Talk:Tesla coil

Missing references

@Astral highway your recent edits introduced a number of undefined references ("ref2" to "ref6"). Could you add the sources, either inline or in the references section as list-defined references? Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for calling that out, Wham. I came across this article just this morning, as a subject matter expert, and was surprised to see that overall it suffers from this problem throughout, since the knowledge needed to construct a Tesla coil is derived traditionally from amateur radio, and then more recently, from RF power engineering.

Hobbyist constructors without such knowledge are a recent development, but as I say, it is really a niche founded on solid principles that are derived from electronic engineering (specifically RF power engineering)

There is one book that I'm aware of, published by an amateur, which deals with just one sub-aspect of the subject. I wouldn't be confident to cite that even for the small sub-section that it would support, as the author is self-described as an amateur and self-published a PDF on Amazon. I didn't want to cause offense to the editors who have put work into it to date, by adding 'citation needed' in the numerous relevant places. One of the significant editors was the first person whose name I came across when I began constructing these things, over 20 years ago, and he obviously faced the same problem from the outset. So I do note the problem, and wonder what would be a constructive way forwards? Astral highway (talk) 18:08, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I suspect the ref errors were the result of copy-pasting from a view of the article into the article editor window. This results in the source being only based on the display and losing much of the source-level markup. In particular, actual refs were replaced by the name the browser sees and internal wikilinks were lost altogether. I fixed some of them based on that presumed workflow goof. DMacks (talk) 18:14, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate that! Astral highway (talk) 18:23, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Dmacks – that looks good now.

Regarding your question, Astral highway – it should be possible to source any content in the article to a reliable source. If there's content that's unsourced for which you can't find a source, you can delete it or add the "citation needed" template. But of course you aren't obliged to do that – and if you find a statement that you think is correct, but for which you can't find a source, and for which you think there probably is a source out there somewhere in the endless technical literature, the best thing to do, in my opinion, is probably to leave it alone. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 18:28, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Gotcha. We are seeing this in the same way. I came to this page very curious to see how the difficulty of lack of reliable source material, in some specific areas relating to the evolution of construction techniques, would play out. All the RF engineering, of course, is really solid and well visualized in the Wiki; it's more when it comes to how these things are used in the real world and how they have evolved in the last twenty years that there is a relative lack of source material. Some statements around that are not controversial, such as that folk exhibit these to show off the arcs that result - that would be a good example. So Hope that makes sense? I have some relevant original and supportive content showing one design in operation that I will get round to uploading to Wikimedia. Astral highway (talk) 19:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

While I agree that "for display" is a major application, it's clearly not the only one, so we can't say just that one purpose without qualification--sounds like nothing more than the "let's make lightning!" science-museum demo. I think the intent is to say that they are no longer used as a high-voltage source for research? But they're used to teach several different types of physics, to create music, and for amateurs to learn about the electronic principles and practical techniques for implementing them. DMacks (talk) 21:12, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Agree fully on those applications. Also you express it elegantly when you point to how we diverged from using them as high-voltage research. So I see the applications you list as useful, valid and relevant. As well, in lived experienced, folk construct these -- often with a huge learning curve in getting up to speed with materials science, considerable expenditure and only after the acquisition of advanced principles of RF power electronics over years --to produce a visible display, and to compete for the length of arc and so on. So when I suggest 'for display', for me it's emphasizing the social role of built examples in contemporary practice. As I dig deeper into this, your note usefully points up the distinction between a teleological description and an instrumental one. So for me, the 'natural' explanation would include an instrumental note - they are 'used to produce arcs for demonstration' isn't controversial, just like 'pets are for companionship.' Both privilege the instrumental. That's where I think we're nudging the boundary between two ways of looking at the same thing! Astral highway (talk) 22:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)