What is Digg?435 Comments
- badtzmartin, on 09/18/2008, -11/+396Wow... And at 12 years old, I was... not inventing 3d Solar Cells.
- inactive, on 09/18/2008, -6/+387me neither. thats about the age i learned how to jerk off.
haven't been productive since.
....fap - MorganMghee, on 09/18/2008, -11/+229Please, VOTE YES ON EDUCATION!
- iv81, on 09/18/2008, -2/+179"According to his calculations"
- tsunami38, on 09/18/2008, -6/+160When i was playing with legos... he was Scienceing
- travbrack, on 09/18/2008, -6/+143only 25 grand for a discovery that promises to increase solar cell efficiency by 500 freaking times? That seems wrong, I mean couldn't they at least throw a cool million at it?
- pdxdavid, on 09/18/2008, -1/+134According to my calculations... I have a 9 inch unit. My wife says... not so much.
- beamster, on 09/18/2008, -7/+133Way to go kid!
My 7th grade science fair project was a demonstration of the electrical conductance/resistance properties of organic matter. Two nails, an extension cord and a package of hot dogs was was all that was needed to score me my coveted participant ribbon.
Go science! - iwillrefuse, on 09/18/2008, -13/+116Um...am I the only one that caught this?
(*edit: actually I wasn't.)
"...according to *his* calculations, solar panels equipped with his 3D cells could provide 500 times more light "absorption" than current commercial solar cells..."
Keep that word "absorption" in mind. If this were in fact true, he's not only given Al Gore a hard on, but Newton too. Which is why...
This is impossible. Most currently existing electrical solar cells are between 15%-40% efficient, meaning that they're translating that much of the suns power into viable, usable energy. If your talking strictly thermal, your talking even more (60-80%).
When I was 12, I was burning ants with a magnifying glass. And that was with damn near 100% efficiency.
Nice try, kid. You can prove me wrong when I've got a calculator-sized solar cell powering my 2014 Prius.
//kinda feels like an ass, but just had to say it... - flyingclutchman, on 09/18/2008, -1/+89According to my calculations your wife has huge *****
- b8man99, on 09/18/2008, -12/+92Watch your back kid - you've just become the oil and electric company's biggest threat.
- noahgelman, on 09/18/2008, -9/+72That mother *****. He makes me feel so bad about myself. I was sorta proud taking Calculus in high school and now in college, but now I got nothing.
- pdxdavid, on 09/18/2008, -1/+63Your calculations are CORRECT! Good times.
- socme, on 09/18/2008, -4/+60...can absorb both visible and UV light - Awesome job little guy!
- frsrblch, on 09/18/2008, -11/+67Something is very fishy with those numbers. For it to absorb 500 times more light than what's commercially available, those commercial solar cells would have to be absorbing less than 0.2% of the incoming light (100% is the theoretical maximum, so 100%/500 = 0.2%).
Something is very, very wrong here... how can none of you see it? - inactive, on 09/18/2008, -4/+59To be fair, he is Chinese.
- pdxdavid, on 09/18/2008, -5/+59Take that wind! You blow.
- leha, on 09/18/2008, -23/+76This is complete and utter BS. Who even put this on TV? This shows how much US sucks at science if this kind of shenanigans going through. Does anybody really believe that 12 year old can invent something that 1000s of very educated and very smart people could not do? Seems like people in USA completely lost respect for science. Try to read some elementary books on quantum mechanics or general relativity maybe then you will get how hard it is to be a modern scientist. Science is not done today on a bench in a garage these days are gone forever long time ago.
- graygorey, on 09/18/2008, -6/+58"According to his calculations, solar panels equipped with his 3D cells could provide 500 times more light absorption than current commercial solar cells and nine times more light than existing 3D solar cells."
When I was a kid, the press double-checked my math before going to print. - FunyGirl, on 09/18/2008, -7/+51That is smart kid :) maybe new Tesla is born :)
- moduc, on 09/18/2008, -2/+40If true and cheaply producible, oil companies would pay him a billion dollars, then kill the project.
On the other handle, 500 time more efficient than current commercial cells. Does that mean the current commercial cell can't convert more than 1/500th of the total light hit a cell? Or the efficiency of commercial cell is less than 0.002?
Something is wrong here. - shawnanigans, on 09/18/2008, -0/+33My science projects were like 90% clip art.
- Kumaku, on 09/18/2008, -0/+30That's better than my Potato Alarm clock. I still don't know how that damn thing works.
- huff51, on 09/18/2008, -0/+30damn concrete evidence!
- iFrikkenR, on 09/18/2008, -1/+29"Encouraged by his Meadow Park Middle School science teacher, the 12-year-old developed a 3D solar cell." (also here: http://presskit.ditd.org/2008_Davidson_Fellows_Pre ... )
Meadow Park Middle School is indeed a public school - LordVance, on 09/18/2008, -0/+28Just because society doesn't appreciate your existence during your lifetime does not mean you can't force us to benefit from your genius anyway. Alone, penniless, perhaps - is the world a better place because he lived, absolutely.
- hiPpymIck, on 09/18/2008, -0/+28this kid doesnt mess around..
he does both at the same time - he builds lego robots
FTA
"He is an active member of the school’s Math Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) Club, First Lego League team and participant in the Science Bowl and MathCounts programs. He is also a two-time, second-place chess champion for the state."
http://www.portlandtribune.com/sustainable/story.p ...
first lego league
http://www.answers.com/topic/first-lego-league - frsrblch, on 09/18/2008, -7/+32http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a ...
Nine times more efficient than 40% efficiency... right, buried as grossly inaccurate. - TConundrum, on 09/18/2008, -7/+31I'd buy that for a dollar!
- youannoyme, on 09/18/2008, -10/+32First, when a photon hits one of these things, there is a *chance* it will interact. 2D detectors only get a single shot at absorption, while 3D ones get multiple, so that is why this has such a large factor increase of 2D models and a much smaller improvement over 3D models.
Second, it only absorbs certain frequencies. To get a better detector, just widen the band that it can absorb.
If we were just talking straight conversion efficiency, i.e. absorbed photons to usable charge in a battery or something, yeah, a 500 fold difference would be ridiculous. But there are a lot of other dimensions that can be used for improvement. So look into these things before you panic about BS. - Nordjak, on 09/18/2008, -4/+26I wonder if this is legitimate or another misreported bust like the teenager who supposedly "corrected NASA."
- OpaqueMurdock, on 09/18/2008, -2/+24@leha
I hear what you are saying, but disagree. I still think great things can be discovered by individuals who approach an idea with no preconceived notions and who are free to approach a problem with a fresh outlook. - domnu, on 09/18/2008, -5/+27If this kid goes to a public school then he's even more of a genius. The government run daycare centers which pass for education in this country are not the way to inspire great works like this.
- arjie, on 09/18/2008, -3/+25Useless article. Where is information about cell? All about boy. Nothing about cell. Useless.
- pdxdavid, on 09/18/2008, -0/+21Me 3. Portland here. man are we smart, and by we I mean him.
- temugen, on 09/18/2008, -2/+23No, I definitely agree with you. You're being logical, not an ass.
When I was 13 I won $1,000 at a regional science fair for my work on solar panels. The panels I created were concave and rotated along with the angle of the sun. They generated a lot more output than a static panel, but it was an obvious and worthless "discovery".
Until I see some more information on this I'm going to doubt it's anything viable. The article lacks a lot and seems to be written with a sensationalist style.
Kudos to the kid for doing something clearly above his level, but he should sit down now and wait until he has a full education. :) - gn0stik, on 09/18/2008, -1/+21This kid's another Kaku.
Here's a list of his accomplishments so far.
This year.
• 2008 Davidson Fellow
• 2008 Northwest Science Expo, Second Place
• 2008 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Best Engineering Project
• 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Verbal)
• 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Quantitative)
• 2008 High Tech Kids First Lego League First Lego League (FLL) International Open
(team), Second Place Champion’s Award
• 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
• 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
When he was 11.
• 2007 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State
• 2007 Intel Oregon FLL Champion’s Award (team), First Place
• 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
• 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
• 2007 World Taekwondo Headquarters: Poom Certificate
when he was 10
• 2006 Intel Oregon FLL State Tournament Young Team, First Place
• 2006 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
when he was 9
• 2005 Intel Oregon FLL Regional Tournament (team), First Place Award
• 2005 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament (team), Second Place - dvsbastard, on 09/18/2008, -2/+22I think Yuan is a pretty cool guy. eh invents new types of solar cell and doesnt afraid of anything.
- yoda17, on 09/18/2008, -1/+21Solar energy output at the surface of the earth is roughly 1kw/m^2. This is normal incident gauss flux integrated over all wavelengths. This is how much energy passes if every single photon were extracted.
Current cells are about 12% efficient for cheap commercial stuff, I think maybe 8% for the mass produced ultra cheap rolled stuff and about 31% for space application (space station). So currently we can get 80-300W / m^2 of energy from solar cells. Note that this is no cloud cover and the cells pointed directly at the sun.
I think a 500 times the current output would violate at least one physical law. - Cerialthriller, on 09/18/2008, -1/+21when i was 12 i was trying to do all the fatalities in mortal kombat 2
- yoda17, on 09/18/2008, -0/+19The personal computer was also available as a reference design put out on datasheets by the chip companies, so not much actual work had to be done. When you start talking about chip design (think Amiga/Agnes) that's when you need to start putting a lot of effort into things.
- morpheus69, on 09/18/2008, -4/+22Your tinfoil hat has fallen off...
- megaton, on 09/18/2008, -2/+19@youannoyme: The most efficient solar cell right now is about 40.8% efficient, if I recall. Even if his cells were 3x as efficient, then they'd somehow be gathering MORE energy than the Sun outputs.
I'm betting a kid in Oregon and a rinky-dink reporter made a mistake somewhere down the line... - Arachnivore, on 09/18/2008, -3/+20Yeah... That immediately set of my BS alarm. I think the kid's calculator may be broken.
- Y0tsuya, on 09/18/2008, -2/+19Tesla died alone and penniless in a hotel room...
- drakethegreat, on 09/18/2008, -3/+20I was programming BASIC and Perl.
- Azerael, on 09/18/2008, -0/+16Children? The future?
You blew my mind. - wKen, on 09/18/2008, -7/+23From the comments at the original article:
JPARAMCH - While this young guy has explored some great things, 3D solar arrays have already been developed. Simply search Google, and you'll find articles from 2007. There needs to be a little more fact checking going on by katu.
TOMLSMITH - Here are a few data points and links about the 3D Solar Cell, which was invented by Dr. Jud Ready of GA Tech in March 2005. See http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=13. ...
The 3D Solar Cell has the potential to be breakthrough in the solar industry. The global and exclusive license to the 3D Solar Cell intellectual property is held by IP2BIZ in Atlanta http://www.ip2biz.com/Offerings/ProofCoProjects.a. ... The license is for sale to an firm that can further develop, manufacture and bring it to market.
What is very interesting is if you look at the animation of Dr. Ready's solar cell, at http://www-stage.gatech.edu/news-room/flash/CNTpv. ... you'll notice that the graphics in the photo of this Oregon boy's presentation are the spitting image of Dr. Ready's.
Dr. Ready's PCT patent application WO/2007/040594 was published in April 2007 at http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/fetch.jsp?LANG=ENG&a. ... - iorbilicroat, on 09/18/2008, -0/+16very ORIGINAL, Originaladam.
- Justice101, on 09/18/2008, -3/+19The macaroni and glue solar cell?
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