Like any great movie scientist or Bond villain, any self-respecting science god requires a secret laboratory — preferably one located in some remote locale and bristling with mad machines. Tesla had two.
In 1899, Tesla constructed a lab in Colorado Springs, Colo., to delve into the mysteries of high voltage and high frequency electricity [sources: Jonnes; PBS; Vujovic]. In one experiment, a 42-foot (12.8-meter) metal mast drove huge electrical impulses into the ground; in another, a Tesla coil shot 100-foot (30.5-meter) arcs of electricity across the room. The latter’s surge blew out the electric company’s dynamo and cast Colorado Springs into darkness [sources: Jonnes; PBS].
While at Colorado Springs, Tesla proved the existence of terrestrial stationary waves — a means by which the Earth could conduct energy at certain electrical frequencies — by illuminating 200 lamps from 25 miles (40 kilometers) away [sources: PBS; Vujovic]. As far as we know (contrary to the film “The Prestige”), he never worked on human teleportation.
Tesla later built his second secret lab, Wardenclyffe, closer to his Manhattan home. The Shoreham, Long Island, facility featured a 50-ton, 187-foot-high (45,000-kilogram, 57-meter-high) transmitting tower above a 120-foot-deep (36.6-meter-deep) well, along with 16 iron pipes sunk 300 feet (91.4 meters) deeper. Tesla planned to transmit power through the planet, using the rods to “get a grip of the Earth … so that the whole of this globe can quiver.” [sources: Greenfieldboyce; Jonnes; PBS].
