dagblog - Comments for "Genius 13 year old has Solar Power breakthrough"

Stories about budding

wabby — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:47:12 +0000

In reply to Genius 13 year old has Solar Power breakthrough

Stories about budding scientists like Aiden are always fun to read and encourages hope that not all thirteen year olds are doomed to be mouth-breathing video game testers when they grow up. Good for Aiden! But, I do take exception to the writer Brent Rose's condescending treatment of the story. I mean, "genius"? Really? Probably not...and man, what a weight to hang around a kid's neck. And, "the little man himself reports". Awww, isn't that precious! The little man did a smart thing! Who's a goo-boy? Who's a goo-boy!

Aiden deserves respect and recognition for his scientific experimentation, not a belly rub. I hope he follows through with his research and discovers for himself whether or not his experiment was truly a breakthrough or just a step forward in his quest to gather scientific knowledge.

Well put, acanuck, I was

Verified Atheist — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:28:27 +0000

In reply to Actually, Ramona, the Gizmodo

Well put, acanuck, I was trying to find a good way of saying all of this. The idea is clever, but not a breakthrough. The kid should be encouraged, he's smart. (And nice finds by both PeraclesPlease and Ramona, of course.)

Actually, Ramona, the Gizmodo

acanuck — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:00:55 +0000

In reply to Genius 13 year old has Solar Power breakthrough

Actually, Ramona, the Gizmodo story you link to has virtually no comments from "science guys" debunking the kid's theory. It's all creationists saying, "Yeah, but who designed the tree in the first place?"

To find a scientific debunking, you have to go to the Atlantic blog PeraclesPlease links to. It's pretty convincing; the kid's array is not a breakthrough.

Which is not to say he isn't a smart kid with good instincts: if nature does things a certain way, you ask why and whether humans can learn from it. He deserves high marks just for the originality of his experiment, even if it didn't yield an increase in power.

There are big differences between trees and solar panels. Trees are fixed to one spot; each competes with every other tree for light, as does every leaf. That's why they try to outgrow each other, and present a maximum profile to the sun, whichever direction the light comes from. Humans position solar panels where shade is not a problem, ideally with a passive ability to track the sun. The tree and the panel are both trying to maximize energy collection, but they do so in different ways.

I totally endorse Peracles' other point: popular science reporting, like most of today's journalism, is a disgrace.

He saw something hiding in

Beetlejuice — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 02:01:17 +0000

In reply to BJ, do you think the kid

He saw something hiding in plain sight. It doesn't take much to emulate a tree branch. He saw something everyone else didn't see because of our heavy reliance on technology. Whereas nature is more elegant and subtle in her approach. From what I wrote earlier, I wonder if the total area of a tree's canopy is greater than the square of the area beneath it. Two-dimensional space is just x and y. Whereas a tree's canopy has the added dimension of depth or height. That extra dimension could be where the additional energy is captured. But like I said ... a botanist and an engineer need to revaluate the design and look for the efficiencies produced over the conventional flat earth model. One thing I think should be mentioned is his apparatus is sophisticated ... makes me wonder if he was getting some help from someone with cash and guidance. Just looked too good to be made by a rank amateur. And his drawings aren't up to the same level of sophistication ... it's as if they are holding back info which makes it hard to evaluate. I was expecting to see a drawing where the trunk, branches with leaves in relation to the sun so as to illustrate the area the assembly covered. Especially the way the solar cell leaves were positioned for maximum effectiveness. Lots of info missing.

Which assumes that

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:56:12 +0000

In reply to BJ, do you think the kid

Which assumes that 70-year-old scientists don't look at nature to compare how it works?

The better tack is to assume the media didn't properly evaluate a kid's experiment, and instead decided to sell newspapers through hype and non-reporting, the same way they do politics.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-debunks-13-year-old-scientists-solar-power-breakthrough/41520/

BJ, do you think the kid

Ramona — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:22:34 +0000

In reply to I was looking at the design

BJ, do you think the kid could figure it out because he was a kid? I mean, he hadn't had time yet to do the kind of studying that would become so complex there's no longer room for simple, obvious concepts. Studying a tree to see how it efficiently uses sunlight to make it grow isn't much different from Newton's apple and gravity.

I was looking at the design

Beetlejuice — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:47:46 +0000

In reply to Genius 13 year old has Solar Power breakthrough

I was looking at the design of the faux branches and leaf arrangements when a thought occurred to me ...

All solar arrays area laid out flat and angled to a point where the cells collect the most sunlight. That takes up a lot of space under which is not productive. It's a very flat, 2-dimensional approach.

Aidan's approach is mocking a living organism that uses it body to capture as much sunlight as is possible and ... in a confined area - that's a key point the 2-dimension arrays ignore. In other words, the trees uses it's branches to create a canopy surrounding the truck. Attached to the branches are the leaves which collect the light. What's even more interesting is because of the spherical shape of the canopy, more leaves are either directly or indirectly in-line with the sunlight so the light gather capabilities are dramatically increased. I suspect the leaf arrangement covers a far greater area than what we perceive which would explain why he was easily able to surpass the collecting potential of a 2-dimensional array.

It would be interesting to see a botanist and an electrical engineer work together to figure out the mechanics. Since the Fibonacci sequence is derived from nature itself, I suspect the efficiency is better than what we could possibly engineer by brute force on our own.