Tesla's theory of gravity

Question

I was reading up on Tesla's Wikipedia page last night, and I came across this:

When he was 81, Tesla stated he had completed a "dynamic theory of gravity". He stated that it was "worked out in all details" and that he hoped to soon give it to the world. [75] The theory was never published.

I was wondering, has this theory ever been found? Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Tesla

Answer 1

Tesla was an engineering giant but it is true that in most cases, he was just a crackpot when it came to theoretical physics. This "theory of gravity" is one of the major ones.

It wasn't really connected with gravity - the attraction of objects to the Earth etc. with a universal acceleration - by anything else than a wishful thinking. As expected for the practical guy, most of the support for his unusual claims came from experiments, and it was the electromagnetic experiments.

Tesla claimed that the vacuum was filled with a new kind of the aether, a rarified gas that he also called the Akasha. This name is relatively important in his theory so you can get some idea about the character of the theory. The Akasha was extremely elastic.

Some spectacular experiments with some light emitted by either dielectric materials or conductors were made to support the claims, although they didn't have anything to do with the claims about the unifying theory. And at the end, it was found out that the experiments analyzed solidified air rather than any mysterious matter that could be filling the vacuum.

So the theory was a complete nonsense. Tesla couldn't really distinguish the fundamental phenomena from the highly derived, environment-dependent ones.

Answer 2

It was said at the time (1930's) that only 10 people understood General Relativity. Tesla was clearly not one of them! :-)

• Faster than light article
• Bonkers article in which he still asserts that the aether exists

etc.

So, no, the theory has never been released - but if it was consistent with the various beliefs held by Tesla at the time, it must have been completely wrong.

Answer 3

Old post, but I just have to make a point. While I completely agree that some of Tesla's beliefs, as pointed out in this thread, do not qualify as science, (you have no argument from me on that point), I think Tesla deserves some credit for other achievements.

@Jupiter seemed to capture the sentiment of many of your posts when he said that Tesla was considered a crackpot in his time. By whom? If you can look past his crackpot theories from when he was an old man, Tesla was responsible for many, many credible scientific achievements earlier in life.

Have you ever heard of A/C current? Patent holder: Nikola Tesla. Ever heard of the radio? Patent holder: Nikola Tesla, NOT Marconi, who was erroneously (initially) awarded the patent over Tesla, which landed Marconi a Nobel prize for the achievement. The patent office reversed itself in Tesla's favor in 1942. Thus, the Nobel prize should have been given to Tesla as well. This is a historical fact, yet for some reason people still today refer to Marconi as the inventor of the radio...

I don't care if this is down rated because it doesn't answer the question. 90% of the posts on this topic are focused on blasting Tesla for some reason. Seriously, get over it people. He got old, lost his edge, and got screwed out of a Nobel prize by Marconi.

Nonetheless, the Tesla mentioned in this post is the same genius who invented A/C and radio...

What have you achieved?

Answer 4

Everything else aside - this question was about where to find Tesla's theory of gravity, and my answer pointed to those that have tried to reconstruct it.

It's interesting that so far that answer has generated a -6, and the answer saying Telsa doesn't know what he's talking about, so even if the theory was available it must be completely wrong has a +4... on a forum supposedly frequented by people of science. :)

warning soap box detected

Couldn't "science" be considered the systematic observation of natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to formulate laws and principles based on these facts. If that's right, Telsa, Reich and the Correa's are practising good science - even if their theories are non-conventional, controversial or even completely off track.

Physics is concerned with the energy/matter and motion. In that light, Tesla, Reich and the Correa's are absolutely researching physics. The fact they all had a personal disposition towards philosophy as well, doesn't detract from that, even if it colours their extrapolations.

It's understandable to want to believe what we "know" is "right," especially considering the time and money we invest into learning. Therefore when something challenges that knowledge, it's equally understandable we become defensive and dismissive. I hope we can agree that "defensive and dismissive" without a reasoned basis, are certainly not attributes of someone practising good science. Like Feynman said "science is a culture of doubt." - I daresay this is the reason for the down vote.

The fact remains that all these people have results that are testable, repeatable and have led to the manufacture of operational prototypes that conventional "science" insists are impossible.

I'd like to see truly open discussion of alternative, but well practised physics, rather than dogmatic dismissal of things that don't immediately fit our understandings.

This is a physics forum, my friends. Let's try to be objective and not colour our answers with personal baggage... like I've just done here :)

falls off soapbox

Answer 5

is there a way to verify that the attributed quot was really uttered by Tesla?

Is there anything that can be verified as Tesla's work in this area exists?

In the faster than light article by Hugo Gernback (that Sklivvz send a link to ), there is a patent number being mentioned 787412, filed May 16 1900. Is there a way to verify that?

Answer 6

I'm pretty sure no one has a good description of Tesla's theory of gravity, as far as I have been able to determine, he never really laid it out for anyone. Our Loss. I do know he disagreed with Einstein's curved space theory (yes, theory). I am sure he would be particularly amused by the scrambling of the conventional physicists, trying to explain dark energy and matter in einsteinian terms and avoiding at all costs the etherial implications.

Answer 7

Tesla was (and according to some still is) a very interesting guy.

Much of his work is still considered "black science" meaning it is privately held by private stakeholders. It's not available to mainstream science - and may not be for some time.

The most interesting public work available on the subject has been performed by a husband and wife team Dr. Paulo N. Correa and Alexandra N. Correa who have been very careful to publish every detail of everything they have done to hopefully avoid the fate of others (Like Wilhelm Reich) who were researching in the same field.

The Correa's recreated Telsa and Reich's experiments and published all their results (much of which is publicly available) and have built operational prototypes to prove the theories on: Gravity and Anti-Gravity, Alternative Energy (from sources believed unknown to mainstream science), and Nano-Biology.

For more information check out their site http://www.aetherometry.com/

FYI - Anti-gravity engine designs have been available since the 1920's and the intellectual property can be found at the US Patent Office.