4th
“When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized that this planet with all its appalling immensity is to electrical currents, virtually no more than a small metal ball, and by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plan is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and noninterferrable as a thought, can be transmitted ‘to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all of its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere - on sea or land or high in the air - humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: see the excitement coming!”
…Nikola Tesla, 1904
