THE HACK: TESLA COIL

When you think of Tesla, think BIG

He thought, let's say, what would happen if I send an electrical charge into the ground? Well, the ground is an excellent conductor of electricity. But, let me spend a moment on this, so you understand, because topsoil doesn't seem conductive to most. This is why you "ground" your power tools. The third (round) pin in every AC outlet is wired, literally, to the ground.

Typically, the handle of your power tools is hooked to ground this way, so if something shorts out in the tool, and the handle gets electrified, the current rushes to the ground instead into you. The ground has long been used in this manner, as a conductor.

What Tesla did that day in Colorado Springs is really mind-blowing. He generated a powerful pulse of electricity and drained it into the ground. Because the ground is conductive, the pulse didn't stop. Rather, it spread out like a radio wave, traveling at the speed of light, 186000 miles per second.

And the powerful wave kept going...

It passed through the iron core of the earth with no trouble at all. Then it reached the far side of the planet, and - bounced back! It may sound like science-fiction but remember that we bounced radar beams off the Moon in the fifties, and we mapped Venus by radar in the seventies. And those planets are millions of miles away. The Earth is, merely, 3000 miles in diameter. Sending an electromagnetic wave through it is a piece of cake.

And then, he had one of his typically Tesla ideas.

He thought: when the wave returns to me (after 1/30th of a second later) it would be considerably weakened by the trip. Why don't I send another charge at this point, to strenghten the wave? The two will combine, go out, and bounce back again. And then I'll reinforce it again.
And again.
And again.

And he did it. It's like pushing a swingset. You give a series of small pushes each time a swing goes out. And you build a lot of power with the series of small pushes.  Ever tried to stop a swing when its going full tilt? Tesla wanted to find out the full limit of resonance. And he was in for a surprise.