Wireless power

[Glen Miyashiro]

Now this take the prize for the week's most science-fictiony news story. Researchers are figuring out how to harvest ambient radio waves to wirelessly power devices. Look ma, no batteries -- I'm soaking up the power from all those cell phone and radio towers. Gee, so this ambient radiation is strong enough to power gadgets but it's still too weak to make us sick?

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Wireless power

Or there's this one, about using your own body's normal movements to power stuff.

[adrian]

Re: Wireless power

Now all we need is to be able to teleport, and it'll be 2000!

[waioli kai]

Wireless power transmission, Tesla

'
In the article "The Future of the Wireless Art" which appeared in Wireless Telegraphy & Telephony, 1908, Nikola Tesla made the following statement regarding the Wardenclyffe project on which he was then working:

"As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction. These few indications will be sufficient to show that the wireless art offers greater possibilities than any invention or discovery heretofore made, and if the conditions are favorable, we can expect with certitude that in the next few years wonders will be wrought by its application."

In the end, Tesla was never able to complete the Wardenclyffe plant, although he was able to conduct some performance tests. Nevertheless, if the above stated predictions were to be true, an interesting feature of Tesla's World System for global communications, had it gone into full operation, would have been its capacity to provide small but usable quantities of electrical power at the location of the receiving circuits. He predicted that further advances would have permitted the wireless transmission of industrial amounts of electrical energy with minimal losses to any point on the earth's surface. Had he been able to complete the prototype station on Long Island and use it to demonstrate the feasibility of wireless power transmission then a plan would have been implemented for the construction of a pilot plant for this larger system at Niagara Falls, site of the world's first commercial three phase AC power plant.'

'Many researchers have speculated on the meaning of the phrase "non-Hertzian waves" as used by Dr. Nikola Tesla. Dr. Tesla first began to use this term in the mid 1890's in order to explain his proposed system for the wireless transmission of electrical power. In fact, it was not until the distinction between the method that Heinrich Hertz was using and the system Dr. Tesla had designed, that Dr. Tesla was able to receive the endorsement of the renowned physicist, Lord Kelvin.'

[Miulang]

Re: Wireless power

I love Nikola Tesla! If it wasn't for him, Frankenstein's lab would look pretty boring.

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Wireless power

Didn't he build this massive Tesla coil that was supposed to transmit electrical energy thru the earth, but days before he was to energize it, it was mysteriously destroyed. It was never rebuilt.

But the thought of capturing stray radiation isn't new nor is it science fiction. This is reality and it does work.

[Miulang]

Re: Wireless power

Yeah, good ol Sparky...I think his first Tesla Coil is still in operation in Griffith Observatory, though.

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Wireless power

And like it or not we are in the 21st century. I like to call it the Jetson Era...welcome to the future Geez if this is what the future is all about, I think I'd rather go back to the 60's.

[waioli kai]

Tesla vs. corporatist ignorance and greed

cw= Didn't he build this massive Tesla coil that was supposed to transmit electrical energy thru the earth, but days before he was to energize it, it was mysteriously destroyed? It was never rebuilt. =cw

Tesla: Man Out of Time, by Margaret Cheney is a good account of Nikola Tesla. On Long Island Tesla had begun building a relatively large global communications facility for which he was denied financing to finish and which was destroyed during WW1 by the U.S. govt for some paranoic reason. The U.S. govt seized (even though he was a U.S. citizen) Tesla's papers and possessions (The Office of Alien Property, it was called at the time) when Tesla passed away at the age of 86 not too long after after his being run into by a car on the streets of New York City.

Marconi, Bell, Edison,,,,none of these characters we were taught to revere in our U.S.-centric education systems come anywhere near to being so directly relevant to the world of technology which today sustains us as does Nikola Tesla.

cw= But the thought of capturing stray radiation isn't new nor is it science fiction. This is reality and it does work. =cw

The producers of that radiation don't for a nanosecond think of it as "stray radiation". They don't consider it lost. They and the FCC not only believe they possess the right to project such radiation through you, your family, home and neighborhood regardless your wishes and welfare, they believe that if you use or interfere with "their radiation" in ways for which they do not expressly intend for you to, especially if you don't pay for its production and transmission, then you are stealing from them. This is reality and it is called corporate capitalism.
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Miulang= I love Nikola Tesla! If it wasn't for him, Frankenstein's lab would look pretty boring. =M

Had Nikola Tesla not forfeited his Bill Gates-like fortune worth of contractual patent rights which enabled George Westinghouse to obtain JP Morgan, etal. financing in order for Westinghouse to mass produce the alternating current technology invented, patented by Tesla; had Thomas Edison and the East Coast establishment succeeded in their frightening U.S. economy consumers away from alternating current (AC) technology into direct current (DC) technological dependence, much more than Hollywood's version of Dr. Frankenstein's movie would be boring, and, much more than that would be non-existent in our times.

'A 2006 Christopher Nolan film called The Prestige, based on the Christopher Priest novel of the same title mentioned above, will feature rock star and actor David Bowie playing the part of Nikola Tesla.'

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Wireless power

Here's another portable power source: using your own body heat to generate thermoelectric power.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Wireless power

Geez Glen you really know how to kill this thread don't ya!

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Wireless power

What can I say? It's a gift.