Re: Tesla myths corrected - Best text? (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:08:54 +0800
From: Peter Terren <pterren@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Tesla myths corrected - Best text? (fwd)

I understand how an earth can have a low resistance since the effective 
volume of current flow goes up with the cube of distance.  That is my return 
line in my example. The 1 ohm that you quoted may be quite reasonable.
Sure, you could (extremely hypothetically) shoot 1MV into the plasma 
ionosphere as well and get a similar "earth-in-the-sky" effect.  What you 
won't do is impedance match that to 200 low voltage 50W light globes from 
some trivially small antenna and expect to extract 10kW.  (I noted my 
mistake in saying this was 1kW)

Peter
http://tesladownunder.com


>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:57:52 -0600
> From: Gary Peterson <g.peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Tesla myths corrected - Best text? (fwd)
>
>>> I have had the need on several occasions now to correct myths about 
>>> Tesla
>>> but lack the knowledge base. . . . Things like "Lit up 200 light globes
>>> at 40 miles."  Hard to conceive doing this even with a wire.
>
> The original account appeared in J.J. O'Neill's Tesla biography PRODIGAL
> GENIUS and is generally accepted as being apocryphal.
>
>      "As a result of this most unfortunate design, technical details are
> lacking concerning the principal discoveries made at Colorado Springs.  By
> piecing together the fragmentary material published in a number of
> publications, however, it appears evident that Tesla, in addition to
> experiments with his gigantic current movements, as a means of 
> establishing
> world-wide broadcasts and making a number of detectors for such use, 
> tested
> his power transmission system at a distance of twenty-six miles from his
> laboratory and was able to light two hundred incandescent lamps, of the
> Edison type, with electrical energy extracted from the earth while his
> oscillator was operating.  These lamps consumed about fifty watts each; 
> and
> if two hundred were used in the test bank, the energy consumed would be
> 10,000 watts, or approximately thirteen horsepower."
>
>> I don't believe he ever once gives a solid number for the distance from
>> the lab that he was able to light even a single bulb.
>
> Here is a distance statement on the wireless transmission of electrical
> energy in general by means other than electromagnetic radiation or "radio
> waves" as defined in the narrowest sense of the term. . . .
>
> Counsel
>
>     Referring to the different instrumentalities described as being used 
> by
> you for supplying sustained electrical oscillations to an antenna of high
> capacity and tuned to the frequency of the current impressed, for the
> transmission of energy without wires, what, if any, difference in 
> principle
> was involved in the transmitting of such energy to a distant telephone, 
> for
> instance, or for signaling, as compared with such transmission to any 
> other
> form of translating device, such for instance, as a lamp?
>
> Tesla
>
>     There is no difference whatever that I can see in the principle.
>
> Counsel
>
>     Was there any difference in the equipment employed for these two
> purposes?
>
> Tesla
>
>     Absolutely none that I can see.
>
> Counsel
>
>     Would there be any difference in the principle or in the
> instrumentalities used if such work is carried on with a single-wire
> circuit?
>
> Tesla
>
>     Not to my knowledge. . . .
>
> Counsel
>
>     What was the distance of the receiver from the sending station in the
> Colorado test?
>
> Tesla
>
>     Well, these distances were small, for the reason that they were merely
> intended to give me quantitative data.
>
> Counsel
>
>     Could you give the number of miles, approximately?
>
> Tesla
>
>     Oh, 10 miles or so.
>
> [Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents and Their Application 
> to
> Wireless Telegraphy, Telephony and Transmission of Power, Leland I.
> Anderson, Editor, Twenty First Century Books, 1992, pp. 171-173.
>
>>> . . . would require very thick wire to get 0.25 ohms per mile. . . .
>
> The higher the voltage that is used in sending energy over a conventional
> electrical power transmission line, the greater is its efficiency.  This 
> is
> due to the relationship between voltage and current as they relate to 
> power
> dissipation.  For example, to power a hypothetical 100-watt load, the
> current can be one ampere at 100 volts, 10 amperes at 10 volts or 100
> amperes at 1 volt, or any number of similar combinations.  Ordinary
> conductors have a finite resistance.  The voltage drop (E) across any
> resistance (R) is given by Ohm's law, E = I/R.  For any given load, with a
> constant transmission-line resistance, by lowering the current (I) that
> flows through the transmission line, the voltage drop or transmission-line
> loss is reduced
>
> The above statements about transmission-line loss appear true in regards 
> to
> the plasma transmission line that runs between the two elevated terminals 
> as
> well.  Tesla designed his transmitter with the expressed purpose of
> developing the greatest possible potential on the elevated terminal in 
> order
> to minimize the loss due to the plasma transmission-line resistance
>
>     ". . . by such means as have been described practically any potential
> that is desired may be obtained, the currents through the air strata may 
> be
> rendered very small, whereby the loss in the transmission may be reduced.
> [SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY, Sept. 2, 1897, U.S. Patent 
> No.
> 645,576, Mar. 20, 1900]
>
> A little while back Bill Beaty explained why a plasma transmission could
> operate with minimal losses.
>
>    'The influence of resistance on transmission line efficiency depends
> upon the impedance of the source and the load.  For example, if a power
> supply puts out one watt, but puts it out at one volt and one amp, then 
> the
> output impedance of the source is one ohm  (R = E/I).  The transmission 
> line
> had better have much less resistance than one ohm (say 0.1 ohm or smaller)
> otherwise a significant portion of the transmitted energy will go into
> heating of the wire.  In other words, the one-volt, one-amp source thinks
> the division between conductor and insulator is centered at the value of 
> one
> ohm.  A 100-ohm leakage path is nearly an insulator, since it dissipates
> only 1% of the output wattage.  Now suppose the power supply puts out one
> watt at one kilovolt and one milliamp.  In that case the source impedance 
> is
> one megaohm, and the connecting wires had better be 100K or less in
> resistance.  In this case a 10K resistor is a conductor of negligible
> resistance, and a one-megaohm leakage path will eat up half of the power
> supply's output.
>
>    'Applying this relationship to an atmospheric conduction wireless 
> energy
> transmission system, if the transmitter puts out one megawatt at one
> megavolt and one amp, then 100K is a fairly good conductor, and insulators
> have to measure 10 megaohms or better.  In this case, if you could create 
> a
> vertical plasma transmission line, and if the plasma filament measured 10
> kilo-ohms, it would only consume 1% of the transmitter's power output.  If
> the potential of transmitter's elevated terminal is raised to 100 
> megavolts
> at 10 mA (this is still 1 megawatt), then the supply impedance is 10,000
> megaohms, and the plasma transmission line will act as a negligible series
> resistance even if its resistance is 100 megaohms.'
>
> Furthermore, according to Tesla, the resistance of the earth as an
> electrical conductor is negligible due to the immense size of its cross
> section, and relative shortness as compared to its diameter.
>
>    "A [conducting] sphere of the size of a little marble offers a greater
> impediment to the passage of a current than the whole earth. . . . This is
> not merely a theory, but a truth established in numerous and carefully
> conducted experiments." ["The Future of the Wireless Art," Wireless
> Telegraphy & Telephony, Walter W. Massie & Charles R. Underhill, 1908, pp.
> 67-71]
>
>    "You must first understand certain things.  Consider, for instance, the
> term "resistance."  When you think of resistance you imagine, naturally,
> that you have a long, thin conductor; but remember that while resistance 
> is
> directly proportionate to length, it is inversely proportionate to the
> section.  It is a quality that depends on a ratio.  If you take a small
> sphere of the same size of a pea, and compare its length with its section,
> you would find a certain resistance.  Now you extend this pea to the size 
> of
> the earth, and what is going to happen?
>
>    "While the length increases, say a thousand times or a million times,
> the section increases with the square of the linear dimensions, so that 
> the
> bigger this thing is the less resistance it has.  Indeed, if the earth 
> were
> as big as the sun we would still be better off than we are; we could 
> readily
> telephone from one end of the sun to the other by the system, and the 
> larger
> the planet the better it would be. . . . The resistance is only at the 
> point
> where you get into the earth with your current.  The rest is nothing."
> [Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents and Their Application 
> to
> Wireless Telegraphy, Telephony and Transmission of Power, pp. 134-135]
>
> The point-to-point resistance between antipodes of the whole earth seems 
> to
> be very low.  It can be analytically shown that the probable whole earth
> resistance is less than 1 ohm. ["Spherical Transmission Lines and Global
> Propagation, An Analysis of Tesla's Experimentally Determined Propagation
> Model," K. L. Corum, J. F. Corum, Ph.D., and J. F. X. Daum, Ph.D. 1996, 
> pp.
> 3-5].
>
> That the earth itself does in fact possess a very low resistance is
> supported by the existence of "monopole with earth return" mode High 
> Voltage
> Direct Current electrical power transmission systems.
>
>>> I have had the need on several occasions now to correct myths about
>>> Tesla. . . . Does anyone recommend a book that will have this sort of
>>> information. . . . Can anyone help direct me?
>
> See http://www.tfcbooks.com/teslafaq/q&a_042.htm for a list of references
> including:
> 1) MY INVENTIONS : THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NIKOLA TESLA, Nikola Tesla; Ben
> Johnston, Editor
> 2) THE PROBLEM OF INCREASING HUMAN ENERGY, Nikola Tesla; Robert Underwood
> Johnson, Editor
> 3) INVENTIONS, RESEARCHES AND WRITINGS OF NIKOLA TESLA, Nikola Tesla; 
> Thomas
> Commerford Martin, Editor
> 4) NIKOLA TESLA ON HIS WORK WITH ALTERNATING CURRENTS AND THEIR 
> APPLICATION
> TO WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, TELEPHONY, AND TRANSMISSION OF POWER, Tesla 
> Presents
> Series Part 1, Nikola Tesla; Leland I. Anderson, Editor
> 5) NIKOLA TESLA: LECTURE BEFORE THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, APRIL 6,
> 1897, Tesla Presents Series Part 2, Nikola Tesla; Leland I. Anderson, 
> Editor
> 6) HIGH FREQUENCY OSCILLATORS FOR ELECTRO-THERAPEUTIC AND OTHER PURPOSES,
> Nikola Tesla
> 7) NIKOLA TESLA: GUIDED WEAPONS & COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY, Tesla Presents 
> Series
> Part 3, Nikola Tesla, et al; Leland I. Anderson, Editor
> 8) NIKOLA TESLA'S TELEFORCE & TELEGEODYNAMICS PROPOSALS, Limited Edition,
> Tesla Presents Series Part 4, Nikola Tesla; Leland I. Anderson, Editor
> 9) NIKOLA TESLA - COLORADO SPRINGS NOTES, 1899-1900, Nikola Tesla;
> Commentary by Aleksandar Marincic
> 10) DR. NIKOLA TESLA: I. ENGLISH / SERBO-CROATIAN DIARY COMPARISONS, II.
> SERBO-CROATIAN DIARY COMMENTARY, III. TESLA / SCHERFF COLORADO SPRINGS
> CORRESPONDENCE, John T. Ratzlaff & Fred A. Jost
> 11) DR. NIKOLA TESLA - COMPLETE PATENTS, Nikola Tesla; Compiled by John T.
> Ratzlaff
> 12) DR. NIKOLA TESLA - SELECTED PATENT WRAPPERS, Nikola Tesla; Compiled by
> John T. Ratzlaff
>
> Regards,
> Gary
>
>
>> Subject: Re: Tesla myths corrected - Best text? (fwd)
>>
>> Try reading Tesla's Colorado Springs Lab Notes.  If I remember correctly
>> he only states that mathematically he should have been able to light as
>> many as 200 bulbs and I don't believe he ever once gives a solid number
>> for the distance from the lab that he was able to light even a single
>> bulb.  There are however several photos showing it happening if there is
>> any doubt about even the principles involved.  Someone on the list has
>> pulled this off (I can't remember who...Richard Quick, maybe) and 
>> reported
>> distances of a quarter mile with a small coil.  I agree though,there is a
>> lot of crap put out there and between the free energy loons and the media
>> it's hard to believe anything.  I personally don't think that Tesla was a
>> deliberate liar (maybe misguided in a couple of things) so I would only
>> consider his word to be the truth in this case. Wyatt
>>
>>> Subject: Re: Tesla myths corrected - Best text?
>>>
>>> I have had the need on several occasions now to correct myths about 
>>> Tesla
>>> but lack the knowledge base.  Does anyone recommend a book that will 
>>> have
>>> this sort of information.
>>>
>>> Things like "Lit up 200 light globes at 40 miles."  Hard to conceive
>>> doing this even with a wire.  Think about it in terms of wire resistance
>>> for DC particularly if only conventional mains voltages.  Suppose light
>>> globes are 100V 50W then 200 x 50W = 1kW.  At 100V this is 10A.  Even 10
>>> ohms will be a major problem and would require very thick wire to get
>>> 0.25 ohms per mile.  2 Two strands of 0 SWG = 9mm thick would do this.
>>> And this is just one way. It assumes a very good earth is available at
>>> both ends.  Use one strand of 9mm and you will light up the globes at 
>>> 1/4
>>> current and perhaps 1/10 brightness.
>>>
>>> At current copper prices that is something like $14,000. Not counting
>>> supports etc.  Using low frequency AC allows voltage step up then the
>>> supports become important and you need to run transformers at either 
>>> end.
>>> And using high frequency or even Tesla output is out of the question due
>>> to corona, capacitative and inductance issues.
>>>
>>> To do that as a wireless setup even with a mile high transmitter and
>>> receiver and resonant setup would seem far fetched to get that sort of
>>> performance
>>>
>>> I understand that this was press hyperbole that has grown by word of
>>> mouth.  I recall someone stating that the original experiment was that 
>>> he
>>> lit up some globes just outside the lab earthed to a pipe. I don't have
>>> the background for that.
>>>
>>> Similarly, Tunguska explosions, death rays, resonant vibrations and 
>>> 100MV
>>> sparks are all ludicrous.
>>>
>>> Can anyone help direct me?
>>>
>>> Peter
>
>
>