5 ms·

According to what I understood, Tesla intended for the coil of the tower to resonantly interact with the capacitance between the ionosphere and the Earth. Anywh

According to what I understood, Tesla intended for the coil of the tower to resonantly interact with the capacitance between the ionosphere and the Earth. Anywhere else on Earth, he reasoned, the same configuration with the same resonance frequency would effectively capture the energy.

causi 4y ago
I don't understand how Tesla could be that bad at math. Resistance, distance, and the inverse square law would make the efficiency of such a system absolutely abysmal.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  He was quite good at math. AFAIK, the idea was to "charge" and "discharge" the whole planet, treating it as a giant capacitor - under the theory that a resistive layer (air) is sandwiched between two conductors (earth, ionosphere).
  - leaveyou 4y ago
    >> He was quite good at math. I started having doubts in his mathematical skills after seeing this youtube.com/watch?v=6331JXvOUGY I suspect he had a very good imagination and intuition and was good at experimenting but unfortunately there are also a lot of myths surrounding him.
    - carapace 4y ago
      He didn't use math. He described his method of design. His imagination was so honed that he could design a machine in his mind, run it for thousands of (imaginary) hours, and then measure the wear and tear with (imaginary) instruments, which measurements he claimed would match up with the real world results were he to perform the actual test on a real machine. Dunno if it's true, but it's fascinating.
      - claytongulick 4y ago
        I have a copy of his Colorado Springs notes, there's a ton of math.
        woleium 4y ago
        But did he write it, or 'borrow' it?
        throw34 4y ago
        And is it correct? http://www.mathematicsmagazine.com/Articles/NicolaTesla.php#.YrtHtqRlDDs http://www.mathematicsmagazine.com/Articles/NicolaTesla.php#... “Tesla’s physics requires a quite different understanding of mathematics, in some extent it is sacral in the spirit of Pythagoras. Pythagoras considered that numbers and subjects are interrelated. They correspond to each other in property due to informational and mathematical aspects of matter existing as one of the manifestations of the Divine Logos.” Not totally sure how to interpret that…
        carapace 4y ago
        Fair enough, I stand corrected.
      - teddyh 4y ago
        The exact quotes from Nikola Tesla’s own autobiography are: I started by first picturing in my mind a direct-current machine, running it and following the changing flow of the currents in the armature. Then I would imagine an alternator and investigate the processes taking place in a similar manner. Next I would visualize systems comprising motors and generators and operate them in various ways. The images I saw were to me perfectly real and tangible. […] The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him: “See my motor here; watch me reverse it.” […] The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minute marks and signs of wear. I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to mind’s eye a more fascinating sight.
    - schainks 4y ago
      You can read Tesla's seminar notes and some personal logs at Columbia University. The idea of "genius" is fungible, but he clearly had the math skills to solve problems he was interested in. His design for the three phase generator is a good example of this.
    - MisterTea 4y ago
      After reading up on Tesla my conclusion that while he was a smart man and had a good understanding of the fundamental physics, he was likely a charlatan who took advantage of the budding electrical industry. Electricity was like the internet, it was a major turning point in human history and a lot of money was going to be made from it. It was new tech and everyone was throwing money at it. And this was the early years, before the physics was well understood. This ignorance was a good cover for charlatans looking to fool investors. From what I gather, he was able to garner celebrity status among the wealthy businessmen and used this to his advantage. This afforded him the ability to travel and meet with other engineers and talk to them about their projects. He would then take their ideas, work or inspirations as his own and sell them to the industrialists. If the engineer cried fraud, who were they compared to the great Tesla? They were easily silenced or ignored. This is why I think he died penniless: As the industry matured and more people gained knowledge, Tesla's outlandish claims could no longer attract investors. This is why his later inventions were more and more outlandish, he was getting desperate.
      - Sporktacular 4y ago
        Come on, a charlatan who invented the electrical system we are still using today? A charlatans would be looking for an easier grift which doesn't require an engineering degree, year long battles with other inventors etc. Suspect it's more complicated than that.
        bitwize 4y ago
        Indeed. Tesla may have entertained a few kooky ideas -- forgivable in his time because of how little we knew about electricity then compared to now -- but he was an honest man, and AC worked! Edison was the charlatan.
        random314 4y ago
        He did not invent AC. He patented the transformer and a brushless AC motor.
        MisterTea 4y ago
  - causi 4y ago
    Earth's crust is highly resistive and even the much more conductive mantle has a resistivity of a kilohm-meter, which barely even makes it a semiconductor let alone an appropriate material for half a capacitor.
    - claytongulick 4y ago
      I have no idea if it would work or not, I'm a software nerd and amateur electronics engineer. Positive charged ionosphere, negative changed earth, air insulator between... Sounds a lot like a giant cap to me. I imagine if it was a feasible idea folks a lot smarter than I am would be working on it though.
    - fzzzy 4y ago
      This makes no sense. We use connection to ground as the lowest resistance path for short circuits for safety. https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/what-is-a-good-ground-resistance-value https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/what-is-a-good-gro...
    - fzzzy 4y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return
  - bitwize 4y ago
    Even renowned scientists who are good at math, theory, and experimentation can go on some wild-ass goose chases. Look up Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and his advocacy of vitamin C woo, the negative effects of which still persist today because millions of Americans believe vitamin C will cure/prevent a cold.
    - vondur 4y ago
      He lived pretty long as a chemist of that era. People in the older days tended to work with stuff like Benzene as if it were water in labs. The fact that he lived so long despite this, maybe he was onto something? I remember reading that chemists in that era tended to die younger than the general population.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  There's a reason why he is "a" Tesla rather than a Feynman, if that makes sense.
- beambot 4y ago
  His model was more akin to a waveguide or telegrapher's equation rather than purely radiative emissions.
- voldacar 4y ago
  The idea is that you treat the earth's atmosphere as a resonant tank, pumped by the coil at the tower. The inverse square law doesn't apply here. The real practical problem is that if such a system were scaled up, any metal object anywhere on earth with sharp edges would become a fire hazard due to sparking. Long pieces of wire would become similarly hazardous and radio communications probably would be much noisier and more difficult. Also there are economic challenges as you can't really bill specific customers.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    Wouldn’t the charge leak away, like any other capacitor? How much power would be needed to overcome natural losses?
    - voldacar 4y ago
      I'm not really sure, this resonant phenomenon already exists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances) and is pumped by global lightning activity. However this is not very efficient as most of the energy of lightning strikes falls outside of the resonant band, which is around 7 hz. Maybe you could figure out the amount of electrical energy being spent by all global lightning strikes within a slice of time, then if you knew the spectrogram of the electromagnetic emissions from a lightning strike you could calculate the percentage of that energy that falls within the resonant band of the system (around 7hz plus the next few harmonics), which won't be much, then compare that number to the actual amount of ambient energy in the system to get a rough idea of how efficient it would be in an equilibrium state.
FunnyBadger 4y ago
Yes. This is the large part of it. And it's why his primary investor, J.P.Morgan was not happy about it - the energy CAN NOT be metered and thus charged for. So he pulled the plug on Tesla. The other aspect: when you resonant between Earth and ionosphere, you do NOT get 1/r^2 losses because you are effectively inside a parallel plate capacitor that nearly is uniform and no r dependence other than the surface area average of the Earth's surface - the power put in is uniformly distributed across the area of the Earth. The other part: Tesla's system is exactly the same as hydrogen - it's NOT an energy source but a distribution medium of CONVENTIONALLY GENERATED electrical power. So you still need fossil, nuclear, etc. power to source the power and then you pump it into it. It's NOT FREE ENERGY as many claim. Not remotely.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > the energy CAN NOT be metered and thus charged for. > It's NOT FREE ENERGY as many claim. Not remotely. Make up your mind :) (/s I understand that some would have to pay to fuel the transmitters.)
  - basicplus2 4y ago
    Morgan would have to pay for the fuel to transmit but could not be sure of charging everyone who might hook into the system and draw power. Ie it would be free power for anyone who draw power

causi 4y ago

I don't understand how Tesla could be that bad at math. Resistance, distance, and the inverse square law would make the efficiency of such a system absolutely abysmal.

claytongulick 4y ago
He was quite good at math. AFAIK, the idea was to "charge" and "discharge" the whole planet, treating it as a giant capacitor - under the theory that a resistive layer (air) is sandwiched between two conductors (earth, ionosphere).
- leaveyou 4y ago
  >> He was quite good at math. I started having doubts in his mathematical skills after seeing this youtube.com/watch?v=6331JXvOUGY I suspect he had a very good imagination and intuition and was good at experimenting but unfortunately there are also a lot of myths surrounding him.
  - carapace 4y ago
    He didn't use math. He described his method of design. His imagination was so honed that he could design a machine in his mind, run it for thousands of (imaginary) hours, and then measure the wear and tear with (imaginary) instruments, which measurements he claimed would match up with the real world results were he to perform the actual test on a real machine. Dunno if it's true, but it's fascinating.
    - claytongulick 4y ago
      I have a copy of his Colorado Springs notes, there's a ton of math.
      - woleium 4y ago
        But did he write it, or 'borrow' it?
        throw34 4y ago
        And is it correct? http://www.mathematicsmagazine.com/Articles/NicolaTesla.php#.YrtHtqRlDDs http://www.mathematicsmagazine.com/Articles/NicolaTesla.php#... “Tesla’s physics requires a quite different understanding of mathematics, in some extent it is sacral in the spirit of Pythagoras. Pythagoras considered that numbers and subjects are interrelated. They correspond to each other in property due to informational and mathematical aspects of matter existing as one of the manifestations of the Divine Logos.” Not totally sure how to interpret that…
      - carapace 4y ago
        Fair enough, I stand corrected.
    - teddyh 4y ago
      The exact quotes from Nikola Tesla’s own autobiography are: I started by first picturing in my mind a direct-current machine, running it and following the changing flow of the currents in the armature. Then I would imagine an alternator and investigate the processes taking place in a similar manner. Next I would visualize systems comprising motors and generators and operate them in various ways. The images I saw were to me perfectly real and tangible. […] The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him: “See my motor here; watch me reverse it.” […] The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minute marks and signs of wear. I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to mind’s eye a more fascinating sight.
  - schainks 4y ago
    You can read Tesla's seminar notes and some personal logs at Columbia University. The idea of "genius" is fungible, but he clearly had the math skills to solve problems he was interested in. His design for the three phase generator is a good example of this.
  - MisterTea 4y ago
    After reading up on Tesla my conclusion that while he was a smart man and had a good understanding of the fundamental physics, he was likely a charlatan who took advantage of the budding electrical industry. Electricity was like the internet, it was a major turning point in human history and a lot of money was going to be made from it. It was new tech and everyone was throwing money at it. And this was the early years, before the physics was well understood. This ignorance was a good cover for charlatans looking to fool investors. From what I gather, he was able to garner celebrity status among the wealthy businessmen and used this to his advantage. This afforded him the ability to travel and meet with other engineers and talk to them about their projects. He would then take their ideas, work or inspirations as his own and sell them to the industrialists. If the engineer cried fraud, who were they compared to the great Tesla? They were easily silenced or ignored. This is why I think he died penniless: As the industry matured and more people gained knowledge, Tesla's outlandish claims could no longer attract investors. This is why his later inventions were more and more outlandish, he was getting desperate.
    - Sporktacular 4y ago
      Come on, a charlatan who invented the electrical system we are still using today? A charlatans would be looking for an easier grift which doesn't require an engineering degree, year long battles with other inventors etc. Suspect it's more complicated than that.
      - bitwize 4y ago
        Indeed. Tesla may have entertained a few kooky ideas -- forgivable in his time because of how little we knew about electricity then compared to now -- but he was an honest man, and AC worked! Edison was the charlatan.
        random314 4y ago
        He did not invent AC. He patented the transformer and a brushless AC motor.
      - MisterTea 4y ago
- causi 4y ago
  Earth's crust is highly resistive and even the much more conductive mantle has a resistivity of a kilohm-meter, which barely even makes it a semiconductor let alone an appropriate material for half a capacitor.
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    I have no idea if it would work or not, I'm a software nerd and amateur electronics engineer. Positive charged ionosphere, negative changed earth, air insulator between... Sounds a lot like a giant cap to me. I imagine if it was a feasible idea folks a lot smarter than I am would be working on it though.
  - fzzzy 4y ago
    This makes no sense. We use connection to ground as the lowest resistance path for short circuits for safety. https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/what-is-a-good-ground-resistance-value https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/what-is-a-good-gro...
  - fzzzy 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return
- bitwize 4y ago
  Even renowned scientists who are good at math, theory, and experimentation can go on some wild-ass goose chases. Look up Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and his advocacy of vitamin C woo, the negative effects of which still persist today because millions of Americans believe vitamin C will cure/prevent a cold.
  - vondur 4y ago
    He lived pretty long as a chemist of that era. People in the older days tended to work with stuff like Benzene as if it were water in labs. The fact that he lived so long despite this, maybe he was onto something? I remember reading that chemists in that era tended to die younger than the general population.
mhh__ 4y ago
There's a reason why he is "a" Tesla rather than a Feynman, if that makes sense.
beambot 4y ago
His model was more akin to a waveguide or telegrapher's equation rather than purely radiative emissions.
voldacar 4y ago
The idea is that you treat the earth's atmosphere as a resonant tank, pumped by the coil at the tower. The inverse square law doesn't apply here. The real practical problem is that if such a system were scaled up, any metal object anywhere on earth with sharp edges would become a fire hazard due to sparking. Long pieces of wire would become similarly hazardous and radio communications probably would be much noisier and more difficult. Also there are economic challenges as you can't really bill specific customers.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Wouldn’t the charge leak away, like any other capacitor? How much power would be needed to overcome natural losses?
  - voldacar 4y ago
    I'm not really sure, this resonant phenomenon already exists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances) and is pumped by global lightning activity. However this is not very efficient as most of the energy of lightning strikes falls outside of the resonant band, which is around 7 hz. Maybe you could figure out the amount of electrical energy being spent by all global lightning strikes within a slice of time, then if you knew the spectrogram of the electromagnetic emissions from a lightning strike you could calculate the percentage of that energy that falls within the resonant band of the system (around 7hz plus the next few harmonics), which won't be much, then compare that number to the actual amount of ambient energy in the system to get a rough idea of how efficient it would be in an equilibrium state.

FunnyBadger 4y ago

Yes. This is the large part of it. And it's why his primary investor, J.P.Morgan was not happy about it - the energy CAN NOT be metered and thus charged for. So he pulled the plug on Tesla. The other aspect: when you resonant between Earth and ionosphere, you do NOT get 1/r^2 losses because you are effectively inside a parallel plate capacitor that nearly is uniform and no r dependence other than the surface area average of the Earth's surface - the power put in is uniformly distributed across the area of the Earth. The other part: Tesla's system is exactly the same as hydrogen - it's NOT an energy source but a distribution medium of CONVENTIONALLY GENERATED electrical power. So you still need fossil, nuclear, etc. power to source the power and then you pump it into it. It's NOT FREE ENERGY as many claim. Not remotely.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rightbyte 4y ago
> the energy CAN NOT be metered and thus charged for. > It's NOT FREE ENERGY as many claim. Not remotely. Make up your mind :) (/s I understand that some would have to pay to fuel the transmitters.)
- basicplus2 4y ago
  Morgan would have to pay for the fuel to transmit but could not be sure of charging everyone who might hook into the system and draw power. Ie it would be free power for anyone who draw power