4 ms·

Isn't it amazing that "electromagnetic" had 21 upvotes (here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813103 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813103 ) saying "Th

by igorhvr 17y ago

Isn't it amazing that "electromagnetic" had 21 upvotes (here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813103 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813103 ) saying "The science is rather sound on this; ..." and then proceeding to try to justify why this seems right with a bunch of nonsense? Or was he joking as well? I can't tell for sure...

joe_bleau 17y ago
Good point--I couldn't tell either. After I replied and questioned some of his comments in that thread, I began to wonder if I'd been trolled.
jacquesm 17y ago
Not sure why you got voted down. Anyway, the problem with this particular case is that like most good hoaxes it is partially truthful. If I had to make a stab at how all this happened it would be something like this: Melanin really has some photo electric properties. They must have read that somewhere, decided to build a 'science fair' project around it. After figuring out they couldn't get it to work they may have been tempted to fake it (since that is pretty easy). The the press picked it up and they could no longer back out, maybe still believing that they could make it work, that they had just rigged the demo to cover the fact that somehow their implementation was faulty, instead of the basic principle. If Pons & Fleischman could fall for that temptation I'm sure a bunch of kids can fall for that. Same subject, after all. Cheap, free energy, the world a much better place and you in the spotlight. edit: what made me especially suspicious was the source (I would expect to read this in a different spot first, rather than the dailymail, which has a bit of a reputation) and the fact that hair is not a semiconductor, which is something you will need in order to direct the stream of electrons excited by the photo-electric effect. Without a diode at the most fundamental level in the circuit somewhere all the free electrons will simply use the path of least resistance to restore the balance.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Hair per se may not be a semiconductor but melanin, particulalry eumelanin (the melanin in darker hair) is! Indeed there's even been successful semi-c devices built using melanin. Such research a priori lends credence to this type of announcement. hair is a well structured layered tube and this could provide a good scaffold for the eumelanin - but it seems not sufficient to create a photoelectric device.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Indeed it is, but they claim to use hair, not to extract the melanin and use that. Hair is, in fact one of the best organic isolators.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      Not you again (lol!). When hair was mentioned as used in the device one thinks "bunkum" or similar. Then one learns that melanin is a semi-conductor and that initial thought is at least tempered with "they may have something of interest; if that device produces that output I'll eat my hat, but perhaps it has some output?".
electromagnetic 17y ago
I was having a little fun at others' expense. I never said it wasn't a hoax, but the science is there, but it isn't 'here' in the sense that it's usable today. I got upvoted talking about photosynthesis with no mention of photovoltaics in an article about a PV cell. Chlorophyll is currently being developed as a low cost dye in solar cells (the dye is the photoelectric material sandwiched in the middle that produces the electricity). Melanin itself is currently of interest due to it enabling the standard dyes (silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, etc) to capture electrons they shouldn't be able to, it somehow takes low-energy light (even infra-red) and kicks it up a notch for the standard dye to capture. Melanin in itself has a few amazing properties. It's apparently photoelectric right through from IR to Gamma rays, and also alpha, beta and neutrons produce the same effect in it. The IR and UV effects are the best features, making it an efficiency booster in existing solar panels by one means or another. The fact that it can potentially produce electricity through radiation has a whole other interesting factor to it, it creates the potential for a direct radiation->electricity just as solar cells have provided for solar energy (coal, oil and natural gas are just dead plants and animals that harvested solar energy a million years ago, wind is the thermal effect from solar, hydroelectric comes from rivers that came from rain that came from a heated ocean, etc). The two raw power sources we have are solar and nuclear (I suppose technically tidal and geothermal are raw sources too, but neither are developed enough), skipping the middle-men, so to speak, in the process is likely to be crucial in our future. Melanin photovoltaic cells could enable the direct harvesting of radiation to produce electricity from many sources. Either stray radiation in a nuclear reactor (basically as radiation shielding that makes you money), or as an alternative to RTG's, but currently its greatest use in this field could be harvesting energy from nuclear waste, both the thermal products and the ionizing radiation. It's also of interest for space, as ionizing radiation there is immense, the sun emits vast amounts of x-rays constantly, we're just buried under our planets radiation shields. The science is there for melanin as I said, but it'll likely take a lot of R&D before a melanin-based cell is on the store front, and it likely won't appear on its own to the general public as the uses of melanin-based cells are likely to be found where civilians are not (IE radioactive places or space).
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Ok, I buy it. You could have fooled me though ;) Konarka is one of the few parties that make dye sensitized cells today, you wouldn't happen to be working for them ?
electronslave 17y ago
A lot of people ignore common sense for platitudes. Sensationalist pro-greenwash caterwauling is just another trend among many that persists across generations, since before our modern era of lulz-inducing post-pamphleteers (Wells, Chesterton, etc.) HN isn't special, and it attracts all kinds. QED.

by igorhvr 17y ago

joe_bleau 17y ago

Good point--I couldn't tell either. After I replied and questioned some of his comments in that thread, I began to wonder if I'd been trolled.

jacquesm 17y ago

Not sure why you got voted down. Anyway, the problem with this particular case is that like most good hoaxes it is partially truthful. If I had to make a stab at how all this happened it would be something like this: Melanin really has some photo electric properties. They must have read that somewhere, decided to build a 'science fair' project around it. After figuring out they couldn't get it to work they may have been tempted to fake it (since that is pretty easy). The the press picked it up and they could no longer back out, maybe still believing that they could make it work, that they had just rigged the demo to cover the fact that somehow their implementation was faulty, instead of the basic principle. If Pons & Fleischman could fall for that temptation I'm sure a bunch of kids can fall for that. Same subject, after all. Cheap, free energy, the world a much better place and you in the spotlight. edit: what made me especially suspicious was the source (I would expect to read this in a different spot first, rather than the dailymail, which has a bit of a reputation) and the fact that hair is not a semiconductor, which is something you will need in order to direct the stream of electrons excited by the photo-electric effect. Without a diode at the most fundamental level in the circuit somewhere all the free electrons will simply use the path of least resistance to restore the balance.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Hair per se may not be a semiconductor but melanin, particulalry eumelanin (the melanin in darker hair) is! Indeed there's even been successful semi-c devices built using melanin. Such research a priori lends credence to this type of announcement. hair is a well structured layered tube and this could provide a good scaffold for the eumelanin - but it seems not sufficient to create a photoelectric device.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Indeed it is, but they claim to use hair, not to extract the melanin and use that. Hair is, in fact one of the best organic isolators.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Not you again (lol!). When hair was mentioned as used in the device one thinks "bunkum" or similar. Then one learns that melanin is a semi-conductor and that initial thought is at least tempered with "they may have something of interest; if that device produces that output I'll eat my hat, but perhaps it has some output?".

electromagnetic 17y ago

I was having a little fun at others' expense. I never said it wasn't a hoax, but the science is there, but it isn't 'here' in the sense that it's usable today. I got upvoted talking about photosynthesis with no mention of photovoltaics in an article about a PV cell. Chlorophyll is currently being developed as a low cost dye in solar cells (the dye is the photoelectric material sandwiched in the middle that produces the electricity). Melanin itself is currently of interest due to it enabling the standard dyes (silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, etc) to capture electrons they shouldn't be able to, it somehow takes low-energy light (even infra-red) and kicks it up a notch for the standard dye to capture. Melanin in itself has a few amazing properties. It's apparently photoelectric right through from IR to Gamma rays, and also alpha, beta and neutrons produce the same effect in it. The IR and UV effects are the best features, making it an efficiency booster in existing solar panels by one means or another. The fact that it can potentially produce electricity through radiation has a whole other interesting factor to it, it creates the potential for a direct radiation->electricity just as solar cells have provided for solar energy (coal, oil and natural gas are just dead plants and animals that harvested solar energy a million years ago, wind is the thermal effect from solar, hydroelectric comes from rivers that came from rain that came from a heated ocean, etc). The two raw power sources we have are solar and nuclear (I suppose technically tidal and geothermal are raw sources too, but neither are developed enough), skipping the middle-men, so to speak, in the process is likely to be crucial in our future. Melanin photovoltaic cells could enable the direct harvesting of radiation to produce electricity from many sources. Either stray radiation in a nuclear reactor (basically as radiation shielding that makes you money), or as an alternative to RTG's, but currently its greatest use in this field could be harvesting energy from nuclear waste, both the thermal products and the ionizing radiation. It's also of interest for space, as ionizing radiation there is immense, the sun emits vast amounts of x-rays constantly, we're just buried under our planets radiation shields. The science is there for melanin as I said, but it'll likely take a lot of R&D before a melanin-based cell is on the store front, and it likely won't appear on its own to the general public as the uses of melanin-based cells are likely to be found where civilians are not (IE radioactive places or space).

jacquesm 17y ago
Ok, I buy it. You could have fooled me though ;) Konarka is one of the few parties that make dye sensitized cells today, you wouldn't happen to be working for them ?

electronslave 17y ago

A lot of people ignore common sense for platitudes. Sensationalist pro-greenwash caterwauling is just another trend among many that persists across generations, since before our modern era of lulz-inducing post-pamphleteers (Wells, Chesterton, etc.) HN isn't special, and it attracts all kinds. QED.