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Stanford Ovshinsky, Hybrid Car Battery Inventor, Has Died
another random user writes "Stanford Ovshinsky, a self-taught American physicist who designed the battery now used in hybrid cars, has died aged 89 from prostate cancer .
The electronics field of ovonics was named after Mr Ovshinsky, who owned over 200 patents and has been described as a '[Thomas] Edison of our age.'
He introduced the idea of 'glass transistors' in 1968, which paved the way for modern flat-screen monitors."
One of the great inventors. "Ovonics", amorphous-siliicon solar cells, batteries...
...my dad was a physicist at ECD (when Ovshinsky owned it) in Troy, MI back in ca. '70 and I was about 8 years old at the time. We used to go to his house for dinner and BBQs a lot and he would stock my favorite pop (strawberry Faygo) for me at his house. He was a very nice guy.
www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
How Violent Movies and Video Games Cause Violent Behavior
and
To Believe Otherwise Means You Are Insane
First we will dispel the pithy, nonsense arguments that are so often repeated in these debates. "Well, I play video games and I'm not violent!" So long as someone tells me this without following with "and if you don't believe me, I'll kick your ass," I can take them at their word. Now, of course, your anecdotal story about how you played "Grand Theft Auto" since you were in diapers and are now a pacifist does not constitute solid, scientific evidence. Just because you enjoy violent movies or games and are not violent does not mean that violent media never causes violence in anyone else. The next response, while it should be obviously fallacious to everyone, is that "millions and millions of people watch violent movies and they aren't violent!" Yes, that is true. It is also true that millions of people drink liquor and do not get liver cirrhosis. Does this mean drinking does not cause liver cirrhosis? Deniers also say that "violent video game sales have gone up while violent crime has gone down!" Again, liquor sales have drifted upwards since 1990 while deaths by liver cirrhosis have plummeted (http://www.gallup.com/poll/141656/drinking-rate-edges-slightly-year-high.aspx -- http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm ). Obviously, other factors are at play in these data. No rational person could deny that alcohol does not cause liver cirrhosis based on this logic, nor does anyone claim that 100 percent of people who play violent video games will become violent. There are many factors contributing to violence, and violent films, games and other media are some of those factors. They may not have a huge effect on violent behavior compared to other causes, but there is an irrefutable effect and it has certainly cost lives. The evidence shows that drinking while playing violent video games will increase your risk of becoming a violent drunk with a bad liver.
Furthermore, consider this statement by communications professor Henry Jenkins:
"According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure."
Now consider the same rhetoric shifted to a different topic. All of these data are factual according to the provided sources:
"According to [CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians] statistics, the rate of [lung cancer diagnosis] in the United States is at a [14]-year low [(from 1990 to end of data)]. Researchers find that people [diagnosed] for [lung cancer] typically consume less [tobacco] before [being diagnosed] than the average [smoker] in the general population. It's true that [people] who have [been diagnosed with lung cancer] in America have also been [smokers]. ...[21.5] percent of [males] and [17.3] percent of [females smoke]. The overwhelming majority of [people] who [smoke] do NOT [get lung cancer]. According to a [2012 World Health Organization] report, [one of] the strongest risk factors for [cancer] centered on [diesel fumes] not [smoking]. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/CA.2007.0010/pdf --
Mr. Ovshinsky is man much greater than Edison could ever dream.
News stories like these remind me that I've wasted my life.
Rest in peace, Mr. Ovshinsky.
Electric car is looking gloomier and gloomier :/
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Stanford R. Ovshinsky, "Reversible Electrical Switching Phenomena in Disordered Structures," Physical Review Letters, vol. 21, no. 20 (1968), pp. 1450-1453.
Maybe he should have studied medical science. *sigh*
Just to be pedantic, he invented Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries which happen to be used in most hybrids, but of course are used in a million other places as well.
RIP.
No text
Not dead ... just permanently discharged.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Seriously, where did Timothy go to school?
I worked for ECD for 3 years just before and just after Stan "left" (corporate code for "was forced out"). It was one incredible place and he was a pretty incredible guy. So many interesting inventions that unfortunately never really got off the ground. That was partly because Stan tried to treat each of his inventions as a thing to be nurtured, even when it was clear that they were either un-economical or ahead of their time and partly because he partnered with a lot of big companies that stole the stuff they wanted and buried the stuff they wanted buried. (Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/synopsis) Stan also had a knack for trusting that his employees had his back when they didn't and often went off on their own tangents. And the business was never what it was about for Stan. The money was just a way to keep inventing. Still, Amorphous Silicon for both sunlight to electricity AND electricity to light, dozens of CD/DVD patents (that Sony tied up so tight they could never be monetized), Nickle Metal Hydride batteries (that Chevron locked up), Phase Change Memory that nobody seemed to be able to make money at. Multi-State Phase Change Logic which was late in his career and maybe never got the attention it should have, a way to make buckets of hydrogen from almost anything organic and a way to safely store it in an auto fuel tank as a hydride. (ECD had company cars that were retrofitted Priuses running on pure hydrogen stored a s hydride). Stan was convinced that the Hydrogen economy was just around the corner. That is just scratching the surface. Brilliant, irascible, fun loving, generous, bull headed, curious, a know it all, in short a real human being. RIP Stan.
Only some two dozen posts about this over-hyped wannabe in the field of science and engineering?
I had thought the readers of slashdot were stupid and easily duped.
And all the professional physicists and engineers denied that amorphous semiconductors were possible for many years, even when confronted with evidence... See for example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9621164/Stanford-Ovshinsky.html
"In 1960, with his second wife Iris, a biochemist, he founded Energy Conversion Laboratories (later renamed Energy Conversion Devices, or ECD) at Rochester Hills, Michigan, to develop his ideas, and in 1968 held a press conference at which he announced that he had succeeded in making a "glass transistor" that relied on a principle which (with understandable immodesty) he called Ovonics. This breakthrough, he predicted, would eventually lead to desktop computers and television sets "hanging like portraits on the wall". The announcement made the front pages and ECDâ(TM)s stock (the company went public in 1967) soared. Within days, however, semiconductor engineers dismissed the idea and ECDâ(TM)s stock price collapsed. Most scientists had never heard of amorphous materials, and some rubbished Ovshinsky as a high school dropout and former machinist with no university qualifications. He was branded a crank. Eventually, though, Ovshinskyâ(TM)s theories proved correct, ushering in a whole new field of solid-state physics."
I can wonder if we'll see the same with so-called "cold fusion" (LENR)? Example:
http://pesn.com/2012/10/18/9602209_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_October18/
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds
"Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt,[1] published in 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought."
I've always found the story of Stanford Ovshinsky inspirational. He was like a more-well-grounded Bucky Fuller. Too bad about prostrate cancer; here is some advice on reducing the risk for those of us (males) who carry on:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/prostate-cancer-dr-fuhrmans-diet-advice-for-prostate-health.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.