Re: Tesla lighted 25 miles of lamps without wires

jimp_at_specsol-spam-sux.com
Date: 09/10/04 

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 05:31:18 +0000 (UTC)

In sci.physics habshi <habshi@anony.com> wrote:
> apparently Tesla lighted lamps along 25 miles using the earth
> as a conductor . How did he do it and why do we need wires ?

One wire for the power, Earth for the return.

The Earth is conductive, sorta.

The turn of the 19th century telegraph between Arizona and California
was one wire with the Earth as the return, which had some interesting
problems because of the difference in potential between remote
locations(1).

Since the Earth is a poor conductor compared to a wire, you get a lot
of IR loss and heating of the ground (which pisses off the worms) if
you try to use this scheme for much power.

This is a dumb idea.

(1) Before you go off on that other dumb idea of getting power from the
potential difference between two stakes in the ground miles apart, the
voltage may be high, but the current is low, and hence no usable power. 

-- 
Jim Pennino
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