Amazing Resonance Experiment!

This is random, but as I was talking about before, I keep thinking back to one of Tesla's devices that would break apart rock for mining (having trouble finding a link where I first read about this, but it's what really got me into resonance).

Originally posted by Bedlam

Finally, the material has to be brittle - that is, while it returns the energy of deformation efficiently, it will also fail catastrophically for even small total deformations.

Quartz is everywhere in the earth and it takes a lot of force to break apart physically. Most of the energy needed in mining is from blasting the rock and crushing/grinding the rock, and gargantuan amounts of energy worldwide could saved if we could use resonance to break apart that quartz. When you say the material has to be brittle, I thought of quartz. I also know that quartz is used for the electrical resonance like in LC circuits, so I'm pretty certain there was something to Tesla's mining device.

I know there is some attenuation of a signal through the earth that would alter the resonant frequency of a signal, making it difficult to use resonance to shake apart quartz, but any thoughts on this device? If someone made this, they would dramatically reduce the costs of mining many things (like copper, gold, iron, etc.) by orders of magnitude and probably spark an energy revolution because the costs to produce most physical goods would be driven so low.

Originally posted by apcbm4I also know that quartz is used for the electrical resonance like in LC circuits, so I'm pretty certain there was something to Tesla's mining device.

However, to get that you have to have a nearly flawless quartz crystal that's cut on just the right axis, and then you apply electrodes to it, and excite it with an electric field just so. A radio wave won't do.

When you get everything just right, the piezoelectric flexure of the quartz can be used as a tuned element, but it's not the sort of thing you'd get lying about uncut underground with a radio wave. It requires a very specific arrangement in a circuit to get it to 'go'.

I know there is some attenuation of a signal through the earth that would alter the resonant frequency of a signal, making it difficult to use resonance to shake apart quartz, but any thoughts on this device?

There are plenty of references to quartz crystals used in tuned circuits, if you poke around you ought to be able to find some on how you have to cut them on just the right axis and that the driving circuits have to be just so or you get bupkes. For free quartz deposits in the ground, there's no likelihood that you'll get some sort of macroscale flex.

reply to post by Bedlam


It is great to know that the resonance of quartz only works under tightly controlled situations and with perfect crystals. I knew that there were technical issues with the idea, but my approach was from the viewpoint of radio waves like the use of resonance to shatter glass with a tone. This actually puts my mind at ease knowing that the idea isn't likely and the reasons why, so thank you very much!

That does make me wonder about the explanation of the scientific theory behind telegeodynamics, which I believe was the act of transmitting power through the earth at great distances. I think the wireless power transmitted through the air was supposed to bounce around in the ionosphere, but I don't understand the transmission of power through the earth was supposed to happen.