Universal Truths

[KimB]

Fallacial deferrence to authority - Tesla was a genius by any measure, he was also quite mad, especially towards the end of his life. His research into wirelessly transmitted power was largely a waste of time and resources. If there'd been any point to it, we'd all be using this tech by now. All it was good foor was interfering with radio transmissions and telegraph signals (read: wired power, and/or data transmissions.)

Well, in this case, he was technically correct: sunlight is electromagnetic energy. Though that may not have been what he was thinking about.

As for wirelessly-transmitted power, we're now getting to the point where that's feasible. It was basically a pipe dream in Tesla's day, because wireless transmission involved large power losses. But today we can use Fourier transforms to deposit the energy precisely where we want it, leading to much smaller loss ratios.

 

[Blazkowicz]

What I don't understand is every time you go back in time and kill Hitler, you end up with soviets using Tesla guns.
Things get so ridiculous that I have to go back and un-kill Hitler so that things are more bearable again.

And yes my time machine only goes around Hitler. This was the solution adopted to the problem of stepping in the machine, then stepping out into empty void, with the Earth having moved millions kilometres on its orbit.

 

[Grall]

Well, in this case, he was technically correct: sunlight is electromagnetic energy.

Um, if you use such a loose definition then he was still wrong, because half the planet experiences night-time at any one time...

Though that may not have been what he was thinking about.

Was the precise nature of EMR known at the time Tesla lived and worked?

As for wirelessly-transmitted power, we're now getting to the point where that's feasible.

I'd say "less unfeasible" myself, but whatever.

But today we can use Fourier transforms to deposit the energy precisely where we want it, leading to much smaller loss ratios.

It should still be susceptible to the inverse square law to some extent methinks. Also, it's more steps in the energy chain, which invariably means losses. IMO, wireless power is a solution looking for a problem; it's less efficient than a cable, and likely more expensive than a cable also, especially when factoring in energy loss. As for consumer devices using such tech, it's basically a capital offense IMO. You still need a cable from a wall socket, then you need a wireless power base station and a receiver in the device. No improvement compared to just sticking the device in a dock or similar.

 

[Blazkowicz]

There was a demo quite recently
Showing off a very small room with stuff like a lamp, a flat panel, a computer maybe. Of course if there was a 4-kilowatt device (no idea, they didn't say anything) to power a few LED lighting and a crappy, rapberry-like computer in a four square meter area, that's not saying much about the tech's viability.

The most plausible idea I've seen so far is to build a huge space station with lots of solar power, beam microwaves down to a large collector and use that for military purposes only. Seen it described as "Something bigger than the ISS in geostationary orbit"

Here is it!
http://www.space.com/4478-report-urges-pursue-space-based-solar-power.html

Specifically, the report calls for the U.S. government to underwrite the development of space-based solar power by funding a progressively bigger and more expensive technology demonstrations that would culminate with building a platform in geosynchronous orbit bigger than the international space station and capable of beaming 5-10 megawatts of power to a receiving station on the ground.

Of course that power is laughable for the amount of billions you would spend on this thing
This is what you need to "cheaply" (after spending 120 billions or something) invade a place and have nice power for a base without relying on fuel logistics.

Still maybe you'd occasionnally find a reason to beam power for some place to another, with a crap efficiency, where solar isn't practical. Say, you're in the arctic and have a fcking nuclear powered boat or floating power plant, and you beam power to that piece of rock island over there, and you don't want to use an RTG in that place because you think it's too dirty.

 

[Davros]

Those commodities are all in limited quanitities. When they finish, you'll sing another song.

No I wont, when those commodities are gone there still wont be electric power present in unlimited quantities

 

[Blazkowicz]

You still need a cable from a wall socket, then you need a wireless power base station and a receiver in the device. No improvement compared to just sticking the device in a dock or similar.

This is the reasoning I use to not have a wireless mouse and wireless keyboard. Same deal with WiFi over 100/1000BaseT.

There is at least some level of wireless power transmission we use daily. First, those etiquettes (or well, stickers in English) that prevent you from stealing some non-food, non-alcohol items in shops. They make the detectors trigger an annoying alarm sound. That stuff evolved into RFID and takes the wireless power it receives to send back a signal.
Also, 50 years ago, children would build an AM receiver with a handful of components and an earbud.

Extending this to power a few other "insignificant" things would be nice.
e.g., I'm mainly thinking that a keyboard, mice and controllers that do not need stinking batteries would be nice.

At best you'd have something like the handheld computers of the 80s that lasted 40 hours on two AA cells, with a Z80 and unlit monochrome LCD. That would be funny, even if you only get a few kbps networking (and that's downstream) to receive some text. Some non-flash storage (MRAM, etc.) would allow the computer to write data. Of course, why not then have a tiny solar panel as on calculators 20+ years ago.

 

[zed]

heres something I learnt the other day

every cubic meter of earth(matter) has more energy than what the sun puts out in a million years (or something similar)

 

[jimbo75]

heres something I learnt the other day

every cubic meter of earth(matter) has more energy than what the sun puts out in a million years (or something similar)

E=mc2 yes?

I can't remember the details from my physics course but it does seem quite unbelievable.

 

[UniversalTruth]

For the first time in my life I understood what LIFE is all about.
It is a major war against all the evil. Just stay united and we are going to win against the powers of evil. (hug)

 

[zed]

E=mc2 yes?

No I dont think so, true that shows theres a lot of energy in mass, but this is orders of magnitude more than that, and its not just matter as it also applied to outerspace etc.
It was in a science podcast I listened to a while ago, I could I suppose dig it up

 

[Blazkowicz]

It's nuts. Yes, this totally breaks E=mc², unless maybe the Earth is accelerated at relativistic speeds.

Energy output of the Sun can be estimated from the amount of fuel fused off. For this I can just quote Wikipedia, it sounds like the sun ouputs about the equivalent of one million times your cubic meter of dirt's mass-energy per second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Core

The proton–proton chain occurs around 9.2×10^37 times each second in the core of the Sun. Since this reaction uses four free protons (hydrogen nuclei), it converts about 3.7×10^38 protons to alpha particles (helium nuclei) every second (out of a total of ~8.9×10^56 free protons in the Sun), or about 6.2×10^11 kg per second. Since fusing hydrogen into helium releases around 0.7% of the fused mass as energy, the Sun releases energy at the mass–energy conversion rate of 4.26 million metric tons per second, 384.6 yotta watts (3.846×10^26 W), or 9.192×10^10 megatons of TNT per second.

 

[KimB]

Was the precise nature of EMR known at the time Tesla lived and worked?

Yup. That was worked out in the mid-late 1800's. Right around Tesla's time.

I'd say "less unfeasible" myself, but whatever.

It's actually being used in a limited fashion now for wireless recharging stations for cell phones, albeit the charging stations do require you to rest the phone on them. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see us start moving towards wireless power transfer over somewhat larger distances within the next few years.

It should still be susceptible to the inverse square law to some extent methinks.

Nope, not at all. If you set up the waveform such that all of the power is in one single spot, then there is no falloff with distance at all. This isn't trivial to do, and in practice you'll get losses from the fact that the transmitter isn't able to take into account the full geometry of the surroundings or produce waveform components of every frequency. But there's no reason why you can't have very efficient power transfer this way.

Also, it's more steps in the energy chain, which invariably means losses. IMO, wireless power is a solution looking for a problem; it's less efficient than a cable, and likely more expensive than a cable also, especially when factoring in energy loss.

It would be absolutely ideal for wireless devices in the home, if you can get the effective range up to a few meters, and on a larger scale for transmitting energy from an orbital solar array.

 

[zed]

Theres a lot of theoretical debate about it, & we'll never utilise it in our lifetimes but
http://www.cheniere.org/references/energydensityofvacuum.htm

The effects of vacuum energy can be experimentally observed in various phenomena such as spontaneous emission, the Casimir effect and the Lamb shift, and are thought to influence the behavior of the Universe on cosmological scales. Using the upper limit of the cosmological constant, the vacuum energy in a cubic meter of free space has been estimated to be 10−9 Joules.[1] However, in both Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED), consistency with the principle of Lorentz covariance and with the magnitude of the Planck Constant requires it to have a much larger value of 10^113 Joules per cubic meter.[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

 

[Grall]

It would be absolutely ideal for wireless devices in the home

Why? Cables are much simpler and more efficient, not to mention much cheaper - and undoubtedly easier - to manufacture. They may not look tidy, but that's a fucking luxury problem and anyone whining over cables ought to be clapped in irons and shipped off to a third-world country.

With organizations like the EU complaining about standby mode for its waste of power, what should we say about wireless power then? It's admittedly not as efficient as a cable already from the start, so then you add standby on top, for a waste double whammy. Great! Just what the environment needs. Also, emissions for building useless wireless power base stations. Any rare earth materials going into their construction? Any war minerals? Again, just what we need! A way to solve problems we never knew were there...!

How does this tech cope with gear that have variable power demand? If the base station drives a constant current regardless of actual load on the other end then the tech is no fucking good. If the strength of the field it puts out varies with load somehow but there's a delay in response that might be problematic too.

Also... What happens if you try to drive too many devices from one base station (assuming you have a decent range), will the base station catch fire?

and on a larger scale for transmitting energy from an orbital solar array.

Why not just build the arrays on the ground. With rocket launches costing $tens of thousands per kg launched to geostationary orbit, solar arrays in space will stay deader than...dead.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Today we pay for electricity as Tesla's free energy devices were destroyed by J.P. Morgan for not being able to earn profit from it.

http://www.knowledgeoftoday.org/2012/11/nikola-tesla-secret-movie-free-energy.html

 

[Grall]

Please stop with the nonsense troll posts.

 

[Davros]

That makes sense, you cant make a profit from selling electricity that costs you nothing to produce. No you can only make a profit from selling electricity that cost you a lot of money to make...
I created a machine that made gold for no cost then I realised I'd never make any money from it

 

[UniversalTruth]

We are in area where everyone can share his opinion. So, please, be so kind and respect it. Grall.

Expansion of Consciousness. DMT: The Spirit Molecule

 

[Blazkowicz]

 

[Mariner]

We are in area where everyone can share his opinion. So, please, be so kind and respect it. Grall.

Expansion of Consciousness. DMT: The Spirit Molecule

Judging by many of your posts, you are well acquainted with the effects of psychedelics.

:smile: