In Robert Heinlein’s novel Friday, almost everything is powered by a Shipstone. Homes, ships and spacecraft all have their own Shipstone — a physical object that provides power wirelessly.
Imagine having a home where you could place your electronics anywhere without having to worry about running extension cords. Imagine all the limits on renovations that would be simply erased. Unfortunately, the idea of transmitting electricity wirelessly has been kicked around by minds as brilliant as Tesla’s, all to no avail.
Physics professor Marin Soljacic, however, was not aware of this history of failure and, therefore, did not know that he shouldn’t be able to succeed.
Soljacic learned that if you could get two magnetic fields to resonate — to sing the same note, in effect — they could transfer an electric current. With two large magnetic coils, he found in an experiment described in Science magazine in 2007, you can throw 60 watts across a room, powering a lightbulb. (Keeping the two resonators in perfect harmony over a distance is not simple; Soljacic spent several years running lab experiments before he built a system that worked reliably.)
MIT, for whom Soljacic works, patented the technology and immediately set up a company, WiTricity, to start developing it. Currently, they have televisions, DVD players and a computer all running wirelessly. That’s completely wireless.
The biggest concern to date with this technology is the belief that electricity is being shot through the air.
There’s a real perceptual problem,” he [WiTricity's CEO] says. “People think we’re putting electricity in the air, and that’s called lightning, and they know to stay away from that.”In fact, the coils turn electricity into magnetic fields, then back into electricity. And as any physicist will tell you, magnetic fields interact weakly with humans; as far as the fields are concerned, we are no different from air.
If I had to guess, I would say that as soon as this technology is reliable and affordable, it will become a mainstay of most homes and businesses.
The more I think about this technology, the more applications and secondary effects I can imagine. Once again, I’m reminded that we are living in the future (the fact I still don’t have a hoverbike notwithstanding).
Magnetic fields are not so benign with things like digital media storage, however…bring your digital camera card, for instance, anywhere near a magnetic field and kiss the card and any images on it good bye forever.
Ditto for credit card info on the black magnetic stripe on back, too…intriguing idea, though.
That’s an interesting point, Colin.
I’ve been reading about these types of technologies myself, and although it sounds kind of awesome (except for the data erasing) to have a giant magnet in the basement that powers everything within 100 metres, the near-future approach seems a lot safer.
What I’ve read is that the technologies work best at very, very short distances — like within a foot or two. So, you’ll plug in your TV, for example, but then your DVD player, Wii and stereo won’t need to be connected — they’ll suck power wirelessly from the nearby television (and they’ll share data sans wires, too — no cords!!).
Even now you can buy special magnetic mats that you lay your phones and ipods on, and they’ll be recharged through induction, no plugging in.
Also, I wonder if the next phase of data storage might be something that’s not magnetic. Or if they’ll be somehow able to not interfere with each other (sort of like there are plenty of different radio stations, even through they all broadcast through the same space).