In the late 1800s, Nikola Tesla began experimenting with transmitting power wirelessly via the earth's crust and the ionosphere. He invented what we now know as the Tesla Coil; this device was capable of generating extremely high voltages, and was the precursor to radio transmission. What was Tesla doing? How was he doing it? Does wireless power work? The Omega Recoil team have been re-creating some of Tesla's wireless power experiments, with interesting results.
Following on President Obama's call to "begin again the work of remaking America," Maker Faire 2009 was organized around the theme of Re-Make America. Held in the San Francisco Bay Area, Maker Faire celebrates what President Obama called "the risk takers, the doers, and the makers of things."
Bio
John Behrens
John Behrens is currently a cinematographer who photographs independent features, television, documentaries and live music. He is the owner and operator of Point Beach Productions, a production and effects company for the motion picture and television industry. Behrens has also served as a high voltage consultant for Discovery Channel's MythBusters.
Sparky Bartlett Jewell
Sparky Jewell is a member of Omega Recoil, a team of scientists, builders, engineers, showmen and industrial artists that have been conducting experiments with electricity in the San Francisco Bay area since 1999.
Nikola Tesla.Culver Pictures(born July 9/10, 1856, Smiljan, Lika, Austria-Hungary [now in Croatia]died Jan. 7, 1943, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Serbian U.S. inventor and researcher. He studied in Austria and Bohemia and worked in Paris before coming to the U.S. in 1884. He worked for Thomas Alva Edison and George Westinghouse but preferred independent research. His inventions made possible the production and distribution of alternating-current electric power. He invented an induction coil that is still widely used in radio technology, the Tesla coil (1891); his system was used by Westinghouse to light the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Tesla established an electric power station at Niagara Falls that delivered power to Buffalo, N.Y., by 1896. His research also included work on a carbon button lamp and on the power of electrical resonance. He discovered terrestrial stationary waves (18991900), proving that the Earth is a conductor. Due to lack of funds, many of his ideas remained only in his notebooks, which are still examined by enthusiasts for inventive clues.