PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINES 269
Another loophole that is hotly being debated today is whether energy may spring from nothing.
ENERGY FROM THE VACUUM?
A tantalizing question is: Is it possible to extract energy from nothing?
Physicists have only recently realized that the "nothing" of the vacuum
is not empty at all, but teaming with activity.
One of the proponents of this idea was the eccentric genius of the
twentieth century Nikola Tesla, a worthy rival to Thomas Edison. He
was also one of the proponents of zero-point energy, that is, the idea
that the vacuum may possess untold quantities of energy. If true, the
vacuum would be the ultimate "free lunch," capable of providing unlimited energy literally from thin air. The vacuum, instead of being
considered empty and devoid of any matter, would be the ultimate
storehouse of energy.
Tesla was born in a small town in what is now Serbia and arrived
penniless in the United States in 1884. Soon he became an assistant to
Thomas Edison, but because of his brilliance, he became a rival. In a
celebrated contest, which historians dubbed "The War of the Currents," Tesla was pitted against Edison. Edison believed that he could
electrify the world with his direct current (DC) motors, while Tesla
was the originator of alternating current (AC) and successfully showed
that his methods were far superior to Edison's and incurred significantly less power loss over distance. Today the entire planet is electrified on the basis of the patents of Tesla, not Edison.
Tesla's inventions and patents number over seven hundred and
contain some of the most important milestones in modern electrical
history. Historians have made a credible case that Tesla invented radio
before Guglielmo Marconi (widely recognized as the inventor of radio)
and was working with X-rays before their official discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen. (Both Marconi and Roentgen would later win the Nobel Prize for discoveries probably made by Tesla years earlier.)
Tesla also believed that he could extract unlimited energy from the
Another loophole that is hotly being debated today is whether energy may spring from nothing.
ENERGY FROM THE VACUUM?
A tantalizing question is: Is it possible to extract energy from nothing?
Physicists have only recently realized that the "nothing" of the vacuum
is not empty at all, but teaming with activity.
One of the proponents of this idea was the eccentric genius of the
twentieth century Nikola Tesla, a worthy rival to Thomas Edison. He
was also one of the proponents of zero-point energy, that is, the idea
that the vacuum may possess untold quantities of energy. If true, the
vacuum would be the ultimate "free lunch," capable of providing unlimited energy literally from thin air. The vacuum, instead of being
considered empty and devoid of any matter, would be the ultimate
storehouse of energy.
Tesla was born in a small town in what is now Serbia and arrived
penniless in the United States in 1884. Soon he became an assistant to
Thomas Edison, but because of his brilliance, he became a rival. In a
celebrated contest, which historians dubbed "The War of the Currents," Tesla was pitted against Edison. Edison believed that he could
electrify the world with his direct current (DC) motors, while Tesla
was the originator of alternating current (AC) and successfully showed
that his methods were far superior to Edison's and incurred significantly less power loss over distance. Today the entire planet is electrified on the basis of the patents of Tesla, not Edison.
Tesla's inventions and patents number over seven hundred and
contain some of the most important milestones in modern electrical
history. Historians have made a credible case that Tesla invented radio
before Guglielmo Marconi (widely recognized as the inventor of radio)
and was working with X-rays before their official discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen. (Both Marconi and Roentgen would later win the Nobel Prize for discoveries probably made by Tesla years earlier.)
Tesla also believed that he could extract unlimited energy from the