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MIT Wirelessly Powers a Lightbulb
kcurtis writes "According to the Boston Globe, MIT Researchers have powered a light bulb remotely. The successful experiment lit a 60-watt light bulb from a power source two meters away, with no physical connection between the power source and the light bulb. Details about WiTricity, or wireless electricity, are scheduled to be reported today in Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said. 'The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer. Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money. Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers. However, unlike the MIT work, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.'"
How does this differ from induction?
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
imagine what having this kind of energy bouncing off you in your home all night might do...
Nicoli Tesla, who claimed to be able to do this. Now, he might have been insane, but he was a genius. I fully believe he did the exact same thing, although probably wasted a lot more energy than they did, and for a much higher cost to create.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
yeah, don't tell the folks who go on about cellphones damaging your brain about this....
also, on a related note:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vf_6EGHPWcU
~/.sig: No such file or directory
Nope, never seen one of those before.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I mean - wireless power means such freedom - low cost infrastructure to third world countries, possibly power to the moon?? Simply awesome.
What on earth do you server chimps think is a useful motivation for researchers if money and respect are both off the table?
Thanks for convenience, but in this day and age we are really working to bring our energy efficiency up rather than waste any more. I would prefer a standard for DC, low voltage charges to become as widely accepted as one for electrical outlets. Hopefully, every car, airplane and coffee table will have one to use then.
First off, Nicola Tesla was not insane. Secondly, he *did* do this, many times in fact.
Personally, I am a bit miffed at the MIT folks for not giving credit where credit is due. This is the second article I have seen in the last month or two on this topic and they hardly even mention the fact that this is a key Tesla invention that was in fact accomplished by him and repeatably demonstrated. To read the articles one would think that the folks at MIT just sat down last week and invented this all by themselves when it is simply not true.
It *is* the case that Tesla is a "fan favorite" of the same type of folks that like to believe in free energy machines and it *is* the case that his *commercial* attempt at providing wireless power was never finished, but the technique and the methodology behind it was sound and I think even patented by Tesla.
To ignore his achievements, simply because many years after his death the man has gained some tertiary association with the lunatic fringe is a bit outrageous to my mind. The particular article referenced here even goes out of it's way to say that Tesla tried wireless power but "failed" (even though they mention off-handedly that it was only through lack of funds, not through any technical problems).
Tesla invented this technique, plain and simple. And those articles that fail to mention it are doing history a great dis-service.
To ignore his achievements, simply because many years after his death the man has gained some tertiary association with the lunatic fringe is a bit outrageous to my mind. The particular article referenced here even goes out of it's way to say that Tesla tried wireless power but "failed" (even though they mention off-handedly that it was only through lack of funds, not through any technical problems). Speaking of people picking on Tesla, dis you ever see Edison's FUD about the dangers of alternating current?
My own conspiracy theory about Tesla is that his lack of funding was due to his old nemesis.
You can't take the sky from me...
Looks a lot like a transformer with a large air gap to me...
s fer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer/
is wireless energy transmission new?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_tran
hmm... maybe not...
30s of wikiing...: the question I have: is what is new here?
Is it that they are using low frequency long wave lengths?
Even then... power constraints will be real, and I wonder about efficiency...
and the 2 foot coil attached to my cell phone or laptop certainly
won't improve its portability...
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
As someone with a robotics degree from Carnegie Mellon, I feel to compelled to point out that you're ignoring just how abjectly stupid and incompetent robots still are. We do not have anywhere near the level of AI needed for robot farmers to deal with the messy, filthy, ever-changing world of a farm. Automatic tractors that can plow fields or spray crops, yes. Weeding and picking fruit, no. Power isn't the problem; intelligence is.
If we fully embrace nuclear power (and do it right* this time) then efficiency [b]could[/b] be less important then convenience.
Of course there's several hundred layers of mass public ignorance, greedy corporations and religious politicians who happen to be oil magnates in the way of that ever happening.
As I see it the only hope for the planet is Helium 3 reactors which could be sold to the public as a "clean start", even if the tangible benefits over existing nuclear power are mostly psychological.
{*} "Right" meaning the reactors aren't built in a mad hurry using mostly untested technology as part of a race to produce nuclear weapons.
No sig today...
They're using a different technique to avoid needing line of sight or be harmful to humans (the article even mentions the microwave beaming, and how you can also use it to cook a chicken - not really something you'd want in the home powering up those speakers, is it?)
"How cute they lit a light bulb." Right. Its exactly the same because the end result is the same. That could go for pretty much any story here, right? Faster processor? "Bah, we were crunching numbers in the 50s. Whats the big deal here?"