In thinking about the topic of the crucial experiment, Nikola Tesla is one of the first scientists that come to my mind and
his system of wireless energy transmission. In a presentation, I focus on the invention of wireless electrical energy transmission
and the point of it not being used till this day, a notion that further sparks up some reflections on the controversies that
happen following scientific inventions and how the crucial experiment isn’t always followed by its direct application. Although
wireless technologies were one of Tesla’s greatest contributions, wireless electrical energy transfer still remains a “golem”
(citing the term from Collins and Pinch: The Golem, What everyone should know about science), when after rising mighty from
the mud, was dried and turned into dust. Having come to the United States in search for a better life as a scientist, Tesla
continued his work on many different inventions and began filing numerous patents, most which directly impacted how our daily
modern life looks like: from wireless technologies, alternating current transmission and more. He demonstrated wireless energy
transmission on hundreds of light bulbs powered solely by remote hydropower as early as 1891, but cutting funds on this research
and a mysterious fire in his lab still remain a mystery. One can only speculate about the reasons that research hasn’t gone
more into this direction, under a maybe premature “free energy for the world” slogan. But it seems that even the most altruistic
inventions are sometimes shadowed by the self-preservation drive of the dominant industry. Without the desire to conclude
in an air of conspiracy, I would leave a blank page for the discourse on all the possible scenarios that wireless energy might
have brought (or not brought) with itself.
Isidora Krstic
Fact Box
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Alumni