Henry Huxley Nikola Tesla and Huxley Consciousness, Free Will and the Soul The Telautomaton Telautomaton meets Human Automaton William Clifford and The Eye Chapter 3: Ghosts in the Machines: ............................................................................................ 107 Ether, Electricity and Magnetism and Energy Inventors and the Ether Ether Models Physics, Religion and Free Will The Unseen Universe Chapter 4: Society for Humanity ................................................................................................ 153 Electrobiology Tesla and Electrotherapy The Telautomaton and The Chicago Speech The Society for Psychical Research Chapter 5: Of Mars and Men: ..................................................................................................... 197 Tesla and the Human Race Tesla’s Wireless System Warfare Tesla’s Utopia v Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 231 Image Notes: ............................................................................................................................... 236 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 238 vi List of Figures Figure 1 Nikola Tesla's Telautomaton from 1898 ......................................................................... 5 Figure 2 Tesla’s alternating current motor demonstration using the egg of Columbus ................ 29 Figure 3 Westinghouse/Tesla generators at Niagara Falls ............................................................ 32 Figure 4 Tesla's system of wireless lighting patent ...................................................................... 34 Figure 5 Image of Tesla featuring coronal electric discharge ....................................................... 36 Figure 6 New York Journal article ona major wireless transmission in the Tesla laboratory ..... 39 Figure 7 Tesla's patent for a system of wireless energy transmission .......................................... 42 Figure 8 Wardenclyffe Tower ....................................................................................................... 46 Figure 9 Tesla's Telautomaton patent ........................................................................................... 48 Figure 10 Top down diagram of the telautomaton’s internal circuitry. ........................................ 49 Figure 11 Image from patent showing the transmitter and telautomaton in operation. ................ 51 Figure 12 Young’s sketch of the diffraction of water waves ...................................................... 111 Figure 13 List of the most influential names in Electrical Science ............................................ 117 Figure 14 Maxwell’s ether model, corrected .............................................................................. 128 Figure 15 Knots in vortex atoms ................................................................................................. 131 Figure 16 Cross-section of a Faraday Tube ................................................................................ 132 Figure 17 Lodge’s ether model. .................................................................................................. 134 Figure 18 An advertisement for a public demonstration of mesmerism ..................................... 156 Figure 19 Photographic plate of odic emanations ....................................................................... 162 Figure 20 Two of the devices that Tesla proposed for electrotherapeutic usage ........................ 171 Figure 21 One of Tesla’s radiographs published in The Electrical Review ................................ 174 Figure 22 Tesla’s radiograph of a wire published in The Electrial Review ................................ 175 Figure 23 The Source of Spring by Arnold Böcklin .................................................................. 188 Figure 24 Giovanni Schiaparelli’s map of the surface of Mars. ................................................. 210 Figure 25 Artist representation of beam from Earth to Mars. ..................................................... 214 Figure 27 Artist representation of Wood apparatus. ................................................................... 216 Figure 26 Artist representation of Pickering apparatus. ............................................................ 216 vii Acknowledgements I would like to thank, first, the faculty in history of science at UCLA. Mary Terrall, Ted Porter, Soraya de Chaderavian and Norton Wise opened my eyes to the world of history of science and I have cherished the journey. I have grown so much in my time at UCLA as a writer and academic and I am profoundly grateful for their help in shaping that person. They have also provided professional, academic and at times emotional guidance through my graduate career. I would also like to thank the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and particularly Radmila Adzic, who was critical in gaining access to the Tesla archives. Ted Porter, Kevin Lambert, Tony Friscia and Joan Waugh all agreed to embark on a rather curious journey on my dissertation committee and I am incredibly grateful for their advice and guidance. Norton Wise, in particular, saw from the earliest day