Drop the cords!

No more cords for your computers to run? Is that a joke? Not really. All these cords to get electricity to our computers and other gadgets are annoyingly in our way.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (02/22/1857 – 01/01/1894), a Germain physicist, invented many things as he was researching about electricity. He proved that VHF and UHF existed. In order to do that, he created coils and found out that electricity could go from one coil to another without the need for any direct contact. In other words, the magnetic field generated by one coil can be transmitted to another coil which then transform that field in electricity.

Heinrich wanted to create large antennae to provide electricity to customers using the same principal. Also he started to work on the project, backed by investors, he just could not find a reliable way to bill customers for their consumption and thus the project was never built.

In 2007, Martin Soljačić, for the first time, applied the same principal and created the first working experiment with two simple coils transmitting electricity through waves and turning on a light bulb. The system works with Alternative Current (AC) and about 10 mega Hertz (yes, the name Hertz comes from Heinrich Rudolf.)

Note that we knew about this all along, we just never had it applied with distances of over a few millimeters. Now, Martin made it work with a space of about 2 meters. Because of the quick drop of the current after a short distance, this is the current limit. Also, the amount of current reusable by the device may be only 40% of the input current.

So… if considered safe, within a few years, we should be able to drop all the cabling from our computers. Since the current transformers use a lot of current anyway, it should not make a huge difference in regard to power consumption. Only thing, if you place your station close to your wall, your neighbor may start pumping some of your current!