Early visions of wireless power actually were thought of by Nikola Tesla basically about 100 years ago. The thought that you wouldn't want to transfer electric power wirelessly, no one ever thought of that. They thought, "Who would use it if you didn't?" And so, in fact, he actually set about doing a variety of things. Built the Tesla coil. This tower was built on Long Island back at the beginning of the 1900s. And the idea was, it was supposed to be able to transfer power anywhere on Earth. We'll never know if this stuff worked. Actually, I think the Federal Bureau of Investigation took it down for security purposes, sometime in the early 1900s.
無線電力的早期概念, 源自於自尼古拉.特斯拉的想法, 大約在一百年前。 那時大家認為, 你不會想用無線的方式去傳輸電力, 也從來沒有人想過這件事。 大家都認為:「誰會想去做沒人要做的事?」 即使如此,事實上, 他確實做出了一些東西。 他建造了特斯拉線圈。這個塔建造於 1900年代初期的長島上, 原始目的是希望利用這座塔把電力傳送到 地球上的每個角落。 我們無法知道這東西是否有用。事實上我想, 聯邦調查局(FBI) 基於安全考量將它拆掉了, 就在1900年代初期的某個時候。
But the one thing that did come out of electricity is that we love this stuff so much. I mean, think about how much we love this. If you just walk outside, there are trillions of dollars that have been invested in infrastructure around the world, putting up wires to get power from where it's created to where it's used. The other thing is, we love batteries. And for those of us that have an environmental element to us, there is something like 40 billion disposable batteries built every year for power that, generally speaking, is used within a few inches or a few feet of where there is very inexpensive power.
不過這也說明了一些事情, 就是我們深深地愛上了電力。 我是說,想想我們有多愛它。 只要你走出門,就會看見耗費幾兆美金 所建造的電力設施座落在世界各地, 接上了電線,將電力從發電的場所 傳送到用戶端。 另一件事,就是我們很愛電池。 愛用電池的我們會對環境造成一些影響, 每年大約會有四百億個 拋棄式電池被製造出來。 一般來說, 人們是在幾英吋或幾英呎的狹小範圍裡, 使用這種便宜的電力來源。
So, before I got here, I thought, "You know, I am from North America. We do have a little bit of a reputation in the United States." So I thought I'd better look it up first. So definition number six is the North American definition of the word "suck." Wires suck, they really do. Think about it. Whether that's you in that picture or something under your desk. The other thing is, batteries suck too. And they really, really do. Do you ever wonder what happens to this stuff? 40 billion of these things built. This is what happens. They fall apart, they disintegrate, and they end up here.
在我來這裡之前, 我想:「大家都知道,我來自於北美, 我們在美國還算小有名氣。」 所以我最好先查一下, 在北美對於"suck" 這個字的第六個定義, 意思是指很"差勁"。 電線很差勁,它確實如此。 試想一下。你是不是照片裡的那個人, 或那些是不是你桌子下面的東西。 另外,電池也很差勁。 他們的確是如此。 有想過這東西會變成什麼嗎? 四百億個電池被製造出來以後, 這就是接下來會發生的事。 他們會裂開、會碎掉, 結果變成這樣。
So when you talk about expensive power, the cost per kilowatt-hour to supply battery power to something is on the order of two to three hundred pounds. Think about that. The most expensive grid power in the world is thousandths of that. So fortunately, one of the other definitions of "suck" that was in there, it does create a vacuum. And nature really does abhor a vacuum.
所以當你提到昂貴的電力時, 你得知道,若以電池供電, 每千瓦小時就得耗去 大約兩百到三百磅重的電池。 想想看, 世界上最昂貴的電力網絡 會是它的數千倍。 幸運的是,Suck 的另一個定義 是指它會造成真空, 而大自然確實也不喜歡真空狀態。
What happened back a few years ago was a group of theoretical physicists at MIT actually came up with this concept of transferring power over distance. Basically they were able to light a 60 watt light bulb at a distance of about two meters. It got about 50 percent of the efficiency -- by the way, that's still a couple thousand times more efficient than a battery would be, to do the same thing. But were able to light that, and do it very successfully. This was actually the experiment. So you can see the coils were somewhat larger. The light bulb was a fairly simple task, from their standpoint.
幾年前, MIT(麻省理工學院)的一群理論物理學家們 提出了遠距電力傳輸的概念。 基本上,他們已經可以點亮一盞距離兩公尺遠的 六十瓦的燈泡。 它的電力傳輸效率大概是五十%。 即使如此,這種方式的傳輸效率 已經比用電池做同一件事高上數千倍。 但確實可以點亮燈泡, 而且相當地成功。 這只是實驗而已。所以你會發現 這些線圈看起來有點大。 對他們來說,點亮燈泡是一件很簡單的事。
This all came from a professor waking up at night to the third night in a row that his wife's cellphone was beeping because it was running out of battery power. And he was thinking, "With all the electricity that's out there in the walls, why couldn't some of that just come into the phone so I could get some sleep?" And he actually came up with this concept of resonant energy transfer. But inside a standard transformer are two coils of wire. And those two coils of wire are really, really close to each other, and actually do transfer power magnetically and wirelessly, only over a very short distance.
這一切源自於一個教授, 連續三個晚上 都被他老婆手機的嗶嗶聲給吵醒, 因為手機的電池快沒電了。 於是他想:「明明牆上就有電, 為什麼電不能自己跑進手機裡,那我就可以好好睡覺了?」 於是他藉由共振方式傳遞能量, 來實現了這個概念。 在標準的變壓器中有兩個線圈, 這兩個線圈靠得很近, 在這非常短的距離中,以磁能的方式, 來進行無線的能量傳遞。
What Dr. Soljacic figured out how to do was separate the coils in a transformer to a greater distance than the size of those transformers using this technology, which is not dissimilar from the way an opera singer shatters a glass on the other side of the room. It's a resonant phenomenon for which he actually received a MacArthur Fellowship Award, which is nicknamed the Genius Award, last September, for his discovery.
Soljacic 博士所想到的作法是, 將變壓器中的線圈分開, 移到比變壓器尺寸更遠的距離, 讓能量無線傳遞, 原理就像是歌劇的演唱者將隔壁房裡杯子震破一般。 這是一種共振原理, 藉此他得到了麥克阿瑟獎, 這個獎又被稱為天才獎, 他的發明讓他在去年九月得到了這個獎。
So how does it work? Imagine a coil. For those of you that are engineers, there's a capacitor attached to it too. And if you can cause that coil to resonate, what will happen is it will pulse at alternating current frequencies -- at a fairly high frequency, by the way. And if you can bring another device close enough to the source, that will only work at exactly that frequency, you can actually get them to do what's called strongly couple, and transfer magnetic energy between them. And then what you do is, you start out with electricity, turn it into magnetic field, take that magnetic field, turn it back into electricity, and then you can use it.
那麼,它怎麼運作呢? 在座如果有工程師的話,請你想像一下線圈, 上面還接著一個電容。 如果你能夠讓線圈共振, 那麼它將會產生脈衝, 那是種交流電的頻率, 相當高的頻率。 如果你拿另一組線圈, 盡可能地靠近共振線圈時, 它將會產生完全相同的頻率, 你可以讓它們形成一種叫做強耦合的現象, 如此就可以在彼此間進行磁能傳遞。 你所要做的是提供電力, 然後將電力轉換成磁場, 再將磁場轉換回電力, 這樣你就可以使用它了。
Number one question I get asked. I mean, people are worried about cellphones being safe. You know. What about safety? The first thing is this is not a "radiative" technology. It doesn't radiate. There aren't electric fields here. It's a magnetic field. It stays within either what we call the source, or within the device. And actually, the magnetic fields we're using are basically about the same as the Earth's magnetic field. We live in a magnetic field.
我最常被問的問題是, 人們都擔心手機的安全性, 那這個東西的安全性如何呢? 首先,這並不是放射技術, 它不會產生放射電波, 不會有電場產生,這是一種磁場。 它只會存在於發射源 或接受器中。 事實上我們所用的磁場, 基本上跟地球的磁場是一樣的東西, 我們就生活在磁場中。
And the other thing that's pretty cool about the technology is that it only transfers energy to things that work at exactly the same frequency. And it's virtually impossible in nature to make that happen. Then finally we have governmental bodies everywhere that will regulate everything we do. They've pretty much set field exposure limits, which all of the things in the stuff I'll show you today sort of sit underneath those guidelines.
另外,這個技術有一個很酷的地方, 就是能量只會傳送到頻率完全相同的地方, 這個在自然界中幾乎是不可能發生的事。 而且,世界各地都有政府組織, 會監管我們所做的一切, 他們設定了許多關於放射限制的規範, 而今天我要展示給你們看的東西, 都在這些限制規範內。
Mobile electronics. Home electronics. Those cords under your desk, I bet everybody here has something that looks like that or those batteries. There are industrial applications. And then finally, electric vehicles. These electric cars are beautiful. But who is going to want to plug them in? Imagine driving into your garage -- we've built a system to do this -- you drive into your garage, and the car charges itself, because there is a mat on the floor that's plugged into the wall. And it actually causes your car to charge safely and efficiently. Then there's all kinds of other applications. Implanted medical devices, where people don't have to die of infections anymore if you can seal the thing up. Credit cards, robot vacuum cleaners.
攜帶性電子產品、 家用的電子產品、 在你桌子下面的電線,我打賭在這裡的每個人 都有類似的東西或電池, 這些東西也可以運用在工業上, 最後則是電動車。 這些電動車很美, 但是誰會希望它們要插電? 想像著當你把車開進車庫 - 我們在裡面裝置了一套系統 - 當你把車開進車庫後,車子就自動開始充電。 因為地上的毯子已經連接到牆上的電源了, 你的車子可以既安全又有效率地充電。 還有其他各種方面的運用,例如植入式醫療裝置, 人們不會再因為遭受感染而死亡, 你只要把東西密封起來就行了, 像是信用卡及吸塵器等。
So what I'd like to do is take a couple minutes and show you, actually, how it works. And what I'm going to do is to show you pretty much what's here. You've got a coil. That coil is connected to an R.F. amplifier that creates a high-frequency oscillating magnetic field. We put one on the back of the television set. By the way, I do make it look a little bit easier than it is. There's lots of electronics and secret sauce and all kinds of intellectual property that go into it. But then what's going to happen is, it will create a field. It will cause one to get created on the other side.
我想花幾分鐘來說明, 讓你們了解它的實際運作方式。 我要給大家看些東西, 這是一個線圈, 這個線圈連結到一個高頻放大器, 它會產生一個高頻震盪的磁場, 我們在這電視機背後也放了一組線圈。 對了,我現在只是讓它看起來比實際上簡單一點, 其中還有許多電子設備和秘訣, 以及各種智慧財產在裡面。 接下來,它會產生磁場, 它會讓另一端 也產生磁場。
And if the demo gods are willing, in about 10 seconds or so we should see it. The 10 seconds actually are because we -- I don't know if any of you have ever thought about plugging a T.V. in when you use just a cord. Generally, you have to go over and hit the button. So I thought we put a little computer in it that has to wake up to tell it to do that. So, I'll plug that in. It creates a magnetic field here. It causes one to be created out here. And as I said, in sort of about 10 seconds we should start to see ...
如果一切順利的話, 大約十秒左右我們就會看見。 十秒是因為我們 ... 我不知道是否有人會想幫電視插上插頭, 因為我現在只用一組線圈來產生電力。 一般來說你必須過去按下按鈕, 所以我們在裡面放一個小電腦, 用來開啟電視。 好,我插上插頭了, 這邊產生了磁場, 它讓那邊也產生了磁場。 大概十秒左右 我們將會看見...
This is a commercially -- (Applause) available color television set. Imagine, you get one of these things. You want to hang them on the wall. How many people want to hang them on the wall? Think about it. You don't want those ugly cords coming down. Imagine if you can get rid of it.
這是一個市面上販售的 (鼓掌) 一台市面上販售的彩色電視機。 想像一下,當你買一台掛在牆壁上, 有多少人想把它掛在牆上? 想想,你不會想要醜陋的電線垂在那邊。 想像一下如果你能擺脫這些電線。
The other thing I wanted to talk about was safety. So, there is nothing going on. I'm okay. And I'll do it again, just for safety's sake. Almost immediately, though, people ask, "How small can you make this? Can you make this small enough?" Because remember Dr. Soljacic's original idea was his wife's cellphone beeping.
另外我想談談安全性。 我很好,什麼事都沒發生。 為了證實安全性,我再做一次。 人們幾乎都會立刻想到這個問題, 「你可以讓它變得多小?夠小嗎?」 請記住 Soljacic 博士最初的想法, 是源自於他老婆的手機嗶嗶聲。
So, I wanted to show you something. We're an equal opportunity designer of this sort of thing. This a Google G1. You know, it's the latest thing that's come out. It runs the Android operating system. I think I heard somebody talk about that before. It's odd. It has a battery. It also has coiled electronics that WiTricity has put into the back of it. And if I can get the camera -- okay, great -- you'll see, as I get sort of close... you're looking at a cellphone powered completely wirelessly. (Applause)
所以我想給你們看一些東西, 我們也有同樣的機會來設計這類東西。 這是 Google G1, 你知道,這是剛出來的最新機種, 它使用Android作業系統。 我之前聽過某人聊到它, 它看起來有點怪,它有電池, 它的背後還裝入了 稱為 WiTricity 的線圈電力系統。 所以如果可以,麻煩鏡頭拍一下, 好,很好。 當我把它靠近時你將會看見 ... 這手機現在完全依靠無線電力供電。 (掌聲)
And I know some of you are Apple aficionados. So, you know they don't make it easy at Apple to get inside their phones. So we put a little sleeve on the back, but we should be able to get this guy to wake up too. And those of you that have an iPhone recognize the green center. (Applause)
我知道你們有些人是Apple迷, 你知道要把東西放進Apple手機裡很不容易, 所以我們在背後放了一個套子, 我們應該也可以讓它啟動。 有iPhone的人應該認得中間的綠色圖像。 (掌聲)
And Nokia as well. You'll see that what we did there is put a little thing in the back, to do that, and it probably beeps, actually, as it goes on as well. But they typically use it to light up the screen. So, imagine these things could go ... they could go in your ceiling. They could go in the floor. They could go, actually, underneath your desktop. So that when you walk in or you come in from home, if you carry a purse, it works in your purse. You never have to worry about plugging these things in again. And think of what that would do for you.
Nokia也一樣。 我們在後面放入一些小東西來達到目的, 當它啟動時會發出嗶嗶聲, 不過電力主要還是用來啟動螢幕。 想像一下可以運用的地方,可以放進天花板, 可以放進地板裡,也可以放在你的電腦下面。 當你走進房內,或從家裡出來時, 如果你帶著皮包,它在皮包裡也可以運作。 你不用再煩惱要插電這種事, 想想這可以幫你做什麼事。
So I think in closing, sort of in the immortal visions of The New Yorker magazine, I thought I'd put up one more slide. And for those of you who can't read it, it says, "It does appear to be some kind of wireless technology." So, thank you very much. (Applause)
最後, 就像New Yorker 雜誌有其矢志達成的願景一樣, 我要再放一張投影片, 若有人看不懂,讓我唸出來: 「這看起來像是某種無線技術。」 以上,謝謝大家。 (掌聲)