[LINK] wireless power

[Stewart Fist]

We must be getting close to April 1 again.

The BBC is exercising its well-known 'spaghetti-tree' muscles.

Who'd have thought that 'resonance' could be applied to an antenna?? -- and
who would have thought that this resonance would stop energy from being
radiated in all directions.

Does anyone know what they mean by
> 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
apparently in a highly directional way, yet without 'beaming' like lasers??

 
The depth of Assistant Professor Marin Soliacic's thought processes is
established when he/she says:
> "We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to
> recharge these things'.
as if this were something never thought of before.

It is also significant that they say:
> Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and
> mathematics suggest it will work.

You'd think that to test radio transfer of power over a few metres at 6.4MHz
it would be easier to build a working device, than to design a computer
model.  But maybe they are computer gurus rather than RF experts.

The statement that
>Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply absorbed.
is even more terrifying.  Absorbed by what?   People, brains, DNA strands,
other electronic and electrical apparatus, etc.

I love their confidence in stating
> 5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna.
> People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz
Gee!  I wonder where all that radio energy goes if it is only absorbed by
resonating antennae.


I particularly love the reference to the great guru God Tesla who thought he
could power whole cities by transmitted radio waves.  Here, apparently, the
only reason he failed was:
> because he ran out of money.

There seems to be no limit to the silliness that some individual scientists
and companies will promote.

A few years ago, a key member of the radiation committee of the IEEE
seriously proposed that we should warm our houses by a large microwave tube
above what amounted to a metal ceiling fan (to splatter the microwave beams
around the room).

Splashpower's "wireless recharge pad" sound like they might be using
something similar. 

But if you've got to put your mobile phone into a splashpower unit on the
desktop so that all of this resonating wireless energy can be transferred to
the phone -- why not connect that unit to the mains power anyway.


Another key IEEE promoter of microwave power (who has just resigned from
heading the World Health Organisation's EMF radiation group) wrote a thesis
promoted the idea of collecting solar energy in space and beaming it back to
earth via microwaves as a way to warm cities in the colder climates.  He was
worried about Global cooling at the time; the return of the ice ages.

Great stuff.

Stupidity is endlessly reincarnated by successive generations, and an
increasing proportion of it finds refuge in universities.

-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458