A new way to light the light

[Paul Bailey]

the wireless bulb so to speak..

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,279153,00.html

[Mark Parsons]

Hi Paul,

Nice idea. Furthering some of Tesla's experiments with resonating coils.

To really make it more than a 'charge your cell phone or iPOD' novelty, the efficiency is going to have to come way up from the 40% they state. Even a 'wall wart' is at least 80% efficient (inductive coupling in the transformer windings more efficient even without resonating).

And then to reduce the size of the resonating coils to iPOD size is going to require a much higher operating frequency. This will exacerbate the radiated losses.

Of course, 'inverse of the distance squared law' still applies meaning that double the separation distance and require 4x input energy for same output.

Unless my electrical physics recollection is off, this will be tough technology to make efficient.

Regards,
Mark

[Mark Parsons]

Wow!

Just stumbled across this recent patent award. Idea is to use the same resonant inductive system driven from ground based green power sources for personal ion powered jetpacks!!!
http://www.gizmag.com/go/7413/

Maybe there is a way to get around the 'power transfer is proprtional to the inverse of distance squared' limitation?

[Joe Blake]

I have to say there's nothing "new" in this idea of "distant power source". If you read Robert Heinlein's excellent story "Waldo", this was being discussed in 1942.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=22

RH even suggested a solution by beaming the power rather than broadcasting it, having a type of feedback loop to ensure maximum power to the receiver and minimum wastage.

The idea of using ion power has also been used, I can recall a cover article on I think it was "Popular Mechanics" magazine in the early '70s, which illustrated the principle by having a mesh "wing" either side of a fuselage with ion emitters above the wing.

"Mythbusters" did an article of such a system which showed that it was plausible but that was about it.

I think Heinlein made a very good point in "Waldo" about the unknown effect of radiant power on the human body, and whilst microwave feed may not be used to feed energy to the ion generator, there's a fairly comprehensive library of literature on the effects of microwaves on living tissue. Not pleasant.

The inverse square law is going to be very difficult to break, but if you compare how little power it takes to generate a coherent light source visible a considerable distance away compared to an incoherent light source, it may be possible to "get around" the inverse square problem by tackling it in a different fashion. LASER light of course tend to travel in straight lines, but there's been suggestion (by NASA) of using bevawatt lasers to power interplanetary space craft, by either "pushing" on a solar sail to provide propulsion directly, or use the energy in the LASER beam to run onboard systems and allow more "propulsion" fuel to be carried instead.

Tesla's machinery and ideas have been around for quite some time now, and I'd have to say that most of the flights of fancy about them are just that.

But we'll see. I'll keep an open mind.

As with any "unconventional" flight system I'm more concerned about untrained and/or drunken operators falling through my roof. Again, the flight of fancy in "Star Wars" showing the traffic on Coruscant in nice, marshalled lines all travelling at the same speed is just that. We still have idiots on the roads these days who like to travel off-road just for a sense of adventure.

Joe