On Radiant Matter

New York American November 1st, 1933
Device to Harness Cosmic Energy Claimed by Tesla:

"This new power for the driving of the world's machinery will be derived from the energy which operates the universe, the cosmic energy, whose central source for the earth is the sun and which is everywhere present in unlimited quantities."

Tesla's free-energy concept was patented in 1901 as an "Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy." The patent refers to "the sun, as well as other sources of radiant energy, like cosmic rays," that the device works at night is explained in terms of the night-time availability of cosmic rays. Tesla also refers to the ground as "a vast reservoir of negative electricity."

Tesla was fascinated by radiant energy and its free-energy possibilities. He called the Crooke's radiometer, a device which has vanes that spin in a vacuum when exposed to radiant energy "a beautiful invention." He believed that it would become possible to harness energy directly by " connecting to the very wheel-work of nature." On his 76th birthday at his yearly ritual press conference, Tesla announced a "cosmic-ray motor" when asked if it was more powerful than the Crooke's radiometer, he answered, "thousands of times more powerful."

In 1901 Nikola Tesla was one the first to identify "radiant energy." Tesla says that the source of this energy is our Sun. He concluded that the Sun emits small particles, each carrying so small of a charge, that they move with great velocity, exceeding that of light. Tesla further states that these particles are the neutron particles. Tesla believed that these neutron particles were responsible for all radioactive reactions. Radiant matter is in tune with these neutron particles. Radiant matter is simply a re-transmitter of energy from one state to another.
http://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/tesla-flying-machine/Tesla-aether-dark-radiant-energy.php

I think that Tesla's neutron particles are the most finite particle in the Universe, and I think that they have something to do with carbon; carbon particles which I suspect make up the electric fluid of the aether. Tesla seems convinced that it is these particles which turn the vanes inside a Crookes' radiometer, and which he identifies as "radiant energy".

A Crookes' radiometer has four vanes suspended inside a glass bulb. The vanes are polished or white on one side, black on the other. Inside the bulb, there is a good vacuum. When you shine a light on the vanes in the radiometer they spin, and in bright sunlight they can spin at several thousand rotations per minute.



British physicist William Crookes had invented the radiometer in 1875. It followed his early experiments on cathode rays using a cathode ray tube, also known as a Crookes tube. I think Tesla's radiant energy speaks of neutron particles which make up the aether. I wonder if radiant energy has anything to do with Crookes ideas of "radiant matter".

"On Radiant Matter" was a paper written by Crookes. I'm reading from the original paper of a lecture delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Sheffield, Friday , August 22, 1879. The original paper can be found here, thanks to:
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com/Library/SirWilliamCrookes/index.htm

The start of the paper makes the observation that it was Faraday, around sixty years previously in 1816, whom "first employs the expression radiant matter" :

"If now we conceive a change as far beyond vaporisation as that is above fluidity, and then take into account also the proportional increased extent of alteration as the changes rise, we shall perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not fall far short of radiant matter; and as in the last conversion many qualities were lost, so here also many more would disappear."

Three years later in 1819 Faraday goes on to hint at what the substance might be:

"Matter classed into four states solid, liquid, gaseous, and radiant which depend upon differences in the essential properties. [..] I have purposely avoided mentioning the radiant state of matter, because, [it is] purely hypothetical.."

So, it appears that radiant matter is the fourth state of matter, or as we know it better today - plasma. It was not until August 1928, that Irving Langmuir coined the term "plasma" to describe an ionized gas. Continuing with Crookes paper though, he starts to reveal more about his findings of radiant matter:

"...The residual gas - or as I prefer to call it the gaseous residue - within the dark space is in an entirely different state to that of the residual gas in vessels at a lower degree of exhaustion [vacuum].... "

Now, Crookes is making a distinction between "gaseous residue" and "residual gas", and the importance of this shall become more apparent as we go on. When Crookes talks of the "gaseous residue within the dark space" - I wonder what exactly he is getting at. A gaseous residue? It's very suggestive of something that resides in the tube once all the gas has gone.

"Radiant Matter exerts Powerful Phosphorgenic Action where it strikes - I have mentioned that the radiant matter within the dark space excites luminosity where its velocity is arrested by residual gas outside the dark space... "

Crookes mentions the "radiant matter within the dark space". Are we to believe that radiant matter is the dark space? But we can't very well have radiant matter, if there is no matter to radiate.

"There is one particular degree of exhaustion more favorable than any other for the development of the properties of radiant matter which are now under examination. Roughly speaking it may be put at the millionth of an atmosphere. At this degree of exhaustion the phosphorescence is very strong, and after that it begins to diminish until the spark refuses to pass."

What I'm trying to drive at is that Crookes uses the term radiant matter to describe what is happening both inside and outside the dark space, but on the same token, I'm pretty sure that he is aware of there being a difference between the two.

In a margin note, Crookes goes on to mention an intriguing experiment held 100 years previous to him. It was made by one Mr. William Morgan and revealed in a paper entitled "Electrical Experiments made to ascertain the Non-conducting Power of a Perfect Vacuum". Morgan was working on electric discharges in a "mercurial gage". In the course of these experiments a crack in the seal at one end of the gauge was revealed, and "in consequence the external air, by being admitted in to the inside, has gradually produced a change in the electric light from green to blue, from blue to indigo, and so on to violet and purple, till the medium has at length become so dense as no longer to be a conductor of electricity."

It sounds a little bit like Morgan is describing the colours of the rainbow inside the gauge. The air inside the gauge is working its way through colours of the rainbow as it becomes more dense. This appears to indicate that the shorter wavelengths of EMR, such as violet, are due to a higher density of gas. Does this mean that with a lower density of gas we move into the longer wavelengths of EMR, such as red? And a further line of inquiry might be - what role does density play in the composition of a gas?

Morgan also states that in a perfect vacuum "neither the smallest ray of light, nor the slightest charge, could ever be procured in the exhausted gage". He appears convinced of the "non-conducting power of a perfect volume", and that this is because "the particles of air may be so far seperated from each other as no longer to be able to transmit the electric fluid".

In section II, Crookes presents an experiment in which it is demonstrated that "radiant matter exerts strong mechanical action where it strikes." Built around 1879, and obviously influenced by the radiometer, the "railway tube" was a cathode ray tube with a paddlewheel inside. Supposedly, under the influence of cathode rays, the paddlewheel rotated and rolled down the rails from one end of the tube to the other. It was found that the paddlewheel turned in a direction away from the cathode. Crookes himself asserts that "the molecular stream from the negative pole is able to move any light object in front of it."



In 1903, J.J Thomson supposedly proved that the motion of the paddlewheel was actually caused by the "radiometer effect". I'm sorry, but I'm not totally convinced by the radiometer effect, because I don't hold with kinetic molecular theory. If I'm totally honest, I think these pioneering scientists purposefully pulled the wool over our eyes in order for that which is hidden to remain hidden. I believe that their reasons for doing this were destined to be for the greater good of humanity (and at times, I should imagine, this must have been very frustrating for them).

Humour me if you will, but let's all imagine that we're tapping our top-hats and polishing our monocles and that it's drawing to the end of the 19th C; let's all whip our moustaches into shape, take a horse-carriage to the lecture hall, nod and grumble to one another as we take our seats, and let's all gasp with childlike astonishment as we pretend the paddlewheel is being turned by radiant matter.

My thanks to all those down at the Physics Club in the Phyics Lab of Schmidt Schule - Jerusalem, for their Youtube video of a working Crookes railway tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM8TYe-PrnY&feature=related

I'm still trying to ascertain what exactly is turning the paddlewheel. Crookes tells us it is radiant matter which provides the force - but is it the radiant matter inside the dark space, or is it the radiant matter of the "molecular stream from the negative pole"? One hint perhaps is that the vacuum tube is "highly evacuated". Is it suggesting that inside the tube we have "gaseous residue" rather than "residual gas"? I also wanted to consider if this "molecular stream" could be particles torn off at the cathode. Are cathode rays physically made up from cathode particles?

In that old treasure trove known as Chestofbooks.com (where I quite often happen to chance upon some fabulous old worldy papers), I found sections belonging to the "Scientific American Supplement", which were entitled "Electricity In Transitu - From Plenum To Vacuum", and "Properties of Radiant Matter". These were written by Crookes, but I'm unsure which year. Inside, Crookes was determined to prove that cathode rays "are caused by the radiant matter of the residual gaseous molecules, and certainly not by the torn-off particles of the negative electrode." You can see the experiments he used to achieve this proof, here:
http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/scientific-american/sup6/Properties-Of-Radiant-Matter-Continued.html

I think that this is a very important point that Crookes is making. Radiant matter is not made up of cathode-electrode particles. Therefore cathode rays are not made up of cathode-electrode particles. If there's little residual gas inside the tube, and cathode rays are not emitted physically from the cathode - what then is moving out from the cathode and pushing the paddlewheel?

I've returned to Crookes and his paper, and the two radiometer experiments which follow the railway tube experiment. Crookes clearly states that it is when the "dark space extends to the glass" that the "rotation commences". So it would appear that it is radiant energy, rather than radiant matter, which is turning the vanes.

"The thickness of the dark space is the measure of the length of the path between successive collisions of the molecules. The extra velocity with which the molecules rebound from the excited negative pole keeps back the more slowly-moving molecules which are moving toward the pole. The conflict occurs at the boundary of the dark space where the luminous margin bears witness to the energy of the discharge."

So, it is in the boundary between dark space and molecular matter that we have conflict. It is in the "luminous margin" which one might perhaps deem more fit of the moniker "radiant matter". I think that the energy inside the dark space needs to be more closely identified.

The only place where there was no luminescence was just in front of the cathode. It is called “cathode dark space”, “Faraday dark space” or “Crookes dark space”. Continued reduction in pressure causes the dark space to expand, and the color at the electrodes to fade until the tube is dark, except for a faint green or violet glow around the anode. The sides of the tube fluoresce (usually green).

Cathode rays are so named because they belong to the cathode dark space. So that the cathode rays are able to emerge from the window, the cathode dark space has to reach the window. In order for the dark space to expand it has to be highly evacuated. Literally, there is nothing in the dark space but vacuum.

In 1892, Heinrich Hertz had found that a thin foil of aluminium could be penetrated by cathode rays. It was a student of Hertz - Philipp Lenard - who designed a tube with an aluminium "window" through which cathode rays could dart out into the open air. We are then told that the cathode rays outside the window are exactly the same as that to be found inside the dark space. I'm not so sure.

Indeed, I think a lack of terminology surrounding the cathode rays has led to a lot of confusion. It's like the term "cathode rays" is used as a blanket expression to describe energy inside the tube, and energy outside the tube, whereas perhaps, the two energies are different. A mix-up that might be better explained by saying that the cathode rays inside the tube belong to the vacuum, while the rays passing through the window are a property of matter.

Just as the glass converts the cathode dark space into X-rays, maybe the aluminium window is converting the dark space into what we percieve as cathode rays. Another way of writing it could be that the dark space converts the aluminium window into cathode rays, and by implication, it could be the paddlewheel which converts the dark space into cathode rays, or "radiant matter".

I'm now referring to a copy of Lenard's Nobel Lecture, May 28, 1906 - "On Cathode Rays". I hope I can gain some more answers on the nature of the dark space.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1905/lenard-lecture.pdf.

"I am pleased to fulfil my obligation as a Nobel Prize winner to talk to you here on cathode rays. I assume that you would prefer me to tell you what others could not tell you.

The start takes me back 26 years to Crookes. I had read his lecture on "radiating matter" - his term for cathode rays - and was greatly impressed by it.

It must be noted that the rays are not directly visible; it would be useless to put one’s eye to the window, as this organ is not receptive to cathode rays. On the other hand, materials that are capable of becoming luminous without heat, phosphorescent materials as they are called, are suitable for making the rays visible.

Straightaway we can decide whether cathode rays are phenomena that take place in matter or in the ether. When we completely evacuate a chamber by means of an air pump, it then does not contain any matter, only the ether, as present in the heavens. Now it has long been known for instance that sound cannot pass through such evacuated chambers, while light, and electrical and magnetic forces can. Thus there is no doubt that sound is a phenomenon in matter while light and electrical and magnetic forces are phenomena in the ether."

To try to prove cathode rays were a phenomenon of the aether, Lenard attached another evacuated tube to the window to collect any emitted cathode rays. This second chamber would allow Lenard to see if cathode rays could propagate in a vacuum:

"We had been unable to carry out the corresponding test in relation to cathode rays in the ordinary discharge tubes, because once all the air is removed the production of the rays in such a tube ceases. But, without interfering in the least with production, we were able to completely evacuate our observation chamber on the other side of the window and see whether despite this the cathode rays spread in this chamber."

Lenard's statement that cathode rays are not produced in a tube with all the air removed both surprised and confused me a little. Thomson's work on cathode rays involved using tubes with a near perfect vacuum; indeed, the less air the better. The reason that Lenard's statement is conflicting is because he is talking about the electrical properties of cathode rays. Cathode rays which make up the dark space need a perfect vacuum.

"We found that the propagation of the rays is particularly good in an extreme vacuum; all absorption and turbidity due to the gas molecules disappear, the rays attain lengths of several meters and are of such rectilinear sharpness as we are accustomed to find only in lightrays. Thus cathode rays are phenomena in the ether. In particular, on the basis of the hypotheses which we have mentioned, it could be stated that cathode rays were not radiating matter, nor emitted gas molecules, as they had come to be regarded, especially in England."

I'm starting to get some sense of what is happening. I don't know if you are confused, but I sure was for a while. I think it will help to make a clear distinction between cathode rays which belong to the dark space, and cathode rays which fulfil the properties of electricity in motion. I have started to think of the rays inside the dark space as "radiant energy", while those rays we see emerging from the luminous margin as "radiant matter".

I think those rays which appear from Lenard's window are radiant matter. I think the window is vibrating under the constant applied pressure of the aether as it passes through from inside the tube. I think that the aether tears apart atoms and rattles particles out of the aluminium window; it is these particles which we describe as being negative electricity.

"The smallness of the inertia determined - 1/1,000 of the inertia of the hydrogen ion, at an equal charge - and the other behaviour of these parts of the ether, made it easier to identify them with what had long been known as the "electrical fluidum"".

For the cathode rays to exist as the medium of the aether, they can't very well be the same size as something which makes up half the mass of an atom. Lenard chose to reduce the size of the cathode ray to represent something more affable in terms of his theory regarding the aether. A tiny cathode ray with a tiny charge would define the tiny component of the aether he was looking for. I might add that by implication this also reduced the size of the electron. Unfortunately though, this gives us the mis-guided idea that electricity is simply a flow of negatively charged atomic particles.

"The rays are not emitted electrically-charged molecules but simply streaming electricity. Thus, in cathode rays we have found under our very noses what we never believed we should see: electricity without material, electrical charges without charged bodies. We have, in a sense, discovered electricity itself, a thing whose existence or non-existence and whose properties have puzzled investigators since Gilbert and Franklin."

But what if the cathode ray is not the fundamental building block of the aether we have been looking for? We could toy with the idea that the electron is not tiny when compared to the atom, but rather, it is the size of something which is about half that of an atom. This gives the electron an enormous electric charge when compared to a hydrogen ion of the same mass.

In 1899 Thomson said "electrification essentially involves the splitting up of the atom, a part of the mass of the atom getting free and becoming detached from the original atom." I think he is hinting at what makes up the true shape and structure of an atom. Splitting the atom? That would make one half of the atom a proton, and the other half an electron.

In this new picture, the proton (hydrogen ion) and electron become two halves of the same atom. The proton and electron become dipolar vortices of an atomic torus; a smoke ring. Now a smoke ring has the fluid of the air moving through it - what then is the fluid which is moving through the atomic torus?

I'm suggesting that the electric charge becomes a property of matter only by being rubbed-up by the electric fluid of the aether. The high speed of the aether is slowed down by turning these vortices. The dipolar vortices offer-up a resistance to the aether, and in exchange they gain energy; of course, I think a singular vortex does the same thing.

The speed of light in a vacuum is not actually a speed, but is an applied constant pressure of the Universe. This is why whenever we examine isolated quantities of electricity they are always integral multiples of the electron. Everything turns under the same applied constant pressure - 300,000 cubic km per sec.

If the electron is actually half an atom, then I'm afraid that Lenard is still missing his "electrical fluidum" particle. But I don't think the particle of the aether is too far away. I don't think the aether particle is the electron leaving Lenard's window. I think that the aether particle is to be found on the other side of the window inside the cathode dark space, and it is this which is the residence of Tesla's "radiant energy".

Another reason Lenard was so convinced that the cathode ray was the same entity inside and outside the tube was because the velocity remained the same for both rays, around one third the velocity of light.

In 1898, Willy Wien finalised the results from his experiments on cathode rays outside the Lenard's window in his article "Annalen der Physik". Wien determined the velocity of the cathode ray particles and their mass-to-charge ratio with the help of crossed, electric and magnetic fields (Wien filter). This m/e ratio coincided with the m/e ratio discovered by Thomson for those cathode rays inside the tube.

The charge to mass ratio was the same for both rays, so it was assumed that the size of the rays was the same throughout. Well, perhaps the size of the ray does change. Maybe inside the tube we really do have the finite, and tiny particle of the aether - Thomson's "corpuscle" - Lord Kelvin's "electrion" - Tesla's "neutron" - making up the dark space inside the tube. And maybe outside Lenard's window we have large negative particles of matter; the negative half of an atom. A stream of these negative particles would explain how we manage to find "an electric current in the empty ether" inside the observation chamber. The aether is not completely empty, there is a stream of negative particles. The only thing which is constant throughout the observation of the rays is the applied constant pressure of the aether.

If the aether is splitting the atoms of Lenard's window, and we are seeing a stream of negative particles as electricity outside the tube - then what of the positive particle which makes up the other half of the atom? What's happened to the proton? If the (fat) electron appears outside the tube - is there evidence of protons inside the tube on the other side of the window? If the proton does dissolve into the dark space - why?

Also, shouldn't the velocity of the aether particle be faster than light, rather than one-third the velocity of light? According to Lenard, the variable velocity of the cathode rays is due to the "magnitude of the voltage". So increasing the pressure gradient between electrodes increases the cathode ray velocity. I don't know if it's relevant - but in regards to a weather system, an increase in the pressure gradient produces stronger winds.

So I think the ionized gas which we call "plasma" is the same thing that Crookes referred to as radiant matter. When negative charged particles pass through a gas they make it a conductor. The radiant energy of the dark space however produces no light or electricty without matter being present. The cathode dark space in itself is not a plasma.

I wanted to close this post by returning to Crookes paper "On Radiant Matter". Crookes ends his lecture talking about how many molecules from the air are needed to fill the vacuum inside the tube. He describes perforating a hole in the vacuum tube with a spark to allow the in-rush of air to destroy the vacuum. The hole is of such a "microscopial fineness" it only allows a hundred million molecules to enter ever second! At this rate, Crookes calculates that it would take a few hundred million years for the vacuum tube to be filled.

This leads Crookes to pose an interesting free-energy hypothesis, in that the "in-rush of air impinges against the vanes and sets them rotating after the manner of a windmill". Imagine that! Crookes though is quick to point out that it does not take hundreds of millions of years for the quadrillion molecules to fill the tube, but only a matter of minutes. It reminds me of an inflated rubber dinghy that is squashed and compressed, pushed through a hole and the cord pulled and the thing inflated again. Still, I think his idea can give us plenty of food for thought; speaking of which, I like what he says next:

"In studying this fourth state of matter we seem at length to have within our grasp and obedient to our control the little invisible particles which with good guarentee are supposed to constitute the physical basis of the Universe"

You may notice the startling similarities between this quote and the one laid down by Tesla at the top of this page. Crookes "fourth state of matter" appears to be the exact same thing as Tesla's "radiant energy".

Crookes himself ends the lecture with greatest of hopes for the future. It feels like Crookes understands that we stand on the precipice overlooking something monumental; that we stand on the border of ultimate understanding...

"Here it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, subtile, far-reaching, wonderful."

Many thanks:

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/aepinus_atomized.html
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0103-97331999000300002&script=sci_arttext
http://www.scitechantiques.com/MMs_project/reference%20paper/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C00EFDB163EE233A25752C2A9629C946697D6CF
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/El/Electrine.html
http://www.omikk.bme.hu/archivum/angol/htm/lenard_f.htm
http://kr.cs.ait.ac.th/~radok/physics/k9.htm
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com/Library/SirWilliamCrookes/index.htm
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/LightMill/light-mill.html
http://members.chello.nl/~h.dijkstra19/page7-3.html
0000000000000000002222222.howstuffworks.com/question239.htm
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/rays_and_particles.html