wireless electricity

[everything]

not sure i feel good about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/02/wire ... topstories

[TaoJoannes]

witchery!

[qiphlow]

if they can do it without everyone growing a third arm or giving everyone cancer, then i think it'd be pretty cool.

[everything]

yeah i'm a little worried about the third arm (well that might be cool if it worked) and the cancer

[roger hao]

Isnt that how Tesla wanted to do it?
He got vetoed by Thomas Edison and Co.

[Dmitri]

I ain't no scientist, but IMHO sending power over long distances will never fly. (Pun intended.) Too inefficient, i.e. high levels of energy dissipation into environment over distance, and also there will be various close-proximity exposure risks, from health to interference with other devices around or along the way.

The "short-distance" charging pads might catch on though, but I'm not sure they'll completely take over "replaceable batteries", across the board.
Besides, companies would probably want to maintain some exclusivity in proprietary power connection plugs, charging voltage levels, (both of these, BTW, without any serious practical reason for them), etc. because of the profits... I HOPE that's not the case, I hope they'll all develop and stick to one damn standard (like the USB), but "going proprietary" has been the case/a trend with a lot of companies...

[Steve James]

I agree that it's an efficiency problem. You'll still need to use electricity to produce electricity to transmit and receive. Now, if we could transform radio (or other) waves directly into electricity, that would be cool. There's some interesting work being done now on converting sound energy into other forms.

[nianfong]

the other problem with wireless electricity is that u have to control the directionality and focus of the magnetic waves or u will be wasting a lot of energy. plus, when it's not being used for anything, u will also be wasting energy.
for instance with the pad they are talking about that will charge cel phones and such, any area that is not being used by a cell phone to charge will be wasted, unless they can focus the energy down to direct it only at the cell phone's inductor coils.

[nianfong]

also... seriously, if u or any object happen to have a natural frequency the same as the magnetic resonance, I think there will be lots of problems.

[Steve James]

Directionality sort of presents the problem of interference. Can "electricity" pass through conductive and non-conductive materials as easily? What happens if we move our receiver? Creating a "field" that can be tapped into seems more likely. Or, having stationary receiving centers which we tap into. But, would you want to live between two (or many) centers pumping out gigawatts. Even then, we'd still have wires.

[nianfong]

magnetic fields pass through anything--they are only blocked by molecular density. ie, magnetic shielding typically uses lead, copper, gold, etc.

[nianfong]

if charges are moving across something, there will be an electric field to make the charges move. u might be thinking of electromagnetic waves. but the thing is, it's all the same thing. you can't set up a field without "broadcasting" a wave.

[everything]

afaik there has been no longitudinal study on something like the effect of the maglev trains in japan on humans. no idea if/how that'd be possible.

not sure i feel like it's safe though with no data or studies.

[Interloper]

How quickly Nikola Tesla is forgotten.
And his fine adventures in Colorado Springs, CO.

[nianfong]

ground control to major tom....
ground control to major tom....
this is ground control to major tom....