Thread: Nikola Tesla
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Old 11th Oct 2017, 7:24 am   #22
Radio Wrangler
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Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
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Default Re: Nikola Tesla

Folklore has a powerful magnifying effect. The fact that some opera singers have been able to fracture some glasses has expanded to the point where many people believe any opera singer can shatter any glass object. Soldiers are only a threat to a bridge if it has an undamped resonance at their cadence.

There are large voltages, large currents and large instantaneous powers in, say, thunderstorms, but the average power density is still fairly low. There is more energy in the winds which drive the tribo-electric charging of clouds, and more energy still in the sunlight which powers it all.

There is no shortage of free energy, but it's in rather diffuse form, not in ready-concentrated easy to use industrial concentrations. So it is a poor match to our existing infrastructure which is based on few but immensely concentrated generators that can operate at any time.

Elon Musk's blue sky ventures seem to be artfully chosen and well directed. He's not doing fundamental science, he's not personally inventing new technologies, but he does seem to know what to do with it. He's quite different to Tesla, but he's another game-changer.

David
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