The 'show why science is awesome' thread:

[Menzo]

That really would be something. Even if it’s extremely low power, it could revolutionize computing. You could put processors everywhere: in clothes, contact lenses, brain implants, inside your eyes/ears, etc.

[Tortilla]

@jpinard

If I’m understanding this correctly, this would end up being a “free” energy source? Brownian motion is just the random vibration of atoms, so technically no electrons are lost. Is this scalable you think?

It doesn’t violate thermodynamics. It’s basically consuming ambient heat to generate electricity. So presumably at some point it becomes too cold to generate more electricity.

We’ve had the technology to turn heat into electricity for a long time. Most power plants are based on generating heat to heat water into steam and using the steam to turn turbine generators. This appears to be the first way to practically do it with closer to room-temperature heat.

[Matt_W]

It’s not clear to me from the abstract and images (full paper source is not available without an APS subscription) that there’s any net power gain here. The graphene has to be biased (at 10s of volts) to produce net power (which is in the picoWatt range) and the current looks like it comes from the bias source, not the graphene. Even if there is a net current gain, I’m not sure how you could ever make a practical application for it.

[schurem]

@Matt_W

I’m not sure how you could ever make a practical application for it.

Cooling a PC? While also (slightly) lowering its power consumption?

[jpinard]

@Matt_W

It’s not clear to me from the abstract and images (full paper source is not available without an APS subscription) that there’s any net power gain here. The graphene has to be biased (at 10s of volts) to produce net power (which is in the picoWatt range) and the current looks like it comes from the bias source, not the graphene. Even if there is a net current gain, I’m not sure how you could ever make a practical application for it.

If there’s no net power gain that basically invalidates the headline of the article. Was it just clickbait?

---

@schurem

@Matt_W

I’m not sure how you could ever make a practical application for it.

Cooling a PC? While also (slightly) lowering its power consumption?

Wouldn’t that be nice!

[BennyProfane]

@schurem

@Matt_W

I’m not sure how you could ever make a practical application for it.

Cooling a PC? While also (slightly) lowering its power consumption?

I was assuming the entire purpose was to increase entropy and hasten the end of the universe.

[Tortilla]

@jpinard

If there’s no net power gain that basically invalidates the headline of the article. Was it just clickbait?

Just as a reminder:

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

Journalists can’t be arsed to understand science, so they just summarize (badly) what little they understand on the assumption that the vast majority of readers will be equally ignorant.

[antlers]

@Tortilla

@jpinard

If I’m understanding this correctly, this would end up being a “free” energy source? Brownian motion is just the random vibration of atoms, so technically no electrons are lost. Is this scalable you think?

It doesn’t violate thermodynamics. It’s basically consuming ambient heat to generate electricity. So presumably at some point it becomes too cold to generate more electricity.

We’ve had the technology to turn heat into electricity for a long time. Most power plants are based on generating heat to heat water into steam and using the steam to turn turbine generators. This appears to be the first way to practically do it with closer to room-temperature heat.

You can only generate work from heat when the heat creates a difference in temperature, so it is in fact impossible to generate work from “ambient” heat. Reading the article their explanation of how they weren’t violating the 2nd Law sounded a little weird to me, thanks to @Matt_W’s explanation for clearing it up.

[Tman]

@Tortilla

Just as a reminder:

the Guardian – 27 Sep 10

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

Martin Robbins: In the trail I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

Journalists can’t be arsed to understand science, so they just summarize (badly) what little they understand on the assumption that the vast majority of readers will be equally ignorant.

Holy crap that’s the best template for a journo writing a summary off of topics they have no idea what they are talking about. Great comedy. Choice quote:

If the subject is politically sensitive this paragraph will contain quotes from some fringe special interest group of people who, though having no apparent understanding of the subject, help to give the impression that genuine public “controversy” exists.

[Matt_W]

@jpinard

If there’s no net power gain that basically invalidates the headline of the article. Was it just clickbait?

I mean you’d think that phys.org would be reliable, but the article is so poorly written it’s really hard to tell what they’ve actually done. The little graphic they made is silly; that’s just a rectifier and filter configuration, your basic switching DC power supply. I gather there’s something hazy here about noise: thermal noise in the graphine is somehow isolable from thermal noise in the load, maybe due to a frequency shift because of mechanical properties of the graphine or something,

[Mellified]

Our brains ain’t no dummies!

Our Brain Is Better at Remembering Where to Find Brownies Than Cherry Tomatoes

[ShivaX]

PC Gamer (pcgamer)

[YakAttack]

That’s not really science IMO.

[Calelari]

theoretical vs applied?

:D

[RichVR]

Mashed.

[JoshL]

I think obviously he should have run Portal 2.

[Mellified]

Tardigrades - is there anything they can’t do!?

New species of water bear uses fluorescent ‘shield’ to survive lethal UV...

[Mellified]

Hope for the future - affordable superconductors!
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02895-0

[Tman]

I guess if your future is in Jupiter’s atmosphere or at the bottom of the Mariana trench.

[jpinard]

Yea, was disappointed they had to use a diamond anvil to accomplish this.