WEBVTT - Look Ma, No Wires! 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.360 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:17.840 the podcast that looks at the future and says, here 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:22.040 is a mind that can see across space. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.800 I'm Lauren Vocab, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:30.800 gonna talk about power and wirelessly transmitting power across vast 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:35.080 distances as a means of being able to achieve things 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.600 that so far seem unachievable. I don't want to be disrespectful, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.279 but I think you misspoke. It sounded like you said wirelessly. Yes, 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.040 I guess you meant like, uh, some other word. You mean, 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.960 like wired power. Yeah. Sure, I can see why you 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.199 would say that, seeing is how our infrastructure is heavily 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.000 based around wired power. Joe, But nay, say I to you. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.200 I am talking wireless, as in, get that wire that 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.440 transmits said power to your house and throw it out 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.000 the door, for you shall need it no longer. So 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.200 you're talking lightning. I don't know what is this. Look. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.560 I'll tell you lightning harnessing the energy of the heavens 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.440 themselves is going to make my cell phone never run 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.360 out of battery. Okay, you know, broadly speaking, yes, uh no, no, no, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.040 we're gonna we're gonna talk about wireless power because it is. Yes, okay, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.520 so not thor but Tesla. Okay, all right, let's let's 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.880 ease into this first before we before we get into 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.800 the Tesla discussion. And don't worry, folks, there will be 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.319 one I want to this actually still has to do 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.960 with Tesla. Tesla was one of the minds working on 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:52.080 making alternating current a workable, uh feasible means of transmitting 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.840 electricity as opposed to direct current. Right, So, like the 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.000 grid electricity that you get out of your wall socket 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.480 is going to be alterning eating current, but to use 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.600 it in a lot of things, you need to translate 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.440 it to direct current. So here's the here's the reason 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.519 why there's alternating current in the first place, because I 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:10.120 know there are a lot of people who get confused 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.720 about this. Back in the day, back when electricity was 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.160 first starting to be understood and uh and and harnessed 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.119 in a usable way, there was a lot of discussion 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.359 about what's the best way to deliver electricity from the 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.120 place where you generate it to the place where you 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.720 need it. Direct current is one way. This is the 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.239 way that batteries work. Right. The current flows in one direction. 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.000 It goes from the negative terminal to the positive terminal. 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.680 That's how electricity works with direct current. So you're anything 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.239 that's ronning on a fuel cell or a battery, that's 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.919 that's how it goes. Alternating current the essentially you get 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.400 it switching so that the current flows in two different directions. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:53.359 First one direction than the other. Its cycles. Okay, it alternates. Uh. Now. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.160 The reason why alternating current is the is used in 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.000 transmission is because if you wanted to transmit direct current 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.919 and across vast distances, you had to use really high voltage, 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.400 which back in the day was not really easy to do. Okay, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.880 it would require a lot of energy, it wasn't very efficient, 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.119 and it wasn't very economical. It meant that you were 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:18.440 limited to about a miles worth of distance across the 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:20.799 lines at the time. So that meant that you would 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.280 have had to build a whole bunch of generators or 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:28.320 power stations to serve even a relatively small city. Now, 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.840 alternating current, what you can do with that is build 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.720 something called a transformer. Transformers allow you to change the 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.360 voltage by stepping it up or stepping it down. And 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.480 if you are using a really high voltage alternating current, 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:46.040 you can then transmit this electricity over long distances, use 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.880 transformers to step it down to the voltage that you 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.720 need wherever you're going to use it. Because your house 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.480 does not need to have a hundred thousand volts going 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.200 in through the outlet, and if it did, it wouldn't 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.920 last extraordinarily long. Honest, I don't know intuitively how much 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.960 a volt is. Okay, so you know you've heard of 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.200 like one twenty volts or two forty volts there you go, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.320 So you don't need a hundred thousand coming through that 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.640 out So the idea here is that you would have 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.120 these transformers to change the voltage. You can do that 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.839 with alternating current, you cannot do it with direct current. 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.880 It all has to do with electromagnetism. So just one 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.000 last thing that I need to cover for this, because 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.640 direct current will become important in the rest of this conversation. 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.719 When you have a coil of wire and you run 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.680 electricity through it, that generates a magnetic field. Okay, if 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.679 you have an alternating magnetic field and that the magnetic 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.320 field itself is fluctuating. Or you move a magnetic field 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:49.200 within and away from a conductor, you induce electricity to flow. 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.400 So if you took take two coils of wire, a 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.640 primary coil and a secondary coil, and you run an 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.680 alternating current through the primary coil, meaning that the current 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.719 flows one direction and then the other, this creates a 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.760 fluctuating magnetic field. The secondary coil is within that fluctuating 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.359 magnet field, so that induces electricity to flow. And the 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.520 relationship of the number of coils in the primary coil 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.880 versus the secondary coil determines how much voltage is going 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.160 to flow through that secondary coil. If it's the same 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.920 number of coils, it's a one to one conversion. If 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.280 there are more coils in the secondary coil than there 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.080 is in the primary. Let's say that you've wound wound 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:32.040 the primary ten times, but you've wound the secondary twenty times, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.159 you get twice the voltage. Okay, So that's how you 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.040 can step up or step down the voltage based upon 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.320 the number of coils in that secondary coil compared to 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.479 the first one the primary coil. An interesting way to 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.919 tie this into our discussion is that what you've just 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:49.400 described is what's called a transformer, and this actually does 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.920 transmit current wirelessly, albeit over a very short distance, through 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.520 electro magnetic induction. Right, So these these wires are not 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.360 actually connected to one another. The man magnetism created by 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.760 one creates the electricity in the other wire coil. But 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.159 we'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about more of 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.159 that in a little bit. I just know that it 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.400 works with alternating current, but not with direct current, because 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.840 direct current only creates a magnetic field that's stable, not fluctuating. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.360 All right, So now we can have our discussion about 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.279 the big bad boy of the Internet of technology, the 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.240 guy who just got ground down by the establishment, the 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.680 guy who had all the ideas to save the world 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:40.159 or destroy it, Nikola Tesla. Yeah, so, just like all 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.080 these other great technology stories, Nicola Tesla figures into the 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.320 history of wireless power transmission. But there's a problem whenever 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.760 you want to find out something about Nikola Tesla, I've discovered, 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.960 which is the the Internet Tesla fog. Yeah, there is 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.920 sort of this fog of dubious information about Gala Tesla, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.920 and it's really hard to tell what actually happened with 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.840 this guy. There's just a lot of websites. Yeah, that's 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:09.760 just gonna say stuff. And all right, So part of 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.720 the problem here is that a lot of the info 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.720 about Tesla is from a biography called The Strange Life 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.280 of Nicola Tesla that was published in nineteen seventy three 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.920 by one Arthur H. Matthews. UM. That became the first 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.840 bio of Tesla on the internet because it was transcribed 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:29.239 from a photo copied booklet by one John Roland Penner. UM. 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.680 If this already sounds shady, that's because it absolutely is. Uh. Now, Now, 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.760 both of these contain certain omissions and weird additions from 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:43.360 Tesla's actual autobio biography called My Inventions, which was published 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.800 in six parts in a magazine in nineteen nineteen. UM. Now, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.640 all of this should be should be understood through the 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.080 filter of alright, so Tesla was a crazy showman. I mean, like, 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.560 this dude was very fond of saying these big impressive 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.560 things and making these statements and being kind of wacky 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.400 to begin with, um as part of his personal stick. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.880 And on top of that, by by nine nineteen UM 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:13.080 he was perhaps not perceiving um reality the way that 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.760 I would say that most human people on average perceive 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.880 reality to be had some stuff going on. To be fair, 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.480 being a showman and being in technology in this era 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.160 was by no means limited to only Tesla. This was 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.400 an arrow where Edison would take the stage to try 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:37.479 and while the newspapers and and other form of audiences 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.480 into buying into direct current. I mean Edison of course 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.440 famously would use alternating current to show how dangerous it 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.880 was zapping animals to death. Yeah, that one time he 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:53.320 had one of his assistants kill an elephant. Was she 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.560 had she did nothing? Well? Okay, no, she actually did 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:57.120 kill a couple of trainers, but to be fair, the 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.920 trainers were probably not so nice either. To complicated issue 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.319 at any rate, Um, anything that you read online about 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.160 Tesla and his inventions should be um considered critically. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.120 because some of the things that are famously attributed to 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:17.320 him have no actual documentation apart from people relating a story, 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.560 So you might get something second or third hand or worse, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.880 and not actual documented evidence. So the reason why we're 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.840 even laying all this out in the first place is 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:31.480 because a large part of Tesla's mythos centers around this 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:38.880 idea of broadcasting power wirelessly more than one method, I believe, right, Yeah, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.800 there's one that sort of used the earth. So how 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.400 how did that's That's that's really the big one. There's 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.880 the other one, which is just zapping the hell out 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:48.840 of anything that happens to be nearby, also know as 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.080 the Tesla coil um. But no, if you're talking about 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.960 like warden Cliff Wardencliffe Tower, which was meant for a 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.000 couple of things. Primarily it was meant to find a 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:02.080 way to transmit speci tifically, not really radio waves, but 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.960 transmit waves transatlantically. Uh. There were a lot of financial backers, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.880 including JP Morgan, who were interested in this possibility. This 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.720 is the earliest days of radio. Yeah, yeah, this was 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.040 mostly being thought of as a method of communication, but 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.280 as of course it would turn out to be. But 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.960 the kind of secondary proof of concept sort of things 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.559 surrounding it was like and maybe energy, right right, Tesla 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.480 was saying that, you know, he had this kind of 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.360 interesting Yeah, he was thinking of the Earth is having 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.920 its own electric charge, all right. He essentially thought of 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.240 the Earth in a way that future scientists would kind 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.000 of prove he was on the right track. He didn't 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.240 have a he didn't really have the right view of it, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.120 the accurate view, but he was on a track to 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.800 enough things that it gives enough credibility to this makes 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.520 people question right or not it's real. So his idea 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.000 was like using the Earth essentially as the means of 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.680 transmitting electricity. And before we get too technical, essentially just 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.240 imagine that you have a transmitter and a receiver that 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.440 are precisely tuned to one another so that you you 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.280 can't be even a smidge off or else that nothing works, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.960 and you transmit this using the transmitter, you send electricity 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.200 through the Earth, and then really no matter where the 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.360 receiver is, as long as it's tuned into the right frequency, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.520 it would pick up that transmission and you would get 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.440 power transmitted from one point to the other. This is 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.840 not the same as free energy, which is what some 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.040 people say. You would in fact have to generate the 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.680 electricity on the transmitting end and then transmit it through 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.559 and you would lose power this way too, just as 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.760 you would through any other transmission means where converting energy 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.679 from one form to another you tend to lose some, 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.600 usually in the form of heat, kind of resistance. Yeah, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:52.600 there's usually some sort of resistance there. There would have 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.960 to be if you were generating electricity and then putting 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.040 it through a transmitter, and then you probably lose more 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.000 on the receiver end as well. So it's not a 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.080 efficient it's not free energy, but it would be a 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.880 wireless means of transmitting power. All that being said, I 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.839 know of no one who has ever been able to 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.560 make it work the way Tesla was saying. I know 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:14.960 there are a lot of people who are looking at 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.559 similar approaches, but nothing. For one thing, Tesla. Tesla did 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.800 put out a patent on this, but you know, patents 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.400 describe a general way of achieving something, right, they don't 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:30.400 necessarily outline the entire process. Yeah, and so especially back 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:35.480 in that those days, Tesla's patent is refreshingly very short 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.120 compared to today's patents. You might see a patent today 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.600 on something as simple as, uh, an electric toothbrush that 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.480 doesn't even have you know, a wireless charging and it 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.640 could be you know, thirty pages long. Tesla's is relatively tiny. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.520 But anyway, uh, yeah, as far as I know, no 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.920 one has replicated anything that Tesla was playing. And you know, 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.520 there there were stories that Tesla was able to use 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:05.679 an enormous Tesla coil in Colorado that lit something like 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.839 um light bulbs that were twenty six miles away or 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.000 something two light bulbs. But again that's second, third hand information. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.800 There was no actual documentation of it. Um. Also, I 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.040 mean there are stories that Tesla like created a winged horse, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.040 and just I love the story about how Tesla went 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.320 on this long journey trying to get home and was 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.920 distracted several times throughout that journey by a cyclops and 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.280 there were some and uh there was like a big 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.120 whirlpool thing. Okay, okay, but but for first, an actual 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.640 quote from Tesla about this Warden Cliff tower. Um Uh, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.719 this is according to PBS, who I trust to have 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.840 done their fact checking. In this system that I've invented, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:52.960 it is necessary for the machine to get a grip 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.800 of the earth, otherwise it cannot shake the earth. It 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:57.760 has to have a grip so that the whole of 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.400 this globe can quiver. Yeah, I not dramatic at all. 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:03.760 And also I'm not sure why he was kind of 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:10.120 British there, but but I think Russian, British whatever. Actually, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.400 what I was going to say was that fueling the 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:20.720 the mythology around Tesla is the fact that his financial 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.720 backers pulled out so warden Cliff was being constructed, it 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.880 was taking longer than anticipated, it was costing more money 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.920 than anticipated. And meanwhile, a little fellow named Mark Coni 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:36.680 had figured out how to transmit a single letter transatlantically 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.120 just like some dudes holding a pole right well, essentially 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.680 that he found it using a system that was that 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.720 worked and was cheap comparatively speaking. So if you are 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.520 our financial backer and you're looking at this unproven technology 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.800 that is taking huge amounts of your money and still 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.400 you haven't seen any progress unless just talking about the 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.000 earth quivering, and then you look at this other dude 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:01.800 with with this stick, and you're like, oh, I get 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.360 a stick. I understand that right, right exactly? Why do 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.040 I waste all this money on this thing that may 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.160 or may not work when I can get this thing 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.600 that totally works. So that was you know, it wasn't 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.640 It wasn't like it was a malicious attempt. There are 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.080 some people who framed this as the uh like like 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.880 Edison and his cronies were able to infiltrate all of 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.000 this and pull strings and that's why um Tesla was abandoned. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.280 But here's the deal, guys think there were certainly many 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.000 times during which kind of underhanded business stuff like down 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.400 in Tesla's life. But but you know, here's the thing 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:36.720 is that that's not why people remove their money. That's 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.960 not why people remove their financial backing. Because I don't 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.280 care if you're Edison or not. If you're JP Morgan 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:43.720 and Edison comes up to you and says, hey, I 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.400 want you to pull your support out of from Tesla. 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.760 But you're JP Morgan and you think, no, Tesla is 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.040 gonna make me little ten times more money than I'm 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.480 putting in. You tell Edison like, go pound sand buddy. 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.560 So so I'm pretty sure there wasn't a conspiracy. It 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.960 was more of a in a decision. Okay, So I 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.360 want to climb our way out of the Tesla fog, 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.720 if that's all right, that's fair because a minute ago 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.680 you mentioned electric toothbrushes. Yes I did, And that brings 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.720 me to the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Coming 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.360 away from the winged horse Tesla mythology, I want to 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:25.120 come right down to the most mundane wireless power transmission 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.720 we've got the same junk that charges your electric toothbrush 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:33.000 and really is wireless electricity? How does it work? Okay, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.000 so this is essentially what I was talking about before 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.480 inductive coupling. You have imagine that you have a a 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.160 a device that is able to put an alternating current 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.880 through a coil of wire. You've got a secondary device 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.320 that has a coil of wire in it that's connected 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.440 to some sort of energy storage device like a battery 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.040 actually really should just say a rechargeable battery, and then 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.160 you run that that alternating current through the first coil. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.960 As long as the second coil is close enough to 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:05.280 be within that magnetic field, then it will induce electricity 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.360 to throw flow through the coil and thus charge the battery. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.440 So with your electric toothbrush, the actual the primary coil 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.280 would be the one that's in the base that you 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.200 set the toothbrush down upon once you're finished brushing your teeth, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:20.600 and then as long as it's plugged in, it's going 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.160 to be drawing current and then running this little alternating 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.320 current through the primary coil. Secondary coil picks up that 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.240 it's induces electricity to flow charges the battery. Okay, but 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:35.760 so this is actually charging the toothbrush without making conductive contact. Yes, 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.240 it's it's just using that magnetic You could you could 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.240 do this with anything. You could have a lightbulb plug 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.200 screwed into a base that has a coil in it. 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.120 You could have a secondary coil where there is no 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.440 physical contact between the two coils, and you could run 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.080 electricity through that primary coil and that light bulb will 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.480 light up. Just the magnetic energy from the first creates 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.879 electricity in the second. Just that that basic uh, that 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.760 basic relationship between electricity and magnetism. Yeah, okay, so that's 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.199 really cool, But it seems like that only works at 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:11.120 short distances, right, well you yeah, you in general, if 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.840 you're using basic, this basic approach, yes, because the secondary 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.679 coil has to be within the magnetic field generated by 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.840 the first coil. Is there a way we could make 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.719 it work at longer distances? Okay? Well, I guess um, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.040 I don't know what you're saying. Resonates with me, but 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:31.560 oh no, oh dear alright, So, so resonance actually adds 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.959 potential to this entire inductive coupling concept. Yeah, um, and 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.879 and resonance is just um an object size and shape 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.000 will determine the frequency at which it naturally vibrates, right, right, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.119 So this is the same concept behind if you if 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.040 you ring a glass and you hear the tone it makes, 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.320 if you're able to generate that same tone at a 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.520 strong enough amplitude, you can make the glass deform and break. 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.560 H Yeah. Or for example, if you have a second 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.560 glass that has the exact same resonance, then pinging the 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:05.280 first glass should make the second one also begin to vibrate, Yes, exactly, Okay, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.439 and now for power. The idea here is to get 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.639 yourself some two curved coils of wire. Yeah, except you 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.280 put a capacitance plate at the end of each one, 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.760 um and and place the coils within an appropriate range 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.240 of each other. Once you're working with resonance, this can 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.520 be up to a couple of meters or about seven feet, 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.119 which is that's huge because again you're you are outside 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.600 the usual magnetic field. I mean, unless you're putting bookoos 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.280 a power through a coil, that magnetic fields not going 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.760 to normally extend that far. So certainly not that far 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.360 right right, this is pretty good. Um And if these 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.520 if these coils resonate at the same frequency, and you 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.760 run electricity through that first one, then it should jump 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.120 or more precisely transmit or stream to the second one. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.600 UM M I T has been working on prototypes of 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.560 this since um the early two thousand's. But um, even 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:57.720 with this method, the distance at which you can transfer 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.320 power is dependent on the on the diam or of 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.840 that coil. So that's not going to like electrocute you 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.240 if you walk in front of it. No, because it's 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.919 not electric fields. It's a magnetic field, and you're not 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:15.560 resonating hopefully at the same same odd if you had 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:21.560 something on you or in you that resonated at that frequency, uh, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.879 that would not be good. But I can't imagine you 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.680 having anything that would make being the setup for a 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.840 really interesting techno murder mystery. I think I think there 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.639 should be an episode of Sharlock about this, absolutely where 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.240 this necklace. Let's not get off on the subject of Sharelock, 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.280 because I just watched the first episode season three, and 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:42.600 I'm I could talk about that. We're wearing to go okay, 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:44.480 But so it's a it's a pretty much one to 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.520 one ratio of the diameter of the coil that you're 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:48.679 using and the distance at which you can make a 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.840 second coil resonate, gotcha. So in other words, you that 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.840 that is a limitation obviously, because if you're talking about 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.920 larger distances, you would need larger coils, which means a 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.679 larger form factor for whatever it is you're using. It 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.120 gets pretty ridiculous and expensive pretty fast. But there might 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.959 be ways around that. Even just this month January, researchers 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.600 at Duke published a paper which is a tongue twister 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.119 that I'm just going to try to say anyway because 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.480 it entertains me so much. Magnetic meta material superlens for 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:22.760 increased range wireless power transfer. First, take y'all um and 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.160 and this described the design of a sort of focusing 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.080 lens for electromagnetic fields. It's it's sort of like a 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.240 cubic honey comb. And and each cell of this of 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.399 this sort of weird giant flat Rubik's cube um is 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.600 etched with spiraling copper wire um. This this this is 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.919 called a meta material, and it kind of funnels the 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.800 field into this narrow cone that can transmit power a 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.520 distance of some twelve times the diameter of the coils. 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:49.520 All right, that's kind of cool. So we're talking like 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.280 coils and what like the eight or ten inch range 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.360 something like that. Oh, they're about two centimeters in diameter 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.800 right now, which is about point eight inches. Um, little 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.719 smaller than I was thanking, But all right, but that's 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.520 a total transfer distance of of centimeters are about a foot, 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.640 which is still really impressive considering that they're only two 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.080 centimeters to begin with. Sure, okay, so so we're still 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:14.840 pretty much live. It's not like you're going to be 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.880 able to have a power station that's on one side 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.639 of your house and be able to use that to 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:22.680 transmit power to a light bulb on the other side 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.000 of your house right now, not this year. But this 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.680 is a step in that sort of direction. Okay, Yeah, 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.960 that's really cool. But we're still basically on the hield, 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.920 not outside my yard certainly, right right, Well, why don't 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.840 we think about maybe going a little further, like, I 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.639 don't know, from outer space to the Earth. What. Yeah, 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.680 I have thought about this before, because if you'll recall 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:54.280