# What's up with "broadcast power"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 5, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640 "2005-11-05T13:06:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/1 "2005-11-05T13:06:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Dear Cecil: > > Do you know anything about broadcast power? This has nothing to do with radio or TV. As I understand it, broadcast power involves turning electricity into a signal which is transmitted and then converted back into electricity by a special device fitted to any common appliance. I saw a demonstration of this in college about 12 years ago, when a visiting artist was using these devices in his kinetic sculptures. Could broadcast power be used for non-polluting electric vehicles? Do you know of any experts who could speak knowledgeably on this subject who would not be biased in favor of the oil companies? --Rodney F., Madison, Wisconsin > > Cecil replies: > > You’ve been spending too much time reading Popular Science, Flash. Also, I don’t know that I’d place much faith in the technological insight of kinetic sculptors–most of those guys barely know how to operate a can opener. It’s possible to transmit power through space using a microwave beam, but that’s not “broadcast” power in the sense you mean. True broadcast power would involve incredible waste and probably kill everybody besides. Scientists nowadays worry about the possible injurious effects of the electric fields around wires–imagine what might happen if the juice was just poured into the air. > > Most likely you heard something about the satellite power system (SPS), one of the wilder ideas to float around the federal bureaucracy in the late 70s. The plan was to build a giant array of solar cells the size of Manhattan in orbit around the earth, beam the collected solar power via microwave to a giant receiving dish on earth, convert it into standard juice, and feed it into the regular power system. > > Several government agencies looked into SPS and concluded it was as crazy as it sounded. The complete system would cost three trillion dollars, roughly the size of the gross national product and many times what we spend on conventional power technology. A mere demonstration project might cost 40 to 100 billion dollars. The National Research Council declared that further study was pointless and the project died a quiet death. Proponents haven’t totally given up; one brainstorm they had was to build a solar-cell factory in the low-gravity environment of the moon to save on rocket-fuel costs. (Supposedly this would save money over shipping parts from the earth.) Very ingenious, boys. Now go play outside. > > BROADCAST POWER, TAKE TWO > > Dear Cecil: > > Your reply to Rodney F. concerning broadcast power was, if you’ll forgive the pun, “off the beam.” I think what Rodney was referring to was not the SPS/microwave downlink system, but rather Nikola Tesla’s broadcast power system. > > Best known for the insights that put the alternating current system associated with Westinghouse on a working basis, Tesla was a brilliant experimenter in electricity. He devised a system for broadcasting electrical power in the first decade of this century that, among other things, could (and did) light lightbulbs at a distance of 25 miles without their being connected by wires to a source of electricity. His broadcast power system indisputably worked, both in Colorado and Long Island–but only for Tesla. No one has been able to duplicate this effect, even working from Tesla’s notes; like many geniuses, he seems not to have bothered to write things down that, while “obvious” to him, were in fact quantum leaps of knowledge. > > With Tesla’s death we lost a man whose brilliance in many ways surpassed that of Edison and Steinmetz. Scientists today are still combing his notes and journals looking for new insights into physics and electricity. But because of his reputation as a crackpot genius, Tesla’s proven power transmission system has never been explored. It’s a shame when official perceptions get in the way of progress. --R.J., Stamford, Connecticut > > Cecil replies: > > Cecil is well acquainted with the inventor of the Tesla coil, an artificial-lightning device familiar to anyone who’s ever been to a high-school science fair. But he had forgotten about Tesla’s global ambitions for his invention. Just as well. Tesla’s broacast power scheme was even wilder than the satellite power system. > > The peak of Tesla’s career came in his early 30s, when he sold his alternating-current patents to George Westinghouse for big bucks. (He later got cuffed out of part of it.) He also did pioneering work in radio and other fields. But thereafter he frittered away his genius and hundreds of thousands of dollars of other people’s money on one hairbrained scheme after another. Broadcast power was one such idea. > > You considerably overstate the success of this project. Tesla did build a giant Tesla coil in Colorado Springs in an effort to broadcast power across the globe. The coil could generate extremely high voltages and emit huge lightning-like sparks from a big copper ball atop a tall tower. Tesla’s idea was that the earth was aquiver with electrical energy, like a taut violin string. If one plucked the string at any point, the vibrations would be transmitted throughout its length. Same with the globe. The giant coil was to be Tesla’s bow. > > In his first test of the coil Tesla burned out a generator at the Colorado Springs electric plant. Later there were reports that he managed to light 200 incandescent bulbs at a distance of 26 miles. But this was never confirmed and it is damned hard to believe. (Tesla coils, in my experience, can illuminate fluorescent bulbs, but usually at a distance of only a few feet.) Tesla never published a thorough description of his work and electrical engineers scratch their heads when told of his ideas today. Even if the thing worked it’s hard to see how you’d avoid wasting huge amounts of energy. > > Tesla later moved his operations to Long Island. With $150,000 from J.P. Morgan, he set about building an even larger coil. But the machine was never completed and in 1905 the project was abandoned. Virtually everything he worked on after this time met with a similar fate. By the 1930s he was reduced to making wild pronouncements about death rays and feeding the pigeons near his hotel room. He died alone in 1943. > > Many people excuse Tesla’s failures by saying he was too far ahead of his time. I doubt it. His understanding of the medium in which he worked was primitive. He refused to accept the complex nature of the atom and for years denied Einstein’s theories. His problems arose largely from the fact that he was an eccentric who was unable to work with (and consequently to learn from) other people, and the increasing unreality of his ideas shows it. Broadcast power is Exhibit A. > > –CECIL ADAMS TAKE THREE: I think Tesla has the credibility here with over 1000 Patents to his name, not _Cecil_ ! Isn’t the title on this forum “Fighting Ignorance”? The entire Global electrical system is based on principles Tesla invented, not to mention a few other daily necessities that are too numerous to mention that are based on his inventiveness so I don’t think it’s so easy to discount him as a ‘crackpot’ or to say wireless power is ‘hard to believe’. It was proved as far back a 1965 by William C. Brown that electrical power can be transmitted wirelessly (demonstrated to power light bulbs and a helicopter) at up to 90% efficiency, and these demos have been reproduced with a simple microwave magnetron and an array of dipoles with a schottky diodes (rectennas). > [@](#): > > imagine what might happen if the juice was just poured into the air. Megawatts **ARE** being pumped into the air already and have been ever since they started broadcasting radio and television around the world. Megawatt shortwave, 10 or 20 multi kilowatt transmitters in every city on earth. Not forgetting to mention the fact there is 100v/meter electrical potential between the ground and 150,000 ft up equal to Megawatts of electrical potential. It’s there for all to see yet no one has figured out how to tap it. No-one has really gone any further than what Tesla set up 100 or so years ago, we’re still digging up fossil fuels to turn AC generators that he invented to transmit over an AC grid that he also invented to run appliances that are based on motors that he also invented. In my opinion the Tesla/Morgan Wardenclyffe project was cancelled because there was and still is no way to charge for wireless power in an open system. It was being built as a communications tower about the same time Marconi used a few Tesla patents to invent ‘radio’ The fact it’s main purpose was power transmission and not communications was probably discovered by Morgan late in the project, but how was Morgan to get his ROI? Much better to finance Edison and/or Westinghouse to send it down wires and meter it out at a profit. Tesla **WAS** way ahead of his time, he invented geothermal energy that is used industrially in couries like Iceland but is still at a primative stage of deployment 100 years later, he also invented an electric car that received power from the ‘ether’, a very similar discovery to that of Thomas Henry Moray. Moray and Tesla said they were used cosmic ray, yet another source of megawatts of electric charge in our very our atmosphere. The negative reaction to something you don’t undertsand is to say it’s rubbish! I think it’s plainly obvious that there are megawatts of power at our finger tips and that no-one since Tesla has figured out how to get it to do work. If you’ve ever witnessed a 5 watt HF radio signal cross the globe on a regular basis you would instinctively know there is more to atmosheric electricity than any layman or most engineers know. Tesla understood more than your average joe, so it’s pretty narrowminded to discount such a range of his patents without even a simple attempt to varify or research the experiment. Ah, just call him a crackpot and get back claiming credit for what ever it was that you inventing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/2 "2005-11-05T13:18:30Z")
“'Tis too!” isn’t an argument. Neither are claims that there is an Evil Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth. > [@](#): > > Tesla understood more than your average joe And a hell of a lot less than anyone with an undergraduate degree in physics. ---
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/3 "2005-11-05T13:31:26Z")
Why bother with that reply? Don’t you have to stick her in gear before you let out the clutch? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/4 "2005-11-05T14:21:28Z")
The burden of proof is on your side, Charlie. If you believe in broadcast power, show us. ---
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/5 "2005-11-05T17:38:06Z")
I don’t have to prove power can be transmitted and received, that was done in 1965. OK, say power is natually being broadcast already. (well it is, atmosheric electricity exists) A few basic facts then. The air all around us is charged to a potential of 100 volts per meter from ground level to the top of the ionosphere. When you are standing, your head is at 200 volts greater potential than your feet. This has been measured and is considered a scientific fact. These electrical fields are said to be produced by lightening, up to 2000 thunderstorms at any one time around the world. This also creates the Schumann Resonance signal at 7.83KHz. The main hold up is the nanoamp currents in a square meter of air @ 100v per meter. Approx .000000000003 amps per square meter. As you go higher the voltage potential increases by 100 volts per meter but the current is still weak. To maximize surface area of his ‘antenna’ Tesla used large copper balls or large highly polished toroid on top to maximize the surface area of the antenna to get maximum ‘gain’ = Amps into the air. I expect he went to Colorado for the altitude and resulting higher voltage potental. Now in Tesla’s day they hadn’t gotten too far with antenna designs. Now day’s we have antenna with gain up to 76db (large parabolic dish) with very large ERP multiplication factors. A hi-gain antenna like a phased curtain array, as used for shortwave broadcasting and large scale radar has a power multiplication factor of 200. Put 100 watts in get 20,000 watts out. This obviously works for receive as well as transmit. Not to mention that these antenna cover many times the wavelength they operate at so the surface area is fairly large in meters and this would increase potential amperage. Plus, this was the exact type of antenna used in the 1965 wireless power microwave tests by William C. Brown. Convert the driven elements of the curtain array into rectennas by adding a diode at the feed point and you’ve just about done. Put this antenna at a high altitude to get a large voltage potential and with such a large rectenna you also have large current potential. You also need to have high ground conductivity and an earth system of almost equal size to the antenna. What you’re trying to do is provide a huge low resistance patht to earth for the charged electrons already naturally being attracted to ground from the charged atmoshere. The system earth completes the circuit. Air resistance has been measured to be 200 ohms, so anything less that that and you’re in business. The ‘ether’ receivers invented independantly but Tesla and Moray also used up to 6 stage amplifers on each side of the rectifier (positive and negative sides) and it was said they only worked when a load was present, which makes some sense as current doesn’t flow without a load. They used the equivalent of a long wire antenna or a whip so obviously a low gain antenna. By the way, since hi-Gain antenna are by nature highly directional, which way would you point it? N-S or E-W, interesting question considering at such low frequencies we’re border line magnometer territory here. The big unanswered question is what frequency to operate at?? You could try 7.83Khz for a start, but the antenna sure would be huge, a 1/2 wavelength dipole would be 19kms long, and since you need vertical polarisation to receive Schumann Resonance properly we’re gonna have to load this antenna bigtime with coils to make it shorter or turn the elements into induction coils. Basically you’d have to build a virtual high gain antenna at the 38,000 meter band or work with some upper harmonic of schumann’s? Teslas idea sounds like he was using the earth as the antenna and hence his concentration on a huge ground systems at Wardenclyffe where the under ground part of his tower was larger than the above ground antenna. But perhaps resonant frequency doesn’t make much difference, Tesla has a patent Number 685,957 that just uses a large polished plate connected to a good earth via a large capacitor. As the capacitor fills up with charge a ‘spark gap’ closes to discharge current. Sounds like a crystal radio to me. In his patent he admits the currents are ‘feeble’ but that the capacitor accumulates the charge to make it usable. The up shot of all this is, if power was purposely being ‘Broadcast’ then the antenna system could be accuratley tuned to the correct frequency (i.e resonanated) and results would be more predictable. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/6 "2005-11-06T02:18:06Z")
Stop dodging back and forth between ELF and microwaves as though they’re interchangeable. No-one denies that electromagnetic radiation carries energy; that was established by the first caveman that came out of the shade to get warm. The issue is whether the thing works better than copper (and with fewer harmful side-effects). ---
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/7 "2005-11-06T04:02:33Z")
Is that it!!?? So how has the caveman harnessed it to supply his needs? Waits for it to fossilize over millions of years, digs it up and burns it? ELF and microwave **ARE** interchangable! Both are RF. Better than copper? Do you think a battery powered device is more portable than one with an extension lead? Is a mobile phone more versitile that a tethered land line? How do buses and ships go with battery power? You think the world being reliant on 25% efficient internal combustion engines for everything from shipping to daily shopping trips is preferable to 90-98% efficient electrical energy? Couple an ICE with a gearbox and differential and you have a machine that’s 10 - 15% efficient at converting the energy it consumes into motion, Yeah I’d be totally satisfied with burning 85 - 90% of the money I pour into the fuel company cofers as heat. Now there’s a legacy system! Good Luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/8 "2005-11-06T13:46:16Z")
> [@Optimist](#): > > Is that it!!?? > > So how has the caveman harnessed it to supply his needs? Waits for it to fossilize over millions of years, digs it up and burns it? > > ELF and microwave **ARE** interchangable! Both are RF. Thanks for that. It makes you officially not worth the time to argue with. Buh-bye! ---
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/9 "2005-11-09T23:55:41Z")
I hadn’t realised there was an argument here. There’s no opposing opinion being put forward from your side! I actually gathered from your lack of comment you were agreeing with my idea! The best you can do is say microwave and/or ELF isn’t RF? The satellite dish on your roof receives microwaves and the old transistor radio on your desk receives long wave, both are radio, Both have closely related ‘ham **Radio** ’ bands, both are within the same ‘radio’ part of the electromagnetic spectrum, what’s your problem?? What’s the difference between them other than their wavelength? If you want to argue you’ll have to actually put an opinion forward that is more substancial than one line saying you give up. As a professional sceptic you’re not a patch on Cecil. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/10 "2005-11-10T01:14:03Z")
\*\* Optimist\*\*–you’re like the guy who says, “If there aren’t any Unicorns, show me the dead Unicorn bones to prove there ain’t any… Ya can’t? Well, that proves there’s unicorns.” :smack: You make tired. Tired all over. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/11 "2005-11-10T02:33:37Z")
> [@Optimist](#): > > I think Tesla has the credibility here with over 1000 Patents to his name, not _Cecil_ ! The U.S. Patent Office issues patents based on whether the invention is nonobvious. It was not required, in Tesla’s time, that the patent applicant prove that his invention actually _worked_. > [@](#): > > Tesla **WAS** way ahead of his time, he invented geothermal energy that is used industrially in couries like Iceland but is still at a primative stage of deployment 100 years later, he also invented an electric car that received power from the ‘ether’, a very similar discovery to that of Thomas Henry Moray. Moray and Tesla said they were used cosmic ray, yet another source of megawatts of electric charge in our very our atmosphere. He also “invented” a free-energy receiver consisting of a big metal plate antenna which he believed – or his modern followers at least _seem_ to believe – could power a home without the need for a broadcast-power station. So take his inventions as you will. (I’d also be interested to know if that ‘ether’-powered car could receive enough energy to even creep forward under its own power.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/12 "2005-11-10T04:11:20Z")
> [@](#): > > …equal to Megawatts of electrical potential. > [@](#): > > …yet another source of megawatts of electric charge You do realize, do you not, that power, electric potential, and electric charge are three completely different things? Furthermore, the real test of Tesla’s genius would not be how many patents he had, but how many of his “inventions” actually worked. A few of them did. Most, including the power transmission system, did not. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/13 "2005-11-10T11:21:13Z")
_Cecil Adams:_ > [@](#): > > . . . one hairbrained scheme after another. That’s _harebrained_. An opportunity to correct Cecil, even on such a minor matter, is a rare privilege. As for **Optimist**. . . your numerous spelling errors are the least of your problems. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/14 "2005-11-10T19:34:37Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > \*Cecil Adams:\*That’s _harebrained_. An opportunity to correct Cecil, even on such a minor matter, is a rare privilege… I prefer harebrained, but it’s not as clear-cut as you might think. > [@](#): > > it’s not enough to say that one is an error and the other not. At the very least, it’s an error of such antiquity that the patina of age has softened the hard edges of disfavour. Source: [World Wide Words: Hairbrained](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hai1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optimist)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/15 "2005-11-13T06:26:52Z")
What are you guys, the official charter member opinion suppression club?? > [@](#): > > He also “invented” a free-energy reciever consisting of a big metal plate antenna That’d be patent No. 685,957. > [@](#): > > It was not required, in Tesla’s time, that the patent applicant prove that his invention actually worked. Proof is not required NOW! But you obviously won’t make much money licensing a patent that doesn’t work. > [@](#): > > You do realize, do you not, that power, electric potential, and electric charge are three completely different things? Completely different _measurements_ of the same thing!!! A unicorn and a forum skeptic are _completely_ different things. Look, RF transmission and reception of eletricity is a proven fact. [http://www.mtt.org/awards/WCB’s%20distinguished%20career.htm](http://www.mtt.org/awards/WCB%27s%20distinguished%20career.htm) Broadcast power isn’t such a huge leap of the imagination, but perhaps it is for people with negative personalities. . ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/16 "2005-11-13T14:55:21Z")
> [@Optimist](#): > > Proof [that a patent works] is not required NOW! Actually, it is required for a perpetual-motion machine, which is what the “free-energy receiver” is. > [@Optimist](#): > > [Power, electric potential, and electric charge are c]ompletely different _measurements_ of the same thing!!! No, they are not. You might as well say the same thing about miles, square miles, and pounds. From a scientific viewpoint, you are literally talking nonsense. > [@Optimist](#): > > Look, RF transmission and reception of eletricity is a proven fact. The fact that a beam of microwaves can power a flying toy is of no help to you. It is also possible to transmit power by using a machine gun to spin a remote paddlewheel, but only a lunatic would propose using it as a practical replacement for the grid. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/17 "2005-11-13T18:04:38Z")
> [@Optimist](#): > > What are you guys, the official charter member opinion suppression club?? We aren’t “suppressing opinions”, we’re carrying out this Board’s _function_–Fighting Ignorance. > [@](#): > > Broadcast power isn’t such a huge leap of the imagination, but perhaps it is for people with negative personalities. Our personalities have no bearing on facts or physics. ---
**Author:** ![bbeaty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c0e974/32.png) [@bbeaty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbeaty)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/18 "2005-11-13T21:31:48Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > We aren’t “suppressing opinions”, we’re carrying out this Board’s _function_–Fighting Ignorance. Adopting strong negative opinions about Tesla, without having STUDIED Tesla’s stuff… that’s promoting ignorance and not fighting it. Would you give a negative review to a film you’d never watched? Based only on what you’d heard others say? I see plenty of pseudoscience on this thread, pseudoscience starting with Cecil’s original Tesla-bashing. Or we could name it as Feynman did: it’s the type of “science” that lacks the required bend-over-backwards honesty. “Cargo Cult science.” In my opinion Cecil’s description is based on an initially bad opinion of Tesla which caused Cecil to then select the evidence: writing only of the evidence against Tesla, or evidence which supports the view that Tesla was a crackpot, while oddly ignoring all the positive evidence. (Or perhaps he’s simply ignorant, and doesn’t KNOW about the positive evidence.) Just to make sure we’re on the right page regarding what “Scientific Skepticism” means, please everyone check out: The Clinical Attitude Towards Arguments [http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/clinical.htm](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/clinical.htm) The Fallacy of One-Sidedness [http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/onesided.htm](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/onesided.htm) Cargo Cult Science (Feynman) [http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo\_cult\_science.html](http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_science.html) “Sham Reasoning, Preposterism” (CSICOP) [http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html](http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html) And my own opinion: the prime characteristic of a pseudoscientist is unapologetic use of persuasive tactics and logical fallacies. Scientists (or just rational people) are extremely self-critical, and are ashamed of such behavior on their own part. They apologize when caught indulging in dishonest persuasion or fallacies, and they stop doing it. Pseudoscientists on the other hand become defensive, deny that it’s happening, and they change the subject whenever their violations are pointed out by others. OK, let’s look at some of Cecil’s statements: > [@](#): > > The coil could generate extremely high voltages and emit huge lightning-like sparks from a big copper ball atop a tall tower. From his notes, Tesla says that the huge lightning-like sparks represent a failure, a breakdown in the equipment. His goal was to silently emit radio waves in the kilowatt (or “horsepower”) range, not to make bright noisy lightning bolts. In the late 1890s Tesla was competing with Marconi, Lodge, and others in a race to bring radio to the masses. The Tesla Oscillator (Tesla Coil) used at Colorado Springs was a kilowattl radio transmitter. Indeed, it was the same type of transmitter that Marconi ended up using. But Tesla had the patent on that design and on many variants before Marconi. Marconi started out with simple spark transmitters, but later adopted Tesla’s tuned-coil, grounded-antenna system. Marconi’s initial US patents were all rejected on grounds of Tesla’s prior invention, and the patent examiner even said it was ridiculous that Marconi claimed to never have heard of the Tesla Oscillator, the transmitter he was trying to slip past the examiner. Marconi finally got his patents through, but only years later after that examiner was replaced by one less knowlegable of early radio… Tesla lacked the money to fund a legal battle around 1910, yet Marconi’s patents were then struck down in 1945 by the US Supreme court on the grounds of Tesla’s prior art. So Tesla may have lost the race to invent radio (mostly because he distained publicity, and he concentrated on huge company-owned central transmitters rather than millions of small individually-owned ones.) But Tesla certainly did invent the very spark transmitter used in the early decades of radio, and even used by Marconi to transmit across the Atlantic. Knowing this, doesn’t Cecil’s above statement look suspicious? To me it appears to have a strong anti-Tesla bias, or is at least based on ignorance. It’s always unwise to “review a book” without readin it, and after hearing lots of negative reviews from others. continued… ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/19 "2005-11-13T21:52:17Z")
> [@bbeaty](#): > > I see plenty of pseudoscience on this thread, Yes, and it’s all coming from the pro-Tesla side. I have yet to see an argument from “Optimist” or from you that makes even enough sense to be capable of being refuted. It’s all hand-waving, “How dare you attack a great man like Tesla?” conspiracy theories, and outright gibberish like “[Power, electric potential, and electric charge are c]ompletely different measurements of the same thing!!!” Show us actual equations that, at a bare minimum, stand up to dimensional analysis, or go away. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640/20 "2005-11-13T22:10:40Z")
So… You’re saying that Tesla’s coil _didn’t_ produce huge voltages and lightning-like sparks? What, exactly, is suspicious about Cecil’s statement? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-broadcast-power/329640.md?page=2)