Lets Power The World With A Tesla Coil - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Sionyn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 05:49:52 pm
content: You though solar road ways were stupid.....http://themindunleashed.org/2014/07/russian-physicists-launch-campaign-rebuild-teslas-wardenclyffe-tower-power-world.html

author: Prime73
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 06:32:49 pm
content: I have way more respect to Tesla and his inventions compare to "solar roadways crew". Seems like these guys at least did the research and analysis:http://globalenergytransmission.com/index.php/en/latest-news/27-examining-working-principle-of-tesla-tower

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 07:10:35 pm
content: I wouldn't equate following on Tesla's research as stupid, after all, what has he contributed other than everything?We don't even use Maxwell's equations anymore, just practical easy formulas derived from it by Heaviside. To me, those guys a Century ago had better understanding of electromagnetic fields that we do now, since we just made it easy for us and now it's set in stone and no one looks past the Heaviside equations (btw he was a high school drop out, but a brilliant guy) Relativity wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Heaviside reducing 12 of Maxwell's 20 equations with 20 variables each to four simple equations with just four variables, that we are taught now as Maxwell's equations even if they are not.Then further more kirchoff's current/voltage laws that apply only to lumped element model makes things way too easy to understand and use.But there are a lot of unknowns that no one is even looking at since we are in a dogma state that we think we know everything there is to know about electromagnetism when in reality we are just using a fraction of the knowledge and everything outside our simplified view has to be moronic and worthless.No I'm not backing them up but I don't think what they are trying to do is stupid by any means. Prove it otherwise as on the solar roads why this wont work or is not worth looking into?

author: FrankBuss
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 07:28:07 pm
content: Looks like all they do is to promise for the money is a prototype and experiments, so it might not work. But would be interesting for research.I don't know much about the physics, but I wonder if it could be dangerous, like changing the Earth magnetic field or some other worldwide phenomenon.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 07:37:05 pm
content: Quote from: FrankBuss on July 05, 2014, 07:28:07 pmThe amount of power extracted should be negligible to affect the Earth's magnetic field that protect us from all the nasties the Sun throws at us all the time. It will affect it but way less than a thunderstorm affects it.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 07:50:26 pm
content: I am overwhelmed at the amount, quality and depth these Tesla muppets have published - not.Five years studying Tesla's notes and patents for the tower (did Tesla actually patent anything about the tower?), and they published nothing scientifically. No discoveries, no conclusions, no summary of what they found. Just five years of looking at stuff that might not even have originated from Tesla himself.At best it is just a bunch of delusioned Cult of Tesla believers at it again. At worst just another bunch of conman. Next.

author: bobwidlar
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 07:59:16 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on July 05, 2014, 07:50:26 pmI agree. That "Cult of Tesla" is kind of makes some people blind to not even question is that really what he did?

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2014, 08:29:51 pm
content: I say go for it, it could end up being an interesting art installation, and if it inspires anyone to take an interest in electricity then so much the better. Even a total failure can make an interesting exam question.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 01:44:49 am
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on July 05, 2014, 07:50:26 pmI agree,--------------there seems to be a lot of 'hand-waving" in their stuff.If they get a bit stuck,they throw in some out of context Maths,& strange interpretations of Transmission Line theory.At least,that's my impression----but what would I know,I'm just a furry-faced old Tech?Tesla was a great Engineer,who,like Marconi,the Wright Brothers,& others, developed a lot of other people's ideas to the point of being actually practically usable.Unfortunately,he went "round the bend" in his later years,with all sorts of half thought out ideas,which are a godsend to the "Tesla Worshippers"!

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 03:03:13 am
content: Quote from: Prime73 on July 05, 2014, 06:32:49 pmQuote from: miguelvp on July 05, 2014, 07:10:35 pmYou're both making the same mistake here as Solar Roadways' supporters -- you're judging an idea by who said it, not by the merits of the idea itself.Quote from: miguelvp on July 05, 2014, 07:10:35 pmSimilarly (presumably), the laws of motion that practically all mechanical engineers use are mere approximations of the true, relativity-aware laws that govern motion. But it's extremely far-fetched to expect that we're missing out on a new way to build cars that exploits relativity; relativity is just negligible on earth (except for the magnetism that makes electric cars work, which can be demonstrated to bea consequence of electrostatic and relativistic laws, but even that has been perfectly and concisely simplified into electromagnetic laws for the benefit of all).I don't know the specifics of the simplification you're describing, but I can confidently say you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate the the assumptions underlying those simplifications are suddenly invalid in this instance. FEM software works pretty damn well.Quote from: miguelvp on July 05, 2014, 07:10:35 pmI disagree, I fail to see a counterexample in non-lumped models. Lone electrons/electronic charge does not spontaneously appear or disappear underanycircumstances; assign voltages to a set of points and KVLhasto apply around the loop. (KVL's actually a bit of a dumb/obvious law in the sense that voltage are relative, so it's impossible to contrive a loop of absolute voltages that fails to obey KVL).I don't really see any concrete claims being made by these people, so I've got nothing to critique. It just smells outlandish.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 03:45:48 am
content: Tesla was a smart man, but not without his misunderstandings. He regularly spoke of resonant circuits as "energy building and building", with no limiting factor even alluded to. In the real world, resonant coils are lossy; both the source and load act to limit bandwidth; propagation is Hertzian, and inverse square at a distance; atmospheric propagation is nonideal, suffering from losses, variable refraction, and dispersion.Really, resonance is a limited aspect of a system. A system always has impedances coming and going, and the reactive elements of a resonant tank exhibit some reactance. The ratio is essentially the Q factor. You can very easily dampen the resonance by adjusting the impedance to match the system impedance, which is how filters can be made of ideal inductors and capacitors, yet still achieve a desired frequency response (with no peaking -- or with any amount desired).One can demonstrate wireless power transfer in the manner that Tesla proposed -- using the ionosphere and ground as a capacitor and its length as an inductor, coupling energy from a transmitter, and drawing energy at receivers. The benchtop analogy uses large metal plates for the ionosphere, smaller plates (within the large plates) for the antennas (thus, exhibiting some capacitance from large to small), and tuning a resonant tank to each, so as to achieve the desired coupling factor (k) from each component in the system. Problem is, for this to work, the Q of the tanks must be >> 1/k. And since we're talking, probably, k < 0.001 even would be generous, we necessarily require Q >> 1000, for all elements, including the atmosphere itself. I don't know any numbers, but I'm guessing the atmosphere isn't nearly as sharp -- a good example might be the reflections of lightning strikes around the world: one can set up a means of observing this, and the reflections generally die out (>99%) in just a few bounces, taking a few seconds, if that. The losses will vary by frequency -- the atmosphere is dispersive, besides its variable qualities (day/night propagation, ionospheric layers and fading, weather-dependent refractive layers, humidity, etc.), which all serve to scramble and lose a signal you're trying to pump up inside.On a smaller scale, "wireless power" in the manner of a few limited demos that have shown up in recent years, are more of the same, usually with near field magnetics being the active ingredient. Two coils at some moderate distance have a pretty small coupling factor, so their Qs must be astronomical: you can be assured that, in any of these demonstrations -- note they never provide intimate details of the antennas or circuitry -- the antennas must be wound with the best material available, e.g., extremely finely stranded Litz cable, resonating with very high quality capacitors; the transmitter/receiver must be transformer coupled to these, and the operating frequency must be perfectly matched. And still, the efficiency is low, because some energy is inevitably being lost to propagation, but most is simply dissipated in the resonant tanks because k is too small for it to transfer fast enough.Tim

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 05:04:32 am
content: There's still a few unknowns about high voltage arcs.When compared to the rules that predict arc length vs voltage/power from a typical tesla coil a lightning bolt arc travels a lot further than it should.It is believed that when voltage gets high enough some other factor must come into play and causes a major increase in possible arc length but no one has managed to get a man made voltage high enough to see it happen yet, or know what factor might cause it.It's unlikely, but possible Telsa knew something we still haven't discovered yet. So i wouldn't absolutely rule that building Tesla's tower is pointless.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 05:26:00 am
content: building this design has historical value, even if it will not work (which is probably the case), just the same as this build of Babbage engine that has no real value this days but provides historical perspective.http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

author: electrophiliate
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 05:31:59 am
content: I'm all for building massive Tesla coils to study the physics of electrical breakdown, but I doubt wireless power distribution would work as Tesla envisioned. That said, there is still much to learn about atmospheric phenomena and perhaps they will discover something about that along the way.Quote from: themindunleashed.orgOnly 20 meters? I would like to see the twin 85 meter Tesla towers built as per the Lightning Foundry project:http://scitechdaily.com/lightning-foundry-world%E2%80%99s-largest-tesla-coils-to-research-lightningIn my fantasies some eccentric billionaire is funding a 1km tall Tesla coil. I guess the resonant frequency would be pretty low at that size.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 05:36:54 am
content: Every AM radio tower in existence is a TC, unwound. Usually in the 600m range. Good for propagation, bad for voltage.Tim

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 05:55:25 am
content: Quote from: rs20 on July 06, 2014, 03:03:13 amI said it before but I'll quote it again.Quote from: HeavisideMeaning that the formulas we use are just an interpretation of Maxwell, I'm not saying that Heaviside didn't do a good engineering job at reducing the formulas and I don't blame people to use Heaviside's simplified approach because I don't think Einstein would be able to comprehend what Maxwell formulatedQuote from: rs20 on July 06, 2014, 03:03:13 amThe problem with KVL and KCL and the lumped model is that it has to follow three constrains:1) Current density going into a lumped element minus the current density coming out of the lumped element is 0, meaning that the gain rate of charge over time is 0. So we make the elements follow that rule. This means the surfaces have to match on both sides of the device. you can't have a resistor with the cross section on one lead thicker than the other.2) Rate of change of the magnetic flux in the lumped element must be 0, meaning there can't be any fluctuation in the magnetic field within the device.3) Signals in the lumped elements must beWaylower than the speed of light. Restricting high frequencies.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff%27s_circuit_laws#LimitationsThe problem with that, is that Tesla operated at very high voltages and extremely high frequencies therefore affecting the rate of change of the magnetic flux breaking the last two conditions of kirchoff's laws. To what purpose I have no idea and that's the thing, no one knows even in theory what was going on with Tesla's experiments. The only mathematical models that might shed some light would be the original Maxwell's equations and no one as far as I know uses those anymore:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/A_Dynamical_Theory_of_the_Electromagnetic_Field.pdfQuote from: rs20 on July 06, 2014, 03:03:13 amYeah, it does (smell outlandish) but that doesn't take away the merit to look a bit into it, it's been dormant for a century.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 07:27:15 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 06, 2014, 05:55:25 amWTF?You must have no intuition. Obviously, current conservation (which is fundamentally a mass and charge conservation law, and by law I mean actually fundamental and absolute) is integrated over an area. Which is specified in the equations, a Gaussian integral.QuoteWhat?Flux is not conserved in a lumped element (meaning an abstract two terminal) component.If you meant inside an infinitesimal of space, yes, the Gaussian integral over the entire surface of that volume, for magnetic flux density, must equal zero.QuoteLumped element approximation assumes infinite speed of light, actually. And zero ohm wires, and so on.QuoteAny discrepancy between these laws and reality is exclusively due to ones' own misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the situation. E&M works literally from DC into the gamma rays (>>PHz), up to extremely large field strengths (far more than mere breakdown in atmospheric pressure) and rates of change.Tim

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 07:32:20 am
content: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped_matter_disciplineAny other device won't obey that law.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 07:44:29 am
content: That's referring to the transform between time- and space-continuous structures into lumped-circuit equivalents. Not a representation of the world-as-we-know-it, and not to be taken out of context.Tim

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 08:29:52 am
content: Well I'm just learning the right way at my old age and because I believe in learning from scratch (no shortcuts) so I've been taking some online classes, granted I'm a noob but a diligent one.The first one I took online 6 months ago was:https://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-6-002x-circuits-electronics-2606It uses this book as the textbook:http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Electronic-Circuits-Kaufmann-Architecture/dp/1558607358On that class, the teacher was very adamant stating that the lump matter discipline can get you and you might find circuits that don't behave right if you don't follow those constrains.On the textbook they have a whole apendix A (11 pages) talking about Maxwell, lumped matter discipline and kirchoff, on top of what they mention in the actual book. So I did some research on the Maxwell equations in the book and they are Heaviside's equations and nothing to do with the actual Maxwell's equations (other than in spirit). I could post the appendix but being copyrighted material well, then again you probably know all about it. To me it's fresh in my head.As for the slides of the course, note the last sentence of the 2nd slide. Maybe those online MIT courses are teaching crapBut if they are not teaching nonsense then what happens when those three constraints are not met?Enters Maxwell, but that is not really Maxwell, it's Heaviside.So how many unknowns do we have and how many shortcuts did EE took just to get us to "close enough"?So to me, revisiting a period where all research stopped because obviously we learned everything there is to learn and mastered electromagnetism. Of course, humanity can't be naive at those kinds of assumptions, saying there is nothing else to learn or be discovered on this field! that would never happen.So my point is let them go back one hundred years and look into what Tesla was doing, maybe we do learn something new.

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 08:36:51 am
content: my 2 cents....my guts are telling me that it won't work... but on the other hand Nikola Tesla was a master mind...so if those guys will start a crowd funding project and there will be a option to contribute with something like 10Euros - i'll back them with that 10Eurprobably it'll be a scam, probably they'll do some research, eventually they'll come up with some results (either negative or positive)... i don't care, i'll support them by that small amount - just because of my admiration of Tesla's work

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 08:58:48 am
content: Quote from: rob77 on July 06, 2014, 08:36:51 amEven if I would like them to raise the money, their choice of flexible funding for a large amount of money is a big turn off, I might pledge if they raise enough but otherwise they just get not enough money so nothing will happen. So for that reason even if I would love them to try, I won't, unless they get close enough of their goal.BTW they do have a crowd funding via indigogo but the flexible funding for an $800,000 goal, it's a big turn off for me.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 02:13:12 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 06, 2014, 08:29:52 amI don't like this term "lump matter". I've never heard it before, and it sounds like something that could get one into a lot of trouble.Traditionally (the way I learned it?), you learn lumped circuits in abstract -- a drawing on paper, nothing to do with reality. It is a schematic representation of, at the most basic, a matrix space. Each component has >= 2 pins, each of which connects to >= 1 other pins. The connections, bridging between >= 2 pins, are called nodes or nets, and closed paths around the graph are called loops. In the matrix (netlist) form, rows and columns represent nodes, and the entries along each row/column represent connections from one node to the other. (A linear, time-invariant matrix must be symmetric, because resistors for example can only deliver current to one node by subtracting it from another -- KCL.) Then, you learn E&M as fields in space, period -- how to set up the boundary conditions, how to evaluate the integral forms (loop and surface), and how to derive the Telegrapher's Equation for a given setup.What I'm guessing from the picture is some weird hybrid of these approaches, perhaps attempting to introduce field theory from the comfort of the wire and node. This actually sounds practical in regards to E&M simulators -- generally, you are able to apply a nonphysical stimulus to a model, such as, well I want to apply exactly this voltage to these faces only, don't ask me how it's supposed to get there. Some of them, you can even hook up real SPICE to said nodes, and use the E&M model as an actual component. But that's a whole hell of a lot more advanced than introductory E&M, and I would be very weary of anyone who tries to teach it that way. It sounds like it could very easily confuse a student.QuoteIf Heaviside just pulled them out his ass, physics would be a clusterfuck. Fortunately, he didn't. He simplified them, from some 23 equations (I don't remember -- I haven't read Maxwell's original paper myself) to the somewhat more elegant four that are most commonly listed. To say that form has "nothing to do" with Maxwell is a great disservice not just to Maxwell, but to all those who worked so hard to develop this most marvelous and enduring of physical laws.BTW, certain vector spaces admit an even simpler form. There's a combination scalar-vector space, from geometric algebra, which does this. Einstein expanded E&M, developing General Relativity, and expressed it with a single equation in R^4 (i.e., four dimensions, and using "three dimensional" matrices (i.e., rank 3 tensors) to express operations in that space). I'm sure I've misremembered the exact form of things, but that's the jist of it.QuoteThey may well be. So far, it sounds misleading at least.It would be quite naive to think that MIT, or any other institution, should be an infallible paragon of their field. MIT itself is still well renowned, though I've heard suggestions of falling standards. It would be even more naive to think that online coursework would be exactly as reliable as in-person instruction. I haven't looked at MIT coursework myself, but given the...average level of quality offered by most online courses, they shouldn't need to be very good to still be better than everyone else, if that's one of their goals.Anyway, what that last sentence in the slide is getting at is, conservation laws are true for infinitesimal elements; "use this for low frequencies" is the same as saying "don't use this for high frequencies" or "the speed of light is infinity".When you do a static (or quasi-static) E or M problem, you only need to invoke one or two of the four equations, and as such, your equations have no concept of the speed of light, or the passage of time. When integrating all four equations, over a volume of space, the speed of light necessarily appears, and E and M are coupled as they should be.QuoteThere's nothing new in E&M, it's quite remarkable really that it was perfect when discovered. It's so simple and proportional that, really, it shouldn't be seen as a physical law at all, but merely a normal attribute, a symmetry of the space we live in. This is, I think, what physicists are going on about when they talk about symmetry and gauge invariance in the higher levels of quantum mechanics, that this is just how space itself behaves, and when we talk about "particles", what we really mean is the algebra that describes how mass-energy manifests and interacts with itself in this space. And the simple difference between that and E&M being, we don't see almost any of that fancy behavior under normal conditions, because all that high-energy stuff can be approximated very well down at regular energy levels (i.e., anything less than high energy gamma rays).What is new is the use of E&M. For a long time -- much of the 19th century -- only bits and pieces were known, published, discovered and rediscovered. But even after Maxwell's putting them all together, uptake was slow, especially in the lower level disciplines. By the turn of the century, EEs (such as the occupation was at the time) hardly knew anything about alternating current, radio waves, propagation, resonance and so on. Hertz' famous experiment was done in 1887, but it took decades before radio as we know it took off.Even to this day, I suppose, few engineers know about this in much detail. And these days, hell, who needs E&M, just use an Arduino!Tim

author: xygor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 02:55:48 pm
content: Quote from: rs20 on July 06, 2014, 03:03:13 amAsk a quantum mechanic.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 04:38:10 pm
content: The stuff written in their "Q&A" reeks of bullshit. Best case these are just some crazy nutjobs who are naive and optimistic enough to think they can find new science. Worst case (and more likely) is that these guys saw an opportunity to make some quick cash. They launched on Indiegogo where they can get away with it more easily. Flexible Funding so that if something happens and it gets shut down then they've still made a ton of money. The first thing on their campaign page is quoting a tweet to Elon Musk and Matt Inman ("The Oatmeal"), begging for money. That in particular is a red flag because Matt is the guy who launched a campaign to buy the Wardenclyffe lab site (it was being sold to a commercial developer) to preserve it, and he got a donation from Musk to support that. Then once the preservation society had ownership of the site, he asked Musk for help again (via Twitter) with funding the construction of a museum on the site. Musk agreed to help (again, in a public response via Twitter). So these two clowns are trying to use that tactic to scam a large donation from Musk, or perhaps get Matt to promote them - which would be a huge spike in publicity for their campaign.There is nothing wrong with revisiting the ideas that were abandoned 100 years ago. But do it with a proper research team and budget. Not some shady crowdfunding scam.

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2014, 07:02:49 pm
content: Quote from: MacAttak on July 06, 2014, 04:38:10 pmactually i agree (and didn't backed them yet - need to check their campaign first and then decide), but on the other hand - no one of the scientist will do a proper research on that idea because the scientist are convinced it won't work. there is not a single scientist who might even think about a possibility that the whole science is "wrong". i'm not saying the scientists are wrong, i'm saying that to discover something what was overseen by science for a century requires zero influence from current science (otherwise you might oversee it as well).

author: EricVanWyk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2014, 12:07:32 am
content: One of my favorite conspiracy theories is that the Tesla Tower worked perfectly, but it was shutdown because there wouldn't be a way to charge the end users and recoup the investment - where do you put the meter?I think the better questions is "Where do you put the on/off switch?". If it can transmit enough juice to be useful, how do you convince it to not transmit power to things that you don't want electrified?Even if they magically get it to work, would we actually want to use it?

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2014, 12:12:14 am
content: Quote from: EricVanWyk on July 07, 2014, 12:07:32 amWithin 1 km from the tower everyone gets 1st degree burns from their gold wedding ring.Within 5 km from the tower relays no longer need a power source, they energize when you short the terminals together.At 10 km from the tower there are 10000's of birds just fly around and around in a 10km arc

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2014, 02:05:05 am
content: Quote from: xygor on July 06, 2014, 02:55:48 pmBzzzzt. Indeed, energy can transform into random particles, but what's created is particle-antiparticlepairs-- every new electron is created with a corresponding positron. So even in this crazy world, charge conservation (also known as Kirchoff's Current Law) isstillconserved. This is why is used the adjective "lone".

author: gibbled
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2014, 03:14:19 am
content: Just ran across this on Twitter...http://rt.com/news/170704-tesla-tower-lightning-russia/

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2014, 08:05:29 am
content: Quote from: gibbled on July 07, 2014, 03:14:19 amthat's a high voltage research facility, nothing unusual. there are several such a facilities over the world.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2014, 04:06:16 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 06, 2014, 08:29:52 amThis is not true, they are the same equations in different forms. It doesn't matter which ones you use, you will get the same results.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2014, 04:27:05 am
content: Quote from: edavid on July 08, 2014, 04:06:16 amWould love a link to that claim can't find anything anywhere that confirms what you just said.

author: abaxas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2014, 09:07:49 am
content: Even if this turns out to be a folly, it'll make for a great museum.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 08, 2014, 09:42:25 pm
content: If they were making a replica for a museum (and were forthright about that) then I would have probably supported it.

author: bobwidlar
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 09:56:21 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 08, 2014, 04:27:05 amref:http://theinstitute.ieee.org/technology-focus/technology-history/did-you-know-someone-else-wrote-maxwells-equations

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 02:37:53 pm
content: I'm not disputing that since I mentioned that is the case to begin with. But even Heaviside said that he only follow Maxwell until some point where he got stuck then he deviated from Maxwell. So even if you can go from Heaviside to Maxwell, the opposite is not the case.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 05:13:29 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 09, 2014, 02:37:53 pmThat's because Maxwell made some errors:http://news.james-clerk-maxwell.com/en/QuoteWatch out, that's a common physics crackpot belief.Have you read this yet?http://www.rexresearch.com/maxwell1/20equations.pdf

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 05:42:23 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on July 09, 2014, 05:13:29 pmThank you for the links, at least work is still being done, I'll read that pdf in detail later as well.And yeah, I tend to ignore all of the free energy sites "research" because they follow their own dogma as well.To my understanding is that Heaviside's equations explain what we know and holds true within it's constrains, but that being the case it doesn't imply that they explain it all and there is no more to it that just that.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 07:36:28 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 09, 2014, 05:42:23 pmDoesn't the fact that people have been looking at them for 130 years, and haven't found anything, make that seem a little unlikely?

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2014, 09:08:30 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on July 09, 2014, 07:36:28 pmThat paper you linked actually shows that people have not been looking at them for 50 years and then just to mention how today's Maxwell equations don't equate to the original ones.But haven't had the time to fully read it yet.

author: Sigmoid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2014, 04:45:49 pm
content: The thing I don't quite understand is that okay, let's assume that electricity CAN be transmitted to any point of the Earth with minimal loss. So now where does that electricitycome from?People tend to rip on Edison for - allegedly - not supporting Tesla's wireless transmission project, because there was no way to charge for the electricity. They make Edison look like some evil top-hat, cigar-smoking capitalist who sides with greed as opposed to science...But come on... if I have a wireless transmission system, then I have absolutely no way to control access to the power grid, which means anyone can abuse the system and black out their neighborhood in order to try and power a home-built pulse laser or something.It's a transmission system, not a production system. It would still need power plants, and provide a finite amount of power.So I either go around with armed troops, looking for "pirate" access points and arresting people for having them, or I have the populace pay a flat tax for electricity, which would, due to the uncontrolled nature of the system, likely be a lot higher than the power bill of an average family.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2014, 05:42:14 pm
content: Quote from: Sigmoid on August 19, 2014, 04:45:49 pmEdison battled Tesla on DC vs AC. Even to the point of electrocuting an elephant and other large animals in public view with AC current to show how evil AC is. Nothing to do with anything else, other than refusing to pay Tesla for making a DC motor for Edison and not being paid for it and Edison telling Tesla that he just didn't get American Humor, as in he offering Tesla a million dollars if he could make the motor work. Yeah, sounds like something someone will say in gist.The thing why it was supposedly shutdown (the wireless transmission) is because Tesla was supposed to be working in something else and there was no way to make money on wireless transmission of power, supposedly when he confessed to Westinghouse what the true purpose of the experiment was (he was supposed to be working on radio to have it ready before Marconi) but Marconi eventually got the patent office to grant him a patent (later it was found out that it did infringe on Tesla's patent, but that didn't happen until after Tesla was dead). But Westinhouse (or was it JP Morgan?) pulled his funding and Tesla became broke because Marconi finally got around his patent.There is a PBS documentary on Tesla, look for it, it's pretty interesting.Edit: the documentary also touches into Tesla's holistic connections which discredited his work from then on. That's not to say that the wireless transmission would work or not, or his weapon to end all wars, etc.. but by that time he was pennyless and considered a nut job.

author: HighVoltage
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2014, 09:50:53 pm
content: History has shown that we have smiled back at previous generations, when we looked in to their relative simple believe of how the world works.It really seems that Tesla was far ahead of his time.The future will probably hold a few surprises for us on all levels of technology.And may be some of Tesla's ideas will prevail and may be they will not.But for sure, something new will emerge and may be such a research tower is the key to this new stuff.With all the snake oil stuff around, it is hard to keep a straight mind, when looking in to the possible future.