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Ok, so we establish vacuum tubes to blast the lasers through, maybe with some sort of glass fiber to direct the light, and...wait a minute, that's just a differ
by BobaFloutist 3y ago
Ok, so we establish vacuum tubes to blast the lasers through, maybe with some sort of glass fiber to direct the light, and...wait a minute, that's just a different, more fragile kind of cable. Darn.
- ben_w 3y agoMm. People are trying it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/8/335 https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/8/335 I have no idea if this is a good idea that just hasn't been developed very far, or if it's like powering cars with compressed air (technically possible but not valuable).
- BobaFloutist 3y agoMy completely uninformed guess is that light can be incredibly information dense, but not all that energy dense compared to electricity. Also fiber is a little more brittle and persnickety than electrical wire, so in this specific use case it would seem to be strictly worse, at least when it comes to the immediate challenge of cables experiencing physical harm.