Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:07:40 -0700
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>, tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)

At 02:03 PM 6/12/2007, Tesla list wrote:

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:20:37 -0800
>From: Greg Leyh <lod@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)
>
>Hi Jim,
>
>Your points are well taken.  The original idea of reviewing published
>research to prevent duplicate effort seems to have been lost.

This hardly even fits in that category.. this is stuff that's in most 
electromagnetics textbooks, in the first couple chapters.. or in NBS 
Circular 74.. or anything dealing with mutual inductance.  I actually 
gave a problem almost identical to this one to some college juniors 
and seniors when I covered a class for a coworker who was the 
professor.  (My problem was more the "can you extract power from an 
overhead power line with a resonant loop" variety, but the analysis 
is almost exactly the same)


>   It has
>failed though, largely due to the overwhelming amount of material to
>search.  Nowadays, each generation tends to 'rediscover' most fields of
>science and engineering, and electromagnetics is no exception.

True... but do they publish papers in prestigious journals about it? 
"Science" is no obscure multidisciplinary conference being held in a 
resort city sponsored by third world professional and technical associations.


>I expect the reality to set in when they begin to consider EM
>compatibility standards, the actual power needed by digital devices,
>acceptable pickup loop sizes, and the horde of single-ideology groups
>out there who consider EM fields to be bad voodoo.   GL

Indeed...the fields alone will kill it from "currents of death" 
standpoint.  The "supplemental online material" talks about changes 
to meet some of these needs: moving to 1 MHz, different sizes for 
transmitter and receiver coils (implication that it's the product of 
diameters that's important, I think), using a single loop.


I suppose what gets me is that if I had seen this as a project when I 
was judging at the California State Science Fair last month, I 
wouldn't have given it a very high mark, at least based on the 
published paper.  They've left out some key things (how much current 
did they measure in the loops), the overall experimental technique 
left a lot to be desired (calibrated light bulbs?), they didn't apply 
simple physics to make quantitative predictions about the effects of 
interposing materials.


Gosh, they have 6 coauthors!!!  Surely one of them knows something 
about experimental design?