They called him mad! Mad! Zzzzt!

August 30, 2009 12:10 PM

Wireless electricity has been mentioned previously. A recent TED Talk actually shows it in action. The presenter, Eric Giler of WiTricity Corp (a startup founded by MIT researcher Marin Soljačić), mentions the first attempt at wireless electricity, the Wardenclyffe Tower, designed and built over a hundred years ago by Nikola Tesla.

The Wardenclyffe Tower was designed to provide wireless communication as well as the wireless transfer of energy. It was destroyed during WWI because the U.S. government worried that German spies could use it as a landmark. Parts of the structure remain near the corner of Tesla Street and NY 25A. There has always been an aura of conspiracy around Tesla and his creations, so of course the tower has been "credited" with a number of "unexplained" events, including the Tunguska explosion of 1908.

posted by Deathalicious (95 comments total)

I just want my own Tesla Cannon...is that so wrong?
posted by GavinR at 12:12 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

Frankly I believe that our current addiction to wires is a product of the powerful wire lobby that plagues D.C.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:17 PM on August 30 [4 favorites]

Big Wire?
posted by knapah at 12:21 PM on August 30

I just want my own Tesla Cannon...is that so wrong?

That's funny, I was thinking the exact same thing, but I was going to call it a "Wardenclyffe rifle" and I keep it in orbit around Neptune for safe keeping.

I don't know if that makes it right or wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'd just use it for mayhem.

Also, I'd probably end up breaking it somehow...
posted by fuq at 12:22 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

Because no Deathalicious post omits the mention of food when I can help it: description of Eric Giler being recruited for CEO of WiTricity over breakfast at the apparent venture capitalist "hotspot" Maugus restaurant.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:24 PM on August 30

"scrambled eggs and dry wheat toast"?!? Ugh.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:27 PM on August 30

Is it bad that I picture Bowie every time I read about Tesla?
posted by jquinby at 12:35 PM on August 30

Tesla (played by David Bowie!) plays a key role in the 19th-century magician drama The Prestige [trailer]. I'll say nothing more other than -- The director of Memento, Batman, Wolverine, Gollum, the Man who Would Be King, and Major Tom all in one movie.
posted by dhartung at 12:43 PM on August 30 [5 favorites]

Baby_Balrog: Frankly I believe that our current addiction to wires is a product of the powerful wire lobby that plagues D.C.

Hats off, sir. Groaners like that have been a staple since Mr. Gates' science class in junior high.

Of course, if you want to see a real wire lobby, you probably should check out the hall between my bedroom and my office.
posted by koeselitz at 12:44 PM on August 30

Huh. That TED Talk is...interesting. Drive the car onto a mat that's plugged into the wall. Why--that's far more convenient than simply plugging the car itself into the wall! Thanks, MIT!
posted by Sys Rq at 12:52 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

Sys Rq, but what if they put the power mats under the road?
posted by octothorpe at 12:54 PM on August 30

Sys Rq, but what if they put the power mats under the road?
posted by octothorpe at 8:54 PM

You mean, like...a monorail?
posted by vacapinta at 1:01 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]

Damn Interesting's Wardenclyffe Tower piece.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 1:05 PM on August 30

Crap, I was this close to seeing The Prestige in a theatre back during its run. Looks like I'll have to catch it on DVD now.

I would so have gone to see it if I had known Tesla was a character, even had he not been played by Bowie.
posted by localroger at 1:05 PM on August 30

Sys Rq, but what if they put the power mats under the road?

Then they'd be on all the time? Not much of an energy saver, that.

Let's face it, this is all about Big Wire giving way to Big Power Mat Thingy.

(Yeah, it was just a single throw-away line that struck me as a bit infomercial-worthy, is all.)
posted by Sys Rq at 1:09 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

The tech in this TED talk has about as much to do with Tesla's vision as my TI-83 graphing calculator has to do with the IBM Deep Blue supercomputer.
posted by localroger at 1:11 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

Sys Rq, but what if they put the power mats under the road?

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.
posted by brain_drain at 1:15 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]

It's funny how Tesla's reputation seems to improve over time. Edison is rolling over in his grave, I'm sure.
posted by tommasz at 1:17 PM on August 30

That's because Tesla was a genius, whereas Edison was merely a clever guy and a very savy businessman.
posted by Afroblanco at 1:35 PM on August 30 [9 favorites]

I wonder what happens when there isn't a device present to power. Does it consume a constant (significant) phantom load just keeping the coil and capacitor going? I suppose that is part of the IP stuff he didn't talk about. Since he mentioned an environmental bent, I hope they are also addressing that issue.
posted by meinvt at 1:52 PM on August 30

Waitaminute ... did he say it's 50% efficient compared to plugging into the wall? Wouldn't it be insanely irresponsible to sell a device that lets people use twice the power to run their computer or flatscreen TV or car, all to avoid using a wire?

It makes sense for replacing non-rechargeable batteries in things that are left in one place, I guess (wall clocks? smoke detectors? wrist watches?), but I'm skeptical that there's many applications where that kind of efficiency loss would justify the convenience.

(I second The Prestige, by the way -- what an extraordinary film. It was the brilliant, evil side of the light and fluffy Illusionist a few years back.)
posted by jhc at 1:53 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

The Prestige is a great film. I recommend watching it twice in fairly close succession. There's a lot planted early in the film which you don't realize carries meaning until the end.

When I was in college, I had a firsthand demonstration of "wireless power" at a friend's house. They had a tall hill in their rather large backyard, which apparently was JUST under the beam of a microwave transmitter. If you walked to the top of the hill and held a fluorescent lamp tube over your heat at arm's length, it would light up from excitation from the beam. It wasn't something you wanted to do for very long.
posted by hippybear at 1:53 PM on August 30

I never actually believed in the stereotype of the "mad scientist" until I learned about Tesla. Death Rays? Wireless electricity? Ambient light with no point source? Dude should have an undersea lair. Or maybe a lair built into a volcano. He's like a Bond villain without the evil.

We all know the government had him killed after he perfected his death ray, which is now sitting anonymously in a giant warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant.
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on August 30 [4 favorites]

It's funny how Tesla's reputation seems to improve over time. Edison is rolling over in his grave, I'm sure.

According to the transmissions I get form the Soulophone he is definitely not happy. Man, the spirit world just makes people crankier, I'll get never get it.

We all know the government had him killed after he perfected his death ray, which is now sitting anonymously in a giant warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant.


You do know that several of Telsa's boxes went missing after his death? And one ominously captured by the FBI and never found again?

And then this was found in Russia.
posted by The Whelk at 2:52 PM on August 30 [4 favorites]

It helps, I think, that Edison's become the Establishment Guy.

Liking Tesla is like carrying a giant nerd pride flag. Liking Edison just means you paid attention in grade school.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:03 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

jhc - he said the original experiment at MIT, the one that lit a 60-watt bulb at 2 meters, was 50% efficiency. That was the proof of concept. I would imagine that as they refine the technology the efficiency increases.
posted by starvingartist at 3:15 PM on August 30

That's because Tesla was a genius, whereas Edison was merely a clever guy and a very savy businessman.

Laurie Anderson should be quoted about now:

"Edison couldn’t stand Tesla for several reasons. One was that Tesla showed up for work every day in formal dress--morning coat, spats, top hat and gloves--and this just wasn’t the American Way at the time. Edison also hated Tesla because Tesla invented so many things while wearing these clothes."

Laurie Anderson, "Dance of Electricity" (ca. 1983).
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 3:24 PM on August 30 [14 favorites]

I'm no so interested in wireless power, but I'd love some surface based power and connectivity system. So, if you set your phone on your desk, the contacts on the phone activate contacts on the desk, both recharging the phone and creating a usb link with the computer. You could even try handling laptop monitor connections like this! :)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:38 PM on August 30

Edison was a psychopath with a never-ending thirst for attention. A true American icon.
posted by basicchannel at 4:00 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

Nuclear power: also wireless!
posted by fatllama at 4:37 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

Sys Req: Why--that's far more convenient than simply plugging the car itself into the wall! Thanks, MIT!

Here's the thing. If I get an electric car, and I need to plug it in each night or it will run out of juice and it won't work the next day, then I'm going to have a lot of mornings where my car is dead.

If all I have to do is drive into the garage, then I don't have this problem.

This is even more of a lifesaver when they have it set up for cellphones. When I am home my cellphone is almost never more than 3-4 feet from a perfectly fine socket; nevertheless my cellphone routinely runs out of juice because I forget to plug it in.

For people who lead orderly and organized lives, things like automatic charging seem like an unnecessary luxury. For someone like me, they would be a real help (I was going to say lifesaver, but that's a little over the top. I can live with a dead cellphone. So maybe a cellphone-battery-lifesaver).
posted by Deathalicious at 4:45 PM on August 30

MeFi Scientists: do you know if the 50% efficiency is a laws-of-physics limit or a we-can't-make-it-better-yet limit? In other words, is there a guaranteed loss of 50% using this kind of wireless electricity, or could improvements to the technology be made. If it's the latter then I think wireless is a good thing, if the former then probably not, especially since

• it looks like many of the applications would be for portable items which have rechargeable batteries in them anyway, undermining the whole "batteries are bad mkay" advantage
• for everything else, wires really will work just fine, even if they are unsightly
• for at least the next 10-20 years products will still come with wires anyway, so it's not like you would save manufacturing costs (environmental or otherwise) by not having to include wires with appliances
• electricity is only going to get more expensive (unless we discover some other magical technology), making wireless electricity a real rip off for most applications

Finally, another question: wouldn't the transmitter basically be on all the time no matter what? It's not like a plug that only completes the circuit when something is actually plugged in...the transmitter would still constantly be sending out the magnetic pulses or whatever. So either you have to go in and turn the transmitter on (which makes it almost as much of a pain in the butt as plugging something into the wall) or you have a transmitter that's always wasting electricity. Do I have that right? Either way, still probably not as wasteful as Aga Cookers (which look cool but use 425kWh per week as opposed to conventional range/ovens which use just 580kWh, or 1.4 times as much per year).
posted by Deathalicious at 4:59 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

...the transmitter would still constantly be sending out the magnetic pulses or whatever.

The "sender" could be on a switched plug, like a lamp, only coming on when you flip a wall switch.
posted by The Deej at 5:10 PM on August 30

The transmitter's power consumption should be broadly proportional to its load (plus some overhead), and it should also be possible for the transmitter to detect whether or not a load is present and therefore turn itself off or go into a standby state where it could check every 10 seconds for the presence of a load.
posted by cillit bang at 5:44 PM on August 30

The source coil wouldn't have anything with which to resonate if a load coil weren't in range, so the only power used would be enough to keep the thing turned on. They make a point of mentioning several times that the coils are VERY finely tuned. As far as the 50% efficiency figure being bandied about, that was, as mentioned, for the proof of concept. But that's going to be a function of distance, 1/d^2 if I remember correctly. So the closer the cell phone or car or whatever is to the source, the more efficient the transfer will be.
posted by krash2fast at 5:56 PM on August 30

I'm not whoppingly well-educated in science -- high school was the end of my tour of the physical sciences. But I did study a great deal of history and the social sciences. So I'm dubious about all the Tesla hoopla.

Given my craptacular knowledge of physics, I can't address the validity of the "death ray"/wireless power/super-amazing-sci-fi-awesomeness stuff. But...

Given how famous he was, how fabulous the described inventions are, and how long it's been since then, there's no freakin' way that those same inventions haven't been attempted since then. And, while Tesla was no doubt a singular genius, decades of work by brilliant scientists over the decades, applied to those same ideas, must have either borne fruit or disproven the claims to a large degree. In the sciences, I'd bet on fifty-plus years of smart people doing hard work on a problem over a single genius.

My history background suggests very strongly that Tesla's achievements have been matched by later engineers and scientists, and that the hype around the Great Tesla Inventions is a combination of Tesla's own huckstering and decades of unchallenged mythmaking. My science background can't verify that idea. Hey, it's possible that my hunch is wrong and that Tesla's awesome claims haven't been tested fully.

So I ask you, MeFites with science and engineering backgrounds: what's the straight dope?
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 6:20 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

Yes! So glad Tesla was a part of this post. Arguably my favorite scientists and one of the most underrated. I just watched this TED talk a few days ago. As almost all TED talks, so very interesting.

Thanks, cool FPP.
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:31 PM on August 30

Tesla's vision (pdf) , for a low power, low maintenance, high volume, high aesthetic value water display, has now finally been realized.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:37 PM on August 30

Tesla did actually go mad toward the end of his life.

He saw a pigeon shoot a death ray out of its eyes (I think it killed another pigeon or a squirrel?) and subsequently started bringing pigeons home and letting them roam free in his apartment, hoping to eventually find the one that shot deathrays out of its eyes, letting them shit all over every available surface.

The things Tesla worked on that are not available and in widespread use today are scary enough that I am happy knowing that they are either being kept secret by some nefarious conspiracy or that they never really worked, either one is fine as long as I don't have to worry about being randomly shot by some freak deathray aiming accident or getting electrocuted by wireless power because my fillings picked it up the same way they sometimes pick up radio stations.
posted by idiopath at 6:43 PM on August 30

Harvey Jerkwater: Given how famous he was, how fabulous the described inventions are, and how long it's been since then, there's no freakin' way that those same inventions haven't been attempted since then. And, while Tesla was no doubt a singular genius, decades of work by brilliant scientists over the decades, applied to those same ideas, must have either borne fruit or disproven the claims to a large degree. In the sciences, I'd bet on fifty-plus years of smart people doing hard work on a problem over a single genius.

My history background suggests very strongly that Tesla's achievements have been matched by later engineers and scientists, and that the hype around the Great Tesla Inventions is a combination of Tesla's own huckstering and decades of unchallenged mythmaking. My science background can't verify that idea. Hey, it's possible that my hunch is wrong and that Tesla's awesome claims haven't been tested fully.

I don't know the straight dope, and frankly, I don't think anything can ever be proven either way.

But not long ago the idea that the Greeks of antiquity had differential gears was laughable, and the evidence was that for much more than 1200 after their era faded, the brightest minds in the entire world failed to invent such a thing. But it turns out that that reasonable deduction was wrong. It wasn't that they were incapable, it was that the brightest minds for the next few-score generations came up short.

In short, Tessla may have lied his ass off about what he invented. But he also may have come up with something more brilliant than we have been able to match since.
posted by paisley henosis at 6:48 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

The website says, "Maximum efficiency is achieved when the devices are relatively close to one another, and can exceed 95%."

So, suppose you're lucky and get 95% efficiency from the charging mat in your garage, or the coil charging your flatscreen. (They can't be too close, or they wouldn't avoid that unsightly wires problem.) When we're all driving electric cars, won't a 5% efficiency loss still be kind of a big deal? Would you pay 5% more to drive every year, or would you plug in a wire once a day? Would you want to burn 5% more coal per year, or would you want everyone else to plug in a wire once a day?

By comparison, Wikipedia says transmission losses from power plant to home were 7.2% in 1995 (that looks like a fascinating article, by the way), so another 5% would nearly double the total loss between the plant and your car, in order to cover the last 6 inches.

I'm just saying, that video left a big gaping silence between "50% efficiency in the prototype" and "look, an iPhone!"
posted by jhc at 6:49 PM on August 30 [4 favorites]

Tesla's achievements have been matched by later engineers and scientists

Operative word, later.

Just the single achievement of -- as a child, really -- envisioning what it takes to make a non-communicative AC motor work, believe me, it's very far from obvious. Many very smart people had been busting their heads on just that, with out much hope. "Proven impossible," was more like it.

He figured that one out while waiting for the horse drawn school wagon in some mountain village.Pretty much, every motor in your house is one of his. I'm just old enough to remember when you still did have to buy motor contacts, sold door to door sometimes, they were little blocks of metal with a spring attached, like inside a bail point pen. There were trays and trays at Woolworths, to match dozens of different appliances -- sewing machine, vacuum, even clock. Much the way we use AA batteries, but supplying no power, while consuming much of it by emitting sparks.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:00 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

When we're all driving electric cars, won't a 5% efficiency loss still be kind of a big deal?

No. What kind of efficiency do you think a gasoline engine gets? (Hint: it's really hot and really loud.) If we all switched to wirelessly-powered electric cars at 75% transmission efficiency and took all the gas we would have burned anyway, and burned it in gas power plants, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it would still be more efficient.
posted by mek at 7:26 PM on August 30

StickyCarpet has it: I used to be able to derive Maxwell's equations but that doesn't mean Maxwell wasn't a bazillion times better at physics and math than I ever was. It's a hell of a lot harder to do something for the first time ever than for the millionth.
posted by Justinian at 7:31 PM on August 30

paisley henosis: But not long ago the idea that the Greeks of antiquity had differential gears was laughable, and the evidence was that for much more than 1200 after their era faded, the brightest minds in the entire world failed to invent such a thing. But it turns out that that reasonable deduction was wrong. It wasn't that they were incapable, it was that the brightest minds for the next few-score generations came up short.

I think this parallel is inapt. Periodic spurts of inventiveness in the ancient world were lost and not recreated because the circumstances under which those spurts were created were lost, and records weren't kept. Later folks had to re-start from near scratch, and it's hardly surprising that they'd fail to re-develop every little quirk and bit of tech with each fresh restart. Singular geniuses of the Middle Ages invented things that never occurred to the Greeks, either. Nature of the situation.

None of these conditions apply in the case of Tesla. We're building upon past achievements. The time of peace and prosperity that allowed folks to fart around and invent new technology is still ongoing, as is the culture that prizes and rewards such efforts.

To be frank, a lot of the halo around Tesla feels like a form of a "cult of the artist," where any sort of dismissal of his claims will be rebuffed with a claim of "He was the greatest genius ever, who are you to say he was wrong!" Disregard the halo, the legend, the mythos. How do his wackier ideas test out? Anybody know? Why hasn't the US Air Force built a giant Tesla-inspired lightning cannon or death ray for anti-aircraft purposes? No doubt they've tried it.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 7:37 PM on August 30

Not to get all Mage: the Ascension on you Harv, but maybe it's sufficiently advanced that it requires a Tesla to work out? That's kind of the shit of it all- since we don't know how the stuff worked, we can't really definitively say whether his methods have been tested or not- or whether any of the people who've been working on it have been as bright as Tesla, as capable of understanding his theories. Leads to a lot of wiggle room on both the credulous and skeptical sides.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:59 PM on August 30

I get the feeling this is more going to be something for charging laptops and cellphones, at least in the beginning. They draw less power, and even if you double the wattage used to charge a cellphone or laptop, it's not that bad. And, as has been said above, the theoretical maximum is 95%.

Further, we can still have automatic wireless charging without needing to pump out magnetic fields or manually flip a switch. Just build in a little RFID chip into each device that needs to get charged, and have the charging station send out a radio wave every minute or so. If it gets a signal back from an RFID (possibly even just limiting itself to a list of RFIDs you registered to keep neighbors from using your power), it turns on the magnetic field to charge your gizmo. As soon as it can no longer sense the device in proximity, it goes back into "sleep" mode where it keeps checking for friendly devices. This uses a tiny amount of power in exchange for a lot of convenience.

Also, I think it's still practical to have an electric car work out with this method. Presumably, large amounts of power can be transmitted more efficiently from shorter distances. I suggest that the car park on a charging pad and then lower a wireless charging receiver closer to the floor. There are a number of ways this could be done, and they'd be relatively cheap compared to the total cost of an electric car. It could lower the transmitter down to about a half inch from the pad, or even touch it, and then charge via that method. Granted, the cheaper method would still be to plug it in, and I imagine the car would nag you somehow (beeping, perhaps) to plug it in so it could charge faster and more efficiently. But this means that the worst case scenario of forgetting to charge the car and finding it dead in the morning wouldn't happen.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:07 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

This is fuzzy in my memory but I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of Tesla's legendary parlor tricks was illuminating a room without any visible light source. I may be mistaken but I also seem to recall that Mark Twain was one for whom Tesla performed this trick. Can any Tesla scholars out there elaborate on this story? If the stories are accurate it seems somewhat along the lines of the work he did with fluorescent lights but with gas not contained in tubes perhaps?
posted by well_balanced at 8:12 PM on August 30

They already have these devices. Doesn't the Pre charge without a plug? You just set it on the little stand thing and the battery is full in the morning? I've also seen demoed in some video from E3 or some such a company which is making what are basically battery replacements for cell phones so you can just set them in your magic tray and they recharge without a direct plug.

Granted, I think these require direct contact, and don't work at a distance.
posted by hippybear at 8:44 PM on August 30

> Disregard the halo, the legend, the mythos. How do his wackier ideas test out? Anybody know?

They didnt. Wardenclyfe was complete and utter bullshit. Youre not getting free energy like that. If you could we'd be doing it by now. Wireless energy is the opposite of communication. If we all were charging our electric cars with it, we'd have no radio, cell phones, or tv because of the interference. Tesla really missed the boat on radio. I dont think he had a mind for it. He was all about supplying power.

Sadly, the cult of personalities tend to pull out the most extreme ideas of the object of their adoration as gospel. Tesla kiddies need to face the fact that he wasnt perfect and was as much of a bullshitter as any other early 20th century businessman. Because he lost financially to Edison, he's indie rock and Edison is top-40, which is really unfair to Edison. Ironically, Tesla is the mainstream now and he comes with a lot of psuedosceintific baggage like time travel and free energy. The nutters love this stuff. I think in another 50 years we might have a proper look at Tesla, but right now hes more myth than man.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:37 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

The pre uses induction charging. Contact is not required. It is short range but it is wireless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:39 PM on August 30

Oh, he was also big on electrotherapy. The idea that you could cure cancer and other diseases with just some electricity. He worked with a lot of people on this field, which is pure quackery. Whats that saying about when the only tool you have is a hammer...
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:45 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

To be frank, a lot of the halo around Tesla feels like a form of a "cult of the artist," where any sort of dismissal of his claims will be rebuffed with a claim of "He was the greatest genius ever, who are you to say he was wrong!" Disregard the halo, the legend, the mythos. How do his wackier ideas test out? Anybody know?

I don't get this at all. Does anyone seriously believe that Tesla actually invented a death ray? Aside from some cranks I mean? Tesla was a brilliant scientist and engineer who also had some out there fantasies. But the real, concrete things he accomplished are astounding and would make any three other great pioneers of electricity and magnetism proud.

How did Newton's work on alchemy go? Did he ever manage to convert lead into gold? No? Guess he was a bit of a loser.
posted by Justinian at 10:50 PM on August 30 [6 favorites]

I think it'd be best to mention that some of the high-voltage equipment designs, ie. spark gap generators and the like, emit horrendous, face-melting levels of non-visible radiation. Don't fuck with this stuff without having a lot of knowledge about what you're doing, because it could easily harm you. Not from the big lightening strikes, but from the things you can't even see.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:38 PM on August 30

the hype around the Great Tesla Inventions is a combination of Tesla's own huckstering and decades of unchallenged mythmaking

The man thought up A/C while on his afternoon walk through the park. Alternating fucking current. The depth of understanding necessary (particularly at that time in history) required to make such a quantum leap cannot be overstated.

I think this is one of those things where the more you understand it the more you appreciate the wonderful, simple beauty of it. Direct current gives you batteries. Batteries have been around since Egyptian times. Batteries are localized, so no matter how big or awesome your power source, until you can get over the transmission problem you can't grow. The expansion of the electrical grid to every corner of the U.S. has had so many direct and indirect consequences to our way of life that you could use it as a demarcation line in human civilization: The World Before and The World After alternating current.

Given how famous he was, how fabulous the described inventions are, and how long it's been since then, there's no freakin' way that those same inventions haven't been attempted since then.

Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Technological progress is just as susceptible to popularity and flights of fancy as any other social trend. The bulk of Electrical Engineering over the past half-century has been in solid-state, the bulk of the the theoretical work has been in nuclear--for obvious historical reasons. This was one of the biggest problems Dr. Robert Bussard had when designing the IEC devices for practical fusion containment (video of his fascinating Google Talk). There just aren't a whole lot of people with loads of practical experience designing extremely high voltage devices these days. The last time you had Really Big Budgets to investigate this kind stuff was World War 2. The "experts" are either dead or retired (Bussard died two years ago, for example).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:52 AM on August 31 [1 favorite]

Good cuz Im tired of looking for tha Blackberry charging cord
posted by celerystick at 7:26 AM on August 31

How did Newton's work on alchemy go? Did he ever manage to convert lead into gold?

THe difference is that modern physicists dont talk about who great Newton's alchemy was. Hell, even in his day it was viewed with skepticism, especially by the Royal Society.

Here's a random webpage of a Tesla fan who believes Wardenclyffe would produce free energy for all and was only suppressed via a criminal conspiracy from the US government:

It is my personal belief that the US government keeps advance technology from its citizens. We must stand vigilant, and expose and fight the forces which wish to enslave us.

That's the difference. The cult of Tesla isnt about the advances of AC power and the minutiae of early 20th century capitalism and urban electrification, but of magic machines, free energy, energy weapons, etc.

I think the fans need to accept that there is no such thing as free energy and a tower that magically projects the earth's natural resonance into the atmosphere into free power is ridiculous on its face. Tesla had some real achievements but he also had some real wrong ideas. He didnt lose to Edison because of a criminal conspiracy, but because Edison was a better salesman and had a better reputation.

Tesla was seen a kooky even back then. That said, he was a very smart fellow and his tragic story is worth teaching, but he's not a supergenius who is years ahead our current understanding of electricity and physics. It turns out his most ambitious plans really werent practical or even feasible. Like all smart men, he was wrong much more than he was right. He just gambled his investor's money on the wrong ideas.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:39 AM on August 31

It turns out his most ambitious plans really werent practical or even feasible.

That may be true, but I don't think that you could say that was 100% because of technical reasons. There was a period in there where he got all open-sourcy with his great idea (free electricity through the air for all!!!), and no one would fund his research because they couldn't figure out how to charge for use, and therefore make a profit.

That's the difference. The cult of Tesla isnt about the advances of AC power and the minutiae of early 20th century capitalism and urban electrification, but of magic machines, free energy, energy weapons, etc.

Most of Tesla's work is poorly understood even now. This leaves a lot of room for the whole 'sufficiently advanced technology = magic' thing, which I think is what is going on with what you are talking about. That doesn't make him any less great of an inventor.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:22 AM on August 31

>and no one would fund his research because they couldn't figure out how to charge for use, and therefore make a profit.

I disagree. It could always be paid as taxes like we do for unmetered water and garbage collection. Cities were trying all sorts of weird things to get electrified back then. A flat tax for power would have worked as easily as anything else.

>Most of Tesla's work is poorly understood even now.

It hard to understand "earth's resonance synchronizing with the atmosphere via a giant wooden and steel tower" because it never made sense to begin with. We've had almost 100 years of study of physics and electricity not to mention signaling and communications since Tesla. Everything he's done is well understood, at least the parts that actually made sense.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:36 AM on August 31

He didnt lose to Edison because of a criminal conspiracy, but because Edison was a better salesman and had a better reputation.

He didn't lose to Edison, full stop. Direct current power transmission is almost a contradiction in terms: you'd need generators couple of miles where you planed on using electricity.

his most ambitious plans really werent practical or even feasible

Hmm. Just like this guy.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:52 AM on August 31

THe difference is that modern physicists dont talk about who great Newton's alchemy was. Hell, even in his day it was viewed with skepticism, especially by the Royal Society.

Here's a random webpage of a Tesla fan who believes Wardenclyffe would produce free energy for all and was only suppressed via a criminal conspiracy from the US government:

I bolded two parts of your comment. Can you see what you did there? Because I see what you did there.

Do modern electrical engineers and physicists talk about alternating current?
posted by Justinian at 11:12 AM on August 31

Justinian, thats exacatly my point. EEs dont sit around talking about re-implementing Wardenclyffe and electrotherapy devices. They talk about Tesla's real achievements like AC power, yet the articles linked and the discussion here is all about the myth of Tesla and the "magic" of Wardenclyffe. here's an article linked in this very thread, which I noticed no one protested:

http://www.damninteresting.com/teslas-tower-of-power

In essence, Tesla’s global power grid was designed to “pump” the planet with electricity which would intermingle with the natural telluric currents that move throughout the Earth’s crust and oceans. At the same time, towers like the one at Wardenclyffe would fling columns of raw energy skyward into the electricity-friendly ionosphere fifty miles up. To tap into this energy conduit, customers’ homes would be equipped with a buried ground connection and a relatively small spherical antenna on the roof, thereby creating a low-resistance path to close the giant Earth-ionosphere circuit.

That's right free energy from "telluric currents" and via the ionoshphere "circuit." That's not practical science, its not real, but this is what the fans are into. Free energy. Pardon me if I am skeptical of a free energy source that has never been shown to work.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:28 AM on August 31

Wouldn't wireless transmission, like broadband over power lines, would be a killer to all kinds of radio service? For instance, if the dude puttering down the street with his poorly shielded spark plugs is enough to picket fence my audio, WTF would full-on wireless power transmission do?

Sure, I'm a newly minted ham and all, but it's not just ham, GMRS, citizen band, what-have-you old-timey communication technology that would be affected, no? WTF would happen to all kinds of commercial radio, broadcast television, etc?
posted by Fezboy! at 11:32 AM on August 31

A flat tax for power would have worked as easily as anything else.

It might have if either the government or the people would have accepted the burden. The government back then was much less a part of people's everyday lives, and most services were provided by the private sector.

It hard to understand "earth's resonance synchronizing with the atmosphere via a giant wooden and steel tower" because it never made sense to begin with.

Not with that explanation it doesn't. From what I remember, his plan was never to just pull the power out of nowhere (which is how I'm reading your statement). The Wardenclyfe tower was just a transmission tower, and there were to be generators included in the facility as well.
I mean, the guy made a radio remote-control boat in the 1890's; I'm pretty sure he had a handle on what would and wouldn't work regarding transmission of power and signals.

What some people believe Tesla was trying to do, and what he actually claimed are two things that you seem to be confusing (at least in your previous comments). I'm not sure what some random webkook's personal beliefs have to do with any of this.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 11:34 AM on August 31

Wouldn't wireless transmission, like broadband over power lines, would be a killer to all kinds of radio service

It's likely that it would interfere with the radio technology that we currently have. Tesla claimed that his system would transmit and receive both power and signals, but we'll probably never know how that would have worked out.

from an article he wrote in 1927:

I am anxious to resume the introduction of my "World System" with novel transmitters of great effectiveness and receivers of elementary simplicity. In my apparatus the isochronism is so perfect and attunement sharp to such a degree that in the transmission of speech, pictures or similar operations, the frequency or wavelength is varied only through a minute range which need not be more than one hundredth of one per cent. if desired. Statics and all other interferences are completely eliminated and the service is unaffected by weather, seasonal or diurnal changes of any kind. The system lends itself particularly to World Wireless Telephony and Telegraphy as the current from the transmitter can be kept virtually constant and the control effected by a simple microphone without the elaborate means now employed. Any reasonable number of simultaneous and non-interfering messages is practicable and a speed of many thousands of words per minute can be attained in telegraphic transmission. The same principles are also applicable to operation through wires and cables. In 1903 I proposed to the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies such multiplex transmission for their lines but received no encouragement mainly because the volume of business did not call for a great increase of working capacity. At a later date my improvements were introduced as "Wired Wireless." A quite inappropriate name inasmuch as the waves radiated from the wire are completely lost and of no effect on the receiver.

My plans for a power plant have been developed to the point of application, but I am still unable to say when I shall begin active work. There are no such difficulties in the way as confronted me from the outset, for at that time I was alone; now many are convinced that my undertaking is rational and practical. Needless to say that I am using every effort to give to the world my best and most important work as soon as possible and free of all blemish and flaw. I have in view a number of places which seem well suited for the purpose, but my warmest wish is to transmit power from Niagara Falls, where the first triumph with my alternating system was achieved.

One of the most important uses of wireless energy will be undoubtedly for the propulsion of flying machines to which power can be readily supplied without ground connection, for although the flow of the currents is confined to the earth an electro magnetic field is created in the atmosphere surrounding it. If conductors or circuits accurately attuned and properly positioned are carried by the plane, energy is drawn into these circuits much the same as a fluid will pass through a hole created in the container. With an industrial plant of great capacity sufficient power can be derived in this manner to propel any kind of aerial machine. This I have always considered as the best and permanent solution of the problems of flight. No fuel of any kind will be required as the propulsion will be accomplished by light electric motors operated at great speed. Nevertheless, anticipating slow progress, I am developing a novel type of flying machine which seems to be well suited for meeting the present necessity of a safe, small and compact "aerial fliver" capable of rising and descending vertically.

posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:00 PM on August 31 [1 favorite]

TESLA movie.
posted by philip-random at 12:01 PM on August 31

Wouldn't wireless transmission, like broadband over power lines, would be a killer to all kinds of radio service?

The method of wireless power being demonstrated in the TED video does not involve radio waves at all.
posted by hippybear at 12:46 PM on August 31

They talk about Tesla's real achievements like AC power, yet the articles linked and the discussion here is all about the myth of Tesla and the "magic" of Wardenclyffe.

Don't you think that's because Wardenclyffe, death rays, and wireless electricity are kind of cool even if fantasies while the details of alternating current and such is boring as shit?
posted by Justinian at 1:48 PM on August 31 [2 favorites]

The method of wireless power being demonstrated in the TED video does not involve radio waves at all.

Neither does a spark plug, per se, but each spark emits RFI, and if it isn't properly shielded, that gets out and generates a lot of radio noise. It is my understanding that Tesla's idea of wireless transmission of power is basically using emitted power at a source to trigger induction at some arbitrary distant point--either straight-line or indirectly via the ionosphere. In other words, a giant-scale, open-ended RFI generator. The only thing different between this and radio transmitter is that the radio transmission is filtered to a narrow bandwidth and modulated to convey information.

Not to mention, I imagine revving up the ionization of the ionosphere would have some unintended consequences with regards to the amount of UV hitting the earth's surface.

Still, Tesla was wicked smart while simultaneously being crazier than a shit house rat. Gots to give him props where props are due.
posted by Fezboy! at 1:53 PM on August 31

fezboy!: did you watch the TED video?
posted by hippybear at 2:10 PM on August 31

Indeed, hippybear. Did you? Especially that part where he says he is hooking his power source up to an RF amplifier?
posted by Fezboy! at 2:26 PM on August 31

Tesla is the Che Guerva for electricity nerds.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:04 PM on August 31

That's right free energy from "telluric currents" and via the ionoshphere "circuit." That's not practical science, its not real, but this is what the fans are into. Free energy. Pardon me if I am skeptical of a free energy source that has never been shown to work.

That article does not say that the energy is created by the telluric currents, it is merely using them as a transport mechanism to form a circuit with the ionosphere. The electricty would have to be generated the old-fashioned way before being put into the loop.

It IS a zany idea, but it was Tesla's.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 5:01 PM on August 31

Especially that part where he says he is hooking his power source up to an RF amplifier?

I thought that the principle relied on coupling tuned magnetic fields. Now perhaps the resonator requires RF amplification, but I don't know enough details about the work to say.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:44 AM on September 1

It may be that he is working with the local magnetic field around the source antenna, but I'd bet that power source is pushing out RF energy regardless of whether the induction is caused by it or the magnetic field. It is here where my understanding of radio theory kind of breaks down. OTOH, the set up looked a heck of a lot like my HF rig. Power source + RF amplification + 'tuning to a resonant frequency' + resonant antenna pushing a signal to a tuned antenna that uses that energy to perform work. You know, you can build a radio receiver that does not require a power source. You can drive an earphone with the RF power picked up by the receiver's antenna.

It may be that the RFI would be narrow-band given the demonstration is using a tuned signal, but I'm relatively certain that there is RFI nonetheless. I would have appreciated some discussion of this on the part of the presenter as I'm pretty sure this is what he was glossing over with the hand-wavy "and other, proprietary stuff" comment when explaining his set up. If it is narrowband, they're going to have to find some space for that on the already crowded spectrum. If it isn't, well, that's one hell of a lot of noise.
posted by Fezboy! at 5:22 AM on September 1

Radio is electromagnetic waves at frequencies lower than visible light. This power dispersal method is tuned to a narrow frequency wave and is therefore technically radio (as is a garage door opener or wifi). It will avoid interfering with wireless transmissions of any type the same way any other wireless transmission technology does: by using different frequencies or not transmitting enough distance to matter.
posted by idiopath at 5:29 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]

On non-preview: Fezboy!, have you heard of those people who get electrically shocked by holding a bare wire in both hands that is connected to nothing, while standing too close to a transmitter? This is radio technology. The only difference is that the antenna is configured not for transmitting as far and wide as possible, but rather for focusing at a physically close object in a specific area.
posted by idiopath at 5:32 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]

Sure, you can control directional gain to some degree. You're still transmitting RF though. A simple 5 watt transmitter can reach thousands of miles under the right conditions. There isn't a whole lot of RFI amongst consumer electronics because the antennas are shite. However, I can hear a lot of consumer electronics related noise on my HF rig. Hell, I can even control my neighbor's touch lamp when transmitting in the 40 meter band. Freaked his shit out at first. Selecting frequency is only part of the issue. They'll have to filter against harmonics and the like. This kind of precision isn't found in a lot of consumer electronics in my experience.

At 50% power loss, you're going to be transmitting at significant wattages if you expect to do more than charge a cell phone. A 60 watt bulb will take at least 120 watts of power. A bog-standard ham station transmits at 100 watts. Any frequency below 6 meters (~50Mhz) and you're going to have to worry about propagation beyond the horizon. Any frequency above 3 (~100Mhz) meters and you're going to have to worry about resonating a human-, or some body part thereof-, sized antenna.

Originally, I was questioning whether this would have an impact on existing radio services. hippybear jumped in trying to convince me this had nothing to do with RF. I was pretty sure it did although I admit my grasp of the theory behind radio propagation isn't exactly strong. It seems settled at this point that they are using RF to power consumer electronics remotely. Now the question for me is just how much of an impact this would have on existing radio services. In short, it's a neat trick. I am a bit skeptical of the whole hand-wavery the presenter in the TED video engages in when it comes to the implementation details. I suspect this is because there are some disadvantages he'd prefer to not discuss as they'd detract from the WOW-factor of powering a device remotely.
posted by Fezboy! at 10:18 AM on September 1

Yeah I was trying to chime in to let you know you were right about this. From reading another article, the significant technological achievement here is how clean and narrow a spectrum they are able to generate - in other words they claim to have all but entirely eliminated harmonics from the signal, and therefore spurious interference.

What I am worried about with this technology is that random unexpected resonances happen (some piece of wire in a circuit that just happens to be exactly the right length, or as you mention, even worse, some human body part). And with this kind of signal strength that is a really big deal. Also, what if you blow a capacitor in the transmitting circuit? Does it get disabled, or drift off frequency, or start producing harmonics that can injure the user or destroy their electronics? What if a cat with an identifying microchip rubs itself against the device, will it short out the chip, produce enough heat to burn the cat... ?
posted by idiopath at 10:47 AM on September 1

What I am worried about with this technology is that random unexpected resonances happen (some piece of wire in a circuit that just happens to be exactly the right length, or as you mention, even worse, some human body part). And with this kind of signal strength that is a really big deal. Also, what if you blow a capacitor in the transmitting circuit? Does it get disabled, or drift off frequency, or start producing harmonics that can injure the user or destroy their electronics?

I'd imagine it would look something like this.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:56 AM on September 1

So, according to the wikipedia article on WiTricity (the company which demoed at TED):

Unlike the far field wireless power transmission systems based on traveling electro-magnetic waves, WiTricity employs near field inductive coupling through magnetic fields similar to those found in transformers except that the primary coil and secondary winding are physically separated, and tuned to resonate to increase their magnetic coupling. These tuned magnetic fields generated by the primary coil can be arranged to interact vigorously with matched secondary windings in distant equipment but far more weakly with any surrounding objects or materials such as radio signals or biological tissue. (emphasis mine)

So, I take that to mean that there may be some RF spillage, but that a well-tuned system will keep this to a minimum.

Also, the technology being demoed in that video is not power broadcasting from a central source to many users like a utility might do it. It is a way to eliminate the need for plug-in power points within a small area.
posted by hippybear at 11:00 AM on September 1

Oh, or, elimination of the need for battery power within the broadcast area.
posted by hippybear at 11:02 AM on September 1

hippybear: the way they use the word magnetic seems deliberately misleading to me. They are talking about electromagnetism. This is how radio works, in fact what they are doing is radio, just with a short range and a very clean signal. Radio interacts "far more weakly with surrounding nonresonant objects, materials, signals or biological tissue" than it does with a tuned coil, pretty much by definition.
posted by idiopath at 11:12 AM on September 1

I should have added: also the way that a transformer works is the same way that radio works too, the difference being that the two antennas are wrapped around one another.
posted by idiopath at 11:14 AM on September 1

If magnet A is moving in this and such a manner, and is causing magnet B to also move in the same way because of the magnetic field, what radiative power is moving between them? I thought that was just caused by the magnet field and had nothing to do with actually "transmitting" anything. Maybe I'm incorrect in that, but from what I understand, what they're doing is not a transmission process at all, but is magnetic induction, which is not the same.

I really don't have the schooling to get into this in depth, but I do remember being told repeatedly that "EM spectrum != magnetism" despite the confusion of the similar names. Maybe someone with a PhD in physics will appear to help explain all this.
posted by hippybear at 11:48 AM on September 1

idiopath: There are two separate methods at work in transformers and radios. These are due to the Near- and Far-field effects, respectively.

the wikipedia article is informative.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 11:59 AM on September 1

My understanding is that no radiative power moves between them in that instance, thus no electricity is produced or transmitted.

If one of the magnets is held in place, and is wrapped with wire, then an electric current will flow through the wire when the other is moved.

If both magnets are stationary, and both are wrapped with wire, and electricity is run through one of the wires, some amount of electricity will also be caused to flow through the other.

In this case they are not using magnets, but just electricity going through the coils.

I understand this article to say that magnetic induction is not a different kind of energy than radio, but rather and different way of focusing and transmitting the energy (highly directional and short range, rather than wide dispersing and long range).
posted by idiopath at 12:06 PM on September 1

ArgentCorvid: thank you for that link, I am coming to see that the designs of near field and far field devices may be different enough for at least some of my concerns to be moot, which is good news. I would still worry about unintended resonances with anything that got close enough to the transmitter (or can they pick transmitting frequencies and failover modes that would also render these concerns moot?).
posted by idiopath at 12:11 PM on September 1

Okay, so I think we're on the same page. Am I correct then, in understanding that this is not a radiative form of power, per se, but is instead one which is limited to the size of the magnetic field and is inductive? And that this would have near zero effect on radio transmissions or reception except perhaps within that magnetic sphere of influence, which would be quite tiny?
posted by hippybear at 12:16 PM on September 1

Yeah I misunderstood some of the implications of near vs. far fields I think.

Though I was right that they are exactly the same kind of energy, I misunderstood how different their transmitters are in design, and it seems the coils will in fact create a very local effect.
posted by idiopath at 12:27 PM on September 1

Here's the thing. If I get an electric car, and I need to plug it in each night or it will run out of juice and it won't work the next day, then I'm going to have a lot of mornings where my car is dead.

Wow. And I thought I was lazy.

Here's a tip: Don't move someplace where the winter is especially wintery, 'cause you'll have to plug in your car at night, electric or not. (You might also have to shovel the driveway. Quel horreur!)

Anyway...

I suppose it is possible that a whole power mat industry, secondary to the manufacture of electric cars, could spring up overnight to satiate the indubitably overwhelming demand for such futuristic marvels of technological convenience, which of course would instantly replace all those old, dirty, tangled, inconvenient, garage-cluttering, baby-strangling extension cords. Just think: Never again will you have to waste those precious two-and-a-half seconds plugging something into the damn wall.

That wouldn't just be an exorbitantly overcomplicated and counterintuitively resource-heavy alternative to a short, thin braid of copper, would it?

Seriously, though: Worst. TED Talk. Ever. Each and every example that guy gives has simple and obvious solutions. Want to hang a TV on the wall with no cords showing? Install an outlet behind the TV. Want your wife's phone to stop beeping? Try putting its charger on the nightstand, professor. Yes, wireless power on a grand scale would be excellent for mobile devices, but since this technology seems to work only in close proximity, you might as well just plug that shit in. I don't quite see how it would eliminate the need for batteries much at all, either.

It's neat, but meh.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:18 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]

An entire thread on Tesla without one mention of his Earthquake Machine!
posted by nfg at 5:05 AM on September 2

Wow. And I thought I was lazy.

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?
posted by Deathalicious at 10:26 PM on September 2

There are no absent-minded people in Sys Rq's utopia.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:58 AM on September 3

There are no absent-minded people in Sys Rq's utopia.

If that were true, I'd've killed myself a long time ago.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:11 PM on September 3