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2026-10-08 — Energetic Forum, thread 5299

URL: https://www.energeticforum.com/forum/energetic-forum-discussion/renewable-energy/5299-1872-elihu-thomson-anyone-got-this-document-in-scientific-american-1872 Visited in Chrome (page 1 of 7 read); page saved to research/pages/energeticforum-5299.html (evidence trail, not published). Reached from Google query "Houston" "new connection for the induction coil" / ... "phenomena of induction".

What it is

A free-energy forum thread (Dec. 2009 onward) that appears to be where the project file came from: post #12 (user "tao", 26 Dec 2009) links the Google Books PDF of JFI vol. 61 (id=UdcGAAAAYAAJ, "32MB") and says "The article you desire is on pages 594-596 of that pdf", which matches the project folder's file name and page range [web].

Content (participants' own characterizations; they have no commercial stake but argue a "radiant energy" reading)

  • 1 (nat1971a, 23 Dec 2009) quotes the free-energy literature's version: "In 1872, Elihu Thomson took a large Ruhmkorrf Spark Coil, attached one pole of the coil to a cold-water pipe and the other pole to a metal table top ... any insulated metal object anywhere in the building would produce long continuous white sparks discharging to ground." It frames this as the "radiant energy" Tesla later looked for.

  • 7 (boguslaw): Thomson "accidentally found resonance with water pipe acting as 'all the time charged' capacitor ... He created exactly what later Tesla researched - scalar or radiant wave transmitter. Tabletop was antenna. Frequency was low, probably not more then 5khz".

  • 9 links Edison's 1875 "etheric force" press reports ("the new current refuses to obey any of the established laws of electricity").

  • 11 identifies both Houston papers: JFI vol. 91 no. 6 (June 1871) pp. 417-419 and JFI vol. 101 no. 1 (Jan. 1876) pp. 58-63, "Phenomena of induction".

  • 14 reads Houston's "a slight shock was experienced at every break" as "RADIANT SHOCK WAVE".

  • 15: Tesla, Edison, Stubblefield and Thomson/Houston "all used elevated TIN foil / TIN for capacitance".

How it bears on the claims

Priority 3 (related work): documents how the alternative-energy community reads Houston's connection (radiant energy / Tesla, scalar waves, resonance of building pipework). The "1872" date and the attribution to Thomson differ from Houston's June 1871 note; the Thomson attribution matches Woodbury (1944). The "Scientific American ... later that year" matches the June 1871 SciAm reprint (found on archive.org) rather than any 1872 article. Pages 2-7 not read (time). Result: positive.