Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>
"Soljacic has actually gotten a lot of publicity
from this work ... he is Serbian, and in
interviews has said that he was very interested
in revisiting Nicola Tesla's work in wireless
communication and energy transfer. I had read
somewhere that the modeling for the phenomenon
that they are investigating is mathematically
equivalent to quantum tunneling (a portion of
the probability density for the wave equation
that ends up on the other side of a
barrier). I think there is a wikipedia write up on this somewhere"
"I think the operant phrase in the article was,
"The effect, which has not yet been
demonstrated..." I found this revelation, which
sounds a lot like the "wireless energy transfer"
that takes place between the primary and
secondary of any Tesla coil, to be completely "under-whelming"."
I think the only reason that paper got the
notoriety it did was because some "science
writer" [read that person who really doesn't
know much about science or engineering but
writes for the "popular press" which knows even
less] saw some "scientific-sounding" words in
it, liked the pretty pictures, and wrote
nonsense. As Matt points out the resemblence
to a Tesla coil is not coincidental at all
except most Tesla coils (or radio transmitters
or receivers or you name it) are better
designed than his "rings with ears". These
guys just took a very devious path to
rediscover stuff that's been common knowledge
for well over 100 years and their expressions
for transfer between their two really wierd
tuned circuits can be found in more
understandable terms in most any handbook or
text on "radio". Not being a physicist I can't
comment on the "quantum tunneling" but think
that was just literary license on the part of said science writer.
If Soljacic is really interested in
investigating Tesla's works and ideas he hasn't
worked very hard! The paper shows exactly zero
understanding of what Tesla did and how his
system was supposed to work and the only Tesla
reference is to a patent which doesn't discuss the matter at all.
Ed