[zotz]

Tesla was far smarter than Edison was. Tesla's biggest mistake was allowing himself to work for JP Morgan. Morgan didn't want that wireless junk ("Where do you put the meter?") and was happy to let Tesla work himself into obscurity while the metered, wired system we know today was put into place.

Tesla became aware of the position he had placed himself in and his work became focused on leaving his research to us, the future. I hope we listen because he knew what he was doing.

[SkyMarshal]

> Morgan didn't want that wireless junk ("Where do you put the meter?")

I've also heard that Morgan realized all the copper mines and refineries he had stakes in would lose value.

I'm sure there are others reasons floating around out there too, they're a dime a dozen. Frankly I doubt Morgan ever explained his real reasoning to any journalists or authors, and these stories got narrated in somewhere along the way.

[zotz]

> Frankly I doubt Morgan ever explained his real reasoning to any journalists or authors

The proof is in the pudding, imo. Morgan also backed Edison's company (Edison General Electric, which later became General Electric). Morgan, via Edison, was going for ownership of the new electrical grid that was growing in the US 100+ years ago.

There's no way Morgan would ever allow Tesla's work with wireless to gain any traction in his lifetime.

[derleth]

> Morgan didn't want that wireless junk

Good for him: It's physically impossible.

[Ygg2]

An honest question: Why is wireless broadcast of electricity physically impossible?

[derleth]

Because the power of electromagnetic radiation (energy per unit area perpendicular to the source) drops off proportional to the inverse square of the distance. So, at one unit away it's a reference for full power, at two units it's at one-quarter power, and three units it's at one-ninth power, and so on. This is the fatal flaw with Tesla's scheme: By simple geometry, you're pouring power into space and you need massive input to get any output at all at an appreciable distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

The WiTricity project you may hear of does things based on a completely different technical footing, which is more efficient but less broadly useful. For example, with the WiTricity technology, power receivers can't be any more than a quarter-wavelength from the transmitter, which means that they can't be any further away than a few meters. Definitely not what Tesla had in mind.

[zotz]

You've read enough of Tesla's diaries to know that?

[derleth]

> You've read enough of Tesla's diaries to know that?

I know enough physics to know that. Tesla's diaries are irrelevant.

[zotz]

Marin Soljačić might disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Soljačić

[derleth]

I'm sure he wouldn't: There's a reason his work is completely different from Tesla's.

And our discussion is about Tesla's broadcast power ideas. Bringing in a completely different concept is dishonest.

[zotz]

The discussion was about wireless transmission of power. It was stated that it was impossible. It's a reality.

I'm refraining from further conversation. Good evening.

[zotz]

The claim was that wireless is "junk". Soljačić proved it's not.