z_ack

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Comment · 2 years ago

Clickbait BS:

"If approved for use in devices like smartphones, future generations of the battery would ultimately remove the need to ever charge them, company representatives said."

The battery is around a cube centimetre , a microampere is 1 / 1'000'000 of Ampere (A), a smartphone needs between 2 and 3.5 Ah , even a single LED needs milliamperes ( 1 / 1000 of A), you can do the math. Still this crap is reposted again, again and again. At this point I'm sure, it is part of a campaign to deceive investors. Two companies tried to collect funds for this kind of batteries, one simply disappeared, the other is under investigation for fraud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M5MF6KE-jY

Anyway, what is the point of a 50 years battery to put inside devices people throw away after 4-5 years, top ? To produce more nuclear wastes in a world where people can't build nuclear dump sites ? It's hilarious if you think about it: apparently the same people that are against nuclear power plants, a technology able to save the planet reducing the fossil fuels consumption, find acceptable to put a nuclear source near their crouch to avoid phone recharges.

Comment · 2 years ago

I have a compliant : sometimes there a proliferation of anti-scientific posts, in example I can mention those related to the "50 years nuclear battery", I remember particularly one from techradar.com that was especially misleading and anti-scientific and more similar to a PR campaign then scientific information, they was stating che you can power a smartphone or a drone with a betavoltaic battery (millionth of Ampere ). This is only an example, I noticed similar article , often related to green energy with the same anti-scientific cut and sometimes anti-scientific is a euphemism. Could nice to have a way to report them , even for occasional readers like me. Often the same articles have approval posts that IMHO are bot made. we live in times where scientific fraud amplified by the media is becoming a serious problem and I think everyone should do more to stop the phenomenon.

Comment · 2 years ago

It's a bad idea for many reasons: - you are spending hundreds of millions for a prototype, on paper all works but in reality to build a reliable submarine you need peoples, experience, tests etc, to avoid something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion

this sub "only" reach -250m , but that it's anyway mattern of concerns;

- there are serious possibilities they don't delivery, not necessarily because it's a scam, but fore the same reasons of the previous point: technical problems requiring re-designing and re-engineering inflating the costs, burning budgets;

- the success in rescuing people trapped in a submarine is very low, because the environment, because the lack of related technology, experience, etc, see here for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submarine_and_submersi...

Onestly ? If I have all that money I go "classic" : tropical island.

Comment · 2 years ago

Following your reasoning an airplane can't be hijacked because it's difficult to operate: in reality you only need a gun to operate anything, in right circumstances.

Comment · 2 years ago

I guess like you do for airplanes: the fact a plane can fly don't make it immune to hijacking. Example: you wait the sub is in the port, is moored, etc

Comment · 2 years ago

PS: NASA , I really want to watch the mission live on TV, like my grandfather, so please don't make flying pigs.

Comment · 2 years ago

I agree, this reminds me RFC 1925 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1925), that states:

"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead"

I interested to this topic after watching this video related to a presentation of an engineer owner of Youtube channel in presence of NASA staff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU&pp=ygUZc21hcnRlc...

so I read the documentation and , yes , I agree.

Anyway, the NASA book he mentions is really worth to read.

Comment · 2 years ago

P.s. Reading patent details: "to prevent the at least one radiation from having any wavelength that is outside of the range can be provided or which can be substantially harmful to cells of the body". What means "substantially harmful" radiation ? That is harmful but not so much ? A little bit harmful, maybe? Tell me if I'm wrong, because, for me, if something can't damage anything is "harmless", not "probably harmless" or "not substantially harmful". That is the language of the lawyers or the sellers. They simply don't know yet.

P.S.2 What about photochemical effects ? You put this inside a home and UVC start to discolor everything around. Besides piss off customers, could create serious legal problems to the seller. You know, damage to expensive furniture, paintings, etc.

Comment · 2 years ago

the answer is no, I was reading the linked documents and:

1. yes UVC of that frequency kill virus but they don't provide results about human safety, the say "potentially": "Germicidal ultraviolet light, typically at 254 nm, is effective in this context but, used directly, can be a health hazard to skin and eyes. By contrast, far-UVC light (207–222 nm) efficiently kills pathogens potentially without harm to exposed human tissues."

2. A study on rats is linked, but it doesn't prove the human safety;

3. The author of the study is economically interested to exploit commercially that sterilisation technique. further reason to wait for serious verifications: “The authors declare the following pending patent: Patent Title: “Apparatus, method and system for selectively affecting and/or killing a virus”. Applicant: The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. Inventors: Gerhard Randers-Pehrson, David Jonathan Brenner, Alan Bigelow. Application #: US20180169279A1. Aspect of manuscript covered in patent application: Use of filtered 222 nm UV light to kill viruses URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180169279A1/en?oq=2020... “D.J.B has a granted patent entitled ‘Apparatus, method and system for selectively affecting and/or killing a virus’ (US10780189B2), that relates to the use of filtered 222 nm UV light to inactivate viruses. In addition, D.J.B has an ongoing non-financial collaboration with Eden Park Illumination, and the authors’ institution, Columbia University, has licensed aspects of UV light technology to USHIO Inc.”

4. Invisible light is dangerous, you can injury your eyes, without realizing it and, devices from unreliable resellers could hide more serious risks.

Comment · 2 years ago

Fake news: battery producing electricity using beta decay aren't a new technology, are arounds for decades, those devices produce electricity in order of micro ampere/h, 1 / 1'000'000 of ampere, currents, so small can only fit to niche application, like preserve the status of few bytes of RAM. A phone needs million of time that current not only to operate but even to have a detectable recharge level increase. So article stating they can power or recharge phones and drones are pseudo-science and fake news, I'm reporting this because I observed a proliferation of articles with the same topic, this "50 years miracle battery", without reference, scientific documentation, tests, any paper with scientific value :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38966352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38978085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38970438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38980963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38943144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38951104

maybe they are a scheme to deceive potential investors.

Comment · 2 years ago

maybe they are a scheme to deceive potential investors.

Comment · 2 years ago

maybe they are a scheme to deceive potential investors.

Comment · 2 years ago

maybe they are a scheme to deceive potential investors.

Comment · 2 years ago

1. absolutely no, the article talk explicitly of "phones and drones";

2. No, it's related to "phones and drones", I've explicitly written that this device make sense in niche application, microvolt application like "preserve the state of small amount of RAM";

3. I don't think the name matter, can be battery, generator, whatever: microamperes remain; Moreover isotope based battery isn't a new technology, you can buy these kind of battery from electronic industrial shops. EEVBlog on Youtube also did tests and debunking.

Comment · 2 years ago

I think you are trolling, but, in case I'm wrong, I explain the concept in other words: modern phones need a charger able to provide current to the phone battery in order of Amperes (A) the one is on my desk now is 5A and can charge the phone, let say, in 1h, to simplify, let say that we need less 1A for 1h. 1 microAmpere is 1A divided by 1'000'000 so, to fully recharge my phone with a microampere, I need 1'000'000h or 114 years, with 100 mA, only 1,14 years, 10% 1 month. And these are optimistic values. So what should be the use case of that bullshit ? Emergency ? I don't think so, better a solar panel. To prolong the daily life of the battery of 1 millisecond ? But reducing drastically the space for the real battery so you have a phone even with less autonomy. Is it laughable ? Again, applying the science and not magic or sci-fi you simply can not do a nuclear powered cellphone for day-by-day use, at least one with the same volume and weight of a modern smartphone. Maybe something 1m^3 x 200kg. Problem here is that Ark reactor and Unobtanium you see in movies are not possible and there is a magical undiscovered and ultralight material to shield high level of radiation. This kind of nuclear batteries are useful for niche application, to save the state of small memory amounts, etc and are not suitable to power cellphones or drones, this will never happen. What happen is there are lot of people confusing Marvel movies with reality and want to give real money to companies that simple produce scam. This could not be the case because I did not translate the Chinese webpage of the company, I suspect here the problem is the english article, but, if the translation is correct , no doubts , if they declare they can power the phone with nuclear batteries is a scam.