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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 6:30 PM, William Flynn Wallace <<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:#0B5394'>Assume tens of thousands of years from now:</span><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:#0B5394'>Will they still use wires for anything? I hate wires! What do you need to go wireless? More wires.)<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Hmmmm… Bill, the mechanical analog to what you are asking is “Can we transmit mechanical work without shafts? I hate shafts…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The answer is yes you can, however… It isn’t the right way to transfer mechanical force in most applications. For instance, you could take mechanical energy and use it to create sound waves, such as in a big speaker, like you might see at a stadium rock concert. Then some distance away, another speaker would pick up the vibrations and would itself vibrate, moving a magnet mounted to the speaker cone, generating electrical energy, which could then be turned into mechanical energy. So you have transmitted mechanical energy without a big heavy greasy shaft. Well, you transmitted a little bit of it anyway, a very small fraction of a percent of what you started with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Transmitting electrical power without a wire is more efficient than that two speaker trick. You have the option of turning the electric power to a laser, shining the laser on a distant target and turning the light back into electrical energy. As in the example above, you would get back a little of the energy you put in. In some applications that might even be an OK way to go, such as when you only need a small amount of energy at the target, or when you don’t have the option of a wire, as in Keith Henson’s vision with the laser powered launch vehicle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>However, shafts and wires are your friends for most energy transmission applications, and still will be tens of thousands of years from now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>