Clean drinking water with solar energy!!

From basurillas.org

There are, of course, many different methods to clean drinking water. One is with the so-called “Solvattendunk” – an invention by the Swedish artist and inventor Petra Wadström – which makes it possible to fetch, store and purify drinking water by the help of solar energy, requiring no electricity from batteries or mains. Read more about how it works here or here.  

Solar Roadways!

Check this out! I am not sure if this will become competitive (cost) with current cement and concrete roads, but it is a pretty cool idea.

Samsø - a Danish experiment

From EDIN - Energy Development in Island Nations

Have you heard about the Danish island Samsø?
Less than two decades ago the residents living on the island were entirely dependent on oil and coal imported from the mainland.
Today, however, 100% of their electricity comes from wind power and 75% of their heat comes from solar energy and biomass energy.
Read more about this interesting danish experiment here!

Curling Physics

To cool down from this hot weather, let's look at the physics of curling. While it may appear as though you just lob a rock down some ice and then sweep like your life depended on it, there is a lot of physics involved--and not all of it is well-understood. Check out this video to learn more!

Solar Art!

Night Garden by O*GE Architects. A Solar Artworks' project.

One ill-considered argument against solar energy is
that it is ugly and takes up a lot of space. As with all new technologies we need some time to adopt and get used to the solar technology.
The more common as an energy resource it becomes, the more integrated and natural part of our society it will be. Concepts like solar architecture and solar artwork already exist and are most likely here to stay!

Solar powered art is not only an amazing combination of art, architecture and science, but takes also an important part in increasing public environmental awareness.

Have a look at some great solar artworks here and here!

Balloon Momentum

What happens to helium and air-filled balloons when you speed up or slow down? Check out this video to find out and learn why?

This is similar to the difference in behavior between electrons and holes in semiconductors. Holes are an absence of an electron (kind of like the helium-filled balloon, which is an absence of mass). Electric fields accelerate electrons and holes in different directions due to the presence or absence of negative charge.

How are theory, experiment, and simulation related continued: a conversation

Hey, after the last post, I had a good conversation with a fellow graduate student/scientist from electrical engineering. With his permission, I wanted to post this discussion, since it illustrates nicely how theory and simulation interact within different fields (no pun intended this time, although he does work in applied electromagnetism/antenna design).

I enjoyed your blog post, and I'll post some thoughts on it later when I have more time!
I noticed that the title talks of simulations, but when you break research down into catagories, you instead use engineering.
(Simulations were lumped into theory.)
Granted, the theory/simulation/experiment breakdown isn't perfect or without overlap, but I personally think it's more accurate than putting engineering as a catagory.
"Engineering" to me is a process or tool, not a type of research

EE

Yeah. As I was going about it, I found it difficult to break down theory and simulations

Elizabeth Pogue

ahh, ok
Simulations use theory, that's true

EE

I think I might leave it as-is for the blog title. There are journals that just focus on instrumentation and engineering technologies and it is really distinct from the other two.

Elizabeth Pogue

Fair enough.
It hit me, I think why simulation and theory are different in my mind is that theory tends to build up more models and more complicated models
whereas simulations sometimes are built on repeated (and thus numerous and tedious) applications of first principles
This is a very broad generalization

EE

I think I know why we see different degrees of space between theory and simulation. For materials, you are already fairly close to first principles. You have theory that describes first principles but, that theory is often too tedious to totally do, so you end up doing simulations.

Elizabeth Pogue

The same is true for E&M: simulations usually are based on Maxwell's equations and derivations thereof

EE

True.

Elizabeth Pogue

Theory, such as transmission line theory, builds on that behavior to create larger, simpler models
There are usually assumptions or approximations built into theory, less so for first principles
It depends on the number and degree of approximations, of course
I think the difference I'm seeing could be between our fields
In my mind, theory is something that you can do on paper (possibly with a calculator) and get useful, practical results out
Whereas the theory you're talking about describes what happens, but may not always be directly and easily useful for predicting results or doing design
heck, even that's not always true
dunno
lol

EE

It is possible. If you look at something like density functional theory, you are making approximations about electron density inherent in the theory. It is based on quantum theory, but is generally still referred to as theory, not a simulation.

Elizabeth Pogue

Agreed
Simulation (or calculation) to me is number-crunching on more accurate models
Stuff you wouldn't do by hand

EE

That is why I was having difficulty clearly distinguishing them, other than saying, within theory, that simulations implement theory.
I agree with you on that.

Elizabeth Pogue

Yeah, that's a good point
simulation/calculation is a subset of theory
but given the number of researchers devoted to implementing such programs, it's really a realm of research distinct from theory
It builds off theory, but uses computer science (algorithms, data structures, etc) to practically model/simulate/calculate with said theory

EE

Yes. I changed it to say that generally simulations can't be done by hand, where theory can often be implemented by hand.

Elizabeth Pogue

Sure
And I'm sure physicists would nit-pick that definition too
Depends on your field, I guess!

EE

What is research? How are theory, experiment, and simulation related and what does research look like from those perspectives?

or or

Research a method of studying something. It is generally different from what is done in school, since often the outcome of the research is unknown. There is no Google to check if you are correct or not. There are no answers in the back of the textbook. You are generating new knowledge.

There are many ways to go about doing research. I will break it into 3 categories

Theory: Theory ideally predicts behavior. Models are simplifications that attempt to predict behavior. They tend to be general. Simulations are less simplified than models and similarly predict behavior. A simulation takes input parameters and then gives specific output parameters. They use many models. Models typically focus on specific phenomena, which, when taken together, can be used in simulations. Simulations generally can't be done by hand, whereas theories can often be implemented by hand.

Experiment: Experimentalists check the sanity of the theorists. They perform and devise experiments, taking into account many of the things that theorists ignore, to see whether theories have any basis in reality. Experimentalists must have a good understanding of theory in order to do this and also help to develop theories, themselves.

Engineering: Engineering uses elements of experiments and theory to create new things, which can then be studied. Engineering can allow experimentalists to do more experiments than they could do before. For example, without scanning or transmission electron microscopes, there would be much less nanotechnology research because there would be no good way to image things that small. Furthermore, really powerful computers must be engineered for theorists to do their computations and come up with new theories.

The lines between these approaches can be fluid or rigid, depending on what you are studying. For example, I engineered a high-temperature stage for some future experiments. I use theory to understand my experiments, although I have yet to formally come up with my own theories. An electrical engineer studying antennas might simulate an antenna radiation pattern, build the antenna, and then experiment on it.

Depending on the type of research you do (not necessarily what you study), your day can be quite different. When doing experiments in the lab, it is important for other people to be present for safety reasons, so a somewhat regular schedule is required. Some theorists have been known to do their best work at 3 AM, which would be difficult to do safely for an experimentalist in a smaller lab (although data analysis can generally be done at any time). While I rage over signal noise, bad statistics, imperfect mixing, thermal expansion, or irreproducible growth conditions, a theorist might rage over slow computations, programming bugs, or a program not compiling.

What are your experiences? What are your biggest frustrations? What does your typical day look like?

The Solar Cell Turns 60!

An advertisement for the Bell Solar Battery in 1955.

Sixty years ago, the 25^th of April 1954, the first practical solar cell was presented to the press by the Bell Laboratories. Read more about the solar cell history and the inventors of the Bell Solar Battery; Gerald Pearson, Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller.

Why do scientists receive multiple-year grants when many other things are reviewed each year and funding is given out for smaller time intervals?

When you are focused on your work, what happens when someone distracts you? You may lose your place in a book that you are reading. Your understanding of what you read may go down because of the time interval between reading one section and another is lengthened and you lost your train of thought. Say you were eating and had to run out to do something with little warning.The food could go bad (if you can't preserve it) and you would need to get new food when you finally sit down to eat again. Ultimately, you can't get as much done or help as many people.

This is what happens in science. Researchers are forced to do different things and can become "rusty" on what they had been doing. When I say "do different things", I do not necessarily mean that they would just do more research. Researchers are not able to take on as many projects and train as many students. This has ripple effects across generations. On a shorter term, researchers can't just resume the research that they had stopped. The students previously working on projects graduate and the flow of information between senior to junior students is stifled. It costs money to re-train students on topics. Reagents go bad and need to be purchased again, adding additional expense.

Also, scientists are required to report on their progress and their programs do come up for review just like other programs.

Who's down with entropy?

If you don't want to dance your science you could try to sing it. Here's a song about entropy.

Entropy is a property of a thermodynamic system. Within this project we're some researchers that focus on developing models that can be used to predict thermodynamic properties of CZTS materials. If you're a scientist within physics you will probably find this song funny. If it has potential to entertain larger audiences is perhaps more questionable...