The analogy in the article is technically correct. The atoms are actually "seen" in "color" by the microscope. Photons of light have an energy associated with them. For instance, blue light has a higher energy than red light. Sometimes when an electron scatters off of an atom in the sample, these electrons will lose a specific amount of energy which is related to the type of atom that they scattered from. If an electron looses allot of energy then it can be represented as blue while an electron which loses very little energy can be represented as red. This is similar to how we call photons of light at 450nm as blue and photons of light with 625 nm as red. So imagine that you see the world only in black and white. The brightness of an object is based entirely on the amount of light that is reflected, transmitted, or emitted by that object. This is how conventional electron microscopes normally create their images. However if you start discriminating the photons of light according to their energy now you can start assigning real colors to the objects in the world around you. This new microscope built by Nion can discriminate (at very high resolution) the energies of electrons that pass through a sample. In this way they can assign "colors" to the atoms in the sample.
Guys don't you get it? This stuff is like a battery that the car carries around but isn't rechargable. The idea is you pull into a gas station which is more like a grain hopper and pour rocksalt sized particles into your "gas tank". Then you add water in controlled amounts so you only extract as much hydrogen as you need. This is actually one of the better solutions for creating hydrogen on the fly so you don't need to store that pesky gas.
As for using electricity to produce the stuff? Have any idea how much electricity is lost just in sending it over the high voltage lines and at substations and power transformers which then send it to your house? Something around 20% or more electricity is lost just moving it around the electrical grids. This is a good idea and look for other variations of it coming out soon. The only problems I see are that long term storage and transporation of a substance which will react with water in the air. Imagin if a truck carrying a load of this stuff crashes during a rainstorm!
As a massiv fan as well who listened to all the pod casts....
It is good the show is ending soon. It didn't sound like Ron D Moore had the plot well outlined other than the barest of rough sketches. The show seemed to be written on the fly, in some cases poorly managed, and hence alot of problems cropped up which really reduced the show's quality. Maybe thats just the way it works....
Hope Heroes doesn't go down the same road....
save the cheerleader
Slashdot Mirror
The analogy in the article is technically correct. The atoms are actually "seen" in "color" by the microscope. Photons of light have an energy associated with them. For instance, blue light has a higher energy than red light. Sometimes when an electron scatters off of an atom in the sample, these electrons will lose a specific amount of energy which is related to the type of atom that they scattered from. If an electron looses allot of energy then it can be represented as blue while an electron which loses very little energy can be represented as red. This is similar to how we call photons of light at 450nm as blue and photons of light with 625 nm as red. So imagine that you see the world only in black and white. The brightness of an object is based entirely on the amount of light that is reflected, transmitted, or emitted by that object. This is how conventional electron microscopes normally create their images. However if you start discriminating the photons of light according to their energy now you can start assigning real colors to the objects in the world around you. This new microscope built by Nion can discriminate (at very high resolution) the energies of electrons that pass through a sample. In this way they can assign "colors" to the atoms in the sample.
Guys don't you get it? This stuff is like a battery that the car carries around but isn't rechargable. The idea is you pull into a gas station which is more like a grain hopper and pour rocksalt sized particles into your "gas tank". Then you add water in controlled amounts so you only extract as much hydrogen as you need. This is actually one of the better solutions for creating hydrogen on the fly so you don't need to store that pesky gas.
As for using electricity to produce the stuff? Have any idea how much electricity is lost just in sending it over the high voltage lines and at substations and power transformers which then send it to your house? Something around 20% or more electricity is lost just moving it around the electrical grids. This is a good idea and look for other variations of it coming out soon. The only problems I see are that long term storage and transporation of a substance which will react with water in the air. Imagin if a truck carrying a load of this stuff crashes during a rainstorm!
As a massiv fan as well who listened to all the pod casts.... It is good the show is ending soon. It didn't sound like Ron D Moore had the plot well outlined other than the barest of rough sketches. The show seemed to be written on the fly, in some cases poorly managed, and hence alot of problems cropped up which really reduced the show's quality. Maybe thats just the way it works.... Hope Heroes doesn't go down the same road.... save the cheerleader