Quantum Ratchet

[Freecare Spiritwise]

This is potentially huge.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/ ... -ac-to-dc/

[Ddrak]

"Similarly, the magnetic field the researchers used was 7 teslas"

Holy fuck! I used to play with a 0.1 tesla permanent magnet. 7 teslas would be madness!

Dd

[Arathena]

"Similarly, the magnetic field the researchers used was 7 teslas"

Holy fuck! I used to play with a 0.1 tesla permanent magnet. 7 teslas would be madness!

Dd

I've dicked around with a 3 Tesla Cryomagetometer. The Inverse Square Law is your friend. Also, I don't know if it was something they used in the construction that was coming off in the heating, something being generated in the airgap under that much EM field, or the field itself, but I swear I could smell it.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

You guys know more about the physics side than me, but I was thinking of the ramifications for AC/DC converters. When Tesla gave us a world of AC, just about everything in our houses ran off of AC, and now that's not the case. Seems like most of what we do with AC is just convert it straight to DC. Seems like a super efficient way of doing that would be a huge boon for mankind and solve one of our biggest energy problems.

Give us a world without those clunky power bricks plzkthx!

[Arathena]

You guys know more about the physics side than me, but I was thinking of the ramifications for AC/DC converters. When Tesla gave us a world of AC, just about everything in our houses ran off of AC, and now that's not the case. Seems like most of what we do with AC is just convert it straight to DC. Seems like a super efficient way of doing that would be a huge boon for mankind and solve one of our biggest energy problems.

Give us a world without those clunky power bricks plzkthx!

... well, then. I'm starting to see how some things can be done, but it depends on a lot of things - if I understand the science correctly.

1: You will probably need a very, very strong magnetic field to distort the electron lattice - with enough airgap to accomodate the 2 dimensional lattice structures in (parallel) bulk. When we build a high-powered magnet for tools like scientific measurements, MRI, etc, the reason that we use electromagnets is that it's the only currently known way of creating a powerful field over a significant airgap. But that might be soluble, if you only 'really' need 1-2 Tesla with the appropriate materials but you'd still need a mostly empty power brick to protect the environment from it, or else everything ferromagnetic within so many inches will want to pop up and hug it and squeeze it and name it George. If your powercord latches on to your fridge or car door for eight tons of pull, you have a problem.

2: Field resonance. More DC current is going to require higher frequency AC - it's the nature of a ratchet - a given volume of ratchets will generate current in direct proportion to the frequency of the AC field supplied. An exahertz current is going to be non-trivial to supply. Better materials may help with this.

[Raelesyn]

I made a light bulb light with a potato once...

[Ddrak]

The Inverse Square Law is your friend.

Except inverse square doesn't apply on magnets with a small-ish gap between poles. Fishing ball bearings out was... tough.

Dd