tesla turbine questions

Mar 03, 2005 27 Replies
E

The "death ray" was one version of the charged-particle-beam weapons he cooked up in the late '20s and the '30s. The US Air Force worked on the big version of it, which was supposed to shoot down airplanes and missiles, in the early '50s. Then they dropped it. The official reason was that it was too expensive and would consume too many resources.

However, the Soviets picked it up and were working hard on it during the '70s. Ronald Reagan was responding to CIA reports of how hard the Soviets were working on it when he came up with his response: SDI, or "Star Wars."

-- Ed Huntress

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J

Or more to the point, being a brilliant inventer and a nut are not mutually exclusive.

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R

At one time I was very interested in Tesla, so yes, I've read some of his papers. I think I may have even read them in the book you referenced.

The question isn't whether he was smart or whether he did good work in the first part of his life. Again, think Howard Hughes.

--RC

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T

Ah, those are the words I was looking for ;)

Tim

-- "California is the breakfast state: fruits, nuts and flakes." Website:

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D

Jim, 10,000 Gauss = 1 Tesla. MRI magnets, for instance, are commonly at a field strength of 1.5 Tesla.

Dave Hinz

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S

Papers? What's the name of the book? Dry and in his own writing ?

I've read around 4 books on Tesla. I have one with all his patents. Just the other night the wife dragged me to the library cause she is afraid to go there at night , too many bums hang out there. Computers are all taken as usual so I just go do it the hard way and right off run into a VHS PBS and a book that I haven't read about him. Watched the video and it is about time someone put the info. straight.

It's said that he came up with the idea from running a single disk in a stream and I think , thinking about bank tubes across the Atlantic. What I don't get is that steam must be really chaotic and thus not laminar.

I don't think he was even close to whacked. He was an alien plant. Or might as well have been , the way he was treated. What was it , prime numbers with him. Probably a game to keep him from thinking about wasting money to get laid.

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T

Steam is like any gas or fluid in general, if slow enough it will happily flow smooth and laminar. A Tesla turbine doesn't really need laminar flow anyway, as long as it sticks to the surface, it's good. Just transfer of the momentum.

You can do the same thing yourself: next time you're rinsing a soup can lid in the sink, center it between your fingers and put it under the stream off center. It'll pull it along.

Tim

-- "California is the breakfast state: fruits, nuts and flakes." Website:

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