New Radio Wave Requires No Transmitter Power!
McMaster Professor Natalia Nikolova and her husband Robert Zimmerman
McMaster Professor Natalia Nikolova and her husband Robert ZimmermanMcMaster research engineer Professor Natalia Nikolova, and her husband Robert Zimmerman, have verified the existence of a new type of radio wave called the Vector Potential Wave. This wave was first predicted in 1880 by British mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, but had never been directly detected until this summer here on McMaster campus in the Communications Research Lab>.
Dr. Nikolova comments, “One of the most enigmatic predictions of Maxwell was his concept of the magnetic vector potential. Until recently most engineers believed it was only a mathematical concept with no physical reality. Now, more than 125 years later, we have realized a magnetic vector potential detector which allows measuring the wave at any distance from a microwave antenna.”
Nikolova and her husband have been working on this development nearly 2 years. Zimmerman feels that the new discovery will ultimately lead to radio and television transmissions which do not require energy. On a more fundamental level, he added, “Maxwell was correct all along.”
The novelty of the discovery is that while the transmission requires very little energy, the reception of the wave requires that an active battery operated receiver be used. This is distinct from usual AM radio transmissions, where much energy is radiated by the transmitter, and the receiver can be a ‘crystal set’ with no battery.
The detector developed by the research team is a plasma device looking like a fluorescent tube which displays super-conducting properties for radio signals. Nikolova is quick to add, “The device is at room temperature but acts like a superconductor, as predicted by Fritz London in 1930.”
Nikolova and Zimmerman plan on submitting their results this week to the research journal The Physical Review of the American Physical Society.
Zimmerman is a former Director of Engineering of LBA Technology.
