What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
How to Make Your PC as Fast as the Day You Bought It view!
howlifeworks.com - What's the fastest way to restore a computer to its original blazing glory
92 Comments
- wesleyzero, on 06/03/2009, -2/+78Say it with me: Uphill Water Slide.
- protogenxl, on 06/03/2009, -2/+47Marge : I’m worried about the kids, Homey. Lisa’s becoming very obsessive. This morning I caught her trying to dissect her own raincoat.
Homer : I know. And this perpetual-motion machine she made today is a joke. It just keeps going faster and faster.
Marge : And Bart isn’t doing very well either. He needs boundaries and structure. There’s something about flying a kite at night that’s so unwholesome.
[Looks out window]
Bart : [creepily] Hello, mother dear.
Marge : That’s it, we have to get them back to school.
Homer : I’m with you, Marge. Lisa. Get in here.
[Lisa walks in]
Homer : In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! - codyman, on 06/03/2009, -3/+44so, trees are now green with envy?
- alpha88, on 06/03/2009, -2/+23Even better... a water slide that keeps going forever.
- levitron, on 06/03/2009, -3/+22Damn, nature- you jealous!
- megaton, on 06/03/2009, -0/+19No, it works like oil "walking" up a wick. It produces less energy than letting the liquid evaporate on its own, so no, unfortunately, it's not possible to harness it to generate any extra energy.
Also, to everyone else making stupid comments about how much energy it requires to process the metal, it's not really THAT much energy. It's only the equivalent of that much energy because it's stored in capacitance and unleashed in an EXTREMELY short period of time. (A femtosecond, which is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years.) The overall energy used to do it, however, is negligible. (It's run from an AC outlet, if that tells you anything.) - anexanhume, on 06/03/2009, -2/+16Energy is a time-independent parameter. This device is pulling high amounts of power for infinitesimally small periods of time. Thus, the overall power draw (energy *time) can be supplied by an ordinary outlet.
- thatoneguydunno, on 06/03/2009, -4/+17Uphill Water Slide.
- megaton, on 06/03/2009, -0/+11It's called, "capacitance."
- pazimzadeh, on 06/03/2009, -5/+16"During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire electric grid of North America does, all focused onto a spot the size of a needlepoint, he says."
so no probably not - Tr33fiddy, on 06/03/2009, -0/+11Back to school DudeCantDraw.
First, trees don't "circulate" water at all.
Second, they draw water up from their roots through the Xylem using both capillary action AND evaporation from leaves lowering pressure - called Transpiration. - inactive, on 06/03/2009, -2/+12Terawatts per femtosecond = kilowatts per hour.
- megaton, on 06/03/2009, -0/+9In fact, it sounds like the same process mentioned in the article itself about how they can make incandescent light bulbs 2x as efficient.
- ihavebeenseen, on 06/03/2009, -2/+11Some ***** are always trying to water slide uphill
- anexanhume, on 06/03/2009, -1/+8For anyone that is curious, this article is NOT about moving liquids about without an external force to do so. It's simply about manipulating the surface properties of metals to affect how they respond to liquids (flow with less friction, don't flow at all, direction of flow, coherence modification). The article title here is extremely misleading.
- Hoopstermv91, on 06/03/2009, -0/+6This would make a terrific video.
- bkemper, on 06/03/2009, -0/+6That may sound like a lot of power, but its only enough to power the North American grid for one femtosecond. So imagine how much it takes to power the grid for one second, then divide by the number of seconds in 32 million years (32,000,000 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60). The result is energy that can be stored by a wall outlet and stored in a capacitor. And we know that altering the metal the size of a quarter takes less than 30 minutes total, so the time to power the capacitor is likely much, much shorter than that.
- inactive, on 06/03/2009, -1/+6Capacitors the size of semis.
- wilspoak, on 06/03/2009, -1/+6I wish that I could digg that again.
- Clevinger, on 06/03/2009, -0/+4The laws of nature include many derivative properties and inherent forces that characterize molecular interactions. Of relevance to our present discussion are surface tension, van der Waals interactions, and capillary action. These overcame the gravitational pull of earth. No laws were broken in the production of this material.
I doubt this material will provide the necessary capacity for hydroelectricity but if someone proves me wrong, I'd be delighted. - buckrogers1965, on 06/03/2009, -0/+4They used the exact same wording of the process in both articles.
- commentposted, on 06/03/2009, -4/+8Soooo...renewable energy?
- eggraid, on 06/03/2009, -0/+31cm a sec... not so interesting though it could be a good way to go back up, just like a roller coaster
- NJank, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3NO
Power / time is a meaningless unit. Power is the rate term. unless you're talking about electrical acceleration. I don't think we want to go there.
Average Power X Time = Energy OR Energy/Time = Average Power
1 Terawatt-femtosecond = 0.001 Joules = 2.77777778 × 10^(-10) kWh - canUdi9it, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3Because, the energy for the capillary effect comes from the ambient temperature of the room which keeps the water molecules in motion. This is the same energy that causes water to evaporate. If the ambient temperature drops to 0C, no more capillary effect or evaporation. It takes energy to keep a room at "room temperature". It's not free.
It's also the same energy that drives the famous "Drinking Bird". It basically runs on the temperature differential created by the cooling effect of evaporating water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_bird - bbeep, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3I'll check it out as soon as I finish watching this paint dry.
- anexanhume, on 06/03/2009, -2/+5...I even screwed up the explanation. It should read "pulling high amounts of energy."
- NJank, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3it takes very little energy to create. please re-read.
- bkemper, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3Evaporation and re-condensation is what powers hydroelectric dams, so why not something that wicks water up and then drops it on a water wheel? It works a darn site faster than evaporation (1cm/second), so if you could scale up to be able to produce many sheets of the stuff at a large size (quicker than they are now), then theoretically you could create big blocks of the sheets arranged in parallel to power a house. Metal would last longer than a paper towel, and not become saturated, and they don't really say what kind of distances the water can go uphill.
- apr400, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3No need for capacitors - take a long low intensity pulse of laser light, turn it into a short high intensity pulse of laser light via non linear optics.
Basically the overall number of photons in the pulse remains the same, whilst the duration of the pulse gets shorter, so the irradiance increases. - Tanktunker, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3watt/second is acceleration of energy.
It's not a meaningless unit, but it has no relevance to this article. - bkemper, on 06/03/2009, -0/+3Formula 409.
- NJank, on 06/03/2009, -1/+4on Digg?? say it ain't so!
- Clevinger, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2Perhaps you read the article, but you clearly did not comprehend it. The energy used in this experiment is that used by the entire US electrical grid (and this part is important) in a few quadrillionths of a second.
Look it up before you lower the already perilously low IQ of this site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtosecond
1 femtosecond :: 1 second as 1 second :: 32 million years - theOster, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2you can have the waterslides, i want a femtosecond laser
- enkideridu, on 06/03/2009, -2/+4OMG MAJOR SHANNANIGANS!
From this article:
***Guo*** and his assistant, Anatoliy Vorobyev, use an ultra-fast burst of ***laser light*** to change the surface of a metal, forming nanoscale and microscale pits, globules, and strands across the metal's surface. The laser, called a ***femtosecond laser***, produces pulses lasting only a few quadrillionths of a second—a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the ***entire electric grid of North America does, all focused onto a spot the size of a needlepoint***, he says.
From another completely separate article about light bulbs:
The key to creating the super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a ***femtosecond laser*** pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. To get a grasp of that kind of speed, consider that a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the ***entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point***.
http://digg.com/general_sciences/Regular_Light_Bul ...
WTF!!
Can't be a coincidence right? Someone is ***** with us!!!
---
sorry this might be unrelated to your original comment, but i was worried no one would see if i just posted on the bottom and noone would notice this - Feanor, on 06/03/2009, -1/+31 terawatt per femtosecond = 3.6 × 10^27 kilowatts per hour
- miggyb, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2http://www.meridian.net.au/Art/Artists/MCEscher/Ga ...
- JakeyG14, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2aka spewing.
- groverblue, on 06/03/2009, -2/+4self sustaining water-wheel generators?
Reading that article, the use of femtosecond lasers in various applications yield some pretty cool results. - dustinbolton, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2Already exists at Schlitterbahn. Tons of fun. http://www.schlitterbahn.com
- miggyb, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2I dugg you up, even if you mis-spelt "fleas."
- bkemper, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2The NA grid doesn't produce very power at all in one femtosecond. A single second of saving the energy into a capacitor would multiply that energy by (32,000,000 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60), because a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to 32 million years.
Now if it was a whole second of power from the NA grid, then you'd need much more than a wall outlet. - skztr, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2word
- ducksgoquak, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2They actually aren't that expensive anymore.
~50k gets you a high rep rate lower energy pulse while you can get a low rep rate high energy laser for ~100k which is most likely what they're using.
Also as said before the huge power quoted is the peak power of the laser pulse. Peak Power is the amount of energy in the pulse divided by the duration of the pulse... so at ~1mJ/50fs = 1x10^-3/(50x10^-15s) = 2x 10^10 Watts. Which is a ***** of power... but that's the highest value of power during the pulse that's only ~50 x 10^ -15 seconds long. - DaMaker, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2Yup, transpirational pull in addition with waters polarity and pressure gradient.
- apr400, on 06/03/2009, -0/+2because it's the capillary effect - the water will climb until the potential energy of the water column balances the surface tension of the water column. It's the same effect that you see if you dip the corner of a cloth into water - over time the whole clothe will become wet.
- anexanhume, on 06/03/2009, -0/+1FTA:
"The wicking process, which on Guo's metal moves at a quick one centimeter per second speed against gravity, is very similar to the phenomenon that pulls spilled milk into a paper towel or creates "tears of wine" in a wineglass—molecular attractions and evaporation combine to move a liquid against gravity, says Guo. Likewise, Guo's nanostructures change the way molecules of a liquid interact with the molecules of the metal, allowing them to become more or less attracted to each other, depending on Guo's settings. At a certain size, the metal nanostructures adhere more readily to the liquid's molecules than the liquid's molecules adhere to each other, causing the liquid to quickly spread out across the metal. Combined with the effects of evaporation as the liquid spreads, this molecular interaction creates the fast wicking effect in Guo's metals."
Evaporation is an external force. At no point do they say the adhesive force of the metal that overcomes the cohesive force of some liquids is enough to also overcome gravity. I'm inclined to say that if evaporation were not necessary, they'd be touting that as one of the selling points. 1 cm per second sounds impressive, but it's nothing without knowing the particular liquid in use as they could help us divine whether or not evaporation is necessary. - jesseshort, on 06/03/2009, -0/+1there's been pumps that use no electricity that work off of pressure that move water uphill.. no as fast, but they don't need fancy lasers.. but cool non the less. Go Science!
mini me quit humping the femtosecond laser -
Show 51 - 93 of 93 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 