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Scientists Create World's Smallest Steam Engine
First time accepted submitter Virtucon writes "German physicists say they've built a heat engine measuring only a few micrometers across which works as well as a normal-sized version — although it sputters, they admit. Researchers at the University of Stuttgart and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems say that the engine does basically work, meaning there's nothing, in principle, to prevent the construction of highly efficient, small heat engines."
What was it Sheldon said on big bang theory, half the size, twice the fun.
"although it sputters, they admit."
Isn't that exactly what a steam engine is supposed to do?
air and light and time and space
They'll be building a minature train that will span an entire millimeter and haul milligrams of freight
...of millions of nano-ized steam engines swarming through my home, heating it, doing all the work --- and throwing it back into the 19th century. Hm. I'll consider growing a beard with whiskers, to fit into the picture. Hm.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Obviously no engineers involved in this job
We've developed the world's smallest steam engine, or to be more precise the smallest Stirling engine
That's kind of a big mistake. The /. car analogy would be like "eh, we built a car, or maybe a truck, whats the difference". Diesel or gas is actually too similar to be a fair comparison. Eh, I bought me a new computer, a PC, or maybe a mac, or perhaps a thomas the tank engine alphabet learning laptop, whatever, its a new computer, or maybe etch a sketch, i donno.
The article also has the most long winded intentionally obtuse explanation of brownian motion I've ever read. I think in this modern post 911 world or whatever pompous rot, if your writing sucks more than 10 units worse than wikipedia, you should be forced to just include a quote from wiki and be done with it.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
http://img.tgdaily.net/sites/default/files/stock/450teaser/science/smallest_engine.jpg
I mean, come on.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I also found this story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111211134002.htm
Nano-Steampunk Technology!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Afaik, even considerably larger miniature heat engines have significant problems, which are only recently being solved, but most of the existing research is on things more in the millimeter to centimeter range. I suppose micrometer engines might face different problems entirely, but quite impressive.
For example, a discussion of difficulties in building a miniaturized combustion-based heat engine:
Source: This paper (PDF, 2005)
And a working-in-simulation model of a 65 x 22 cm Stirling engine: from a 2008 paper
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Now all they have to do is build a boat at that scale so they can have the worlds smallest steamboat! You know it will be done eventually....
All I'm saying is if I was powering tiny machines, I'd look into an electric field or an external heat source (ex. human body), but now correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this require a constant input of water defeating the portability?
apply at the molecular (or less, grin, bonding)... and imbed as a construction material (including conductivity) in asphalt or concrete for power generation... free street light power... whole suit of things.
The article fails to quote an efficiency rating...are smaller heat engines more efficient than macro-scale ones?
This reminds me of the story The Planiverse by A. K. Dewdney (yes, I am aware he is now an outspoken 9/11 "truther", and no, I don't agree with him.) The story is quite good, it explores a lot of practical implications of living in a 2D universe (zipper organs, 2D war, common courtesy when walking over someone) including a 2D steam (or maybe internal combustion?) engine.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
Intel chips can power themselves!
JJ
When the Jeagermonsters have returned to Mechanicsburgh. Boom Boom Ba-Doom Doom Doom!
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
One part of the "engine" is apparently a laser beam. But the laser itself weren't measured in, as it's far bigger than a few micrometers. This kind of engine can't be used in a nanobot or in any practical application if it requires an external laser beam to work.
It has already been done before.
"The world can be saved by steam!"
This reminds me of a device by Sandia National Labs of a micro-electromechanical steam engine. Sandia's device uses resistive heating to vapourise the water and capillary forces retract the piston.
Anyone in-the-know care to comment on the relative merits and the relative scales?
Was it built to transport shipments of the world's tiniest violin to people everywhere? I know I can, I know I can, I know I can!
Just so you know, I call dibs on the term "nano-steampunk".
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
"...and it will carry two hundred passengers from New York's Idyllwild Airport to the Belgian Congo in seventeen minutes!"
The engine is little, alright. But is it a little engine that could?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Way back, Galileo figured out the very important law of scaling. Seems like we need a refresher course. Any heat engine is going to be woefully lousy at a small scale. The displacement goes down as the cube of the linear dimensions, while the friction and heat losses go down as the square. You don't need to get very small before the engine is chugging away and all its energy goes into friction and heat losses.
Did anyone actually read this story and notice that this is highly inefficient and not much of an engine. While it fits the definition of an engine thermodynamically, the process that they describe is not particularly useful. This is just an example of scientists doing their research and then noticing that they have met the definition for an engine and then promoting this fact in order to get press and increase their chances of funding down the road.
So does this mean Half-Life 3 will take a lot less disk space?
Max Planck [...] says there's nothing, in principle, to prevent the construction of highly efficient, small heat engines.
Except that heat engines aren't particularly efficient perhaps...
Except, maybe the Carnot cycle? In steam engines, small and efficient aren't used in the same sentence.
I notice they didn't include the laser apparatus in the size of their "microscopic engine" meh
When you follow the links to the source of the story it reads "Here we demonstrate the experimental realization of a microscopic heat engine" ... Quite a far cry from actually building one.