On Saturday, October 6, 2018 at 11:08:00 AM UTC-5, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> On 10/6/2018 11:52 PM, Richard Silk wrote:
> >
> > That's *using* the electricity being produced. Tesla was working on how to *harvest* the electricity to *begin* with: Stick something here, put something there, and *presto!* one has a differential from which to form a current (like powering a radio from a potato or a lemon.) You can actually power your smart phone with your own body, a paper clip, and a quarter (well, maybe an older, simple feature phone, these days.)
> >
>
> It's called magic? A curse? A spell? A magical circle or seal? ;)
Um, no. It's called an electrical differential. Think of holding an 8 pound bowling ball, ready to let go and drop it. Before you drop it, that's "potential energy" in your hands: The ball has 8 lbs of potential inertia, ready to fall at the speed of 32'/sec². (Google will give it to you in meters per second squared, but still.) I'm not going to get into physics equations to tell you how much energy is released by dropping the ball from any given height, but feel free to start working the equations on your own if you like. The IDEA is that the energy of a suspended object relative to Earth has *potential* energy that can be released. The static charge that builds up in rain clouds reaches a *potential* with respect to the electrical (ground) status of the Earth. When that potential gets so high that it can overcome the resistance of the air (between the cloud and the Earth) we see lightning. (ZAP!!!) Nothing magical about it. In the quarter and paper clip wired to a cell phone, a person has to hold the quarter. The differential exists between the battery / phone system and the human body, which is a bit more complicated than I care to explain here, but it's (again) like using a lemon to power a radio.
>
> SO it's not 100% wireless after all. You have to use a invisible fishing
> line to guide the energy? :)
The "invisible fishing line to guide the energy" is also known as "the path of least resistance." Water always flows downhill because the gravity at the center of the Earth is pulling it toward the center of the Earth. Water trickling along the surface of the Earth (from a mild runoff after a rainstorm to a creek to a river) ALWAYS follows the "path of least resistance" without ever having to use a wire to guide it.
In programming, it can be charted like an if/then loop:
START:
If "THIS DIRECTION is easier?" = "yes" then "go THIS DIRECTION" ELSE go to START.
GO THIS DIRECTION: OK, *now* go to START.