considerations, to the use of high frequencies, and this means high
electromotive forces and small currents in the primary. When he works
with condenser charges--and they are the only means up to the present
known for reaching these extreme frequencies--he gets to electromotive
forces of several thousands of volts per turn of the primary. He
cannot multiply the electro-dynamic inductive effect by taking more
turns in the primary, for he arrives at the conclusion that the best
way is to work with one single turn--though he must sometimes depart
from this rule--and he must get along with whatever inductive effect
he can obtain with one turn. But before he has long experimented with
the extreme frequencies required to set up in a small bulb an
electromotive force of several thousands of volts he realizes the
great importance of electrostatic effects, and these effects grow
relatively to the electro-dynamic in significance as the frequency is
increased.
Now, if anything is desirable in this case, it is to increase the
frequency, and this would make it still worse for the electro-dynamic
effects. On the other hand, it is easy to exalt the electrostatic
action as far as one likes by taking more turns on the secondary, or
combining self-induction and capacity to raise the potential. It
should also be remembered that, in reducing the current to the
smallest value and increasing the potential, the electric impulses of
high frequency can be more easily transmitted through a conductor.
These and similar thoughts determined me to devote more attention to
the electrostatic phenomena, and to endeavor to produce potentials as
high as possible, and alternating as fast as they could be made to
alternate. I then found that I could excite vacuum tubes at
considerable distance from a conductor connected to a properly
constructed coil, and that I could, by converting the oscillatory
current of a condenser to a higher potential, establish electrostatic
alternating fields which acted through the whole extent of a room,
lighting up a tube no matter where it was held in space. I thought I
recognized that I had made a step in advance, and I have persevered in
this line; but I wish to say that I share with all lovers of science
and progress the one and only desire--to reach a result of utility to
men in any direction to which thought or experiment may lead me. I
think that this departure is the right one, for I cannot see, from the
observation of the phenomena which manifest themselves as the
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