I have been with GE for > 30 years, almost all of it with Global Research (formerly Corporate Research and Development). I have > 90 issued US patents (latest was last Tuesday), about 35-40 non-US patents, > 20 US patents filed but not granted. Ours is one of the most primitive policies. We get about $275 after taxes for each US patent filed, nothing for non-US, nothing for granted patents. Every inventor gets the same award, whether single author, or 10 inventors (yes, we do have complex projects where 10 people vitally contribute to an invention), each one gets $275. Every 25 patents we get a free dinner at the annual awards, a plaque, and a bound volume of the last 25 patents. The dollar amount is virtually unchanged for last 25 years in dollars, and is steadily decreasing in real dollars. GE values and uses their patent portfolios highly. We have a licensing arm that promotes use of our patents, and sues (and collects from) infringers. Patent portfolios are very valuable in creating joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, etc. I have contacts with other research organizations, and have never found one that rewards the inventors as meagerly as ours. Even other GE divisions (medical, aircraft engine, etc) give more. It is pitiful. Your patent numbers are more valuable as a performance metric in getting a decent raise, than they are in providing direct monetary bonus.
The title is right, cat ownership is correlated with the lower heart attack rate in this study. So far so good. But the text inside states "that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third". Please, Slashdotters are better than this. This sentence implies that ownership causes the lower heart attack rate. This is NOT established. Some of the worst statistics occur in medical studies. If we take a group of 10,000 people and test them for 100 different characteristics, there is very likely to be two characteristics that correlate with 99% certainty. DUH!! That doesn't mean one implies the other. They may both be caused by a third factor, like bad teeth don't cause liver damage, but there are high rates of both in poor people. Or they could be randomly correlated in this test population, but will not show similar correlation in a different study.
The math is correct, but the physics is wrong. The paper makes the assumption that running 35 mph horizontally is easily translatable to 27 mph at a steep (55 degree) angle. A tiger is not an elastic body that can bounce off a rock at any angle without energy (velocity) loss. For the math to apply as it is written, it would have to assume that the tiger accelerated from 0 to 27 mph on a 10 yard long ramp elevated at 55 degrees. That is NOT what happened.
I am not saying that the tiger couldn't leap out of the enclosure, I am just saying that the paper does NOT prove this. Don't be swayed with lots of pretty numbers and formulae, use common sense to do a sanity check.
Each H atom passing thru the PEM causes one electron to go around the external electric circuit. Since the same H2 gas goes around in a circle, the same number of H atoms must pass thru the hot and cold PEMs. Therefore the same (average) number of electrons per second (= current) must pass thru the external circuits of both PEMs. You are pushing current into the cold PEM and getting current out of the hot PEM. They will not be exactly equal due to losses and system inefficiencies. So the hot end current will be less than or equal to the cold end current.
You make a good point of methods to implement this (series and parallel PEM circuits). If this were the method, then it would have been called out in the patent claims. But it wasn't. Therefore it is not the method used (unless he was a REALLY inept patent writer). Therefore I am at a loss to explain power gain, and (more than) somewhat skeptical.
I also mourned the debunking of cold fusion.
The way proton exchange membranes work is that the proton goes thru, and the electron goes around. Therefore each H atom contributes one electron at each end. Therefore the total number of electrons per second (current) is the same at both ends (or the hot end is less due to some unavoidable losses), because the same H atoms are continuously circulating.
If the current is the same at both ends, then the only way to gain power is if the voltage is higher at the hot end than the cold end. But I don't see how this can be the case for PEMs. I would like to see real data (which is sometimes shown in patents, but is not in this one). Hence my skepticism.
Issued 1 year ago, this patent describes this system in great detail. I am doubtful it can work. The electric current out of the hot end of the device is less than or equal to the current in to the cold end (since the H circulates and each passage thru either side consumes or generates one electron). To create more electric power out than goes in, the proton exchange membrane would have to create significantly higher voltages at high temperature than at low temperature. But I believe the membrane voltage is pretty much limited to the ionization potential of H, and that is not going to change significantly over temperature). Lonnie Johnson sort of weasel-words around this in column 4 lines 30-50 of the patent body. This glossing over of detail is, to me, the most damning evidence (I am a PhD physicist with 89 issued US patents).
Actually it is the dispersion that makes diamonds beautiful. The dispersion is how quickly the index of refraction changes with light frequencies. Basically a very high dispersion makes good rainbow effects. This is why leaded glass looks better than plain glass
To actually hold 5 to 10 times more energy, you must have 5 to 10 times as much active lithium (that is, Li which is available to partake in the charge/discharge chemical reaction cycle). You still get the same number of electrons from each Li atom, at the same potential. This implies that existing Li batteries have 20% of their volume (or mass, depending on our definition of energy density) containing active Li. I thought that the utilization factor was currently higher than that. Anyone knowledgeable on battery chemistry and construction care to comment?
You can steer hurricanes and tornadoes reliably and easily. You use a heavy lifter like an old B-52 and you approach the storm and drop mobile homes along the path you want the storm to travel. Anyone who has ever seen a TV story on these storms will understand the strong scientific basis for this method.
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I have been with GE for > 30 years, almost all of it with Global Research (formerly Corporate Research and Development). I have > 90 issued US patents (latest was last Tuesday), about 35-40 non-US patents, > 20 US patents filed but not granted. Ours is one of the most primitive policies. We get about $275 after taxes for each US patent filed, nothing for non-US, nothing for granted patents. Every inventor gets the same award, whether single author, or 10 inventors (yes, we do have complex projects where 10 people vitally contribute to an invention), each one gets $275. Every 25 patents we get a free dinner at the annual awards, a plaque, and a bound volume of the last 25 patents. The dollar amount is virtually unchanged for last 25 years in dollars, and is steadily decreasing in real dollars. GE values and uses their patent portfolios highly. We have a licensing arm that promotes use of our patents, and sues (and collects from) infringers. Patent portfolios are very valuable in creating joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, etc. I have contacts with other research organizations, and have never found one that rewards the inventors as meagerly as ours. Even other GE divisions (medical, aircraft engine, etc) give more. It is pitiful. Your patent numbers are more valuable as a performance metric in getting a decent raise, than they are in providing direct monetary bonus.
The title is right, cat ownership is correlated with the lower heart attack rate in this study. So far so good. But the text inside states "that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third". Please, Slashdotters are better than this. This sentence implies that ownership causes the lower heart attack rate. This is NOT established. Some of the worst statistics occur in medical studies. If we take a group of 10,000 people and test them for 100 different characteristics, there is very likely to be two characteristics that correlate with 99% certainty. DUH!! That doesn't mean one implies the other. They may both be caused by a third factor, like bad teeth don't cause liver damage, but there are high rates of both in poor people. Or they could be randomly correlated in this test population, but will not show similar correlation in a different study.
you have a supply of oxygen. Which Titan doesn't. If it did, the hydrocarbons would not exist.
to power the exoskeleton. Power is generated just where you need it, and you don't have to carry any big heavy batteries!
to power an exoskeleton. The power source is right where you need it and you no longer have to carry those heavy batteries!!
The math is correct, but the physics is wrong. The paper makes the assumption that running 35 mph horizontally is easily translatable to 27 mph at a steep (55 degree) angle. A tiger is not an elastic body that can bounce off a rock at any angle without energy (velocity) loss. For the math to apply as it is written, it would have to assume that the tiger accelerated from 0 to 27 mph on a 10 yard long ramp elevated at 55 degrees. That is NOT what happened. I am not saying that the tiger couldn't leap out of the enclosure, I am just saying that the paper does NOT prove this. Don't be swayed with lots of pretty numbers and formulae, use common sense to do a sanity check.
Each H atom passing thru the PEM causes one electron to go around the external electric circuit. Since the same H2 gas goes around in a circle, the same number of H atoms must pass thru the hot and cold PEMs. Therefore the same (average) number of electrons per second (= current) must pass thru the external circuits of both PEMs. You are pushing current into the cold PEM and getting current out of the hot PEM. They will not be exactly equal due to losses and system inefficiencies. So the hot end current will be less than or equal to the cold end current. You make a good point of methods to implement this (series and parallel PEM circuits). If this were the method, then it would have been called out in the patent claims. But it wasn't. Therefore it is not the method used (unless he was a REALLY inept patent writer). Therefore I am at a loss to explain power gain, and (more than) somewhat skeptical. I also mourned the debunking of cold fusion.
The way proton exchange membranes work is that the proton goes thru, and the electron goes around. Therefore each H atom contributes one electron at each end. Therefore the total number of electrons per second (current) is the same at both ends (or the hot end is less due to some unavoidable losses), because the same H atoms are continuously circulating. If the current is the same at both ends, then the only way to gain power is if the voltage is higher at the hot end than the cold end. But I don't see how this can be the case for PEMs. I would like to see real data (which is sometimes shown in patents, but is not in this one). Hence my skepticism.
Issued 1 year ago, this patent describes this system in great detail. I am doubtful it can work. The electric current out of the hot end of the device is less than or equal to the current in to the cold end (since the H circulates and each passage thru either side consumes or generates one electron). To create more electric power out than goes in, the proton exchange membrane would have to create significantly higher voltages at high temperature than at low temperature. But I believe the membrane voltage is pretty much limited to the ionization potential of H, and that is not going to change significantly over temperature). Lonnie Johnson sort of weasel-words around this in column 4 lines 30-50 of the patent body. This glossing over of detail is, to me, the most damning evidence (I am a PhD physicist with 89 issued US patents).
Actually it is the dispersion that makes diamonds beautiful. The dispersion is how quickly the index of refraction changes with light frequencies. Basically a very high dispersion makes good rainbow effects. This is why leaded glass looks better than plain glass
To actually hold 5 to 10 times more energy, you must have 5 to 10 times as much active lithium (that is, Li which is available to partake in the charge/discharge chemical reaction cycle). You still get the same number of electrons from each Li atom, at the same potential. This implies that existing Li batteries have 20% of their volume (or mass, depending on our definition of energy density) containing active Li. I thought that the utilization factor was currently higher than that. Anyone knowledgeable on battery chemistry and construction care to comment?
You can steer hurricanes and tornadoes reliably and easily. You use a heavy lifter like an old B-52 and you approach the storm and drop mobile homes along the path you want the storm to travel. Anyone who has ever seen a TV story on these storms will understand the strong scientific basis for this method.