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Wireless Power Xmission

 * Original msg to: Ed-at-alumni.caltech.edu
 * Carbons sent to: usa-tesla-at-usa-dot-net

Quoting "Edward V. Phillips" <ed-at-ALUMNI.CALTECH.EDU>:

> Richard:

> Two points/questions.

> 1. Is there any evidence that Tesla operated motors "by 
> wireless"?

The wireless patents specifically identify motors running off of
the tank circuit. The patent specifies that "ordinary" motors can
be run directly off of the tank circuit of the receiving coils. I
quote from Patent No. 649,621, dated May 15, 1900, lines 74-88:

  "By way of illustration, if the rate at which the current       
 traverses the circuit including the coil be one hundred and      
 eighty-five thousand miles per second then the frequency of nine
 hundred and twenty-five per second would maintain nine hundred   
 and twenty-five stationary moves in a circuit one hundred and    
 eighty-five thousand miles long and each wave would be two       
 hundred miles in length."

  "For such a low frequency, which would be resorted to only when 
 it is indispensable for the operation of motors of the ordinary  
 kind under the conditions above assumed, I would use a secondary 
 of fifty miles in length."

> If so, what kind of motors could they have been?  

I can only assume they were the "ordinary kind" available from
Tesla's workshop. He was the best electric motor engineer in all
of history. Though he did have a few tricks up his sleeve, I
don't think this was one of them.

> The fequencies would certainly have been well about 10 kHz, and 
> can't imagine any AC motor that he could have built which 
> would run there.  

In the patent quoted from above Tesla sounds as if he is stating
the bottom end frequency is around 925 Hz, well below the 10 kHz
you anticipated. He also states he would only drop this low
specifically for the operation of motors of "the ordinary kind".

> If the motors were DC he would have needed a rectifier which 
> would work at high frequencies.  Any references on the subject
> would be of great interest here.

The high frequency rectifiers are included as part of Patent No.
685,957 and 685,958, dated November 5, 1901. I don't think that
the rectifiers were required to run motors in the wireless power
transmission patents.

> 2. The "diagram on page 125" clearly shows a circuit employing
> CONDUCTION by means of ionized gas.  However, if he was 
> considering ionizing gas at high altitudes a very serious 
> problem arises. Since the effect wouldn't be directional he 
> would have to ionize all of the gas out to at least the 
> distance he wanted to operate at.  

But if you get your altitude high enough, the gas is already
ionized. The direction you need to go is in a column straight up.
Tesla often remarked on the excellent conductive properties of
rarified gas, but it would seem that gas that is pre-ionized by
solar and cosmic radiation would require very little excitation. 

> If you calculate the capacitance between a spherical shell
> of those dimensions you will find it to be enormous, and the
> resulting losses in the gas (which has a pretty low 
> conductance) would be prohibitive.  Power would flow (by 
> capacitive coupling?) from the upper terminal of the 
> transmitter to the rarified atmosphere above it, and then in 
> all directions.  Make that current, of course.
> COMMENTS?    Ed Phillips

Tesla noted in the patents that balloons with wire tethers could
be employed to obtain a conductive channel to an altitude where
the required energy of ionization would be low enough to make the
system practical. A few years later he patented a system that
used his single terminal X-Ray tubes (also documented in the CSN)
to ionize columns of air, and it can be surmised that his hard UV
lamps could be combined with the X-Ray tubes to create a highly
conductive column directly above the transmitter. This eliminates
the capacitive coupling assumption, since Tesla specifies a
direct electrical connection in the system.

Still, conduction from the air terminal does not represent the
transmission of the majority of the system energy as I understand
it from the operation of models. The models indicate, as Tesla
states on page 131 of the previously referenced publication, that
the majority of the energy transmitted actually passes through
the ground connection. This is not illustrated as brilliantly in
the diagram on page 125, but the ground current is actually where
most of the power transmission occurs: you see the column of
ionized gas quite readily, but the ground current is where the
actual power transfers unseen.

Richard Quick



... If all else fails... Throw another megavolt across it!
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