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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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wireless power transmission like Tesla always dreamed of

Tesla's dream of wireless power transmission was mostly just him going senile / developing schizophrenic symptoms. His earlier inventions that he made his fame from relied on the same laws of physics that were well known by then to make such long distance wireless power transmission inherently extremely inefficient (there's a reason any modern "beamed power transmission" concepts use parabolic antennae and microwave wavelengths).

We probably have different views on what schizophrenia is.

Feel free to substitute a better term for "clear detachment from factual reality on some issues where the person was before well aware of the reality". Tesla's idea of wireless power transmission fundamentally cannot work because of the interaction of inverse square law and Maxwell's equations. Tesla, having invented the AC induction motor, was well aware of those equations and his inventions relied on them. Thus to later pivot to "No, that's actually bullshit and I'll just transfer power wirelessly without direct beaming" is a sign of either that or generally losing his wits (ie. senility).

As @TeknOSheEeP mentioned, you can beam power but that's fundamentally the same as just pointing a giant flashlight in one direction, only using microwaves in the hope of better conversion efficiency. A key fact is that it relies on a tightly directional beam, something which requires wavelength much shorter than the dimensions of the transmitter. Otherwise you've just built a plain old radio transmitter which (again because of inverse square law) are extremely inefficient as far as the received power goes.