could tesla's earthquake machine be used to move heavy objects, i.e. 2 ton block, across a room using vibrating resonance?

I'm sorry to say but

ADAM, SLOW THE HELL DOWN ON THIS ONE!!!

JAMIE WAS CLOSE TO SOMETHING!!!

You guys missed the entire concept!
If Jamie would have used a better version of the jack hammer with an actual air spring, and the whole apparratus was precisely tunable, it might have actually worked.

The real concept was lost however when Grant's oscillating devise was used, because it causes a Lateral wave instead of a primary wave.

I guarantee that Tesla had his machine on the structure of his building for several days if not months, tuning it slowly just to see what, if anything, might happen. That was his nature. He tinkered with things for the hell of it, and let many ideas loose, just to see what effect they might have. when something did make the grade, it was usually one out of hundreds that actually caused some phenomina, and he would expound upon it from there. The fact is that this occurance not only happened, but he felt it was important enough of an idea to keep pursueing.

If you were to conduct the experiment again, you must take into account that a primary wave travels through an object much different that a lateral wave.

Its not about shaking an object in a resonant frequency, but rather sending a pulsing sound wave through a material until it vibrates like a tuning fork.

I would recomend setting up a harmonic analyser to the structural beam, and striking it with a sledge hammer. this will give you an idea of what sound waves are doing throughout the entire structure. Then do the math to figure out what wave lengths stack up over the course of time to be in harmony with the majority of the others. keep in mind that it may take certain residual frequency peaks stacking up with initial peaks or other residual peaks, possibly several pulses later, to actually have some cognative effect.

Above all you must actually strike the structure to create a sound wave, not just vibrate the structure. Vibrations are lost due to all the cross supports that strengthen the structure. There are good reasons beyond weight load for this application, as seen in many of the structures built after the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed from harmonic resonance. One distict difference though is that it is a shockwake that permeates the structure as a form of expansion (Primary Wave) as opposed to a latteral movement (Lateral Wave).

I understand Tesla may be considered a visionary that was ridiculed by yhe people of his day, who really didn't understand what he was doing. But this is the same man who discovered the Ionosphere, Radar, Spark Gap Radio, Radio Controlled Robotics, X-Rays, Neon and Flourencent Lighting, AC Current, and still holds the record for the longest artificial lightning bolt at 135ft due to resonant frequencies of electricity so intense that, not only did he case mytheral blue flames to eminate frome the ground and cause metal objects to shock (minor electrocute) people, but he fried the grounding lead to the Colorado Springs Electrical Plant by over amping the ground potential itself. These are the proven things that he has done, not to mention his black box that ran on cosmo rays, the "Philidelphia Experiment," and the "Tunguska Event." He also predicted the use of what would now be realized as Cell Phones and Fax Machines, but he was to far ahead of his time to be taken seriously.

Frequency of oscillation must always change.
Exactly that difference Tesla machine from solenoid, or other used devices -

__Ability to tune swing of the pendulum__

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Sorry to my English.

I also think that one must steadily increase the frequency. You find a resonance frequency and then you steadily increase it in small increments over time, but you must find the right time and increment... Also making vibrations by actual force or sound will be different but i do believe that using both methods an result can be achieved, the only difference will be the type of structures that are most affected. I think that that experiment is worth redoing. Also Myth Busters may invite some scientists to help them in it, and build as close as possible to Tesla's machine, but Grant must help so it would be computer operated so the increments in the frequency are small enough.

I don't really care if there is computer controlled on put, though it might be usefull. What matters most is that, in the event this experiment is repeated, which it should be, The actual apparatus designed by Nikola Tesla should be recreated entirely as a whole devise, as well as actually using the pinging method of striking the structural framing with that devise to create primary waves as oppossed to laterall waves.

Also, it doesn't matter if the experiment is done on bed rock. Unles you plan on broadcasting the affects to near by areas that have nothing to do with the structure that is being tested.

Manmade earthquake

Tesla was fascinated with the power of resonance and experimented with it not only electrically but on the mechanical plane as well. In his Manhattan lab he built mechanical vibrators and tested their powers. One experiment got out of hand.

Tesla attached a powerful little vibrator driven by compressed air to a steel pillar. Leaving it there, he went about his business. Meanwhile, down the street, a violent quaking built up, shaking down plaster, bursting plumbing, cracking widows, and breaking heavy machinery off its anchorage. Tesla's vibrator had found the resonant frequency of a deep sandy layer of subsoil beneath his building, setting up an earthquake.

Soon Tesla's own building began to quake, and, just at the moment the police burst into the lab, Tesla was seen smashing the device with a sledgehammer, the only way he could promptly stop it. In a similar experiment, on an evening walk through the city, Tesla attached a battery-powered vibrator, described as being the size of an alarm clock, to the steel framework of a building under construction and, adjusting it to a suitable frequency, set the structure into resonant vibration. The structure shook, and so did the earth under his feet.

Later Tesla boasted that he could shake down the Empire State Building with such a device, and, as if this claim were not extravagant enough, he went on to state that a large-scale resonant vibration was capable of splitting the Earth in half. No details of Tesla's vibrators are available, but they probably resembled one of Tesla's reciprocating engines (such as Patent No. 511,916). These exploited the elasticity of gases, just as his electrical vibrators, like the Tesla coil, exploit the elasticity of the electric medium. See Tesla's Earthquake Machine for more.

Now here's my complaint:
When they built the scale model and put the non-scale oscillator in the building (the one they described to be the size of a car) and let it resonate, the building MOVED! They said that it world not have been like an earthquake but I JUST saw that the scale frame was moving at a maximum deflection of at least an inch. Scale that up and it's pretty serious. Now add solid concrete and glass... which would shatter! THERE is you earthquake!

You tested the magnetic oscilator on the wrong structure. Bridges are designed to take a Dymnamic Load, e.g. built to vibrate. All the cross bracing is designed to reduce the amplitude of vibration so the vehicles crossing the bridge don't shake it appart. You need to test it on a structure designed to take static loads, like a building, idealy one not built to CA earthquake standards. It still might not work like in Tesla's notes but I would expect a better result.
Arlen Aspenson
M.S. M.E

You resurrected the wrong thread. Use this thread to discuss this topic:

http://community.discovery.com...1967776/m/9501908969

Since Grant's oscillating devise worked on the steel bar, can energy be extracted from the steel bar? Maybe by attaching the ends of the bar to a piston of some sort. I am, obviously, a non technical guy just throwing out a possibily.

Everyone's feedback would be great appreciated.

Yes energy can be extracted from the bar.

Would you suggest a piston or something else...

Also, would the energy extracted approach the energy that Grant's oscillator consumes?

The energy that could be gathered would be far less than what the oscillator used and could never be extracted efficiently. The most efficient method would probably be a magnetic piston moving through a coil.

The idea he was working on had to do with making a steam power oscillator which would push a magnet thru a coil to make electricity much like a locomotive steam engine. The MythBusters team might also want to go to the "Nikola Tesla Museum of Science & Industry" which is in Colorado Springs. I've been there and they have the steam powered "earthquake machine" on display.

There is yet another thing that has been overlooked, two actually.

First, and most important, is that you need to place your driving force at an antinode for that specific frequency, otherwise the energy isn't optimally transfered. If placed at a node for the standing wave, nothing will happen at all. Also, for the most dramatic affects and quickest transfer of energy, everything should be driven at the fundamental mode, which has the larges amplitude of oscillation.

If there is still any doubt about whether or not resonance can take down a bridge, I suggest that you google the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

quote:

If there is still any doubt about whether or not resonance can take down a bridge, I suggest that you google the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Which [ironically] wasn't taken down by resonance.

Plus, even if it had, the wind provides significantly more energy than a small box can. By the end of the experiment, the bridge in the episode had reached equilibrium; the rate at which the mechanical energy was dissipated as quickly as the device produced it. It wasn't going to move any more violently.