British patent GB128624A, "Apparatus for the Concentration of Electric Waves in a Single Direction or upon a Fixed Point," was filed on 14 August 1917 under application number 11,658/17 and accepted on 3 July 1919. It names two inventors: Luigi Rota, described as a professor of Clarence House, Park Road, Teddington, Middlesex, and Ernesto Binetti, a commendatore of 132 Via del Tritone, Rome. The patent agents were Harris & Mills of High Holborn, London, and the specification was printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office by Love & Malcomson of Redhill. The document is a complete specification with nine claims and three sheets of drawings, and it is the fullest primary-source statement of the wave-concentration mechanism that runs through the wider Rota dossier.
The seven stated objects
The specification opens by listing what the apparatus is meant to accomplish. It should concentrate a wave or train of waves on a chosen point, whatever the purpose of the installation. It should guarantee secrecy of communication, so that a station can correspond by radio-telegraphy, radio-telephony or radio-telemechanism only with its appointed counterpart, without interception or disturbance by others. It should allow several stations to operate close together without mutual interference from each other's messages or from atmospheric waves, while still letting a receiving station determine the direction of the sender and establish contact. It should suppress the dissipations and absorptions that waves suffer in transit from natural atmospheric electrical disturbances. It should permit ordinary omnidirectional transmission and reception when the apparatus is switched out of circuit. It should increase capacity and fix the phase and intensity of the wave, making wireless power transmission possible to the point of producing Joule's effect at a distance. Finally, it should transmit a wave of such force and constitution that it can reveal when a magnetic body has come between transmitter and receiver, whether that body lies on land, on water, or under water.
The cylinder-and-transformer mechanism
The apparatus is built from two, three or more cylinders joined in series by reciprocal induction. Each cylinder connects to a common battery, accumulator or dynamo, but each alternate cylinder connects to the opposite pole from its neighbour. The battery's stated role is to reconstitute the force lost to passive losses and resistance and to restore the wave's constitutive and primitive property. The cylinders are said to raise capacity and lower resistance, and together with the relative inductions and battery currents they define the wave's energy at the desired intensity and phase.
The transformer stages are described as performing distinct functions: the first raises intensity, the second raises electromotive force, and a third can equalize the two, or the order can be reversed if needed. The specification notes that the cylinders may take circular, square, rectangular, triangular or other cross-sections, may be built of sheet metal or of parallel wires or bands, and may be arranged horizontally, vertically or inclined, singly or doubled. Coupling may be direct or indirect, and the waves may be damped or undamped, of any length. The underlying principle is said to remain the same regardless of the intended work.
Figure variants
The drawings present a family of related arrangements. In the first, cylinders A, A¹ and A² carry transformers whose primaries are a and a¹ and whose secondaries are B and B¹; p is the accumulator battery, r and r¹ are resistances, and s, s¹ and s² are coils that block oscillation from circulating in the battery circuit. The first coil connects cylinder A to the positive pole, the second connects A¹ to the negative pole, and the third connects A² to the positive pole. The receiving apparatus mirrors this arrangement, with A* negative, A¹ positive and A negative. First cylinders are generally shorter and last cylinders longer, and the final cylinder may end in a conical formation of larger diameter, as shown in the vertical arrangement of Fig. 7. Transformers and battery resistances may be fixed or adjustable in both transmission and reception.
Fig. 2 adds a second concentric cylinder A² to the first cylinder A, connected at A¹¹ by wire b. Fig. 3 adds outer cylinders 3, 3¹ and 3², insulated from one another at i and i¹ and united to the battery and to the inner cylinders through coils h, h¹ and h²; this is said to give maximum intensity and to prevent radiation during the wave's traverse of the inner cylinders, which act as antennae or transmitting points. Fig. 4 places a complete concentric cylinder A³ inside the apparatus and connects it to earth, further raising capacity. Fig. 5 uses four cylinders n, n¹, n² and n³, with an inner concentric cylinder E inside n that terminates at d in the second cylinder n¹ and is earthed through wire m¹, generally smaller than wire m; a capacity or self-inductance may be inserted at K to retard m¹ relative to m, since E terminating in n¹ would otherwise act ahead of cylinder n.
Fig. 6 doubles the apparatus from point b¹, with the last cylinders parallel, or at an angle as in Fig. 6a, the two sets joined by inductances h, h¹ and h². The specification invokes electrodynamic attraction here: two parallel fluxes or currents in the same direction attract each other, so they travel increasingly united, with radiation or expansion suppressed. This arrangement is described as especially suited to indicating a magnetic body between the two stations. Fig. 8 covers submarine detection, with an independent transmission antenna, the vessel body, a cylinder closed by insulating material, and two apparatus cylinders partly protruding from the closed cylinder; the apparatuses are movable and are plunged into the sea only when needed. Fig. 9 shows double transmission with two apparatuses working synchronously. Fig. 10 shows three apparatuses I, II and III, each with its own excitation, uniting at point E to produce a spark at P — the Joule effect at a distance — with Q and Q¹ optionally two complete insulated cylinders. Fig. 11 makes cylinders 4 and 5 from parallel wires with an intermediate inductance. Fig. 12 resembles Fig. 3, with outer cylinders 4 and 5 corresponding to z and z¹ and inner cylinders A and A¹ corresponding to two of Fig. 3's inner cylinders, with inductances f and f¹. Apparatus I is generally set at 45 degrees to apparatus III.
The magnetic-body detection claim
The detection argument rests on the premise that currents magnetize magnetic bodies. Because the improved apparatus is said to produce a wave having the properties of a current at a certain intensity, that wave — if it stays neutral to atmospheric disturbances during its traverse — will magnetize any magnetic body it encounters. The wave then loses its original properties and no longer performs the intended work at the receiving station, thereby revealing the presence of the body or obstacle according to its constitutive matter. The specification frames this in Newtonian terms, invoking the law that matter opposes every action with an equal and inverse reaction: the body, having received part of the flux, reacts in a way that changes the whole original action and prevents regular reception. The receiving apparatus is described as constructed so as not to be affected by ordinary disturbances, so that the change signals the body's presence. Figs. 3 and 6 are named as especially useful for this work, and Figs. 8 and 9 for bodies on or in water — the example given is a submarine.
The sea-water transmission argument
The specification anticipates the objection that sea water absorbs electric waves very rapidly. Its answer is that known electric waves are merely a disturbance of the lines of magnetic force, whereas the present invention is said to produce a real current. On that basis the absorption is claimed to be slower over the greater part of the travel, and the wave is said to be dynamically stronger and more united. Reception is described as possible with very delicate instruments — a micro-ampere telephone, a hundredth-of-a-micro-ampere telephone, or a galvanometer such as the Nobili type or the more delicate Deprez-D'Arsonval. The apparatus is said to be able to determine nearly all the evolutions of a submarine, provided the losses due to resistance, absorption and other causes are accounted for and the distances between the transmitting and receiving ships are known.
The nine claims
The claims define the invention as follows. First, apparatus for transmitting and receiving electric waves consisting of a series of cylinders united by reciprocal transformers and connected to a battery, accumulator or dynamo, with each cylinder connected to the opposite pole from its neighbour and the connections made through coils of sufficient inductance to prevent the wave circulating in the battery circuit. Second, the inductances of each cylinder's transformer and the battery resistances may be fixed or variable. Third, the end cylinder may be provided with an internal cylinder, both connected to the same wire, as in Fig. 2. Fourth, the cylinders may be surrounded by other cylinders insulated from each other, each connected to an internal cylinder by inductance coils and to the battery, as in Fig. 3. Fifth, an internal concentric cylinder may be connected to earth, as in Fig. 4. Sixth, a cylinder concentric with the first may pass through it and connect with the second cylinder, as in Fig. 5. Seventh, a plurality of apparatuses may be arranged parallel to each other or with end cylinders at an angle, as in Figs. 6 and 6a. Eighth, the apparatus may be located within a closed cylinder and be movable, in combination with an independent transmission antenna, as in Fig. 8. Ninth, a plurality of apparatuses may have their fluxes unite at a point within cylinders insulated from one another to obtain Joule's effect, as in Figs. 10, 11 and 12.
Evidence and limitations
This is a patent specification, not a record of experimental validation. The document asserts that the represented modifications are those which in experiments have given the best practical results, are simple and work perfectly, but it supplies no data, measurements or independent replication. The submarine-detection and Joule-effect claims are stated as objects and mechanisms rather than demonstrated results. The sea-water transmission argument is a theoretical assertion about the nature of the wave rather than a reported measurement, and it runs against the well-established rapid absorption of ordinary electric waves by sea water. The specification also holds two claims in tension: absolute secrecy and non-interception on one hand, and the ability of a receiving station to determine the direction of the sender on the other. The magnetic-body detection mechanism is argued through a Newtonian action-reaction framing applied to wave propagation, which is rhetorical rather than demonstrated.
References
- GB128624A, "Apparatus for the Concentration of Electric Waves in a Single Direction or upon a Fixed Point," Luigi Rota and Ernesto Binetti, application 11,658/17 filed 14 August 1917, complete specification accepted 3 July 1919.
Source notes & attribution
- https://rexresearch.com/rota2/GB128624A.pdf