| Back in New York, Tesla wrote an excellent article | | | | As construction continued it was clear Tesla would |
| for Century Magazine where he detailed his futuristic | | | | need more funding. Meanwhile, Marconi had signaled |
| vision. He described tapping the Sun's energy with an | | | | the letter "S" across the Atlantic from England to |
| antenna, he wrote how it would be possible to | | | | Newfoundland. Tesla was quick to remind Morgan |
| control the weather with electrical energy, and he | | | | that Marconi was working with 17 of his patents, but |
| explained how war would be impossible through the | | | | Morgan began to doubt Tesla and refused to give |
| use of machines. Most importantly he proposed a | | | | him any more money. To make things worse the |
| global system of wireless communications, which to | | | | stock market crashed doubling the cost of supplies |
| most was unimaginable, but Tesla as always, was not | | | | Tesla would need to complete his project. In 1905 |
| to be underestimated. | | | | after several truly amazing electrical displays, Tesla |
| The article caught J.P. Morgan's attention and at the | | | | and his team had to abandon the project forever. |
| time he was one of the most powerful men in the | | | | The newspapers labeled it, "Tesla's million dollar folly." |
| world. He frequently had Tesla to his home as a | | | | Humiliated and defeated, Tesla had a complete |
| dinner guest and listened to his description of a | | | | nervous breakdown protesting, "It's not a dream!" he |
| "world system" where wireless communications would | | | | concluded, "It is a simple feat of scientific electrical |
| be able to send news, music, stock market | | | | engineering, that happens to be expensive." |
| information, private messages, military information, | | | | Disgusted with the blind, faint-heated, doubting world, |
| and even pictures to anywhere in the world. The | | | | Tesla was now penniless and without any backers. |
| Earth would act as a brain capable of response in | | | | In 1909 Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for his |
| every one of its parts, Tesla told Morgan. Morgan | | | | development of the radio, and from that point on |
| offered up $150,000 to Tesla, which he would need | | | | was referred to in history books as "the father of |
| in the realm of $1,000,000 but never less accepted | | | | radio." In fact, there were many contributors to radio |
| and began work on a station located on the Long | | | | most notably Nikola Tesla, none the less, Marconi was |
| Island Sound known as Wardenclyffe. The lab rose | | | | now a wealthy famous man. Tesla stated, "My |
| nearly 20 stories into the air and held a 55-ton steel | | | | enemies have been so successful in portraying me as |
| sphere, beneath the tower he drove sixteen pipes | | | | a poet and a visionary, that I must put out |
| over 300 feet into the ground so currents could pass | | | | something commercial without delay. |
| through the Earth. | | | | |