"Genesis" of Energy Chips: the Family Tree of energy technology

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” -- Peter Thiel, PayPal Co-founder

To power the flying car, we will need an energy source, preferably one that is silent, clean, and uses no fuel.

Where to find such a device? As of now, this technology does not exist; so, we will have to invent it.

The starting point for this would be with the ideas of Nikola Tesla. In 1892, Tesla delivered a lecture before the IEE, in London.

    Nikola Tesla

In that remarkable lecture, Tesla said:

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason. It has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians, and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic?

 

If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic—and this we know it is, for certain—then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

"...it is a mere question of time..."; it has been 122 years since then. Perhaps a bit longer than what Tesla had in mind?

But, the energy is there, and it always has been. We merely need to learn how to access it, as Tesla pointed out.

One who took up Tesla's challenge was Dr. T. Henry Moray, of Salt Lake City.

  T. Henry Moray

Starting in the early 1900's, and through the early 1940's, Moray built, and demonstrated, a series of what he called "radiant energy" devices. The last model he built was destroyed by a laboratory assistant, and was never rebuilt.

   Dr. Moray demonstrating his energy device

Dr. Moray's son, John Moray, published a book about the device, The Sea Of Energy.

  The Sea Of Energy, 1978 edition

For whatever reason, John Moray never attempted to rebuild any of his father's energy devices.

So, after more than 70 years, we are taking up the challenge laid down by Tesla, and pursued and then abandoned by Moray.

The question is: can we do it?

The answer is: of course we will do it! Why? Because we need it. We need it to power our flying car. Remember the old saying, that necessity is the mother of invention? (And I'm not talking about Frank Zappa's band, either!)

Where Moray used vacuum tube technology for his device, we can make use of the solid-state revolution, to create...



...the energy chip!

And that is what we shall do. 

[A Thomas Clarke endeavor]