Energy and Technology

by Stephanie F. Earls

Today I listened to a bit of a fascinating conversation on NPR's On Pointe with Tom Ashbrook about new technology and how some of the innovations that are up and coming may help cut down on waste and spark new life into our economy.

Hearing about them sparked new life in me. It was fascinating to hear about ways that science is harnessing energy.

The segment I heard featured WiTricity CEO Eric Giler.

Giler talked about his company's innovations and how they are developing ways to transfer electricity wirelessly via "strong coupling" magnetic resonance.   His company's developments can save us from waste and mess in the form of batteries and wires and cords. (Disclaimer:  I am not a scientist so my translation may be weak). Basically I understood this (and their website is great at explaining it all, so go there if you are curious! http://www.witricity.com/index.html) to mean that by matching up the resonant frequency of two energies, our technology may in the very near future come to be charged completely wirelessly just by  matching the "vibe" (my own, very non-scientific word) of say, a light bulb or cell phone, to an energy source.  He explained how we live in magnetic fields (of the Earth) and explained the concepts by having us think of the way an opera singer can shatter a glass by hitting the right vibration, or a person on a swing can make the swing move if they swing their legs at the right frequency. Giler even explained how they are working on this technology for everything from computers to electric cars and described an image of driving our cars into our garages and parking them on mats with a magnetic field that resonates with the car to charge it. These advancements work without freaking out everything around them (other people, other devices etc) because the "vibes" are matched up with each other rather than just openly radiating out all over the place. So, instead of everything getting nuked, the energy goes to the thing which is matched to pick it up/charge it/be charged.

What struck me most was how the innovators of today are looking for ways to make our technology more like us. I got excited and hopeful for our future and the idea that we could and are developing ways to exist with our technology that are more intuitive and closer to natural resources.  While Giler talked about magnetic energy it got me thinking about how between people you can feel and see magnetic energy. We are generators, power sources. It is how the power of prayer or distance healing work. It is the glue that makes good partnerships. You can sense a pairing or grouping of people whose energy come together to spark new ideas, new life and innovation. It is happening at WiTricity (and many other companies), it happens in yoga classes, it happens in classrooms, between friends, even on blogs.  The radio show addressed the technological and material side of magnetic energy and left me in awe of how it is coming closer to how we live as people. Any of us can relate to sensing someone's "vibe" or "frequency". We all do this naturally, especially children, and will gravitate toward people who resonate or "charge" us, or move away from people or things that feel out of harmony with us.  When we find something or someone that resonates with us, creativity abounds and we come to life.

Giler discussed the notion of "strong coupling"...pairing up things with like vibrations to create a new, energizing vibration. This is similar to what we do when we explore anything that feeds us. We naturally pair together with practices, hobbies, friends, careers, music (etc) that are in harmony and give us a charge.  If we can get in touch with what resonates, what charges us, we have opportunities to become boundless, to heal, to create.

In thinking about energy in these two ways, the electricity side and the human energetic side, I had the thought, what if we could use the harmonic resonance between ourselves and others to generate new energy and life in such a way that we will fuel not just our healing, happiness and existence but maybe even our technology?  If we (well, you know, the science minded) can get a car and a mat to resonate with eachother and create a charge, perhaps we can use the positive charge between ourselves and the ones we love to fuel our lives in new ways too. Talk about natural resources! Maybe "beam me up, Scotty" just became a little less sci-fi.

Or, maybe the suggestion is over the top but so was the idea of a cell phone, or the internet at one point. So if technology is on this how far off could we be from the next step, translating our energy into energy?  I'm talking empowered, alive, aware, creative people in a new world energy. If we can conceive of energy between two people fueling things then certainly it becoming actual is a possibility too.

With these new developments and new ideas we're moving toward restoring ourselves, our mainstays and our well being.  These scientists are talking about enlivening our economy with new technology. Today they enlivened me.