This one is based on concrete fact. Tesla did patent and invent a device he called an “electromechanical oscillator.” He hypothesized that, as all material in the Universe possesses a “resonance frequency” unique to itself, this property can be manipulated. His device was meant to produce a mechanical resonance matching that of any object.
The events surrounding this invention are legendary among conspiracy theorists. Tesla built a laboratory at 46 East Houston St., in Manhattan, and one day while experimenting with his mechanical oscillator, he allegedly matched it to the resonance frequency of the building he was in. All the nearby buildings were made of the same materials, mostly brick and wood, and much less sturdy than modern steel and concrete structures. The machine got stuck in the On position, and while he tried to turn it off, the buildings all around 46 E. Houston began to shake, more and more violently, until residents called the police to report an earthquake. Some were near enough to hear the machine and tracked down its bass, vibrating noise to a room, kicked in the door, and found Tesla banging away at the machine with a sledgehammer, frantically trying to destroy it. He succeeded just as they reached him, the noise stopped, the shaking stopped, and the buildings stilled.
The machine had yet to cause damage to any of them, but Tesla wrote letters to various business interests declaring that had he left it on for another minute or so, the walls would have started to crack, and the buildings would have collapsed.
This anecdote may not be true. Tesla claims it to be in writings, but skeptics doubt whether he was telling the truth, or whether the writings are forgeries. This conspiracy theory became so prominent that it made it onto an episode of “Mythbusters.” The machine was built according to Tesla’s specifications, switched on and used to try to bring down a bridge. The mechanical resonance theory proved true: an “I” beam began to oscillate until it was waving like a pendulum, 16 feet with each oscillation, but the bridge did not appear to weaken or shake violently, and no damage was reported. But the experiment failed to consider the building materials of Tesla’s day.
This theory has a magnificent corroboration in the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, in 1940. It was filmed and well documented by many witnesses, that on November 7, the Bridge began to wave and sway so violently that it resembled the slithering of a snake. No vibrating sound was heard, and the wind was blamed by scientists for blowing over and under the Bridge at the Bridge’s precise mechanical resonance. What happened is legendary: the film of the Bridge collapsing can be found on YouTube, among other websites. The whole structure snapped apart and plummeted in pieces into Puget Sound. Architects and engineers are taught this lesson around the world, now.
Conspiracy theorists have also questioned whether the Mythbusters show designed the device correctly. The fact that no one is busy building the device and using it for the purpose of terrorism is cause to believe that although the patent exists, and there are schematics available for free on the Internet, the U. S. government must have hoarded Tesla’s invention at his death, when the FBI broke into his NY apartment and stole all his work from his safe. This is true, and the FBI still refuses to publish any of these works. The electromechanical oscillator is sure to be among them.
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