Tesla coil explanation?

Hi. A couple of years ago I saw, I think it was an A&E Biography on Tesla. I was fascinated! I had no idea he was responsible for so much, and so forgotten despite all he did and the ideas he had that seem revolutionary.

Anyway, I remember something about an idea for using Tesla coils to transmit electricity safely through the air long distances, instead of using powerlines. I tried to explain it to someone, and completely fell on my face because I don't quite remember what it was about.

If this sounds familiar to anyone, could someone point me to a Web site that might explain this? I did a Google search, and came up with some interesting tidbits (like the Tesla-Westinghouse AC vs. Edison's DC,) and general info on Tesla coils...but nothing about his ideas for using it to power cities.

Thanks for any help!! Liam druid at celticbear dot com

Reply to
LRW
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You didn't find anything 'cause you're basically looking for hen's teeth...

Tesla never told anybody (or if he did, they aren't talking about it, even today) the precise "how it's supposed to work" of his wireless power system. He went broke before the prototype tower was completed, and after his death, with nobody knowing how it was supposed to work, the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap. All we know *FOR CERTAIN* is that the system involved a bizarre-looking copper-domed tower for transmitting. Only Tesla himself knew exactly what was intended to go into the tower, and since he ran out of money before the tower was to the point where the gear could be moved in, let alone hooked up, nobody (to my knowledge) ever even saw what he had planned for the innards of the thing.

One speculation says that the Tunguska Blast *MAY* have been caused by Tesla's initial testing of a new weapon based on the same "wireless power" technology, but that one's rather a stretch, at least based on the "evidence" I've seen put forward to support it. At least one "sub-theory" of this particular speculation says that the blast happened because he aimed the device incorrectly - Supposedly, he was shooting at the north pole, with the goal of cracking the polar ice cap as a "high visibility, low actual damage result", but overshot into Russia and leveled hundreds, even thousands, of acres of forestland (and probably a few reindeer) in a kaboom literally heard 'round the world.

--
Don Bruder -  dakidd@sonic.net
Reply to
Don Bruder

Hehehehe.... ROFLMAO... this really made my day. Surely this is some strange mix-up with Jules Verne though :-)

Reply to
R

Nope... zero Jules Verne involved. In the speculation, that is... Tesla himself made claims that he had a new weapon system that would eliminate the very possibility of war, it was so overpowering. One shot, and any agressor would basically vanish from the map. From commentary on some equations in the fragments of his notes (equations which may or may not have actually pertained to the device in question - Again, nobody seems to know for sure) it's been estimated that the energy output of a hit from this thing would make Little Boy and Fat Man (The two nukes that we dropped on Japan) TOGETHER look like a single kitchen match being struck at the bottom of a lake. He definitely had *SOMETHING* weapon-like, but to the best of my knowing, he never actually "went public" with either the device, or the details involved. Best guess that anybody has is that it was in his Colorado Springs facility. Nobody seems to be at all sure, though. Certainly, his Colorado Springs lab produced a whole bunch of "interesting toys". Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) it's my understanding that his creditors descended on the lab after his death like buzzards on a carcass, and basically dismantled things without any kind of concern for what devices might have been in it, including his "big gun" coil (the 20-something footer that would throw lightning bolts several hundred feet) then sold the stuff off for junk, forever bollixing any hope of knowing for certain what he had actually come up with. The man was a genius, and secretive to the point of paranoia, but if he actually cooked up a weapon that could make a nuke look tame, I guess it isn't really paranoia to want to keep it on the quiet...

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Don Bruder -  dakidd@sonic.net
Reply to
Don Bruder

----------- OH yes we do, Tesla became a fruitcake in his later years, producing nothing that worked and blathering delusions.

[]

--------------- That's nothing but insane schizophrenic asinine Tesla-worship. It's garbage anti-science, and nothing else.

-Steve

--
-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

Didn't Telsa come up with the idea of using rarified air (excited with UV) as a method of transmitting energy wirelessly? There is experimenting happening now with the use of UV lasers in wireless stun guns (currently the size of a suit case)

From what I remember reading about Telsa his weapon idea was based on building up a charge in the upper atmosphere and releasing it using a rarified air streamer to the ground.

I'm babbling. Still I've never seen any proof of this stuff so its SCI FI

Reply to
Modat22

Not clear that if it was ever "practical", it would have been compatible with electro-magnetic (RF) communication as we use it extensively today.

Reply to
Richard Crowley

Tesla firstly used tubes filled of gas instead of wires to transmitt power, though the word "Transmit" is really the wrong word for it. Latter Tesla moved to "high grounds" and found that the air itself broke down under the correct conditions. Tesla did "transmitt" the power, though not by what we would think, it was "conduction" though the air not "transmitt though the air". A common mistake.

Chris

Reply to
exxos

Wow, some pretty cool stuff. But so, I assume, there's really no info on the theory/plans to power towns by using wireless electricity streams, or something like that? I could have sworn A&E's Biography mentioned it. Guess I'll have to go buy the tape or something. =) OK, carry on. Now about this laser-like weapon using a rareified air stream?

Reply to
LRW

Sadly, it is pretty well documented that Tesla was a genius during his youth, but lost it and went arguably insane in his later years. More sad still is the fact that many of his fans tend to focus, not on his productive years, but on his more silly ideas that reflect on his profound lack of knowledge of electromagnetic field theory.

Harry C.

Reply to
Harry Conover

Tesla has a following of pseudo science groupies. The inverse square law and other physical constraints make this form of energy transfer far less than practical for high power applications. As we know, it works great for radio, TV, GPS, etc. He was a weird genius (redundant ?) and often at odds with folks like Edison and perhaps said some strange things in public while embroiled in bitter battles. Unfortunately, it seems that we are stuck with

50/60 Hz and transmission lines on high towers for the foreseeable future.
Reply to
Charles Schuler

strange

--------------- Yuppers.

-Steve

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-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

-------------- Yup. A real nutcake late in life, and the insane paranoid conspiracy fixated antiscientific-schizophrenic fruit and nutcake Tesla-ites are attracted to him like bugs to a light. It's like these cranks can find each other's craziness wherever they are like a funny smell only they can smell. They can sense other crazies and it attracts them beyond their ability to decipher and separate truth from delusion.

-Steve

--
-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

------------- No, delusion and insanity.

------------------------- Doesn't exist, go learn real physics so you'll know better. There aren't any "conspiracies" in science, it's too wide open.

--------------- Stop believing shit you see on TV, it is meant to attract little nuts like you for ratings, it isn't true.

------------------------- Garbage. The problem with sci-fi is that it halfways sounds like the stuff they discover later actually works, and it makes paranoid fools think that anything vaguely real-sounding is a "great discovery" that is being suppressed by "the powers that be"!

Ever hear of the flux capacitor? Go watch 'Back to the Future'.

-Steve

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-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

-snip-

-snip-

Whoa, Steve! Chill. I think you're confusing me with a zealot or something. I simply asked about something I saw on TV not proporting its truth, but to ask if it's true and if so, to get some real info on it. If the info I get here leads me to the conclusion it's simply "shit I saw on TV", then this "little nut" (who is just CRRAAAZY enough to try to get actual info on something, wow, that's just NUTS!) will not believe in it.

I unfortunately squandered my education on BA's and my career in Web design, so not being a trained physicist the best I can do is hear something on TV or read about it in a book or online, and then go out and look for more information. I'm not trusting A&E's Biography, that crazy insane show for conspiracy theorists that 100% wrong, (sarcasm, Steve,) for all my news and education. I came on here asking about it so educated people (note I came to sci.electronics.misc and not alt.crazy.ideas.that.are.wrong) hoping to get good info from knowledgeable people in the field of electronics to explain to me why it's right or wrong and possibly where to go for more info.

Are the personal insults really necessary?

And I'll admit in text my "OK, carry on. Now about this laser-like weapon using a rareified air stream?" didn't sound as light-hearted as it was meant and I don't blame you for taking it like I really wanted more info on it as if I believed it to be fact. I forgot the smillie at the end, I guess. But it does sound interesting from a sci-fi scense, which isn't a bad thing. Remember, sci-fi can be very entertaining. Asimiov and Arthur C. Clark and even Carl Sagan who's had his hand in writing some sci-fi would probably have some issues with your implication that sci-fi is "garbage."

Anyway, without matching rant with flame, I hope I politely and respectfuly expressed my shock and surprise as well as umbridge with your rather insulting and acerbic tone regarding my quest for accurate information, and interest in fanciful sci-fi.

Thanks! Liam

Reply to
LRW

Often it is the person with a crazy idea or slight insanity that discovers an amazing new discovery. I wouldn't knock any ones ideas, though there are a few I'd call nut cakes to myself. I love telsa coils, ion floaters, and TT Brown's stuff on the internet. The most enjoyable part is looking at the junk and figuring out what was really happening.

But I must say that if I see a person wearing an aluminum foil cap on your head I might look at you funny.

Reply to
Modat22

-------------- Ewww, you felt insulted, I LIKE it!!

-Steve

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-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

------------------ No, it isn't. That's merely a delusion of the paranoid borderline schizophrenic and white trash morons so they can comfort themselves for their academic failure.

I wouldn't knock any ones ideas,

----------------------- These are indeed that kind.

-Steve

--
-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!!  With Schematics Galore!!
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

At risk of fanning the flames, isn't that a rather obtuse statement dripping with hyperbole? I'm not agreeing that ALL people who are slightly insane come up with the crazy ideas; I'd say 99.5% of crazy people live out their lives as ...crazy. However, I'd go so far as to say 90% of the most amazing discoveries have come from people with a little madness. Again, I'm not a historian or a physicist, but some ideas that come to mind are Pasteur (sp). The idea of using mold to cure disease?? Insane! Or the guy who invented the smallpox vaccine. He tested a potentially lethal vaccine on himself. You'd have to be a little nuts to do that, not to mention it's a little crazy, the idea of injecting a live virus in order to destroy a virus? Madness! How about Newton? He was at best a neurotic, and DiVinci was thought to be a manic-depressive. Everyone who knew him thought that Feynman was an insane genius, and don't forget that "Beautiful Mind" schizophrenic. And the Curies? Playing around with radiation, for what most people thought was no good reason? That was surely insane! And Edison was an obsessive-compulsive who some also think was manic-depressive. And everyone here has mentioned, including yourself, that Tesla was cookoo, but I think his place in the history of geniuses is gaurenteed. After all, he's responsible for at leas alternating current.

I think people who pass off the idea that great minds and great ideas don't come from people a little off kilter, is deluding themselves blind to their mediocrity. It takes someone who the masses see as a little nuts to go beyond the fringes of what's "possible" in order to come up with bigger and better.

And besides, I guess an eliteist who has no real clue about people wouldn't realize a "white trash" person is generally white trash because they don't care about education, and really couldn't care less about what other people consider academic failures...but to them is nothing.

My $1.02. Keep the change. =) Liam

Reply to
LRW

dripping

...crazy.

mind

to

a

obsessive-compulsive

don't

their

and

wouldn't

people

Or in a nutshell they have to think "outside the box" to come up with radical ideas, if "outside the box" doesn't mean insane then what does.

Reply to
Mjolinor

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