Collecting Cretin Cream (AKA bullshit) in the wild is easy.
Put 30pW of electrical energy into an LED and get out 62pW of photons.
Then, sit back and let the comments section fill up with BS, and scrape off the “cream” that floats to the top.
A commenter said:
I understand the power and light levels we are talking about are vanishingly low. Is there a chance that this technology can be scaled up to more useful, everyday levels, like generating the equivalent light of a 60 watt incandescent bulb,say? If it could be scaled up, my first thought was coupling these LED’s with solar cells to generate more electricity to power more of these lights, potentially creating a heat-fed perpetual-motion machine, but I realize that solar cells would never be efficient enough to make that work.
Yeah, actually uttered and put out there on the internet where it will live forever.
That’s exactly what some of my friends were thinking. Say you’ve got a 1 W electricity source (thus a 2.3 W light output). You only actually need a photocell that is 1/2.3 = ~43.5% efficient in order to have perpetual, self-fed light. Any efficiency above that will effectively be an engine that converts heat into electricity.Note the significant difference here between this engine and normal engines. The normal conception of entropy is based on the assumption that you need a heat DIFFERENCE in order to convert head energy to any other form of energy (ie, you need a reason for heat to flow). However, this new engine would actually break that principle, because no matter how cold the LED is, powering it electrically would induce an endothermic process that would absorb what little heat was available and convert it to light. Suffice it to say, though I’m sure I’m missing some subtlety, it seems that this discovery disproves our classical conception of entropy. With enough of these, one could literally prevent the heat death of the universe. [emphasis mine - LK]
Wow. Saving the universe 30pW at a time. Ingenious.
No, seriously. The idea that this device violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics has every physics weirdo short-stroking it all over the place but there is no free lunch. It either works or it doesn’t but don’t for a second run around thinking that thermodynamics is going to get turned on it’s ear.
Go smoke another bowl, dudes, and stay away from science. Zero-point energy, crystals, and blue babies – that’s where it’s really at.
Our “classical conception” of entropy is safe.
Ok, I’m done now.
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New word definition from Dr. Lemur:
Planic Attack – n. – The frenzied planning/fear response of management when finally recognizing the project-threatening technical issues extensively documented by engineering at all stages of the project. Usage: Management finally realized that they were selling the customer on what is essentially a perpetual motion device and had a planic attack and tried to formulate some sort of damage control.
If you can make a neater/tighter definition and example, I’d love to hear it, because mine is clunky.
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I had the most irritating mother-in-law experience on Memorial Day. For fear of disruption of harmony under our roof I will not relay the exact details other than to say that my parting words on the matter to my MiL were “Apology accepted, I understand your feelings, but in communicating them, your delivery sucked.”
Let’s just say that the situation would have tested anyone’s patience unless they were in a vegetative state or were recently lobotomized with a rusty icepick.
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This is last week’s news but I can’t help fixate on the incongruencies…
On one hand the Kentucky and Arkansas primaries must’ve ended up how they did because of racism. On the other hand, swing state voters appear to think (correctly) that Joe Biden is a total schmuck.
On the OTHER hand, could it be, just perhaps… put it in the background… could it be that Obama sucks as a president and people have every right to not like him and vote against him without being called racist?
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I may add more to this later…
Okay, I’m not a physicist, I’m not a scientist at all, and my understanding of science is limited to that of an average person who does occasionally read a mag like Discover or Scientific American.
What I get from that article is that there’s nothing special about this device. You’re not getting more energy than you’re putting into it. Yeah, on the surface it’s performing at, I think it said, 230 percent capability, but that’s misleading. What energy doesn’t come directly from the source, is being gathered from the heat energy around the source. So really, it’s still just giving out exactly what it’s gathering in. The only special thing is that it’s taking energy from more than one source.
Right? Or did I miss something?
That is precisely right, CF. The LED is producing light form the current flow and the ambient heat energy. Pretty “cool”…
I propose making medical rectal probe lights out of these LEDs – just to make your proctologist visit even more unpleasant!
…and stethoscope lights! I bet with a ring of these LEDs you could grow frost on the ol’ stetho- !
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
“…and stethoscope lights! I bet with a ring of these LEDs you could grow frost on the ol’ stetho- !”
Uh, that’s just plain sadistic.
Uh, that’s just plain sadistic.
Need I remind you that my middle name is Asshole?
Saw this: http://ugliesttattoos.failblog.org/2012/05/29/funny-tattoos-the-idiotic-table/ and thought of you.
Mitchell – I saw that a day or so ago and immediately added it to my collection of Science tattoos. Good catch!
My first thought?
“Whoa, wait until he’s 20 years older and all those straight lines suddenly look like they’re being viewed in a funhouse mirror.”
McGoo… no reminder was necessary on my part. Glad to see you around all the same.
When I was a kid I thought about putting a lightbulb in a sealed mirror box, turning it on for a while and then turning it off. I wondered if the light just bounce around until somebody opened it and then it would just flash out? I know now that mirrors aren’t perfect reflectors and the light would just get absorbed…but what if it was a really strong light? And the mirrors were REALLY good?
A really good mirror – such as a laser line mirror – will be 99.8% reflective. After N bounces… (0.98)^N… after just twelve bounces you’ll be under 80%. 500 bounces and you’re at 0.004%.
Even with a powerful laser you’d never see a pulse last long enough to get the lid off.
There are devices called Q-switches that electro-optically let a pulse amplify in a laser resonator and when you hit them with a high voltage they suddenly dump the pulse out in one big bucketful. That’s how they do some flashlamp-pumped pulsed YAG lasers.
Planic attack: Management’s response (usually finger-pointing or blame-storming) to the realization that a project cannot be completed due to technical issues that have been raised by engineers from the project’s inception. Examples: Joint Strike Fighter, Solyndra. M247 Sgt York DIVAD, field-emission display television.
Good, good… now use it in a sentence and I’ll wrap it up with a bow and post it.
Easy assignment:
After throwing away approximately $500 million of taxpayer monies, the President and his administration suffered a planic attack trying to explain the situation to the disgruntled voting population.
Holy cow….I have read the link five times, and it’s still over my head.
Sigh….
Oh, and you need to update Soylent Green’s link, btw.
Not that I’m complaining or anything.
I’m just trying to be a good social secretary.
LK, your confirmation that the hyperverse is peopled with bong-water drinkers should be written up for the journals–grant money should be available for further experiments.
As to THE SCOAMF nearly losing his own primaries, it is a hopeful sign. However, there is this sobering thought I read over at A Nod To The Gods yesterday…
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President.”
Of course it was written by foreigner.