lake
31st January 2011, 22:02
If you have never researched Nikola Tesla and all the inventions created by him then I suggest that you do. I believe that most of our major technology is based on his work and mainly still hidden from the general masses. This is just his light hearted view on the human eye at the start of a lecture!!!
Quite long but worth a read.
THE INVENTIONS
RESEARCHES AND WRITINGS
OF
NIKOLA TESLA
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE PHILADELPHIA AND ST. Louis LECTURE.
ON LIGHT AND OTHER HIGH FREQUENCY PHENOMENA,
FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1893.
INTRODUCTORY. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EYE.
WHEN we look at the world around us, on Nature, we are impressed with its beauty and grandeur. Each thing we perceive, though it may be vanishingly small, is in itself a world, that is, like the whole of the universe, matter and force governed by law, a world, the contemplation of which fills us with feelings of wonder and irresistibly urges us to ceaseless thought and inquiry.
But in all this vast world, of all objects our senses reveal to us, the most marvellous, the most appealing to our imagination, appears no doubt a highly developed organism, a thinking being. If there is anything fitted to make us admire Nature's handiwork, it is certainly this inconceivable structure, which performs its innumerable motions of obedience to external influence.
To understand its workings, to get a deeper insight into this Nature's masterpiece, has ever been for thinkers a fascinating aim, and after many centuries of arduous research men have arrived at a fair understanding of the functions of its organs and senses. Again, in all the perfect harmony of its parts, of the parts which constitute the material or tangible of our being, of all its organs and senses, the eye is the most wonderful.
It is the most precious, the most indispensable of our perceptive or directive organs, it is the great gateway through which all knowledge enters the mind. Of all our organs, it is the one, which is in the most intimate relation with that which we call intellect. So intimate is this relation, that it is often said, the very soul shows itself in the eye.
It can he taken as a fact, which the theory of the action of the eye implies, that for each external impression, that is, for each image produced upon the retina, the ends of the visual nerves, concerned in the conveyance of the impression to the mind, must be under a peculiar stress or in a vibratory state. It now does not seem improbable that, when by the power of thought an image is evoked, a distinct reflex action, no matter how weak, is exerted upon certain ends of the visual nerves, and therefore upon the retina.
Will it ever be within human power to analyze the condition of the retina when disturbed by thought or reflex action, by the help of some optical or other means of such sensitiveness, that a clear idea of its state might be gained at any time 2 If this were possible, then the problem of reading one's thoughts with precision, like the characters of an open book, might be much easier to solve than many problems belonging to the domain of positive physical science, in the solution of which many, if not the majority, of scientific men implicitly believe.
Helmholtz, has shown that the fundi of the eye are themselves, luminous, and he was able to see, in total darkness, the movement of his arm by the light of his own eyes. This is one of the most remarkable experiments recorded in the history of science, and probably only a few men could satisfactorily repeat it, for it is very likely, that the luminosity of the eyes is associated with uncommon activity of the brain and great imaginative power. It is fluorescence of brain action, as it were.
Another fact having a bearing on this subject which has probably been noted by many, since it is stated in popular expressions, but which I cannot recollect to have found chronicled as a positive result of observation is, that at times, when a sudden idea or image presents itself to the intellect, there is a distinct and sometimes painful sensation of luminosity produced in the eye, observable even in broad daylight.
The saying then, that the soul shows itself in the eye, is deeply founded, and we feel that it expresses a great truth. It has a profound meaning even for one who, like a poet or artist, only following his inborn instinct or love for Nature, finds delight in aimless thoughts and in the mere contemplation of natural phenomena, but a still more profound meaning for one who, in the spirit of positive scientific investigation, seeks to ascertain the causes of the effects. It is principally the natural philospher, the physicist, for whom the eye is the subject of the most intense admiration.
Two facts about the eye must forcibly impress the mind of the physicist, notwithstanding he may think or say that it is an imperfect optical instrument, forgetting, that the very conception of that which is perfect or seems so to him, has been gained through this same instrument. First, the eye is, as far as our positive knowledge goes, the only organ which is directly affected by that subtile medium, which as science teaches us, must fill all space ; secondly, it is the most sensitive of our organs, incomparably more sensitive to external impressions than any other.
The organ of hearing implies the impact of ponderable bodies, the organ of smell the transference of detached material particles, and the organs of taste, and of touch or force, the direct contact, or at least some interference of ponderable matter, and this is true even in those instances of animal organisms, in which some of these organs are developed to a degree of truly marvelous perfection.
This being so, it seems wonderful that the organ of sight solely should be capable of being stirred by that, which all our other organs are powerless to detect, yet which plays an essential part in all natural phenomena, which transmits all energy and sustains all motion and, that most intricate of all, life, but which has properties such that even a scientifically trained mind cannot help drawing a distinction between it and all that is called matter.
Considering merely this, and the fact that the eye, by its marvelous power, widens our otherwise very narrow range of perception far beyond the limits of the small world which is our own, to embrace myriads of other worlds, suns and stars in the infinite depths of the universe, would make it justifiable to assert, that it is an organ of a higher order. Its performances are beyond comprehension. Nature as far as we know never produced any thing more wonderful. We can get barely a faint idea of its prodigious power by analyzing what it does and by comparing.
When ether waves impinge upon the human body, they produce the sensations of warmth or cold, pleasure or pain, or perhaps other sensations of which we are not aware, and any degree or intensity of these sensations, which degrees are infinite in number, hence an infinite number of distinct sensations. But our sense of touch, or our sense of force, cannot reveal to us these differences in degree or intensity, unless they are very great. Now we can readily conceive how an organism, such as the human, in the eternal process of evolution, or more philosophically speaking, adaptation to Nature, being constrained to the use of only the sense of touch or force, for instance, might develop this sense to such a degree of senstiveness or perfection, that it would be capable of distinguishing the minutest differences in the temperature of a body even at some distance, to a hundredth, or thousandth, or millionth part of a degree.
Yet, even this apparently impossible performance would not begin to compare with that of the eye, which is capable of distinguishing and conveying to the mind in a single instant innumerable peculiarities of the body, be it in form, or color, or other respects. This power of the eye rests upon two things, namely, the rectilinear propagation of the disturbance by which it is effected, and upon its sensitiveness.
To say that the eye is sensitive is not saying anything. Compared with it, all other organs are monstrously crude. The organ of smell which guides a dog on the trail of a deer, the organ of touch or force which guides an -insect in its wanderings, the organ of hearing, which is affected by the slightest disturbances of the air, are sensitive organs, to be sure, but what are they compared with the human eye ! No doubt it responds to the faintest echoes or reverberations of the medium ; no doubt, it brings us tidings from other worlds, infinitely remote, but in a language we cannot as yet always understand. And why not ? Because we live in a medium filled with air and other gases, vapors and a dense mass of solid particles flying about.
These play an important part in many phenomena ; they fritter away the energy of the vibrations before they can reach the eye ; they too, are the carriers of germs of destruction, they get into our lungs and other organs, clog up the channels and imperceptibly, yet inevitably, arrest the stream of life. Could we but do away with all ponderable matter in the line of sight of the telescope, it would reveal to us undreamt of marvels. Even the unaided eye, I think, would be capable of distinguishing in the pure medium, small objects at distances measured probably by hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles.
But there is something else about the eye which impresses us still more than these wonderful features which we observed, viewing it from the standpoint of a physicist, merely as an optical instrument, something which appeals to us more than its marvelous faculty of being directly affected by the vibrations of the medium, without interference of gross matter, and more than its inconceivable sensitiveness and discerning power. It is its significance in the processes of life. No matter what one's views oh nature and life may be, he must stand amazed when, for the first time in his thoughts, he realizes the importance of the eye in the physical processes and mental performances of the human organism. And how could it be otherwise, when he realizes, that the eye is the means through which the human race has acquired the entire knowledge it possesses, that it controls all our motions, more still, all our actions.
There is no way of acquiring knowledge except through the eye. What is the foundation of all philosophical systems of ancient and modern times, in fact, of all the philosophy of man I think, therefore I'm. But how could I think and how would I know that I exist, if I had not the eye ? For knowledge involves consciousness ; consciousness involves ideas, conceptions ; conceptions involve pictures or images, and images the sense of vision, and therefore the organ of sight. But how about blind men, will be asked ?
Yes, a blind man may depict in magnificent poems, forms and scenes from real life, from a world he physically does not see. A blind man may touch the keys of an instrument with unerring precision, may model the fastest boat, may discover and invent, calculate and construct, may do still greater wonders but all the blind men who have done such things have descended from those who had seeing eyes. Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times, may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature, as when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance,- and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a Universe.
It is not necessary that every individual, not even that every generation or many generations, should have the physical instrument of sight, in order to be able to form images and to think, that is, form ideas or conceptions ; but sometime or other, during the process of evolution, the eye certainly must have existed, else thought, as we understand it, would be impossible ; else conceptions, like spirit, intellect, mind, call it as you may, could not exist. It is conceivable, that in some other world, in some other beings, the eye is replaced by a different organ, equally or more perfect, but these beings cannot be men.
Now what prompts us all to voluntary motions and actions of any kind ? Again the eye. If I am conscious of the motion, I must have an idea or conception, that is, an image, therefore the eye. If I am not precisely conscious of the motion, it is, because the images are vague or indistinct, being blurred by the superimposition of many. But when I perform the motion, does the impulse which prompts me to the action come from within or from without ? The greatest physicists have not disdained to endeavor to answer this and similar questions and have at times abandoned themselves to the delights of pure and unrestrained thought. Such questions are generally considered not to belong to the realm of positive physical science, but will before long be annexed to its domain. Helmholtz has probably thought more on life than any modern scientist.
Lord Kelvin expressed his belief that life's process is electrical and that there is a force inherent to the organism and determining its motions. Just as much as I am convinced of any physical truth I am convinced that the motive impulse must come from the outside. For, consider the lowest organism we know and there are probably many lower ones an aggregation of a few cells only.' If it is capable of voluntary motion it can perform an infinite number of motions, all definite and precise. But now a mechanism consisting of a finite number of parts and few at that, cannot perform an infinite number of definite motions, hence the impulses which govern its movements must come from the environment.
So, the atom, the ulterior element of the Universe's structure, is tossed about in space, eternally, a play to external influences, like a boat in a troubled sea. Were it to stop its motion it would die. Matter at rest, if such a thing could exist, would be matter dead. Death of matter ! Never has a sentence of deeper philosophical meaning been uttered.
This is the way in which Prof. Dewar forcibly expresses it in the description of his admirable experiments, in which liquid oxygen is handled as one handles water, and air at ordinary pressure is made to condense and even to solidify by the intense cold. Experiments, which serve to illustrate, in his language, the last feeble manifestations of life, the last quiverings of matter about to die. But human eyes shall not witness such death. There is no death of matter, for throughout the infinite universe, all has to move, to vibrate, that is, to live.
I have made the preceding statements at the peril of treading upon metaphysical ground, in my desire to introduce the subject of this lecture in a manner not altogether uninteresting, I may hope, to an audience such as I have the honor to address. But now, then, returning to the subject, this divine organ of sight, this indispensable instrument for thought and all intellectual enjoyment, which lays open to us the marvels of this universe, through which we have acquired what knowledge we possess, and which prompts us to, and controls, all our physical and mental activity. By what is it affected? By light ! What is light ?
Tesla then goes on to discuss the nature of light!
Quite long but worth a read.
THE INVENTIONS
RESEARCHES AND WRITINGS
OF
NIKOLA TESLA
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE PHILADELPHIA AND ST. Louis LECTURE.
ON LIGHT AND OTHER HIGH FREQUENCY PHENOMENA,
FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1893.
INTRODUCTORY. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EYE.
WHEN we look at the world around us, on Nature, we are impressed with its beauty and grandeur. Each thing we perceive, though it may be vanishingly small, is in itself a world, that is, like the whole of the universe, matter and force governed by law, a world, the contemplation of which fills us with feelings of wonder and irresistibly urges us to ceaseless thought and inquiry.
But in all this vast world, of all objects our senses reveal to us, the most marvellous, the most appealing to our imagination, appears no doubt a highly developed organism, a thinking being. If there is anything fitted to make us admire Nature's handiwork, it is certainly this inconceivable structure, which performs its innumerable motions of obedience to external influence.
To understand its workings, to get a deeper insight into this Nature's masterpiece, has ever been for thinkers a fascinating aim, and after many centuries of arduous research men have arrived at a fair understanding of the functions of its organs and senses. Again, in all the perfect harmony of its parts, of the parts which constitute the material or tangible of our being, of all its organs and senses, the eye is the most wonderful.
It is the most precious, the most indispensable of our perceptive or directive organs, it is the great gateway through which all knowledge enters the mind. Of all our organs, it is the one, which is in the most intimate relation with that which we call intellect. So intimate is this relation, that it is often said, the very soul shows itself in the eye.
It can he taken as a fact, which the theory of the action of the eye implies, that for each external impression, that is, for each image produced upon the retina, the ends of the visual nerves, concerned in the conveyance of the impression to the mind, must be under a peculiar stress or in a vibratory state. It now does not seem improbable that, when by the power of thought an image is evoked, a distinct reflex action, no matter how weak, is exerted upon certain ends of the visual nerves, and therefore upon the retina.
Will it ever be within human power to analyze the condition of the retina when disturbed by thought or reflex action, by the help of some optical or other means of such sensitiveness, that a clear idea of its state might be gained at any time 2 If this were possible, then the problem of reading one's thoughts with precision, like the characters of an open book, might be much easier to solve than many problems belonging to the domain of positive physical science, in the solution of which many, if not the majority, of scientific men implicitly believe.
Helmholtz, has shown that the fundi of the eye are themselves, luminous, and he was able to see, in total darkness, the movement of his arm by the light of his own eyes. This is one of the most remarkable experiments recorded in the history of science, and probably only a few men could satisfactorily repeat it, for it is very likely, that the luminosity of the eyes is associated with uncommon activity of the brain and great imaginative power. It is fluorescence of brain action, as it were.
Another fact having a bearing on this subject which has probably been noted by many, since it is stated in popular expressions, but which I cannot recollect to have found chronicled as a positive result of observation is, that at times, when a sudden idea or image presents itself to the intellect, there is a distinct and sometimes painful sensation of luminosity produced in the eye, observable even in broad daylight.
The saying then, that the soul shows itself in the eye, is deeply founded, and we feel that it expresses a great truth. It has a profound meaning even for one who, like a poet or artist, only following his inborn instinct or love for Nature, finds delight in aimless thoughts and in the mere contemplation of natural phenomena, but a still more profound meaning for one who, in the spirit of positive scientific investigation, seeks to ascertain the causes of the effects. It is principally the natural philospher, the physicist, for whom the eye is the subject of the most intense admiration.
Two facts about the eye must forcibly impress the mind of the physicist, notwithstanding he may think or say that it is an imperfect optical instrument, forgetting, that the very conception of that which is perfect or seems so to him, has been gained through this same instrument. First, the eye is, as far as our positive knowledge goes, the only organ which is directly affected by that subtile medium, which as science teaches us, must fill all space ; secondly, it is the most sensitive of our organs, incomparably more sensitive to external impressions than any other.
The organ of hearing implies the impact of ponderable bodies, the organ of smell the transference of detached material particles, and the organs of taste, and of touch or force, the direct contact, or at least some interference of ponderable matter, and this is true even in those instances of animal organisms, in which some of these organs are developed to a degree of truly marvelous perfection.
This being so, it seems wonderful that the organ of sight solely should be capable of being stirred by that, which all our other organs are powerless to detect, yet which plays an essential part in all natural phenomena, which transmits all energy and sustains all motion and, that most intricate of all, life, but which has properties such that even a scientifically trained mind cannot help drawing a distinction between it and all that is called matter.
Considering merely this, and the fact that the eye, by its marvelous power, widens our otherwise very narrow range of perception far beyond the limits of the small world which is our own, to embrace myriads of other worlds, suns and stars in the infinite depths of the universe, would make it justifiable to assert, that it is an organ of a higher order. Its performances are beyond comprehension. Nature as far as we know never produced any thing more wonderful. We can get barely a faint idea of its prodigious power by analyzing what it does and by comparing.
When ether waves impinge upon the human body, they produce the sensations of warmth or cold, pleasure or pain, or perhaps other sensations of which we are not aware, and any degree or intensity of these sensations, which degrees are infinite in number, hence an infinite number of distinct sensations. But our sense of touch, or our sense of force, cannot reveal to us these differences in degree or intensity, unless they are very great. Now we can readily conceive how an organism, such as the human, in the eternal process of evolution, or more philosophically speaking, adaptation to Nature, being constrained to the use of only the sense of touch or force, for instance, might develop this sense to such a degree of senstiveness or perfection, that it would be capable of distinguishing the minutest differences in the temperature of a body even at some distance, to a hundredth, or thousandth, or millionth part of a degree.
Yet, even this apparently impossible performance would not begin to compare with that of the eye, which is capable of distinguishing and conveying to the mind in a single instant innumerable peculiarities of the body, be it in form, or color, or other respects. This power of the eye rests upon two things, namely, the rectilinear propagation of the disturbance by which it is effected, and upon its sensitiveness.
To say that the eye is sensitive is not saying anything. Compared with it, all other organs are monstrously crude. The organ of smell which guides a dog on the trail of a deer, the organ of touch or force which guides an -insect in its wanderings, the organ of hearing, which is affected by the slightest disturbances of the air, are sensitive organs, to be sure, but what are they compared with the human eye ! No doubt it responds to the faintest echoes or reverberations of the medium ; no doubt, it brings us tidings from other worlds, infinitely remote, but in a language we cannot as yet always understand. And why not ? Because we live in a medium filled with air and other gases, vapors and a dense mass of solid particles flying about.
These play an important part in many phenomena ; they fritter away the energy of the vibrations before they can reach the eye ; they too, are the carriers of germs of destruction, they get into our lungs and other organs, clog up the channels and imperceptibly, yet inevitably, arrest the stream of life. Could we but do away with all ponderable matter in the line of sight of the telescope, it would reveal to us undreamt of marvels. Even the unaided eye, I think, would be capable of distinguishing in the pure medium, small objects at distances measured probably by hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles.
But there is something else about the eye which impresses us still more than these wonderful features which we observed, viewing it from the standpoint of a physicist, merely as an optical instrument, something which appeals to us more than its marvelous faculty of being directly affected by the vibrations of the medium, without interference of gross matter, and more than its inconceivable sensitiveness and discerning power. It is its significance in the processes of life. No matter what one's views oh nature and life may be, he must stand amazed when, for the first time in his thoughts, he realizes the importance of the eye in the physical processes and mental performances of the human organism. And how could it be otherwise, when he realizes, that the eye is the means through which the human race has acquired the entire knowledge it possesses, that it controls all our motions, more still, all our actions.
There is no way of acquiring knowledge except through the eye. What is the foundation of all philosophical systems of ancient and modern times, in fact, of all the philosophy of man I think, therefore I'm. But how could I think and how would I know that I exist, if I had not the eye ? For knowledge involves consciousness ; consciousness involves ideas, conceptions ; conceptions involve pictures or images, and images the sense of vision, and therefore the organ of sight. But how about blind men, will be asked ?
Yes, a blind man may depict in magnificent poems, forms and scenes from real life, from a world he physically does not see. A blind man may touch the keys of an instrument with unerring precision, may model the fastest boat, may discover and invent, calculate and construct, may do still greater wonders but all the blind men who have done such things have descended from those who had seeing eyes. Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times, may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature, as when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance,- and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a Universe.
It is not necessary that every individual, not even that every generation or many generations, should have the physical instrument of sight, in order to be able to form images and to think, that is, form ideas or conceptions ; but sometime or other, during the process of evolution, the eye certainly must have existed, else thought, as we understand it, would be impossible ; else conceptions, like spirit, intellect, mind, call it as you may, could not exist. It is conceivable, that in some other world, in some other beings, the eye is replaced by a different organ, equally or more perfect, but these beings cannot be men.
Now what prompts us all to voluntary motions and actions of any kind ? Again the eye. If I am conscious of the motion, I must have an idea or conception, that is, an image, therefore the eye. If I am not precisely conscious of the motion, it is, because the images are vague or indistinct, being blurred by the superimposition of many. But when I perform the motion, does the impulse which prompts me to the action come from within or from without ? The greatest physicists have not disdained to endeavor to answer this and similar questions and have at times abandoned themselves to the delights of pure and unrestrained thought. Such questions are generally considered not to belong to the realm of positive physical science, but will before long be annexed to its domain. Helmholtz has probably thought more on life than any modern scientist.
Lord Kelvin expressed his belief that life's process is electrical and that there is a force inherent to the organism and determining its motions. Just as much as I am convinced of any physical truth I am convinced that the motive impulse must come from the outside. For, consider the lowest organism we know and there are probably many lower ones an aggregation of a few cells only.' If it is capable of voluntary motion it can perform an infinite number of motions, all definite and precise. But now a mechanism consisting of a finite number of parts and few at that, cannot perform an infinite number of definite motions, hence the impulses which govern its movements must come from the environment.
So, the atom, the ulterior element of the Universe's structure, is tossed about in space, eternally, a play to external influences, like a boat in a troubled sea. Were it to stop its motion it would die. Matter at rest, if such a thing could exist, would be matter dead. Death of matter ! Never has a sentence of deeper philosophical meaning been uttered.
This is the way in which Prof. Dewar forcibly expresses it in the description of his admirable experiments, in which liquid oxygen is handled as one handles water, and air at ordinary pressure is made to condense and even to solidify by the intense cold. Experiments, which serve to illustrate, in his language, the last feeble manifestations of life, the last quiverings of matter about to die. But human eyes shall not witness such death. There is no death of matter, for throughout the infinite universe, all has to move, to vibrate, that is, to live.
I have made the preceding statements at the peril of treading upon metaphysical ground, in my desire to introduce the subject of this lecture in a manner not altogether uninteresting, I may hope, to an audience such as I have the honor to address. But now, then, returning to the subject, this divine organ of sight, this indispensable instrument for thought and all intellectual enjoyment, which lays open to us the marvels of this universe, through which we have acquired what knowledge we possess, and which prompts us to, and controls, all our physical and mental activity. By what is it affected? By light ! What is light ?
Tesla then goes on to discuss the nature of light!