This may seem like semantics, but their are no devices which broadcast power, in the sense of “broadly casting” it, only ones which transmit power over short distances. Tesla’s ideas on broadcasting power ranged from devices – which he said were “just around the corner” – which ranged from machines that would wirelessly handle all the lighting in an apartment building, to world-wide schemes that supposedly would consist of a small number of power stations that would wirelessly handle the needs of most of humanity. There have been very small scale wireless-power transmission demos for many decades, but there is no evidence of any breakthroughs that will lead to full-scale broadcasting of power like Tesla suggested.
Not a political forum: just one where people are expected to be able to back up what they claim, which you haven’t accomplished even once.
It has EVERYTHING to do with what you’re saying. Cecil never said that transmitting power was impossible. He said it was inefficient. If you think he was “pwned,” you must disagree with him. Therefore, your entire argument centers on how much energy it takes.
I went farther than you, apparently, and read ALL of the paragraphs in the article. It’s not an “exact-words” game. You said that Cecil said something. He didn’t say it. He didn’t imply it. He didn’t hint at it. He didn’t say anything similar to it. You just made it up, dude.
Why would I hit the texts to verify data that you’re making up?
I’ll say this one more time in the hopes that you’ll actually read it:
Cecil never said you couldn’t build a device that broadcasts power. In fact, he said (and I quote), “Tesla coils, in my experience, can illuminate fluorescent bulbs, but usually at a distance of only a few feet.”
So he actually said, in the article that you supposedly read, that Tesla could broadcast enough power to light a fluorescent bulb from a few feet away, but it was inefficient. Now, you’re claiming you “pwned” him, because you found an article about a company that can broadcast enough power to charge a cellphone from a few feet away, but it’s inefficient.
I think you just failed to read or understand Cecil’s article, failed to read or understand the Powercast article, and failed to read understand this entire thread.
Illuminating fluorescents is no news…who hasn’t seen that…I learned in highschool science class that the stuff in fluorescent tubes can pick up static, etc. Charging a battery is different. I don’t think cecil skimps his articles to accomodate your existing understanding of things, rather for the everyday joe like myself. He simply made a bad call. The nomenclature is indeed a matter of semantics, and is usually clarified in The Straight Dope…cecil didn’t make any such discretion. You could call it fly fishing for protons for all I care…if there’s no wire, and it’s charging batteries, and lighting up LED’s on christmas trees…that bugger’s broadcasting power.
In none of my reading did I come across anything similar…did anybody? You didn’t find the christmas tree lights, so I’m guessing you really aren’t looking or caring, just arguing. Cecil’s research posse sure didn’t find anything back in '90…this is new! Do YOU doubt it will get bigger and better? Do YOU think we’ve maxed out our breakthroughs in the field? Do YOU think he would have answered the same way if this thing had been invented when he wrote the article? That’s my point…he did nothing but talk the idea down.
Cecil gots PWNED! I’m afraid he did. Not by me…by himself. There is now tangible fruition of an everyday power-broadcasting device…efficient enough to be peddled for home use…in its very early stages of development at that…and he belittled the idea. Maybe the kinetic sculptor guy built one in 1990, we’ll never know because people like yourself were too wrapped up in knowing everything there is to know already, and trying to peg people like myself down…
Eh, no it isn’t. Both involve the flow of a small electrical current, regardless of the source of energy supplied.
In any case, your premise is flawed; as has been repeated often in this thread (and completely ignored by you), Cecil never once claims that broadcast power is impossible on any scale. However, it is clear to anyone with a modicum of comprehension that Unca Cece is talking about broadcast power on the scale of widespread power distribution to supply electric power to homes and business. Not merely charging a cell phone battery.
so…then he blundered even more obviously by not simply stating that maybe someday (very soon in fact) such principles would be tweaked enough to charge a battery…as in a device plugged into a common appliance…as is asked in the original question. There was no hypothesis of hope, rather “danger danger, imagine us all dead…kinetic sculptors can’t comprehend such things.” I’ve read the question…you’re assuming only grand scale? why? That’s not what he’s asking. You’d think he would have acknowledged the potential based on exponentially more powerfull technologies being invented all the time…you know, the future…why NOT merely charging a cell phone battery? is that not a damn good start??? do YOU think it’s gonna stop there?
dudes…admit it…he got too cocky. It’s one thing to state the facts about 17th century nautical maps…another to be as negative about the future of technology as he was in his response to this question. PWNED.
Sure it is; it’s implicit in the question. The author asked about powering vehicles–you can’t do that without a very large-scale infrastructure. He also mentions oil companies, but oil companies aren’t interested in small-scale energy use like charging cell phones.
Besides, you’re stretching the commonly-understood meaning of the term “appliance” almost to the breaking point. In the strictest sense, you can probably include cell phone chargers, but the vast majority of English speakers will understand the term to mean purpose-built equipment like hair dryers, toasters, microwave ovens washers, driers and dishwashers, to name but a few.
so you have an infrastructure of transmittors constantly fueling super-capacitors and limited time/range. C’mon, I’m thinking this up as I’m typing it…put me through tech school and I’ll come up with an even better on-the-fly hypothesis based on the latest gadgetry at the time. Neither of us are rocket scientists (are we?)…we could banter what-if’s forever.
it’s NOT implicit in the question…and pretty much ignored in the answer…and besides…it starts small, then gets big…just like everything. Cecil shoulda given a nod to the up-and-coming…that’s all I’m saying. Instead he gets pwned.
I’m not a rocket scientist, but I am a tech employed the power distribution industry–all day, I work in and around equipment which is used to distribute three-phase power up to 600 volts and hundreds of thousands of watts. This is my field of expertise and as such I have a pretty good handle on what’s possible and what’s not. Charging phones and lighting up strings of LED Christmas lights within a few meters, absolutely. Distributing electric power to entire cities and highways, not so much.
Sorry for the interruption. Carry on.
samclem
Part of the original question was: “Could broadcast power be used for non-polluting electric vehicles?” In what way is this not a grand scale?
And, more to the point, we’re talking about a wireless recharging device that’s horrendously inefficient. You seem to be glossing over the fundamental practical differences between devices that consume a few watts and remain relatively stationary, and devices that consume kilowatts and move from place to place. There’s a reason Powercaster’s own literature refers to “the theoretical maximum” power capture.
The energy waste in a broadcast power scheme might be acceptable for small devices like a cell phone, in exchange for convenience, but would you really want to drive an automobile with fuel efficiency of less than 1/10 of one percent?
What I don’t get is, what is it about broadcast power that so fascinates “alternative science” people like the OP. I mean, I understand the appeal of perpetual motion, 3000 mpg carburetors, and natural cures “they” don’t want you to know about. Who wouldn’t want any of those? But why broadcast energy? What problem is it supposed to solve? We get power now!
Is it just that Tesla coils are cool, or that Tesla himself was a bit of a charismatic mystic?
I believe the theory is that broadcast power would be unmeterable, therefore free, therefore a way of Stickin’ it to Da Man.
Please do not point out the obvious error. It ain’t my theory.
haha…I’m certainly down with that! Of course the man would probably have some way of disintegrating power pirates with quick surges now and then…
The efficiency of this thing has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. None of you write The Straight Dope, I’m just as capable of reading it…here’s an idea:
swallow your prides and play your own devil’s advocate…support my perspective for a minute. Write me up some fancy words, full of math if you wish, that demonstrate the article’s obvious oversights.
What it “solves” is the whole thing of getting power without the need of copper cables. You and I, as people who understand the need to direct power to thems what is using it, not pissing it all through the universe, can see that it is stupid.
Both. They are TOTALLY COOL, and I fully intended to name my second-born child after him. It’s just that, kewl as they are, they only work over short distances, and fail MASSIVELY over longer distances. You can’t fault the guy for trying, but he also screwed up BIG TIME. This is where One Hit hits the wall and cannot make up the difference, though, by ignoring Fundamental Laws of Nature, he keeps trying. THAT, I believe, is why this thread got closed. One can only broadcast ones obstinance so long before one gets laughed out of existence.
One Hit Wonder writes:
> Neither of us are rocket scientists (are we?)…we could banter what-if’s forever.
A lot of us are trained scientists and engineers, and it’s obvious that you’re not. Do you suppose that that might have something to do with the fact that you’re proposing ideas that don’t work?
Why? It’s so much more fun PWNing you. 
Statute, if you please. And yes, we’re that nitpicky.
You haven’t managed to understand any of the simplified explanations that have been offered, so why would you understand a technical explanation? Here’s a thought, instead of demanding that everyone else prove your point for you, why not pick up a physics text and educate yourself to the extent that you’re able to comprehend even the most fundamental holes in the problem?
you guys could pwn me like a pinball machine all day if you wanted on the specifics of how tesla’s theories are flawed…it’d take me ten minutes just to figure out the square root of 91…but I think you gotta be some kinda whack-job to build a telsa coil as big as a blimp in the first plae, let alone invent the thing. Of course he dreamt big, but he put his ass to the grindstone as best he could to be a building block for the future. But erase him from the equation if that’s what it takes…
There were people of renound intelligence that theorized the earth’s atmosphere would disintegrate or something in a chain reaction set off by a nuclear explosion. There were also people who theorized a human couldn’t handle traveling a mile a minute for extended periods of time without suffering bodily injury. I watched planet of the apes…charlton heston pwned them all by building a paper airplane. I saw it on tv, it must be true! People are only the experts they’re taught to be, save their own hands on experience…
Howsabout a prediction, then? Ten years from now, where do you think this un-related (as many of you are saying) method of getting electricity from point A to point B without wires will be?