Yeah I saw that episode and their execution of the experiment was terrible. Theres no way it could ever work the way they did it. The resonant frequency is not a constant. They were trying to hit the structure with 1 constant frequency and then played around with it, but the experiment was flawed. When you push someone on a swing, it takes alot of energy to get them going, but as they climb higher and higher, it takes less and less force to keep it going and to build up amplitude. Every time you push during the buildup phase, the frequency of "pushes" changes. Its more frequent at the beginning and less frequent as the amplitude builds. Its dynamic. What the mythbusters guys were trying to do with a static frequency would never work. They goof up with alot of experiments but it makes for good television.
Sparling, Earl: N. Y. World-Telegram (July 11, 1935), "Nikola Tesla, at 79, Uses Earth to Transmit Signals; Expects to have $100,000,000 Within Two Years" ~ Here Tesla tells the story of the earthquake generated by the mechanical oscillator in his NYC laboratory in 1898, which brought the police there to stop him. They entered the lab just in time to see Tesla swing a sledge hammer and smash the tiny device, which was mounted on a girder: Nikola Tesla revealed that an earthquake which drew police and ambulances to the region of his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, in 1898, was the result of a little machine he was experimenting with at the time which "you could put in your overcoat pocket."
The bewildered newspapermen pounced upon this as at least one thing they could understand and "the father of modern electricity" told what had happened as follows: "I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound."
"I asked my assistants where did the sound come from. They did not know. I put the machine up a few more notches. There was a louder cracking sound. I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. "Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. That's all they ever knew about it."
Some shrewd reporter asked Dr. Tesla at this point what he would need to destroy the Empire State Building and the doctor replied: "Vibration will do anything. It would only be necessary to step up the vibrations of the machine to fit the natural vibration of the building and the building would come crashing down. That's why soldiers break step crossing a bridge."
He also invented radio control, wireless transmission of power...once JP Morgan, his main financier, realized that giving people this kind of energy couldnt be metered and charged for, Morgan pulled the plug. Look up the wardenclyffe tower. He still holds the record for the longest man made bolt of lightning. ELF waves, which submarines use to communicate, was created by Tesla.
Do some reading on tesla. You can also look him up on the FBI's freedom of information act papers. Theres ALOT of information there.
List of Tesla patents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nikola Tesla: Mechanical Oscillator ~ US Patent # 514,169 & # 517,900 ~ Tele-Geodynamics
Tesla Memorial Society of New York
Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents -- Chapter IV
Nikola Tesla - The Complete Patents of Nikola Tesla - The Man who invented the 20th Century
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