EEVblog 1466 - Stanford Solar Power at Nightime BUSTED - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 01:52:56 pm
content: Stanford University researchers have made a solar panel that works at nighttime!It will reduce or eliminate the need for battery storage!You can probably guess how it works... Let's BUST this impractical boondoggle wide open.The research paper:https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/5.0085205

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 02:11:58 pm
content: 1467

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 02:28:17 pm
content: Is it in fact orders of magnitude higher than previous demonstrations. It seems to me it might be true. My reading of the paper suggests they are claiming 50mW/m2and they later go on to claim "Our approach can provide night-time standby lighting and power in off-grid and mini-grid applications, where PV cell installations are gaining popularity." and also "Our design can also power sensors in remote locations, reducing the size or eliminating the requirement for battery storage."They're pretty modest claims. If you're just relying on the published paper.Do they ever suggest more?

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 02:31:25 pm
content: Quote from: golden_labels on April 09, 2022, 02:11:58 pmDon't forget some numbers were skipped so using one twice is just a way to slide things back to a correct count.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 04:09:48 pm
content: Part of this may be the journalists refelctions on an 8 days old publication they did not really understand.It is not really usefull energy, more like an oddity from the understanding of solarcells. When pointing to the cold and really dark sky, the PV cell should show a reverse voltage, as there is less NIR radiation than in equilibrium. However just some starts and a faint reflection of moon light may compensate for this and reverse the voltage back to normal.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 04:10:48 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 09, 2022, 02:28:17 pmYep. It basically is adding a peltier generator (TEG) and using the solar panel as a heat source or heat sink. You'll need a crystal clear sky at night as well to achieve maximum cooling from space.QuoteThey seem to claim it is usefull but realistically I doubt it is ever going to be cost effective.@Dave: you got so worked up you lost count on your videos

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 06:28:31 pm
content: What is being debunked, the news or the article?The article says explicitly that their invention can be useful for places where there's no electricity whatsoever and where the presence of battery banks would be impractical. Whether those places exist is a matter of debate, of course, but where is the bunk?

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 07:07:30 pm
content: At 50mW/m2you'd hardly be talking about a batterybankto deliver equivalent energy overnight.

author: StillTrying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 07:10:00 pm
content: Reminds me of this crackers one.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/harnesing-cold-outer-space-on-the-ground-through-a-transparent-ir-wavelength/

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 08:04:21 pm
content: Ha! Finally. THIS is what's gonna get us "there".

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 08:05:11 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on April 09, 2022, 07:07:30 pmWhat if we cover the entire globe though?

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 08:07:21 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on April 09, 2022, 07:07:30 pmYes. You can find batteries virtually anywhere around the globe. Even in remote and economically challenged regions.So I find this kind of application very difficult for this technology.But if you have zero watts and you can't have batteries for some reason, would you reject 50 mW/m²?

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 08:21:08 pm
content: If I can have the equipment to generate 50mW/m2each night, I can have the equipment to store a tiny fraction of the power that conventional solar cells generate during the day, store it, and release it overnight. A supercapacitor, if not a battery. Or a wind-up generator. Maybe a well-fed hamster.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 08:56:38 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on April 09, 2022, 08:21:08 pmOK. There's no immediate application for their technology. So, meh.But the paper is not dishonest. It says that you'll harvest 50 mW/m², and apparently it is what you'll get. It is not a scam, pseudoscience or the like. So why is it busted?So that we can laugh at their expenses?

author: ssander
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 12:17:36 am
content: Did Stanford watch this news conference from Anthony Albanese?https://youtu.be/vyS9uqRLbB8

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 02:26:37 am
content: more political fake science & green communist propaganda.yes it works but at 0.1%piezoelectric running shoes will get you more output!the truth is that oil and gas are the backbone of western civilisation.not just the obvious heating and transportation.but also everything from plastics to preservatives, from cleaners to cosmetics.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:09:05 am
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 09, 2022, 08:56:38 pmABSTRACTA large fraction of the world’s population lacks access to the electric grid. Standard photovoltaic (PV) cells can provide a renewable off-gridsource of electricity but only produce power from daytime solar irradiance and do not produce power at night. While there have been severaltheoretical proposals and experimental demonstrations of energy harvesting from the radiative cooling of a PV cell at night, the achievedpower density is very low. Here, we construct a device, which incorporates a thermoelectric generator that harvests electricity from the temperature difference between the PV cell and the ambient surrounding. We achieve 50 mW/m2 nighttime power generation with a clear nightsky, with an open-circuit voltage of 100 mV, which is orders of magnitude higher as compared with previous demonstrations. During thedaytime, the thermoelectric generator also provides additional power on top of the electric power generated directly from the PV cells. Oursystem can be used as a continuous renewable power source for both day- and nighttime in off-grid locations.It is entirely possible to string together a lie from a series of entirely true statements. If you ignore the numbers, the abstract makes it seem as if they've had a breakthrough. If you understand the numbers, you readily understand that they have not, at least not in any practical sense. Implying that this line of research has any real hope of being a widespread practical source of energy is a crock of crap, no matter where it comes from. Recycling old calculators and attaching one calculator panel to each solar installation (not panel) would probably have a greater effect. But recycling calculator panels will not....can you guess the punch line.....attract VC dollars.

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:34:07 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 12:45:53 amQuote from: The Paper In QuestionSeems like the paper itself is doing plenty of pointless cheerleading all on its own; and social media and popular science only amplified that. Neither the author of the paper nor journalism come out of this as innocent bystanders, they're all bending the truth beyond recognition by stating true-but-utterly irrelevant statements like that quote above and by bdunham7 in the previous post. It's actually really sad to see this marketing nonsense leaking into the papers themselves, normally the scientists have some sliver of morality and it's only the university's press releases that stretch the truth.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:39:57 am
content: I'm waiting for the first night time solar roadway.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:12:30 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 12:45:53 amPerhaps you missed the parts where it was publicised everywhere?And as RS20 pointed out, the authors are the ones who talked this up like it was going to " reduce or eliminate the need for battery storage in electrical power systems.". That's 100% grade A delusional

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:14:13 am
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 09, 2022, 08:56:38 pmRead the above quote from the paper. They literally say it couldeliminatethe need for battery storage in electrical power systems.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:17:02 am
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 09, 2022, 08:07:21 pmLike I said in the video, there may be some small niche for it. But at a huge material and cost expense. Vastly cheaper and simpler to charge a single 18650 cell durign the day and you'll get the equivalent energy to a whole 5kW solar array filled with this energy harvesting.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:24:01 am
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 09, 2022, 06:28:31 pmDid you even watch the video?I spent maybe a third of it showing all the hyped up media reports.And then I showed some delusional claims in the paper itself.As for the "where the presence of battery banks would be impractical", use super capacitors or some other form of storage to store real meaningful amounts of power during the day. Not 50 bloody mW.Seriously, adding huge amounts of heatsinking and TEG and associated circuitry which ALSO require storage itself in the form of capacitors, to get the equivlent of a single 18650 cell of energy per day is so far from being practical it's a joke.If it was just the paper on it's own without any delusion claims or replacing battery storage or other stuff and simply presenting the research and then no meadia hype, fine. But that's not what happened, so it gets busted.And it's busted in the same way that solar roadways, batterieser, fontus etc etc are busted. All of them "worked" and could have a small niche application.Did this one have to raise a million bucks on Kickstarter to be worthy of being busted?

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:39:42 am
content: Truth is very different from facts. The most effective lies are crafted from facts only.The researchers seem to be dishonest in the abstract and intro, but I suspect I see the cause. It is at the opposite side of the publication:QuoteSeems to me like they applied some “lube”, so the project would easily go through and receive support. Doing science is a constant fight for funding and not getting discarded, so I can’t easily blame them.As for the media, I do not even see a reason I should comment on that cesspool.

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 09:38:51 am
content: Quote from: golden_labels on April 10, 2022, 06:39:42 amThe biggest problem is making excuses and "understanding" their reason for being dishonest. If paper is dishonest it is not a scientific paper anymore because that fact violates the first principles of science. And people that wrote it are not scientists but con man(persons)...Second biggest problem is that they shouldn't get and money to research fake leads and going down the path that obviously does not lead anywhere.Like Dave said, what is scenario where you have no space for a single D size battery but have space for 10 square meters of solar panels weighing half a ton with construction?And that is Stanford University sponsored by DOE... Holy smokes... Who CAN you trust?

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 09:48:42 am
content: QuoteQuote50mW/m²Nothing wrong with this, looks like many others didn't read the headline and publishing date of the paper. I'd guess it's a well-prepared Aprils fool that just missed the publication date by a few days. By judging on the reactions, it was quite effective

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 09:59:43 am
content: Well, I found it entertaining.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 10:02:51 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 09:54:03 amApart from the hundreds of thousands of people who have thanked me over the years for debunking this stuff, teaching them how to think critically and check things, and providing them with a great laugh.But ok, sure.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 10:06:35 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 09:54:03 amAnd this is an insanely stupid and wasteful way to get it when you literally have the panels there that can charge up some super caps and provide orders of magnitude more power for orders of magnitude less cost and complexity.The TEG's and heatsinks and energy harvesting systems are completely redundant

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 11:00:07 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 09:54:03 amYoutubers apparently have to chase views and engagement these days. This sort of video if you go by the YT comments does just that. You have to appreciate the irony. Where's Alanis Morisette when you need her? You've got the ill-informed public digesting press releases and videos like this one no more informative. That's worthy of a facepalm.For some reason I saw a thunderf00t video recently where he was doing some experiments debunking a Veritasium video on why water drops are charged. I haven't thought about him for years but I was at least surprised (and pleased) to see he was prepared to put in a bit of effort to set up some experiments. Whether or not I was persuaded by the video that at least is something.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 11:39:00 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 10, 2022, 11:00:07 amMe chase views and engagement? I'm literally the example of how not to do that.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 11:42:22 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 10:12:14 amI'm doing great, thanks for asking. You on the other hand I'm a bit concerned about, RU OK?

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 01:46:10 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 10, 2022, 06:14:13 amThat's what they say.Developing a mean to extract energy from existing PV cells at night would alleviate the daytime limitation of PV power generation andreduceOReliminatethe need for battery storage in electrical power systems.If it's not possible to eliminate the need for battery storage, at least it can help reduce it. So their statement is still true.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 01:49:28 pm
content: In the pre-release thread for this video, I wrote: Even peer-reviewed articles today need to use buzzwords and marketing-speak, to ensure the researchers' future careers. Bye bye, actual science; it was good knowing ya.The latter half of the abstract:QuoteThe area of their experimental setup was 153 cm² = 0.0153 m², and they say "the TEG power reached a sustained level of around 0.7 mW on the night of October 11", when the "nighttime temperature difference reached its maximum", "sustaining [the setup] at around 3°C below the ambient throughout the night".And this article wasfeaturedin Applied Physics Letters 120.Didyourealize that the "which is orders of magnitude higher as compared with previous demonstrations" refers to theopen-circuit voltage(and not the power generated), and a specific demonstration: B. Zhao, M. Hu, X. Ao, Q. Xuan, Z. Song, and G. Pei, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 228, 111136 (2021)? In the text, they refer to that specific demonstration, and mention that they got so poor results they didn't even measure/describe the energy, only the open-circuit voltage.Yeah.What the article describes, is a way to use a heat sink and a TEG as a horribly inefficient replacement for other methods of energy storage.The "orders of magnitude better" refers to exactly one previous demonstration which only listed open-circuit voltage and not the power generated.They chose to use units that nicely obfuscate the fact that their demonstration device had a bit over one hundredth the unit area, so that their estimates are two orders of magnitude larger than the figures obtained in their demonstration.This article is a perfect example of how to write marketing-speak, to publish and popularize a childish experiment, with carefully written text. I, for one, applaud the academic writing coaches at Standford U.This is not applied physics, this is applied psychology.

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:34:41 pm
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 10, 2022, 01:46:10 pm0.1 % or less of capacity difference makes it technically correct but bullshit statement. If we add 50% of cost to an existing solar installation to gain 0.1% of more capacity is simply stupid. That is why it was a failure to let them even research that. Money could have been spent for something useful. For instance, battery chargers with slightly better efficiency, batteries with a bit less losses. Even making batteries that have smaller temperature coefficients could gain percents of difference...

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:46:25 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 10, 2022, 06:17:02 amFo' shizzle. Edison discovered the tube rectifier but didn't see any practical application for it, because what he was looking for was a means to reduce the production of soot inside light bulbs. Across the pond someone (Fleming) said: hey we could use this to detect radio waves. And the rest is history.QuoteYes, generating energy from plutonium balls is prohibitively expensive, however that's what powers Voyager 1 and 2.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:58:18 pm
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 10, 2022, 04:46:25 pmFFS, stop trying to imply that we don't understand the significance of scientific inquiry in general. The objections to this 'research' paper have to do with the non-scientific hyperbole implying a specific practical application, not the science itself--that would be interesting if not for the fact that is isalmost entirely not new.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 05:34:08 pm
content: My comment a couple days ago in EEVblog IRC after I saw the first articles:QuoteThe media response reminds me of the "solar power breakthrough" by a 13 year old back in 2011:https://gizmodo.com/genius-13-year-old-has-a-solar-power-breakthrough-583255750 milliwatts per square meter is about 200mAH (over 12 hours) so a single 18650 cell could replace more than 20 square meters.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 05:46:11 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 10, 2022, 06:24:01 amYes, I did. Twice. And an ad against the soft-drink industry in between.QuoteThat's why I asked what is being debunked, the news or the paper?QuoteThe only "delusional claim" you showed is that they say that they can reduce or eliminate battery storage. You admit that battery storage can be reduced, but you think that a reduction by 0.04% is negligible, which is an opinion, to which you are entitled, of course.QuoteIt's a research, Dave. Not a final product ready to be marketed. Lots of cool technologies we have today started out as impractical or failed experiments like this one.QuoteThe media live on hype. Without hype they starve. But I got my answer: your video contraposes thehypeso that we can see things from another perspective, and draw our own conclusions. That's OK with me.QuoteI see. You are trying to nip it in the bud. Good move.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 05:46:46 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 10, 2022, 01:49:28 pmYup. And, don't forget this kind of work gets significant public funding. That alone warrants debunking.It might look like just a small harmless experiment to some, but it's Stanford and unfortunately constitutes the bulk of all the marketing greenish bullshit that's been happening for years now, wasting everyone's time and money. Even if this particular paper may look "harmless", I don't think any of those are, and so I agree with Dave debunking them. I consider them globally harmful, as they often serve as a pretext for publicly-funded, larger-scale tests that go nowhere, waste time and money, and have the public believe that something is really happening, when all that's happening is things getting worse and their tax money getting ripped off.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 07:12:00 pm
content: Dave is not trying to favor the campaign for defunding scientific and technological research, and therefore favoring the agenda of anti-scientific groups like creationists, for example, is he?That'd be awful.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 10:31:20 pm
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on April 10, 2022, 04:58:18 pmThis.We get the value of research. But they are making claims for a specificappliationapplied to solar panels. They are not inventing or researching new TEG designs which would have application elsewhere, in which case we would all applaud the research. Instead they are using COTS TEG's specifically for an application attached to solar panels that generate orders of magntiude more power during the day. The application the paper refers to is completely redundant given other storage solutions available.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 12:32:14 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 09:54:03 amI agree. The world can do with less negativity. And likely others are noticing as well. Keysight has a new event featuring several 'Youtube' electronics content creators but much to my surprise, Dave / EEVblog isn't included.https://live.keysight.com/s/live-from-the-lab/home

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 01:49:58 am
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 09:54:03 amBullshit is isn't.From my standpoint, this rotten information filters down to the normies and pretty soon I'll need to explain to someone why they think I'm lying when their solar panels don't make power at nighttime like the had hoped, because they saw the research.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 04:31:52 am
content: I worked in a university research lab and it was strange.The academics are all about getting grants, funding for their labs and will jump on a trendy bandwagon in the blink of an eye if it means securing cash.Doesn't matter at all if the research is practical, as long as it brings media attention and fame and glory for the university and academics.Academics have quite the ego and look down upon technologists and non-academic staff. Publish or Perish is the mantra, pound out the papers, exploit the ideas and fresh energy from grad student's work.I found it gross, like a bubble world where everyone is content being 1,000 miles from anything practical and PhD's thinking they are intellectual elites.Worse yet is how the uni goes on about patenting the nut-bar IP further wasting money and preventing any corporation from developing something out of it.The difference between fantasy IP and reality does involve some unicorns and rainbows.P.S. - Did they get the 50mW/m2during a full moon?

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 06:28:06 am
content: SiliconWizard and floobydust highlighted the problem I have with this kind of "research".I know from experience how difficult it is to getanykind of support for genuinely new, useful research. Those with their hands on the purse stringsneedpublicity. Here in Finland, they prefer to (exclusively) support research that is already being done elsewhere. Not to be first, or support or compete with others, but only so that they can say that the research they support is at the forefront of science.Because the only metric used is the number of publications in high-ranking academic papers, the quality of said papers is in steep, continuous decline. Not only are an increasing fraction of papers being shown to be incorrect or invalid later, but even the experiments they claim to be based on are increasingly difficult to duplicate. Even in physical sciences, more than a quarter of papers end up being retracted or later shown incorrect. (In humanist "sciences", that fraction is already over half the papers; with many authors forming clusters that only refer to each other. Meta-analysis of the literature, especially directed graphs of the citations, shows a very dire picture of the "science".)The experiment/demonstration in thisfeatured articleis laughable. They didn't even use a standard commercial panel, only a tiny 153 cm² one (that's less than five inches square, or something like 9 cm by 17 cm). There is nomeritin this paper, only very good writing (as in how the statements are constructed to evoke emotions in the readers; psychology).If this kind of crap is selected as a featured article, consider what kind of "scientific furor" would be raised if someone bought a commercial photovoltaic panel, say one or two square meters (I forgot what the size of the individual panels Dave uses is), and then combined one of the commercially availablesolid-state batterytechnologies, by laminating a few cells on the underside of the panel, forming a combined solar cell battery. Pick a chemistry that is more or less safe (chemically, so avoid carcinogens and such) and benefits from the heat from the solar cell (say, adding mobility of charge carriers). You'll probably need a budget of say USD 1000 to get all you need, but it's all commercially available, and you only need to do a couple of days of research. Then, find yourself an accomplished scientific writer –– the ones at Stanford that helped those guys areseriously good, just look at how not only is each sentence in the paper quite well constructed, but the entire paper has the classical structure, with all weaknesses visible, but cleverly side-stepped; consider the "orders of magnitude claim"! –– and become the sole author of a future featured paper in a leading journal.That battery chemistry does not even need to be at all efficient, only good enough that you can show "orders of magnitude" improvement over the article in this thread, and gush about the rapid evolution in the technology and science in this field. (That is important, because that gives you the place to use the manipulative sentences and wording that will get you research grants in the future. The idea is not to put yourself at the forefront, but show that this is the field where grants should be directed at.)See? There is almost nothing "scientific" about this. It is pure human social gaming, pure psychology, using already commercially available and perfectly well known technologies, to push anarrativeabout "science". It is, in a very real sense, aparodyof real science.Now, if somebody actually did some materials research on how to combine the solar cell with light weight solid-state battery technology that took advantage of the couple of degrees Kelvin/Celsius difference between the panel and ambient air – more during the daytime, so perhaps an opportunity in the charging (high difference) – discharging (low difference) chemistry? –,thatwould be interesting. However, that kind of paper is exactly the kind that goes unpublished or ignored for years, because it takes sense and intelligence to realize its potential. If the University realizes its worth before publication, they'll partner with a company, so that instead of publishing the tech, they license the technology for a high fee instead.It's just like the situation with patents in most fields. They were intended to ensure the invention will eventually reach the markets, but in actuality, are used for the exact opposite purpose: to hinder competition in the field for as long as possible. Most patents nowadays are never used in actual products, and are only taken to be used as a litigation threat against competitors!

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 01:35:25 pm
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 10, 2022, 10:12:14 amI'm by no means an expert, but a TEG needs a temperature differential. Sooner or later, the panel and the heatsink on the other side of the TEG are at, or near enough, equilibrium. No more energy for you, i suspect you will freeze to death if you relied on those 50 milliwattsI wonder how much less energy the panel produces over the day, just from that film on top. Also don't solar panels like lower temperatures? That isolated chamber also likely gets a lot warmer than a bare panel.Quote from: nctnico on April 11, 2022, 12:32:14 amI suspect that this more related to the fact that Keysight, in large parts, apparently does not give a rat's ass about non corporate customers anymore.Also, ElectroBoom's Channel is huge, compared to the EEVBLOG, even Great Scott's channel is twice the size. I have to admit though i never heard about Curious Marc before now. And what TheSignalPath does with Testequipment is in a whole other league from what i knowSo i would not blame this on any specific negativity. What was one Scope Month has become smaller and smaller over the years anyway. Also, was Dave's Giveaway ever explicitly advertised by Keysight at all? I always had the impression that this was more of a bone that's thrown to the australian community since the official Scope Month was not allowed.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 08:55:44 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on April 11, 2022, 01:35:25 pmI suspect that the real reason is because Dave refuses to be a shill.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 09:13:08 pm
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 11, 2022, 08:55:44 pmDid you notice the Keysight banner advertisement if you scroll up a little bit? How did that end up there?Either Dave didn't want to invest the time (which is ultimately his and only his choice) or Keysight skipped EEVblog and the negative ranting videos (which mostly appeal to the nay-saying crowd) may have something to do with it. Dave keeps on claiming that he 'busted / debunked' so many things but the world simply doesn't care. Solar roads are still being developed further and installed (last year the longest solar road for cyclists in the world got installed somewhere in the NL), Batteriser / Batteroo is still being developed and sold, Hyperloops are still being developed and built, Solus infrared heaters are still being sold (fun fact: BEV car makers are installing these kind of heaters in cars to heat them more efficiently), etc. The list goes on. And if you look at the recent videos: the topics are allover the place. From wealth to frustrations about Youtube.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 11:47:53 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 11, 2022, 09:13:08 pmBecause they've already been around for decades, that was the point, that they weren't doing anything new and completely exaggerating expected power savings. You can find FIR products from the 80's.The impossible claims on their KS page were called out and the project was suspended:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/koleda/solus-the-most-efficient-radiator-in-the-world/The technology here isn't the issue (FIR or TEG), its how they spin the results and make wild claims.

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 06:27:30 pm
content: A day after your video, the latest "Just have a think" video came to my intention. From the title I thought it was about the same research. But it is not. His videois about a much more useful approach: cooling PV panels to increase their efficiency and lifetime and then use the captured heat for something else. He links to a countrywoman of yours, Dave, Engineering with Rosie (where she visits a rooftop in Perth.My suggestion to the discussion here is to think about using TEG devicesafterheat is concentrated. As we all should know the effectiveness of a TEG is much improved by temperature difference. Whether enough heat could be concentrated to drive a grid tie inverter obviously depends on a lot of factors, so I leave it as an exercise for the student!

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 07:47:10 pm
content: How will this cure dumbness in academic research? Think of the time and money wasted.I argued with a fellow engineer about the benefits of looking for photons at night. He says it might highlight some previously unknown mechanisms for energy generation, and I couldn't stop laughing. Research into flea power, it's never going to be powering anything of any use. Let's spend $1,000 on hardware to power an LED solar garden light at night?P.S.- OT TEGs we use here in remote areas, natural gas flame from a gas well to get a few volts at many amperes, then boost-converter to make 24VDC.In space probes/roversradioisotope TEGsupply power with Pu-238 heat source.Back in the 1970's greens were furious about space probes "spewing out radiation" in space, it would piss off the aliens. Ref.Space: 1999 Voyager's ReturnI think Stanford et al. should watch some old sci-fi for ideas on new useless research to do.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 08:04:01 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on April 12, 2022, 07:47:10 pmFacepalms, silly laughs and hyperboles going at the opposite direction certainly won't help. At some point people will see that 'publish to survive' isn't working. Probably the best way is to simply ignore silly ideas and let the market do it's job where it comes to investing money into an idea or not. Even if an idea fails, lessons that have value in the future are learned.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 08:38:47 pm
content: It's that: "let the market do it's job" - the magical autopilot will steer things. People believe the "efficient market" hypothesis is true, and here we are seeing it's just another failed theory from economists, semiconductors and green energy included. We're heading into an energy crisis that is the only negative-feedback loop for the autopilot. Hint: it's too late to pull up.Investors, governments and academic leaders understand little about technology, no training in energy and the Laws of Thermodynamics.What they do know is "an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance". Look at solar roadways, hydrogen power etc. these are fantasy technologies that a back of the napkin calculation by an engineer will show are completely unrealistic yet people want to believe will save the world.What are the products of a university? Ideas, intellectual gold - none of which can be measured or quantified. Entirely intangible. For the ivy league, they have nothing but an image to maintain. Universities in Canada aren't making money, massive funding is needed, tuition was recently doubled again. The gap between a thesis or other research paper to a viable product is a million miles. This is a huge problem I think.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 09:16:24 pm
content: It isn't a problem. It has always been this way. Take Einstein's relativity theories for example. It has taken decades to prove these in experiments and even longer to find practical applications. Boolean and signal processing math where invented long before they could make circuits that allowed practical applications / implementations for these ideas.The bottom line is: you can't go around saying that every idea that doesn't have an application and/or can be implemented in an economic way right now is utterly useless and axe it. And there will be iterations / evolutions as well. Look at how mobile phone communication systems have evolved over the past 30 years.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 10:00:22 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 12, 2022, 09:16:24 pmI don't think anyone here is against fundamental scientific research nor would most reasonable people demand that an immediate practical use be in mind for experiments in physics. But that's not what this paper was about. There's no new science at all that I can see and the paper is largely eloquent bullshit about the practical benefits, either hoping nobody notices the 50mW thing or hoping that they suffer from the delusion that a sort of Moore's law applies to everything and that number will increase by orders of magnitude with a little fine tuning (it won't). The biggest improvement that could be made to this project is to make a container around the outside of the warm end of the TEG and fill it with horse manure every evening. It's all horseshit anyway.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2022, 10:03:49 pm
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on April 12, 2022, 10:00:22 pmAnd thus not worthy to spend any time on. As I wrote earlier: ideas like the paper this topic is about are best left alone. Debunking it is like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys the attention.

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 03:06:15 am
content: Just my take here, not trying to assert anything as matter of fact:Academic ResearchDue to bureaucracy and the primarily non-commercial means (grants, student fees) funding/resources are obtained by academic institutions, the path of least resistance which direction tends towards is chasing clout and "trends" rather than objectively "practical" research unless you have some sort of "visionary" leadership. It takes balls to take risks in anything and talent to make it pay off; current academia seems to attract the more conservative, pedestrian sort whilst the more ambitious (and capable) tend to get sucked into industry very fast; when speaking about engineering disciplines. I think other areas/subjects tend to do decently in terms of a "productive" academic research, e.g. pure physics, astronomy, mathematics, areas which which don't have much of a commercial industrial sector. I found the physics school filed with "better" researchers than the engineering school. I've definitely seen the sort behaviourNominal Animaldescribes while involved in academic research as a student and it was part of what turned me off from academia.I don't think doing research that has no "practical" value is a bad thing. "Blue skies research" is definitely important and worth it in itself to satisfy human curiosity. Fundamental scientific advances are of massive importance but often not "practical". However, I think the sort of research people are upset about here isn't that, it's "clickbait" research which brings little new knowledge to the table but plays off topical buzzwords and written as though everyday life changes are "just around the corner" which in turn leads people to feel a disappointment and a distrust of science and research as a whole when things go about as well as you'd expect them to. I feel like a lot of people, particularly annoyed people on the internet, are at this stage of disillusionment with what could be called "low quality pop sci".Back on the topic of research itself. Particularly for research that IS directly applicable to "real life" (meaning the industrial and consumer economy) I think this is the sort of thing that is best handled through commercial means, be it some start-up or super corporation like Nvidia. If news of a new technology isn't coming from commercial venture then you already know it very likely not something that has practical value. Not to say that every thing that IS commercially pursued has practical value either (particularly in startup land). I think the reality is in the socio-economic machine of today, the available resources and best path to "real life" practical application is going to be found almost entirely in the commercial sector. What you tend to see at best is an academic research group producing a proof-of-concept then trying to spin out a startup but the skills and attitudes required to survive in academia and often very different those required in business. More often though academics/universities will just obtain patents in the hope someone will magically come along and turn their idea into a commercial success for them now that all the "hard work" is done and they can live off the royaltiesThere was a "well regarded" but somewhat eccentric lecturer at my university that literally said "Why would you want to join a start up or industry? Now that the theory has been proven, anybody can implement it." Which sums up well the sort of hubris often found in academia.I think academics is ideally suited to blue skies, and "pure" scientific research because there isn't really anywhere else it can be done (apart the hobby eccentric wealthy as it historically was), despite clear flaws in the way resources are awarded. Anything research that is actually "practical" will find it's way quickly into the commercial sector. This night time solar project gives a short term PR hit with the general public for the researchers but isn't helpful to reputation of science research and doesn't seem to have any actual scientific merit. I agree with the sentiment that these sorts of "click bait" research projects without scientific merit are somewhat degenerative.

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 03:08:00 am
content: Debunking videosI don't think it's a bad thing to be calling out research claims or directions like this where claimed applications and relevance is being stretched quite far. It's not directly helpful but making noise, even if it's somewhat far off in youtube land and not in academia, helps push against this "irresponsible" hyping of less than ground breaking research. Particularly when there's exists "truly" impactful research going albeit often very esoteric; this is where science educators have immense value.The research itself is overhyped and bunk, not a good reflection of what scientific and technological research can be. I noticed on other places people calling out Dave for pointing out the research lacks merit and calling on him to not go "debunking" science rather than calling on science PR to be less sensationalist. Shooting the messenger it feels like? Criticism is important but then again the criticism itself may or may not have merit.Deep, fundamental scientific research which pushes the fore font of human knowledge is (often) far from application and even further from everyday life commercialisation. This is the sort of research that is "only" practical to conduct in pure academic blue skies research. This is the sort of research I think we should be celebrating and institutions should be doing (and certainly are doing) but often this is the sort of highly esoteric research which takes knowledge as well as talent to take such advanced topics and to explain them to an everyday person. If you only consume 24-hr news and mass media, you'll rarely find this sort of content. This is what makes "good" scientific communicators invaluable particularly those that are also subject matter experts e.g.Sabine Hossenfelder.Even content by subject "enthusiasts" such asThe Limiting Factorare leagues better than mass media "news" outlets.These channels are able to publicise new research whilst being critical ("sceptical") but not dismissive."Skeptic" Channels like Thunderfool or Non-sense Skeptic are symbiotic with and equally as low merit as sensationalist pop sci which is to say prioritising emotional appeals over facts or scientific thinking.Example A,example Band there are more I have posted in the past. I guess being outraged at things just gets some people offI OK with "debunking" as long as it's actually done in a critical and informative manner and has "merit" e.g. Sabine and not as some blind, arse-headede.g. Non-sense Skeptic. I think Dave generally tries his best to try keep to the facts and only say what's "fair". Also good he does "rebunking" videos like theElectric bus oneto show critical thinking from the other end.

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 03:52:22 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 12, 2022, 08:04:01 pmProblem is there isn't really a "market mechanism" for fundamental scientific research. The more fundamental it is, the further it likely is from a realisable commercial product yet also the more likely it will be of important to many things (science and beyond) in the future. Fundamental science and blue skies research unfortunately doesn't really fit directly into the economic machine. Publish or perish is currently the closest thing to "objective" allocation of resources. I really don't think there's any other way for allocation of resources apart from some trusted director that understands what's "good" and "bad" or someone obscenely wealthy investing in whatever piques their interest.It's not completely broken thankfully, the usually limited amount of money and very high entry barriers means corruption isn't a rampant problem (I think?). There are enough "good" people that we get projects like LIGO, LHC and all the cool stuff NASA and ESA do.

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 04:16:22 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 12, 2022, 10:03:49 pmUnlike the scam "startups" and snake oil products that Dave sometimes covers where they love to wallow in any publicity they can get. I think going after sensationalist research papers or even silly government projects is useful since these are tied to non-ethereal organisations. If this paper gets enough bad press I can guarantee that pressure will be on in whatever Stanford school to stop/slow funding, if someone with standing in the academic community came out with a position similar to Dave it would be "cooled-off" with almost certainty. A historical example of an "anti hype publication" would be Artificial Neural Networks in the 1950s and 60s which were massively hyped until the publication of Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert'sPerceptrons: An introduction to computational geometrywhich greatly cooled off research in the neural networks until many years later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter#The_abandonment_of_connectionism_in_1969). You can look up the first "AI winter". [Was this a good thing or a bad thing?][Best video I could quickly find summing it up]I think we also see a type of survivorship bias. We only see the solar roads ways which actually happen. We have no idea how many times local city councils have had the idea brought up to them and how many times those ideas have been shot down. To be honest, on a global scale we don't really see that many, and those that do happen seem more along the lines of "public art" projects rather than intending to be practical. With the number of small local governments in the world that have the available funding to undertake a mini solar path project, I don't think we see that many and I don't think it's a realistic expectation that just Dave or anyone else's combined campaigns are going to make it so there areZEROsolar roads in existence. It's hard to have a quantified let alone objective measure of how well solar roads have be suppressed by Dave making videos on the subject.To an extent, we should be proud there aren'tmoresolar roads in existence.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 09:22:26 am
content: Quote from: sandalcandal on April 13, 2022, 04:16:22 amHype seems to be a problem with debunkers. You hyped, you're dead, in their view. If you maintain a low profile, the merit of your research is not questioned.The AI winter seems to be a good example. Because of hype, debunkers managed to end serious research. It turns out that AI is not snake oil: it's the key force behind technologies employed by Google, Youtube, Amazon, Netflix, Siri, Alexa, or any mundane OCR.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:17:51 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 12, 2022, 09:16:24 pmOn the other hand, we can also look at other scientific research, that the mere existence, or the wrong interpretation, or the wrong test methodology led to catastrophic results. I can list a few:- Diesel engine has less CO2 emissions -> leading to Europe advocating for Diesel and ruining the environment with NOx- IQ tests performed in the 1920 on different racial groups -> interpreted politically leading to... you know what.- Dutch government doing test on road wear with incorrect test methodology -> taxing cars based on weight, leading to people buying smaller and less safe cars.- Tabaco research results- Food pyramid- Lobotomy as a regular practice because it calms people down (yes, there were scientific research papers on that)There are some research that we have to fight back against, and we have to do interpretations, and those interpretations have to be harsh. Otherwise we run into problems that a politician sees this (or more likely, a lobbyist gets to them) and interprets it as "it generates power during the night, which is a problem with the current systems". Fast forward, and you will only be able to get government incentive for your installation, if it works during the night. Because some CEO thought it would be nice to get an edge on the competition and bribes someone to do just that.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:48:19 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 11, 2022, 06:28:06 amPost of the week

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 11:08:54 am
content: Quote from: sandalcandal on April 13, 2022, 03:08:00 amFor those interested, there are two things that triggered this video (also for the person asking before whether I was debunking the media hype or the paper, the answer is essentially both).It got my attention because of the media hype, which is course any engineer with two brain cells to rub together knows that energy harvestign in this application is pointless bunk. So I read the paper to see if it had some research merit. Like for example, researching a new TEG material and they just happened to be using this PV example. If that was the case then I would have stopped there and never had done the video because at least there is some merit to the development that can lead to other things.But of course it wasn't, it was using a COTS TEG with the sole "research" being the actual application of said COTS TEG and PV panel for the stated application is reducing or eliminating battery storage. Again any engineer with a few brain cells to rub together knows this is a just waste of time. And tyhen throw in it's Stanford and that the paper got highlighted status. So for me that was the double (or triple) whammy that warranted the video. It was literally solar roadways level of pointlessness.Both solar roadways and this project are doing demonstrably the same level of pointless thing. In fact I think SR might actually havemoremerit than this.It's just the SR raised money and went viral and this one was a paper that wetn kinda viral.You could also equally compare with Waterseer which was also backed by a pretigious university.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 11:17:13 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 12, 2022, 10:03:49 pmBut that's the trick, you don't get a say in what others spend their time on.I enjoyed making the video and having a laugh, and for me that's all that matters. And it seems a lot of people had fun watching it. I don't care if the other pig likes the attention or if people laugh at me instead. I had fun and a laugh so I win regardless.You don't have to like or think it's worthy of my time to make it, or anyones time to watch it, and that's just fine. But it's not your call on what others enjoy.I think it's not worth your time to comment that it's not worth my time, but if you want to, go ahead, no problem.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 11:40:02 am
content: Quote from: Ranayna on April 11, 2022, 01:35:25 pmI guess nctnico thinks this is some kind "own" for my types of videos? Why else would he bring this up in this thread?In case anyone cares, I had never heard of this thing, so no, Keysight didn't approach me. First I heard of it was in an Electroboom video.Keysight and other companies know that I don't do any sort of paid promotion, as in don't even bother asking. And this seems to be on the the level of doing actual work for Keysight (i..e producing content/attend this event and give a talk or something) rather than just a give-away for the benefit of our audience in return for an announcement video where they get promotion in return. So Keysight knew my answer was going to be no.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 08:58:04 pm
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 13, 2022, 07:25:08 pmDefine "groundbreaking".I prefer the term "merit" (or "scientific merit"), defining it as "something deserving or worthy of recognition, analysis, or consideration".Having somewhat a Popperian/critical rationalist bent, I personally find such merit in, for example,New theorems, extending existing theorems, and limiting/falsifying existing theorems (in specific contexts or situations)Verification or falsification of existing theorems via experimentation or simulationVerification or falsification of past experiments or simulationsNew or useful experiments that produce new and/or useful dataSimulations that produce data that helps experimental researchSimulations that help verify or falsify models used in said simulations, extending or limiting the applicable domain of said modelsNone of these include experiments suitable for a high-school physics class. I see no scientific merit, no benefit to anyone from reading this article.Using a thermoelectric generator to obtain, at night, 0.01% of the power available at daytime, is ridiculous. Like I explained, this is best modeled as using a heatsink and a TEG as a ridiculously poor and inefficient energy storage; a battery alternative.I can seewhyit was published, and perhaps even why it was afeatured articlein Applied Physics Letters 120. It has nothing to do with physics or science or scientific merit, and everything to do with wording, language, and human psychology. I despise that, just like I despise anything involving social gamesmanship, emotive manipulation, and lack of rationality in a professional context.Quote from: barycentric on April 13, 2022, 07:25:08 pmThat's opposite to what I've written. Did you even read my posts, or just glanced at them to determine they are not to your liking? Or are you perhaps desperately trying to construct something you can attack in my post, because some others agree with my assessment, and you hate that?Quote from: barycentric on April 13, 2022, 07:25:08 pmWhat you described and refer to by "this" is not what I wrote, nor is it my attitude.I do understand that you want to attack my person, because you find it difficult to point to anything specific in my post that you can rationally object to.Quote from: barycentric on April 13, 2022, 07:25:08 pmSure, I do that myself in a more relaxed form for all examples I post here and elsewhere; it is one of the 'scientific' tools any researcher has. (You start with a thorough search across applicable literature, collate the existing information, then describe the research paths you think might havemerit. Laymen have described this process as "mapmaking", I believe.)That's not what this paper is, though. This paper describes a high school experiment with a $20 budget, but is written in a very attention-seeking, carefully crafted way, that got it featured in Applied Physics Letters.(The "orders of magnitude" claim is one that still angers me. Do you still not realize it does not refer to the power, only to the open-circuit voltage, of the TEG? In my opinion, that is the most egregious example of manipulative statements in this article. On one hand, it makes me angry; on the other hand, I really respect the scientific writing advisor or expert the authors of the papers had.)Coming from Standford University, it is laughable. A waste of time on behalf of everybody involved; unless – as I do claim – it was actually written to manipulate humans, and was never even intended to have any scientific merit. In that sense, it is an excellent specimen.It's just that articles like this are a huge part – I'm not really sure whether a part of the reason or a part of the symptoms, because the two are so closely entangled in academic publishing and research grants – of why I too left academia.What I am telling, is that in Finland, the only way to get academic grants in Physics is to either apply to foundations that will support your research because you belong to a protected group (Swedish-speaking minority is a very effective one); or do research already done elsewhere, because those with the official research budgets will only support research that lets them say they support leading research in Physics.I am telling you that the quality of papers is in steep decline, because the metrics are quantitative only.I am telling you that it is fucking difficult to get funding for Physics research that actually breaks new ground, exactly because funding the kind of "research" and "experiments" as in this paper are so much more socially acceptable and low-risk for those with the budgets. The majority of research funding in Physics in Finland goes to research that is already conducted elsewhere. This means that instead of actually extending the field of knowledge, we're just re-discovering the same areas near the edges again and again.I am talking from personal experience. You, barycentric, really do sound like you describe what you wish the world is like, without having actual experience. You are well entitled to your opinion, but do note that the real world is what it is, and is not magically transmogrified by your hopes and beliefs.I do also have friends who have worked in the US as physicists at DoD and DoE labs, but I consider their experiences anecdotal, second-hand information. If it matters any, the situation there (with papers vetted for current-administration-political-friendliness before being even submitted to any publication) sounds like many ways even worse. Easier to get funding for ground-breaking research, but also much stricter political/attitude/viewpoint filter, and higher risks for exclusion from the field if you stray from the "accepted respectable" path and opinions.There is no chance someone like Isaac Newton –– who was heavily into alchemy –– would be funded today. And that is a loss for science.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 09:23:36 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 13, 2022, 08:58:04 pmBut wouldn't that have anything to do with any somewhat radical idea being axed down and stamped into the ground? Take Elon Musk's hyperloop idea for example...If I where a researcher nowadays, I'd keep my more radical ideas to myself and publish only what is socially acceptable. Better safe than sorry. Actually I have introduced radically different approaches / solutions to a problem in one of the projects I have helped develop during the past few years. Once released it will stir up quite a bit of debate among people stuck in certain thinking patterns.edit: typo

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 09:51:27 pm
content: Quote from: barycentric on April 13, 2022, 07:25:08 pmWe are, for the most part, complaining about the hype the article was presented with, not the measurements or calculations in the article itself.But since you want to go there, try looking a bit closer at what you are referring to. The integrals referenced from other papers and not original work.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:18:27 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on April 13, 2022, 09:51:27 pmOfcourse. These are likely thermal dynamics 101.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 03:34:36 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 13, 2022, 11:08:54 amWell, I, for one, don't care what triggers you.Your channel, your trigger.However, you invited us to discuss your video down below. And down below discussing we are.QuoteWell, your µcurrent is just COTS components for the stated application of reducing burden voltage. I don't get why this is a demerit.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 10:57:13 pm
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 14, 2022, 03:34:36 pmBut he's not written a scientific paper on the ucurrent...These are the kind of articles published alongside said paper:https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0087245https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0083889https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0080456Honestly don't really care myself about what gets published, as long as its accurate, so I only criticize the hype and misrepresentation aspects.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 05:14:44 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on April 12, 2022, 10:00:22 pmThe paper states 50mW/m2. It states it in the heading in big print right up front.If the debunking is targeting the "hype" and not the straight facts then surely it is as disingenuous to use a highly emotive argument to attack the paper. The paper isn't claiming new science. It is irrelevant how eloquent the paper is or whether you want to make a value judgement it is BS. There is nothing in the paper or the hype to confirm they were hoping no-one notices or that readers should be delusional. Nor is there a hint of a claim that there exists further orders of magnitude improvement in the near term or at all. The paper states 50mW/m2. It states it in the heading in big print right up front.If you want to debunk it go right ahead and prove you cannot get 50mW/m2and that that is insufficient to run a standby lamp or sensor in an application where a battery might not be preferred. It's right there in the paper that such is a possible application. Someone who needs 70mW/m2can proceed to do further work. With added horseshit or without.If I am objecting to anything it is the supreme irony of whipping up a frenzy amongst a lot of incredulous nitwits on the internet as if that is more noble than the misinforming of non-technical mass media consumers through poorly understood journalism. If there was a purely noble aim to inform the public it could have been done through a very different video that dissected the claims and examined what was being tested and how well it would work under less than ideal circumstances. But that would be too boring to attract sufficient interest without substantial work. Add shit and stir is a time tested easy way to rile up a mob. It is certainly one way adding shit adds heat.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 12:36:52 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 15, 2022, 05:14:44 amIn the abstract, it statesQuoteThe "which is orders of magnitude higher as compared with previous demonstrations" refers to the open-circuit voltage of exactly one previous demonstration,B. Zhao, M. Hu, X. Ao, Q. Xuan, Z. Song, and G. Pei, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 228, 111136 (2021), who only managed to obtain 9 mV open-circuit voltage, and didn't bother to compute the electric energy density. Furthermore, they later refer toA. P. Raman, W. Li, and S. Fan, Joule 3, 2679–2686 (2019), a nighttime black emitter and a TEG, which demonstrated 25 mW/m² electric power density –– enough to power a LED, as they state in the abstract –– anddescribe how to increase that to 0.5 W/m² = 500 mW/m².I do not know if you just glanced over the paper to see if you see anything odd/infuriating/unmeritorious, wilfred, but I certainly read it with very hopeful interest. (Because regardless of my attitude towards this paper, I'm actually still hopeful and optimistic that real meritorious science is still being done, and whenever I start reading an interesting article, I amalwayshopeful/interested/glad and looking forward to learning something new; Ineverread articles to try and find something to put down.) Instead, what I read, was very cleverly worded –– I'm not at all surprised that casual readers do not notice the insiduousness of the wording, because it passed even the seasoned reviewers and editors at Applied Physics Journal; I'm in awe of the scientific writing advisors these authors had at Stanford University! –– with zero scientific merit.In particular, they chose a single experiment to compare the open-circuit voltage to (Raman et al. in Joule 3, 2019), and based on that, claim "orders of magnitude higher". It is a SINGLE experiment they compare to, and a SINGLE order of magnitude (9 mV to 100 mV is a factor of 11). So that alone is two demonstrable errors/misleading statements in the abstract.They reach 20% of the potential electric power density described possible in an earlier paper (by Raman et al., linked above, where they mention "Pathways to performance > 0.5 W/m² using existing commodity components exist"), reaching twice the experimentally demonstrated electric power density in that paper, and yet are perfectly happy to mislead readers by a tricky sentence in their abstract, so that careless readers – as shown in this thread before I pointed it out! – believe that the 50 mW/m² is somehow "orders of magnitude better than before". Hell, since they only used a 153 cm² = 0.0153 m² panel (with 0.765 mW = 765 µW output), the measurement error and accidental unaccounted for energy sources could easily explain all differences they had to the earlier 25 mW/m² paper. It is actually more likely that the Stanford authors just used a slightly better TEG, as commercially available TEG efficiencies range from basically zero to 8% (depending on the temperature difference, with higher temperature differences yielding better efficiencies); it is estimated (including in this paper) that the radiative cooling power is in excess of 50 W/m², which means that the efficiency reached in this paper is 0.1% (one thousandth), at about 3 degree Celsius or Kelvin difference.Because the earlier 2019 paperdoesmention that existing commodity components can reach 500 mW/m², the fact that "Nor is there a hint of a claim [in this paper] that there exists further orders of magnitude improvement in the near term or at all" is a deliberate, misleadingomission: thereisat least one order of magnitude improvementin the electric power densityto be gainedright now, using commodity components. The authors of this paper clearly read the earlier paper carefully, and just chose to ignore that, in the hopes of elevating their own results.I reiterate: after carefully reading the paper and at least the abstracts of the key papers this links to, with initially a very open and hopeful mind, all I found in this paper was crafty psychological manipulation of the readers, with basically zero scientific merit, zero improvement from or additional information to a two years previous experiment they themselves link to. I believe the fact that this paper was selected as a featured article in Applied Physics Letters shows the decline of physical sciences.wilfred, barycentric, bsfeechannel, and others: I respect you, I just believe you are horribly mislead in this particular case. There is limited funding available for scientific research, and what is available, is almost exclusively dependent on articles published on journals like this one was, Applied Physics Letters. My objection is that there is no scientific merit in this article; and because it was so well written that it became afeaturedarticle, it is a perfect example of exactly why the entire field of physical sciences is in steep decline.You disagree. Fine. Please, point out something in what I've written in this thread that you disagree with,and explain why. Youropinionis worth exactly as little as mine; basically nothing. Only the reasoning and logic actually matters, because those can be argued and their merits compared fairly and in a useful manner. We don't learn anything useful by comparing opinions, but we can learn a lot by comparing the reasoning and arguments our opinions are based on. That is also how science is supposed to work. Besides, even the best of us – like say Einstein with respect to the Cosmological Constant – change their opinions when presented with suitable counterarguments or experimental proof. (I hope to emulate them, not because I am deluded to think I'm at their level – heh, I know I'm not, and freely admit it! –, but because itworks.)There is a reason for the old adage that for evil to prevail, good men only need do nothing. Similarly, for the scientific domain to become filled with garbage, we only need to ignore the garbage. We did that, still using it as the only reliable quantitative metric of scientific merit, and now we're knee deep in shit even in Physics. (I'm using "knee deep" quite carefully, since approximately 25% of peer reviewed articles in Physics are garbage, either incorrect or just bullshit based on unrepeatable and unprovable claims. In other fields, like in humanist sciences, they're drowning in shit, because there citations form disconnected clusters among groups of authors, and many already object to even trying to apply the scientific method in their own fields. Decolonisation of science and all that.)That is whyIrail against this. Dave does it for completely other reasons. By claiming us "naysayers" and mischaracterising the reasons why I do this, you are only soothing your own personal feelings about this stuff. If you did not care, you'd just skip this thread. Because youdocare, at least enough to respond, I believe that you are aware of this at the subconscious level, but because your chosen conscious beliefs of what science is today and what gets published are in disagreement, you suffer from cognitive dissonance; and instead of working out why, you attack those who caused the dissonance.If there was merit in your disagreement, you would have pointed out where the error in my own posts were. You pointed out none, though.Because of that, I do ask you that you point out the specific parts in my posts you disagree with. You see, if you cannot or will not, the most likely reason for that is indeed the cognitive dissonance. I would also like to ask you too to read the abstracts (behind the links above), compare the linked articles to this article, and review the reasons behind your own opinions (as to why this article should indeed merit being featured in Applied Physics Letters). To repeat, being published (or even featured) in a respected journal is not irrelevant; it is important, because it really is the only quantitative measure of scientific merit today that those who grant funds for furher research use. (Although citations and per-author retractions and corrections give a much better overall picture, they do not yield a simple quantitative measure.)If something I've written here offends you, I hope you take the time to actually pinpoint what I wrote that offended you, and let me know. It wasn't intentional, I assure you: I am against your opinion because I believe they are based on faulty logic or assumptions and lead to less than desirable consequences in the field of science. I am NOT against you personally. If I didn't care about what you write here, I'd simply ignore you.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 06:10:04 pm
content: @Nominal Animal: You need to seperate two things here:1) Nobody is arguing that the article this thread is about is good science, shows spectular results and/or that it should be featured. Likely the editor doesn't know the difference between mW (milli-Watt) and MW (megaWatt) and found the article the best one to become the feature this month. IOW: you are barking up the wrong tree here.2) What is being argued, is the value of superficial debunking videos. I hope you can agree though that the typical debunking videos which consist of handwaving, laughs, poorly controlled / biased experiments and hyperboles are crafty psychological manipulation of the watchers / listeners and thus are just as bad. You can't make shit go away by smearing more shit on it. Plus the negative sentiment that come with such videos.If you really want to disprove a claim, you'll need to do / repeat experiments in a controlled manner, examine /process the results in the correct way and point out where the flaws are. This is very time consuming and doesn't result in a very entertaining video as well.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:06:41 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 06:10:04 pmNo.They're all PhDs in Physics, with very respectable credentials.The target audience of Applied Physics Letters is Physics researchers with PhDs. It is not like say Nature, the British scientific journal that highlights peer-reviewed articles in science and technology, that targets both researchers and non-researchers alike.(It is my opinion and belief that it is not useful/right/correct to be angry or disappointed at stupid people for being stupid, but it is appropriate to be angry/disappointed/vocal against stupid stuff that very intelligent and capable people do. It may not be exactly fair to require and expect more from capable people, but hey, if they don't drag our society and culture forwards, nobody will.)Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 06:10:04 pmI don't usually watch the kind of debunking videos that have a preview image of the presenter open-mouthed, with a hand on their face, because they are usually based on the presenters' opinions, and do not actually go into the underlying reasons. Currently, Dave and BigClive are the exceptions, because both treat it as a ridiculous meme (that nevertheless may boost the video publicity; see next point).The thing I like about Dave's debunking videos, is that he shows exactlywhyhe thinks the thing described is full of bullshit. Sometimes that is based on his experience (for example, his PV installation), sometimes plain ("back of the envelope") estimates; stuff that I consider a mix of common sense, basic physics, and experience in the field. I don't always agree with him, and we had a rather heated argument about whether videos (alone) make for good tutorials or not a year or two ago.BigClive buys cheap lights and related stuff from eBay/AliExpress/Banggood and local dollar/pound stores, and takes them apart, describing exactly why they're shitty if they are, and why they're okay if they are. I don't know if his videos can be called debunking, but they've certainly hugely changed my attitude as to what to expect when buying stuff from said sources,and why.Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 06:10:04 pmThat I do disagree with. Laughter, showing exactly how ridiculous a serious and sensitive some proposition is by smearing it with similar shit in a slightly different form (to highlight its shittyness) is actually an approach thatworks. It is difficult to do it right, but some comedians are quite good at it. Jon Stewart and Bill Maher come to mind. Also, in the past – think old SNL, Spitting Image, et cetera – pompous politicians absurdities were highlighted via comedic means; today, such shows would not be funded at all. Why? Because that helps even the masses see how full of shit the politicians are.I do believe that making a video that shows how ridiculous even respectable peer-reviewed journals can be, is useful. It is unlikely to change what those with the purse strings do, but the videos might help the next generation of scientists develop a healthier attitude towards academia. In particular, exactly because of the kind of shit the article at hand is, the quality of peer-reviewed science is dropping. It is possible that open-access journals and researchers that somehow manage to bypass the entire quantity-over-quality issues (perhaps by funding their own research themselves) can change the direction of entire fields of science, and bring quality back to the forefront. But, based on my own observations and experience, I believe it will take a new generation of professors before we see any change in the direction.In the mean time, some shit-slinging is warranted, in my opinion, for the abovementioned reasons.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:56:20 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 15, 2022, 08:06:41 pmOr these shows -while funny- just cater to the nay-saying / conspiracy theorists crowd. For example: a lot of people complain about the NL's prime minister like he never does anything right. That makes you wonder how he managed to get the most personal votes of all politicians (by far!) during the elections in 2021. IMHO it is too easy to go around and call politicians idiots; if you go this route you lose all your credibility with me. It serves no purpose; vote for somebody else or do it better yourself. Get out of your armchair and do something that actually improves the world in a positive way.IMHO uncredible mockery doesn't help at all. Fundamental change needs to come from within from people that can earn respect based on their knowledge and actions. From who are you going to accept critisism on your work? From some clown on Youtube or somebody that can explain precisely what that person thinks are the flaws in your work while having a meaningfull conversation?

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 10:54:27 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 08:56:20 pmAgreed; that's why I wrote 'pompous' and 'full of shit' (although self-important or something like that might be more descriptive).Another way to put this is that a bit of ridicule and "shit-slinging" forces humans to consider their own actions and words from more than one angle or viewpoint. Politicians and people who believe themselves to be authorities, really don't like it. Yet, it is effective.Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 08:56:20 pmI vehemently disagree, exactly because it is the arena of discussions that is at the core of the downwards spiral in science.In the universities, students are increasingly reaching for authority: that is, the presenter of the message is more important than the content of said message. You cannot have a meaningful discussion with such people; those people are lost. However, show how ridiculous that position is via mockery, andothers– those not as far nor as stuck in that stance – might still change their stance.At the very core, the question "from who are you going to accept criticism" isimproper(in the scientific or mathematical sense; inaccurate or erroneous): the person posing the criticism should not matter at all, because it is the contents of the criticism – we're talking about science and engineering here – that matter. I must answer "from anyone and everyone; it is the contents of that criticism that matter to me, not the person who offers it". I mentioned earlier that I have somewhat of a Popplerian stance, referring tocritical rationalismandfalsifiability. Only accepting criticism from a "recognized authority" is quite horrible to me.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 04:45:05 pm
content: QuoteI never suggested to listen only to a 'recognized authority'. The question is: do you accept criticism from someone with far less knowledge about a subject c.q. didn't study the subject as deeply as you have. I think not; you'd be educating such a person for the most part.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 04:55:59 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2022, 04:45:05 pmAgain: it is improper to examine an argument based on the presenter. Only the content of the argument itself matters.Therefore, yes, I accept rational criticism from anyone and everyone. This is a key point in "popplerian"falsifiability. The person providing the criticism is irrelevant, as only the content of said criticism matters. For a theory or argument to be useful in practice (predictive and testable), any rational argument or experiment that can falsify it is equally valuable, no matter who presents the argument.I intensely dislike social manipulation, because that is the tool a manipulator can use to push forward an irrational argument. Yours, that the "knowledge level" or "authority" of a person should somehow affect whether their argument should be worthy of being heard, does actually horrify me: it is the sort of social manipulation (or logical fallacy, take your pick) that irrational people use, instinctively, to counter rational thought.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 11:35:01 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 18, 2022, 04:55:59 pmWhich falls apart when the presenter doesn't know enough about the problem at hand to make a good argument in the first place. Actually it doesn't matter whether you dismiss the presenter or the argument; it is one and the same really as the argument is based on the knowledge level of the presenter.You keep circling back at social manipulation but that isn't the issue here at all. Manipulation implies lies & deceit; a deliberately false argument.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 01:12:00 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2022, 11:35:01 pmThat is your unfounded assumption that has no basis in reality.In reality, many good arguments have stemmed from someone not at all versed in the domain putting forward a suggestion, or shown an example that disproves the proposed argument.Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2022, 11:35:01 pmWhat? That is ridiculously incorrect. You do not need the knowledge level of the person who constructed a theory or model, to prove it false.Since rational arguments do not seem to matter to you, let me describe physically possible practical example.ConsiderGoldbach's conjecture(that any even whole number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes). A fledgeling programmer uses a 64-bit random number generator and a prime sieve implementation they implemented as a learning exercise, and by sheer luck, happens to discover a number that disproves Goldbach's conjecture. All they need to do, is to present the number.See? They do not need any kind of background in number theory. The worth of their contribution is not dependent on their knowledge "level" at all.This may sound like nitpicking, but in reality, this is a big factor in how science is advanced: theorems often get falsified by accident, often when someone simply attempts toapplythe theorem without having any deeper knowledge on the subject domain, and simply encounter a case that falsifies the theorem. (This is often continued by someone with sufficient domain knowledge discovering the reason exactly why the theorem or model did not work, and developing a new one. While the "domain experts" are needed to further science, not everybody positively contributing to science needs to be a "domain expert".)Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2022, 11:35:01 pmI disagree. Looking at the abstract of the article in question, sentence by sentence, shows that it has been designed to evoke feelings and surprise in the reader, while using wording that can be understood in more than one way. I've also already shown two cases in the abstract, where plural was deliberately used when the actual matter was singular:oneearlier article,oneorder of magnitude.This is not common in articles that have scientific merit. The abstract is supposed to be clear and straightforward, unambiguous. The purpose of a scientific article is to show, reveal, express; not hide and subtly elevate their authors by using ambivalent language as to what is actually being described. There are only two cases how ambivalent language may end up in a scientific article: by accident, because the author lacks sufficient language skills; and by design. There is nothing in the article that indicates the authors have any issues with the English language, and being from Stanford, they most definitely have scientific writing classes and advisors to help them; therefore, the second possibility, this misleading being by design, is the likely one.Have you noted that none of your arguments actually specify any basis for your beliefs? You just state your opinions as if they were facts, without any kind of attempt to even consider the arguments I've presented. It is becoming frustrating, like arguing with a brick wall. (That said, I'm not posting these here for you, but for the other people now or later reading this thread. I am trying to avoid posting my own opinion, and instead post the reasoning behind those opinions. That way, those others can compare their own reasons, do their own research, and use rational thought instead of belief in authority to form their own opinions, and act accordingly.)If I had to guess, you're just angry at me, and want to play some kind of a social game to "catch me" in some kind of an error, and the actual matter at hand is irrelevant to you. That is what it looks like to me, anyway. Unless there is some newrationalargument instead of a list of assertions, I don't see any reason to participate in this kind of social game any further.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 06:14:13 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2022, 06:10:04 pmIn this case you can "disprove the claim" by simply reading the article headline. They claim it might reduce oreliminatethe need the battery storage. You aint going to do that with 50mW. It's just laughable. Extra laughable that the media picked up on it.You can not think there is value in just laughing at this kinda marketing wank, and that's fine, but it's demonstrably true that a lot of other people enjoyed it and found entertainment value in it, and maybe even some technical valu too. Currently 79,700 people in fact, with a 98.4% thumbs ratio, which BTW is on par with or even slightly better than my average thumbs ratio.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 06:32:41 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2022, 11:35:01 pmThe risk here is the mischaracterization of the "level". How do you know who is the "true expert"? Formal education, for example, greatlycorrelates withbut does notguaranteethe capability of being right in some technical question. Real world technical problems are also notoriously hard and multi-faceted. Some who think they are true experts on that field might just hastily give a quick answer without much thinking, and get it wrong by accident; if you had a good, lengthy discussion with them, the result would totally change.And, if the question istrulyeasy for the expert, then it should not take long to educate others with actual technical arguments, no?As an expert who is almost always right (the secret: I don't make shit up, I just don't post if I have no idea what I would talk about!), I do understand the frustration that goes into having to explain it over and over again. But if you can't do that, then you don't deserve the "expert" status, IMHO. The status is something you need to keep proving every day; and if you do that, then you will see the status itself is secondary, everything falls back to the actual facts being discussed.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 09:34:01 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 19, 2022, 06:32:41 pmHow do you know a true expert?That is a seriously though question to answer. Formal education is not the definitive answer. You just have to look how well a story holds up, how it is backed up and use common sense. In the end science is truth by majority (not just people but also repeatable experiments that provide irrefutable proof).Example1:A while ago somebody pointed me to a video about the benefits of no-carb diets. That video showed a neurologist as 'the expert doctor' and their proof was a bunch of people that ate & drank nothing else but cardboard-food & soda and suffered from several health issues. Ofcourse their health improved when they started eating vegetables. And a neurologist isn't a dietitian so what does this guy actually know about diets? With the WHO recommended diet in mind it is clear to me that this particular video is to be disregarded because it provides no conclusive evidence to back the claims made.Example2:Another video that got forwarded to me from a worried friend. This time about cleaning glasses in hotel rooms trying to convince people glasses in hotel rooms are dirty. At some point the lady narrating the video is exclaiming 'look, they are spraying something on the glasses from a bottle that says -do not drink-'. My immediate question: wouldn't that be soap in that bottle? At least they wash the glasses with soap so what is the deal here?Example3:Experts can overlook things as well or suffer from tunnelvision. Somebody had been working to test part of a PhD thesis which was found very interesting by various experts in the field for a couple of months but kept failing. Time was running out so I took it back to basics and -after a couple of days of pondering & analysing- I had to conclude the idea could never work. Much to my own surprise BTW.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 09:47:47 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 19, 2022, 01:12:00 amI don't have to catch you because when you can't convince someone of your POV you always Pavlov into 'it must be a social game'. That is your blind spot.Basically your point is that someone can stumble onto a scientific breakthrough. But ask yourself: how is this breakthrough acknowledged? The way I see it, this is always through validation by experts in the field through experiments / math that validate the discovery. And maybe with the person that did the discovery being recognised as an expert in the field. And I think that is also the point you are making but formulated differently. My additional point however is, that such a discovery will need to be presented in a way that it will be taken serious by the experts in the field. For a relatively simple problem like a numerical mystery, the numbers will speak for themselves (litterally) but how to disprove or prove something like a hyperloop system? You'll need to do a serious amount of work to put a compelling argument together and thus become very knowledgable in the process.BTW: I have not been able to find that Goldbach's conjecture was disproven using Google. Either this was very recent or people are still working on validation and it has not been accepted by the scientific community.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2022, 05:05:20 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 19, 2022, 09:47:47 pmPerhaps. Or perhaps it is just that common; especially by members like yourself who counter rational arguments by restating their own beliefs as if they were facts, or mischaracterise others posts into something they can actually attack, instead of arguing rationally.You still haven't stated any basis for your claims based purely on your own opinions, you just state them as if they were facts.Have you ever considered that doing that might actually be a form of social manipulation? I do not believe you do it knowingly, because a big part of being a social human is to play, effectively, such social games: people do it intuitively, and must consciously choose to not do so (which is a big part of technical and scientific writing). Observe any group of humans interacting for any length of time, and you will see cases where "social gaming" occurs,and the whole group suffers from it. This does not mean all social games are "wrong"; indeed, they are necessary for hierarchical social interactions. What I do rail against, is these same – effective, and thus instinctively learned and applied – methods applied to avoid a rational discussion, degrading it into a simple social game, losing the rational content.When I want to play social games (and I do, being a social human), I do it face-to-face. The information bandwidth in online discussions is too low to make it worth it to me. So, when I participate in discussions, I want that discussion to berational; and a key part of that is ignoring the opinions themselves, and instead discuss and compare thereasonsbehind those opinions.You do not, you simply state your opinion as if it was a fact. Do you see how that makes me think you are not interested in a rational discussion, and instead want to play some kind of a social game? All the evidence in your postings point that way.Quote from: nctnico on April 19, 2022, 09:47:47 pmNo, it isn't.The key is, to repeat this for the third time now, isfalsifiability, a crucial tool in scientific work first described byKarl Popperin 1934. (Ignore my typos when I write that as "poppler", the latter being a PDF library I've used so often my fingers insert the letter L automatically when I try to write "Popper".)To simplify, making a discovery ("scientific breakthrough"), be it a theory or a model, is only a relatively small part of the whole.Falsifying(attempting to falsify) theories and models is how they can betested. The former does require a lot of domain knowledge, but the latter does not; and because I have a Popperian bent, finding falsifiability an extremely useful tool in science, I consider the two roughly equally useful.It is extremely rare for people to discuss their discoveries in online forums or mailing lists. However, it is quite common for people to discuss possible falsifications of theories and models in online forums and mailing lists, and other informal contexts. A common example in Physics would be the domain where Newtonian model is no longer applicable, and one needs either general relativity or quantum mechanics instead, to describe the phenomena accurately enough. This is a practical example of why falsifiability is so useful, and why criticism does not necessarily require much domain knowledge at all.You could also consider it one facet of why having practical experience is so useful. That experience contains a lot of data points that can be used to falsify incorrect assumptions; with those data points rarely occurring to those who deal with the theoretical side only.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 02:31:05 am
content: The link to the article in Dave's initial post now requires payment to read the paper. I only noticed because I saw this article on the ABC online news website here in Australia.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-17/australian-researchers-show-solar-power-can-be-generated-at-nigh/101070388But this news item would lead the ignorant reader to think some breakthrough is possible that would lead to night "solar" becoming useful for large scale power generation. I wanted to take a second look at the Stanford paper because I didn't recall it mentioning a diode in the mix as this article does.I wanted to point the writers of this "news" to the Stanford paper. I don't know why, but I'm still going to feedback to them I think it was poor journalism.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 03:54:00 am
content: Not following on from the last reply, but more a comment on some others which seem to assert that this is something new, sinister, & somehow "green".I remember reading articles quoting research into the possibility of Atomic powered cars & aircraft, back in the 1950s, (yes, I was a geeky kid), many predicated on the "imminent" development of lightweight shielding materials, which never happened.One group wanted to make atomic powered watches----quite achievable, but again bedevilled by the "lightweight shielding" problem.These things had serious money spent on them.The continuing touting of various materials as "4 times stronger than steel" Yada , Yada, Yada, has been going on since that time period, too!We have since had such delights as "Cold Fusion"!

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 04:27:56 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 17, 2022, 03:54:00 amAn atomic wristwatch has been possible for a long time without any shielding problem. Small atomic batteries which rely on alpha or beta particles have been used for decades in very special applications, like pacemakers. No special shielding is required. It is just not very practical compared to alternatives like lithium batteries.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 01:41:36 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 17, 2022, 03:54:00 amTritium batteries are not some alien technology. The problem is not in constructing such devices, but in usefulness of doing so: coin cells are cheaper per joule and may be stored for some time.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2022, 01:14:26 am
content: Quote from: golden_labels on May 17, 2022, 01:41:36 pmThis was the 1950s, so the radioactive sources may have been somewhat less refined.The current draw certainly would have been higher than a modern version, so a somewhat more "macho" "nuclear" cell may have been necessary-----no ICs, no LCDs.It would have been pretty much either a spring watch, with the cell driving a motor to rewind it, or something along the lines ofHamilton’s first electric watch movement, the Model 500, from 1951, that wasn't marketed in a watch till 1957.The option would have been attractive as there were no silver oxide, zinc-air or lithium button cells, (the first mercury button cells were developed for the Model 500)

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2022, 09:45:35 am
content: I consulted Wikipedia: and indeed I shifted the technology about 2 decades towards the past. So scratch that comment of mine.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2022, 12:36:25 am
content: bdunham7 has it right. Parents know this method; You, (at age 15), tell your parents you've gotten a JOB, now, and so...You want them to buy you a NEW CAR, as, see, you've got this 'JOB', see...And if you talk long enough / fast enough, parents won't notice, (that you work 1 hour per week, at$ 6 .50).Then...you call up the press, and announce:"Jack's parents are 'investigating' Jack's new job"......oh wait...

author: Jeanne Solis
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 09:31:49 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 15, 2022, 12:36:52 pmI appreciate your thorough analysis and the effort you've put into examining the paper and its references. It's clear that you have some reservations about the scientific merit of the study and its featured status in Applied Physics Letters.While I respect your viewpoint, it's important to remember that scientific progress relies on critical evaluation and open discussion. Peer review and constructive conversations are key in ensuring the quality and integrity of published research.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 10:57:25 am
content: Quote from: Jeanne Solis on May 16, 2023, 09:31:49 amAI. Chat. Bot. Response. Detected.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 11:41:27 am
content: Chatbot has a lot of work to do before it's ready to go up against the Animal.

author: Wasquez
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 29, 2023, 10:06:35 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 15, 2022, 12:36:52 pmEven though I agree with your arguments you need to make your tone less confrontational so it would look more like a discussion of a grown-ups

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2023, 10:28:16 am
content: Quote from: Wasquez on May 29, 2023, 10:06:35 amIt may be impossible for me. I am still trying to learn to do better on this front, but...I'd rather discuss with people who are able to handle that kind of confrontation, including others confronting myself if they believe it is warranted, because that (expressing emotion when important) increases the information bandwidth. Focusing on what a discussion "looks" like is too shallow for me; formality and formalism is just a tool for me, not a goal or value in itself. Content is key; appearance is secondary. Linear languages like written English are hard enough as is.Put simply, I believe it is sometimes important to change the tone, when others do not seem to understand the importance or weight on facets of the issue at hand. Even anger and swear-words can sometimes be warranted. When accidental, for example when someone else feels slighted, it helps realize the miscommunication, and hopefully correct it.Also, this forum has a facility to ignore posts by members whose output irks you. You can find it inProfile>Account Settings, thenModify Profile>Buddies/Ignore list...>Edit Ignore List. I use this to hide posts by members who I am unable to interact with in a mutually beneficial manner. Personally, even when in the midst of a heated debate with someone, I do prefer to try and help them in a different thread (completely ignoring the debate in another if possible. This is because like Dave, I too believe that even if someone has some silly ideas or misconceptions in some specific area, doesn't mean one should excise them from ones life completely. So, I tend to clear out my own ignore list every month or two, and see if my own attitude has changed.In the case of my output irking/annoying/seeming too unprofessional to others, I do hope they use that mechanism, instead of reducing their participation here.