Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson

“We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly irrespective of distance,” Tesla wrote in the Century article. “Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face.” That word: television. In 1900.

He did not know why this was the case. Nor had he found, yet, a persuasive explanation for why sunlight so distorted communication, though he was “inclined to believe” in a theory recently put forth by physicist J. J. Thomson, that “the portion of the earth’s atmosphere which is facing the sun will contain more ions or electrons than that portion which is in darkness” and therefore absorb energy from the waves being transmitted. He had found too that sunrise and sunset were times of especially acute distortion. “It would almost appear as if electric waves in passing from dark space to illuminated space, and vice versa, were reflected or refracted in such a manner as to be deviated from their normal path.”