"Tesla generates a powerful pulse of electricity, and drains it into the
ground. Because the ground is conductive, it doesn't stop. Rather, it
spreads out like a radio wave, traveling at the speed of light, 186,000 miles
per second."
And all this time I thought only light travelled at the speed of light :/
While I read that article, I was thinking, what if we found a way to 1. direct the current through the earth to a specific location reliably and 2. managed to represent bits accurately within that current? Free international communication, without networks of cables ;P
Radio wave is electromagnetic wave (aka 'light' in a range of frequency). But "speed of light" in non-vacuum is lower.
"direct the current through the earth to a specific location reliably"
Earth is not homogenous. I wonder if pointing a low frequency laser into the ground will accomplish anything. It most likely will be refracted in an unpredictable inconsistent way.
Well, what if we transmit known data in a strong signal from one end to the other and then compare what was received to what was sent... (insert big hand waving) if we replicate those steps x times, we might be able to map the "interference structure" of the Earth and compensate for that somehow...
We could recalculate the "interference infrastructure" every couple seconds... Remember that we don't need 100% accuracy also; TCP/IP layers reliability on top of unreliability.
Check out the movie "The Prestige" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0482571/), which (among other things) features David Bowie as Tesla during his time in Colorado Springs.
And all this time I thought only light travelled at the speed of light :/
While I read that article, I was thinking, what if we found a way to 1. direct the current through the earth to a specific location reliably and 2. managed to represent bits accurately within that current? Free international communication, without networks of cables ;P