What Are Tesla Coils Good For? Tesla Coils have many uses. Tesla originally wanted to use them to power the world. However, this idea was not economically viable back then. Unfortunately for Tesla, we  now have enough infrastructure in place to make a switch to that form of electricity highly unlikely. That doesn't mean the Tesla Coil is without uses though. Researchers from the US Army Research and Engineering Center for the Close Combat Armaments Center did a series of experiments with the goal of focusing the coil's discharges into a directable beam. They experimented with scaling a Tesla Coil way up, and with replacing the spark gap with a resonance transformer. However, the strain on this component made them "too fragile for practical small arms weaponry." (Corum & Duam, 1992) Another use of the Tesla Coil is entertainment. Replacing the spark gap with a resonance transformer allows for multiple frequencies of sparking. This means they can be programed to play music. (Schwab, 2019) Practically speaking, there is little use for a full Tesla Coil anymore. However, a derivative of the Tesla Coil is what gives us wireless charging capabilities in new phones, along with the high voltage necessary in RFID tags. (Schwab, 2019)

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