Like most of Nikola Tesla's inventions, this one is also shrouded in “veils of mystery”. There is very little exact information about him, more rumors, legends and guesses. Nevertheless, the device was created and bore the name "Oscillator of Oscillations" (electromechanical oscillator) or in another way - the Earthquake Machine.
Tesla's oscillating resonator.
The device was not the first to use resonance effects. Tesla, even when he was working for his future "blood enemy" Thomas Edison, conducted a number of experiments with different types of resonance: acoustic, electrical, magnetic and mechanical. At the same time, Tesla used the principles of operation of many devices that had already been invented, for example, a jackhammer.
Tesla's oscillator, which he showed at the 1893 World's Fair.
The Columbus Egg electromagnetic resonator was presented and shown by Nicola at an exhibition in 1893, where he also gave a series of lectures on the manifestation of mechanical resonance: he demonstrated diagrams and drawings of an electromechanical device he invented.
Of course, Tesla set himself tasks of the highest level, and he could not talk about failed experiments. Probably this can explain the rumors that arose in the print media of the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
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A number of publications describe the story that Tesla told during his interview: “Tesla tells the story of an earthquake created by a mechanical oscillator in his laboratory in New York in 1898, as a result of which the police nearly detained him. Police officers broke into the lab just in time to see Tesla swing a sledgehammer and destroy a small mechanism that was located on the beam. The inventor found that the earthquake that attracted everyone: police and paramedics to his laboratory in 1898, was caused by the operation of this small device with which he was conducting research.
Later Tesla also said that "using this principle, you can divide the earth in half, like an apple."
Modern "naturalists" and "homemade" many times tried to recreate this device, especially since the drawings and diagrams have survived. But the assembled mechanisms, despite the fact that they were built, were not able to change the amplitude and period of oscillations, but worked only at a certain, given frequency. And this was not enough to evoke "destructive power".
This is the conclusion reached by the famous "Mythbusters", who tried to create the "Earthquake Machine" in one of their programs. "Myth is destroyed"? But Tesla was a genius, what if he really succeeded?
