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We know how to do it, it's just super inefficient.
It was basically omnidirectional high powered high frequency induction, wasn't it?
I think it also has a high chance to electrocute anything or anyone not grounded? At least that's what I gleaned from the old Nikola Tesla theoretical city-wide wireless power grid idea?
I think he was making great progress but the capitalists wanted to know where to put the meter and he was a genius among bean counters.
The downside is induced electric current in everything conductive within the transmission area.
oh
thats bad
Yeah, kind of a hazard, especially in a time when a lot of structures like bridges were made of iron.
Also you have the inverse square law issue - the energy imparted by the induction field drops off exponentially with distance, so the farther away you want to transmit power the higher the output transmission has to be, and it starts to get really impractical because the field strength varies significantly with distance from the transmitter. A device at the edge of the induction field will recieve a much lower amount of energy than a device in the middle. Assuming that you want to be able to run something useful (say, a refrigerator) at the edge of the field, well now you have to do something to shield similar devices that are closer to the transmission point or they'll melt - maybe you ground them so they can dump excess energy, but now you're wired again anyway, so what was the point of wireless power?
From what I understand, if this technology would have been built out during his time then humanity most likely wouldn’t have developed our semi-processor/radio/computer/telephone technology because the wireless transmission of electricity would have prevented the earliest versions of that tech to work and we wouldn’t have been able to follow that line of technology progression.
Dude, no way!
Thank you for this. I love this story but could never find it again after I read it the first time!
So grateful for the link to this, thanks again stranger!
That's awesome! Glad to help out.
Like that other guy said, as far as my memory goes as to the reality, and mathematical theory, the method is vastly more inefficient in just transmitting power. Material science is generally a better area of research given everything.
Oh and the whole this method of transmission of power is entirely incompatible with our modern world thing plays a part why its not much considered anymore. As far as I know of course.
Sure, why not? It's not like we're using the EM spectrum for anything else ..
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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