Russian Tesla

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

June 11 marks the 113th anniversary of the death of the most mysterious Russian scientist - Russian Tesla of the 20th century. Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov, Doctor of Natural Philosophy (there was such a science), was called the last Russian encyclopedist.

Indeed, he was "scattered" as widely as, perhaps, none of his contemporaries. He was a very gifted person: a chemist and experimentalist, mathematician and economist, writer and popularizer of science, theorist of links between science and the ideology of Marxism. In 1889, his novel "Besieged Sevastopol" was published, which was enthusiastically praised by Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky.

In January 1894, Filippov began publishing the weekly journal Nauchnoye Obozreniye in St. Petersburg. Mendeleev, Bekhterev, Lesgaft, Beketov collaborated in it. Tsiolkovsky was published more than once. It was in the "Scientific Review" that the historical article by Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky "Exploration of world spaces by jet devices" was published, which forever secured his primacy in the theory of space flight. "I am grateful to Filippov," wrote the founder of starfaring, "for he alone decided to publish my work."

If he had not shrewdly appraised and published the work of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, probably no one would have known about the modest Kaluga teacher. That is, to some extent, we owe him the successes of astronautics. V. I. Lenin: he referred to them in his work "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" in the episode, which speaks of the inexhaustible nature of the electron.

Filippov was a staunch Marxist and did not hide it. It is believed that it was he who owns the famous slogan: "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country."

The editorial office of the magazine was located in Filippov's apartment on the fifth floor of building No. 37 on Zhukovsky Street. In the same apartment, a scientific laboratory was also equipped, in which Mikhail Mikhailovich worked for many hours, sitting up for experiments long after midnight, or even until the morning.

What kind of scientific work it was and what goal the St. Petersburg scientist set for himself, it became clear from his open letter sent by him to the editorial office of the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" on June 11 (old style), 1903. This document is so interesting and important that we will quote it in full.

Unusual letter

“In my early youth,” wrote Filippov, “I read from Buckle (an English historian and sociologist) that the invention of gunpowder made wars less bloody. Since then, I have been haunted by the idea of the possibility of such an invention that would make wars almost impossible. As it is not surprising, but recently I made a discovery, the practical development of which will actually abolish the war.

We are talking about a method I have invented for electrical transmission over a distance of an explosion wave, and, judging by the calculations, this transmission is possible over a distance of thousands of kilometers, so that, having made an explosion in St. Petersburg, it will be possible to transmit it to Constantinople. The method is amazingly simple and cheap. But with such a conduct of wars at the distances I have indicated, the war actually becomes madness and must be abolished. I will publish the details in the fall in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences."

As already mentioned, the letter was sent on June 11, and the next day Filippov was found dead in his home laboratory.

The scientist's widow, Lyubov Ivanovna Filippova, said that on the eve of his death, Mikhail Mikhailovich warned his relatives that he would work for a long time, and asked to wake him up no earlier than 12 noon. The family did not hear any noise, let alone an explosion, that fateful night in the laboratory. Exactly at 12 we went to wake up. The door to the laboratory was locked. They knocked and, not hearing an answer, broke down the door.

It is so simple

Filippov was lying on the floor without his coat, face down, in a pool of blood. Abrasions on his face indicated that he had fallen as if knocked down. The police searched Filippov's laboratory and investigated. But the latter was done somehow in a hurry and very unprofessional. Even medical experts differed greatly in their views on the cause of the tragedy.

The funeral of Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov took place in the morning of June 25, and it was very modest and not crowded. Only relatives of the deceased were present, members of the editorial board of the magazine, and a few representatives of the literary world. The body of the scientist was buried at the "Literatorskie mostki" Volkov cemetery - not far from the graves of Belinsky and Dobrolyubov. Filippov died, and together with him his journal "Scientific Review" ceased to exist.

Meanwhile, rumors about the mysterious invention did not stop. An interesting interview with "Petersburg Vedomosti" was given by a friend of the deceased professor A. S. Trachevsky. Three days before the tragic death of the scientist, they saw each other and talked. “To me, as a historian,” said Trachevsky, “Filippov could tell about his plan only in the most general outline. When I reminded him of the difference between theory and practice, he firmly said: "It has been checked, there have been experiments and I will still do it."

He told me the essence of the secret approximately, as in a letter to the editor. And more than once he said, banging his hand on the table: “It's so simple, moreover, it's cheap! It's amazing how they still haven't thought of it. " I remember that the inventor added that they approached this a little in America, but in a completely different and unsuccessful way. " Obviously, it was about the experiments of Nikola Tesla.

However, Filippov himself was sure of something else - in the creative role of his discovery. Maxim Gorky published a recording of a conversation with a scientist, and it did not even mention military aspects. It was about the fact that the transfer of energy over a distance, not of an explosive nature, would make it possible to effectively carry out industrialization in the vast expanses of the Russian Empire.

Mysterious case

The debate around the amazing discovery of M. M. Filippov gradually calmed down. Time passed, and in 1913, in connection with the tenth anniversary of the death of the scientist, the newspapers again returned to the old topic. At the same time, new important details were clarified and recalled. For example, the Moscow newspaper Russkoe Slovo wrote that Filippov traveled to Riga in 1900, where he conducted experiments on explosions at a distance in the presence of some experts. Returning to St. Petersburg, "he said that he was extremely pleased with the results of the experiments."

We also remembered such a mysterious case: at the moment when the police searched the laboratory, far from Zhukovsky Street, on Okhta, a powerful explosion thundered! A multi-storey stone house in an instant for no apparent reason collapsed and turned into ruins. This house and Philipp's laboratory were on the same straight line, not covered by buildings! "So did Filippov's apparatus not work when inexperienced hands began to touch it?" - asked one of the capital's newspapers.

But there was especially much talk about the fate of M. M. Filippov, which contained "mathematical calculations and results of experiments on blasting at a distance." The manuscript was called quite surprisingly: “Revolution by means of science, or the end of wars.” As the scientist's widow told reporters, the day after his death this manuscript was taken away by an employee of the Scientific Review, a well-known publicist A. Yu. Finn-Enotaevsky. He promised to remove a copy from the manuscript, and return the original in a few days.

The missing manuscript

Months passed, however, and Finn-Enotaevsky did not even think of returning the important manuscript. When Filippov's widow firmly demanded a return, he said that he no longer had the manuscript, that he burned it, fearing a search. It was clearly unclean. Finn-Enotaevsky lived up to Stalin's times and was repressed in 1931. And what if among his papers in some secret archive there is still Filippov's manuscript?

The inventor was never bragging. He, of course, wrote the pure truth. But already in 1903, immediately after the tragedy, articles appeared in the newspapers that questioned Filippov's correctness. The journalist of "Novoye Vremya" V. K. Petersen. In the note "A Gloomy Riddle" he called on D. I. Mendeleev to speak on this matter and, so to speak, put a full stop over the "i".

And the famous chemist appeared in the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti", but not in support of a pseudoscientific note, but in defense of the late scientist-inventor. “The ideas of M. M. Filippov, Mendeleev said, "they can easily withstand scientific criticism."

In a conversation with Professor Trachevsky (it was also published), he expressed himself even more definitely, saying that "there is nothing fantastic in the main idea of Filippov: the explosion wave is available for transmission, like a wave of light and sound."

Well, what is now the look at the mysterious discovery of M. M. Filippov? It has been suggested that the St. Petersburg scientist thought of (at the beginning of the 20th century!) A laser beam weapon. Laser specialists, in principle, do not deny an attempt to create a laser 100 years ago. True, huge doubts arise here.

It is highly suspicious that almost immediately (several months later !!!!) after the death of M. M. Filippov and the loss of the manuscript, Nikola Tesla Completely unexpectedly completing the construction of his tower in 1902. with practical goals for the development of electric lighting, SUDDENLY in the fall of 1903, he began to research the wireless transmission of electricity, and immediately, in a practical plane, rebuilding all the equipment of his tower and ordering a bunch of new ones … BUT

the production of the necessary equipment was delayed because the industrialist John Pierpont Morgan, who funded it, canceled the contract after he learned that, instead of practical goals for the development of electric lighting, Tesla planned to research the wireless transmission of electricity. And in subsequent years Tesla simply fell ill with this idea and there is a lot of data and circumstantial evidence that he still managed to realize the idea of M. M. Filippov and create a superweapon that transmits a directed explosion over great distances.

But, perhaps, over time, other hypotheses will appear or new documents will be found. And then, at last, this age-old mystery will be solved….