Spiral Crystals

[ysabetwordsmith]

Researchers add a 'twist' to classical material design

They've discovered that crystals can twist when they are sandwiched between two substrates -- a critical step toward exploring new material properties for electronics and other applications.

Crystals are powerful. Spirals are powerful. This ought to be interesting.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

IIRC that's one of the steps to building optical logic crystal circuitry. That and lasers capable of producing circularly polarised light

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I did kind of wonder if the toddlers were getting too close to the blowtorch. But at least it's not graviton technology this time.

Re: Yes ...

[siliconshaman]

Welll... it's a couple of steps removed... but one of the stumbling blocks to building a true A.I is the fact that it would horribly energy inefficient with current tech, impossibly so in fact since waste energy = heat. It effect, if we tried to do it right now, we couldn't because it would fry itself unless it was something like 80% cooling systems, making it huge, clunky and vulnerable to failure much less sabotage.

Photonic circuitry is inherently more efficient, and thus less likely to destroy itself with it's own waste heat. Which makes building something that can out-think humans in a reasonable sized package rather easier.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Welll... it's a couple of steps removed... but one of the stumbling blocks to building a true A.I is the fact that it would horribly energy inefficient with current tech, <<

True.

>> impossibly so in fact since waste energy = heat. It effect, if we tried to do it right now, we couldn't because it would fry itself unless it was something like 80% cooling systems, making it huge, clunky and vulnerable to failure much less sabotage.<<

I don't believe in waste heat, or waste energy. You just route it into some process that needs heat and ordinarily has to burn fuel to generate that. Humans are juuust barely starting to work with cyclic factory chains where each one's waste is another's raw material -- and one of the things they're doing that with is waste heat or hot water.

>> Photonic circuitry is inherently more efficient, and thus less likely to destroy itself with it's own waste heat. Which makes building something that can out-think humans in a reasonable sized package rather easier.<<

True. It'll be interesting if humans realize they're overdriving their headlights with AI in time to stop before they wreck.

Re: Yes ...

[siliconshaman]

True, heat is not waste as such... but if your server rack is producing it faster than you can transport it away leading to your server cooking itself to death, than it's not terribly productive either.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You have two good options:

1) Use a flow system to drive an energy-absorbing substance (e.g. air, water) through tubing between the heat-generating parts, then exit into a different system that uses up that gathered energy so you can return cold substance to the energy-generating area. I'm betting a hot-running computer system could heat the building it's in, just as one easy example.

2) Build an exothermic-endothermic system. Sandwich layers of technology that give off heat between layers of technology that run on heat. Ex-en systems are highly efficient, because you only have to put in one fuel source to get two outputs. They are typical of higher levels of technology using thermoresponsive metals, crystals, etc.

You just need to figure out how much energy the first system will give off, in order to calculate what the second system needs to do in order to absorb and use it. Don't waste energy! It's always useful. Nature wastes nothing. Especially when the atmosphere is overheating but people are still burning things to make heat!

Re: Yes ...

[kengr]

We've actually gone *backwards* with regards to using waste heat.

Local power company used to have power plant at the edge of the downtown area. The piped steam to building for blocks around (half mile or more as I recall) so it could be used for heat and hot water.

In the late 70s/early 80s they decommissioned that plant. And all those buildings had to scramble to refit some other sort of heating.

I bet in T-America they'd have refitted it with better pollution controls and kept it going with maybe less power generated and a higher charge for the steam. Would have likely been a better solution for everyone.

Re: Yes ...

[nsfwords]

This is kind of where my brain immediately went, too.

If there would be massive amounts of heat created, we need that! Aren’t we literally burning coal to produce that heat right now?

So, an AI powered Power Plant instead of coal or nuclear? Obviously, we don’t know all the steps we’d need to create or retrofit to make that work, but it seems possible?

Re: Yes ...

[kengr]

I've often thought about ways to use this sort of thing in everyday situations. Have the waste heat from the fridge and AC used to preheat water for the water heater for example.

The big problem is that you have to design stuff from the ground up to do this sort of thing.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Or be good at jerryrigging.

Stove heating went from putting a container of water on or near the woodstove, to people welding a water tank onto the side, and only later did the stove makers start offering that as a frill and then for a while as a standard feature on a kitchen woodstove.

Contemporary things that are commonly jerryrigged include graywater systems and people putting their seed-starting trays on a rack above something that generates heat. Residual heat after the washer/dryer has stopped is often used for raising bread dough.

Homesteads are full of stuff like this because they can't afford to waste anything. Cityfolk think they can afford to be careless.

Re: Yes ...

[kengr]

Just had an image of a computer with a add-on water cooling kit where the heated water is run thru piping in a mini-greenhouse or a terrarium as part of the cooling process.

That'd give a nice addition to a computer desk.

Which leads me to wonder if there are LED grow lights?

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Just had an image of a computer with a add-on water cooling kit where the heated water is run thru piping in a mini-greenhouse or a terrarium as part of the cooling process. <<

Could also work with a tropical aquarium.

>> Which leads me to wonder if there are LED grow lights? <<

https://www.ledgrowlightsdepot.com/

Re: Yes ...

[acelightning73]

New York City's energy utility, Con Ed (Consolidated Edison) has generators in the city itself, and they produce a lot more steam than they use. (They burn natural gas, not coal or oil) There are steam pipes under the streets, and building-owners would purchase steam from Con Ed to heat their buildings. You sometimes see steam coming up from a manhole cover, or a big plastic chimney that lifts the steam above the traffic. Yep, we got (*clank clank* sssssssteam heat!)https://youtu.be/DsXi_P9T518?si=tuVBfk_7vFsdL8AR

[goatgodschild]

I confess that my first thought was toward magical applications of this, which would be interesting.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Me too. It would be hella powerful for technomagic. You can already buy jewelry, boxes, etc. made from expired motherboard or other chips. Such a thing with spiral crystals would be fantastic.

Or in Quorth, twisted qrystals, and that's how you make technology that doesn't crash around magic.

... damn, now I wonder if this type of technology would be more resilient around me in local-Earth!

Re: Yes ...

[acelightning73]

I know too many people who are anti-technomages (they make machinery NOT work). My son got my technomagery backwards - he can't keep an electronic wristwatch for more than a few months. He bought an analog wind-up watch, which hasn't crashed yet. And studying how magic and psi interact with spirally-dancing crystals would help us understand how best to use both together (something I've been trying to figure out all my life)

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I know too many people who are anti-technomages (they make machinery NOT work). <<

It's a disability that is rapidly becoming more serious as more things become electronic with no other options available, and all the worse when vulnerable signals are sent through air instead of insulated wires. Unlike other disabilities, it doesn't just affect the person who has it, but also the other people around them.

>> My son got my technomagery backwards - he can't keep an electronic wristwatch for more than a few months.<<

I found a nylon strap that goes between the watch and my skin. That helps. A plastic case enclose the watch also helps. Avoid metal ones. They're pretty, but fragile.

Re: Yes ...

[acelightning73]

My wristwatch has a nylon strap. Plastic straps that are molded to the watch case don't work for me - my skin breaks out in tiny blisters that burst and itch, and bleed when I scratch them. (I once had a stainless steel watch band, which pinched occasionally, but it's compatible with my magic. I just have to remove the nylon strap from the watch, and wash the strap vigorously. I did try to get my son to use a similar arrangement. But his father-in-law bought him a high-quality mechanical watch. (Not my circus, not my monkey. When the circus came to town, they kidnapped my monkey and he ran away with them.)