Alternating Current

+ya

I saw a documentary on Tesla some time back. He was working on some pretty cool and innovative ideas. 

Definitely well ahead of his time. 

I wonder what this world would be like if his idea of "free electricity" had been developed properly into a working system. 

Unfortunately, through an inventor uncle (who came up with the first glass elevator design), I have information on several really cool ideas and most also have had encounters intended to stop the person from continuing rather than encourage them.  The oil and electricity fields make some people a lot of money...

Jonbouy


I invented Tesla.

Yes, but I invented you.

Tesla has been my hero since I first read up on him after a casual mention by my electronics instructor back in the 70's. 

He got ripped off so often that in later life he became very secretive about his work. Some of his experiments were not duplicated until 30 years after his death, and some never have.

His ideas of free electricity coming somehow from the cosmos have always fascinated me....

 
Solar power. Just a basic application of the same principle. Some of Teslas experiments were just that, experiments. Some of which were too dangerous for widespread use and mass implementation. A large portion of his work was locked up for that reason. You have to remember that in his later years he was becoming quite insane. His genius is undeniable but often genius goes awry and becomes dangerous. The fight for ownership of his inventions most certainly drove him over the edge and killed him. The goverment should have set him up and given him a blank check.

"Shocking!!!"  James Bond
 
Things like A/C are pretty amazing. I am really amazed at the advances in technoogy in the last 150 years. We went from 1,000s of years of using horses, candles, oil lamps, runners, etc.. to nuclear weapons, intercontinental air travel, the internet (which I still don't understand at all... think about it. You can access anyone with a computer anywhere in the world in real time... it is amazing). Moore's law works but I think it is slowing down. We will know everything by December 2012.
What is next? Access to more demensions, folding time and space, quantum physics... step from your bedroom in merry olde England right onto the great wall of China? Put on a suit and step from your backyard onto the moon? Seriously... 150 years ago who would have thought we would be talking like this... they called steamboats Fulton's Folly.

How long until a true "walk around" 3d hologram replaces TV, then some form of holodeck?

Yes, I am a dreamer but if you look at the progress in the 20th century and the way people thought about it before they actually saw it and used it... well, maybe I am not so much of a dreamer after all. It may even get where stem cell research cures almost every disease... except death. Could they figure a way to reverse aging?? Who knows? (Still a dreamer, but a darn good one!).

I think I may put that on my "to watch" list. I just started reading the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft and have the latest Stephen Hunter book, Soft Target, on my Kindle, but I bet Tesla would be interesting. Thanks for the headsup!

J

Shocking, even more

Crg

...often genius goes awry and becomes dangerous. 

The very definition of The Bapu

A/C reminds me of most politicians.  It just can't figure out which way to go and changes its mind 60 times per second (well, in most of North America, 22 times in other areas and 50 times out where Strummy lives).

My electric toothbrush does it.

:-)

miguelito

In theory I can't see how his wireless power could have worked

 
Wireless distribution of electricity has always been of keen interest to me...going back to the mid 90s. Around 5 years ago I read that Intel had in fact proved the concept and subsequent to that I saw a demo where a cell phone was recharged wirelessly. Pretty cool stuff methinks. Haven't heard much in the intervening years...maybe it's limited to low voltages.
 

If you've ever smelled the air around one of those Van De Graff towers you would realize why it never got implimented. I remember the day the main switch was thrown at the Silver Hawk power plant. A very wide area was cleared. Electricity always seeks ground and humans make great one shot capacitors that offer less resistance to ground. It doesn't take much to kill you.
Just imagine golfing in a lightning storm.

Personally speaking, I'd like to understand the relationship between the two better than I do.

 
Wouldn't we all Mike.

My electric toothbrush does it.

 
Yes and mine does too, along with a fantastic job cleaning my teeth.
;)
 
However, the demo I was referring to had the cell phone in a different set of rooms than the 'charging station'. It really was rather thought provoking.
 
Regards

Thanks Robert!