Definitely interested in that video on meta-materials.

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for letting me know!

@TheWorldTeacher

2 жыл бұрын

@@SabineHossenfelder what’s your email address, Fräu?

@generrosity

2 жыл бұрын

Definitely interested in hearing your considered thoughts on meta-materials. It's interesting to hear how these technologies have evolved over time 💚👌

@gregbird295

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah a meta-materials vid would be great

@bestowicprimer8835

2 жыл бұрын

Pyramidal hose shaped rare earth magnets with meta material magnetic lenses ?

"So, I guess that means they sell a ... NON-existing method of energy transfer." Brilliant!

@ObjectsInMotion

2 жыл бұрын

I mean, they're not lying, that is *exactly* what they are selling! Good on them for being transparent!

@maurice_walker

2 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately, some of these startups are surprisingly successful in wirelessly transfering money from clueless investors into their own pockets.

@james5460

2 жыл бұрын

@@maurice_walker I once knew a guy who wanted to invest money in a company that promised to power cars simply by putting little windmills on the roof that would spin from the flow of air from driving. "All that wind is powerful enough to drive anywhere!"

@Randrew

2 жыл бұрын

I was *really* glad I'd already swallowed my gulp of iced tea before she said that. I only snorked out loud instead of drowning.

@Kenjuudo

2 жыл бұрын

@@james5460 hahaha that's great! :D

Sabine, I love your dry humor, delivered *almost* completely without any indication you're making a joke. The idea about tiny robots flying around to charge your phone, and the catchy name and website you'd need to become rich with it had me literally laughing out loud through nearly all of your ensuing spiel for Curiosity Stream. Keep up the good work!

@craigrussell3062

Жыл бұрын

I was looking for this comment! Germans are funny in the funniest way.

@dentonfender6492

Жыл бұрын

She makes great jokes that almost might go over your head if you are only casually listening while doing something routine in the home. The jokes wake me up, forcing me to listen a little more closely from then on to prevent missing them. Great technique by the speaker to raise attention to the speech preventing mental attention drift.

@charleslivingston2256

Жыл бұрын

"so it's good for charging alarm clocks and other things we don't use"

@bobosims1848

10 ай бұрын

I caught on to some perfect dry sarcastic ridicule in one of Sabine's videos. "Why not use it in a nuclear reactor? What could go wrong?" I love it when she does that. Absolutely brilliant! Were she to try stand-up comedy, she could make you soil your britches.

@johnallen7232

2 ай бұрын

Not too mention thumbnail.

I built a tuned coil, essentially a form of crystal radio, to power a LCD clock from a local 50kW am broadcast station. It worked fine 15 miles from the station antenna, and required a 3 ft diameter antenna. Impractical for lots of reasons, but I thought it was pretty cool that it worked at all.

@YodaWhat

2 жыл бұрын

Neat, and there you have the additional complication that the AM signal is not staying at a single frequency but is split into upper and lower bands around the center frequency, so it messes up the perfect tuning. Changes in temperature alter tuning too, and even humidity could also alter tuning, depending upon your capacitor. Glad it worked!

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

you could have used a solar cell the size of a dime, cost about 25¢, and would work in 1lux of ambient light TI and Casio have been selling solar powered calculators for about 40 years now.....

@reubennb2859

2 жыл бұрын

@@kenwittlief255 you realise that OP could power a clock from their mains power if they wanted to? It's just more interesting and original to use radio frequencies from a distant station

@jhoughjr1

Жыл бұрын

LCD takes such low power, in class we would comb bare panels in our hair and they would turn on and go opaque.

@jhoughjr1

Жыл бұрын

@@kenwittlief255 a coil is a hellofalot easier to make than a solar panel.

Metamaterials: yes please!

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback!

Sabine, there was a case in the UK some years ago. A man whose house was directly under an overhead power line set up a large induction coil in his greenhouse, and was able to provide most of the electricity his home needed for free. However, the power company was able to detect this relatively small drain on a national wide power grid, and he received a heavy fine in court. I understand that was electromagnetic induction, but it is a good story.

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

How was it detectible?

@HotelPapa100

Жыл бұрын

@@Anonymous-df8it excessive voltage losses on the line, probably showing a pattern as well.

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

@@HotelPapa100 But it's so small?!

@HotelPapa100

Жыл бұрын

@@Anonymous-df8it I am pretty sure that they observe power losses very precisely. And if a branch of their grid suddenly has higher losses than usual, they investigat.

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

@@HotelPapa100 I meant as in "It's probably smaller than random noise, so it won't be detectable even with the best instruments"

Yes on metamaterials. Also, a name for the robot insect charger company: Lightning Bugs

There was a farmer lighting his chicken coop wirelessly, but he was 1/4 mile from a 50,000 watt AM transmitter, using a 1/4 wave antenna ( apx 125 meters ) to a tuned tank circuit. Unfortunate side effects, a huge notch in the radio stations coverage and a high SWR at the transmitter itself. Still inventive and it was free energy, for him. Incredibly expensive otherwise.

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

^^ quite a story!

@deandrereichelle831

2 жыл бұрын

I grew up in a farm with electric fences, and I'd always get shocked by the most distant, random metal objects, just because there was that much metal. Maybe there's a golden opportunity harvesting electricity from bad wiring

@nicktecky55

2 жыл бұрын

Here in the UK, an engineer did the same thing. Only this was the main TV transmitter for most of London and a lot further out. He had wired an aerial into his loft. Which means the entire loft was configured as the aerial. BBC and ITV engineers found him after hundreds of complaints about a newly noisy TV 'experience'. Using RDF, they pinpointed the house. The guy was convicted of stealing electricity.

@CAPSLOCKPUNDIT

2 жыл бұрын

@@nicktecky55 At least he wasn't charged with battery.

@daveh7720

2 жыл бұрын

Farmers in the U.S. have tried stringing wires on poles beneath high tension power lines that cross their property to collect power to light their barns. That's still considered utility theft, and they end up paying a fine.

Totally love the dry humor. Actually laughed outload at "...like alarm clocks, and other things you don't use". 😄

@onedaya_martian1238

2 жыл бұрын

I think we can all appreciate Sabine's humour when we contribute to the crowdfunding of her nanobot company that carries energy to directly peoples devices. This will make her rich and famous !! ROFLOL. She's brilliant in more ways than one.

@darylbenson9682

2 жыл бұрын

My favourite was "still can't dry your hair underwater."

Little nitpick at 8:52 : The USB specification now goes way beyond 4.5W the newest versions go up to 240W. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power-related_standards )

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for pointing out, I hadn't known about this!

@Techmagus76

2 жыл бұрын

for theoretical physics that would still count as fairly within the limits ;-)

@edsnotgod

2 жыл бұрын

But thats imperialist measure, metric is more efficient

@TysonJensen

2 жыл бұрын

@@edsnotgod Watts are metric. The imperial(ist) unit is horsepower. So USB has increased from 0.006 HP to 0.32 HP of power delivery.

@edsnotgod

2 жыл бұрын

@@TysonJensen horsepower is typically won by burning copious amounts of diesel fuel in a 20 gallon Cummins engine

I stumbled across this channel from a curious question I was interested in and I am immediately hooked. The delivery of science, information in the driest of humor is hilarious. It’s perfect.

My stepdad built his first electronics project in the 50s, a crystal AM receiver that didn't require batteries. It used the energy of the AM signal to power the circuit and a tiny earplug for listening.

@ernestbean2998

Жыл бұрын

Crystal Radios, was the first project all radio enthusiast made

@reallyWyrd

Жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure the reason that is capable of working is related to the very low power requirements of such a device.

@KevinJohnson-fw8kv

Жыл бұрын

If you create a resonant circuit (like that crystal radio) and use it in the Mhz Range instead of Khz you can transmit a lot more power. Up to around 1kw. 10 Mhz antennas are not that big when coiled .... so you could easily fit it inside a phone case.

Sabine manages to discuss the modern state of wireless energy without bringing up Nicola Tesla once. Legendary.

@AdrianColley

2 жыл бұрын

I was a little disappointed. I wanted to know if it was a wholly pigeon-brained idea or not.

@Joso997

2 жыл бұрын

@@AdrianColley It is a working principle you can try at home.

@theultimatereductionist7592

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, DillBourne! Agreed. It must enrage the lunatic Teslabots.

@HotelPapa100

2 жыл бұрын

@@AdrianColley Basically it's the microwave idea. It works, but it cooks all kinds of things that you don't want to cook.

@anonymous.youtuber

2 жыл бұрын

She is aware of the fact wrestling a pig is not a good idea.

Thanks, Sabine, this clarified much I had heard about wireless charging and introduced many things I hadn't. A similar bit on meta-materials would be very welcome.

I subscribed to your channel, based on this expertly written and communicated piece. Thanks so much for your efforts to communicate material in such an easily understandable way.

Sabine, love this subject. I work in a lab doing RF->DC conversion. We're ultimately powering drones carrying a Neutron source and Gamma detectors used in explosives detection. It's a bit more challenging than you may think. We're presently transferring 1kW at a straight line distance of 100m. We need about 15kW. The 50GHz spectrum seems to be the sweet spot for this. Affordable, wireless, directional power is a long way off from my perspective. Keep up the great videos, I may have watched all of them. :).

@maasman240

Жыл бұрын

In your opinion, is the issue a fundamental one? I am an industrial engineer and admit my EE skills are lacking, however it seems that these issues tend to have no clear path forward at this stage.

I always love that Sabine carefully debunks a lot of pseudo-science crap that is being spread among consumer technology people.

@kantanlabs3859

2 жыл бұрын

Well the situation is even worse than what you thing; even the articles she presents at the end as more serious are also pseudo-science crap according to me (I am an expert in resonant capacitive WPT by the way), in particular metamaterials presented as ways to enhance near-field WPT. Happily they are also relevant applications of meta-materials but at much higher frequencies !

@pontiuspilates

2 жыл бұрын

@@kantanlabs3859 I believe that no one is a true know-it-all. But I know that she corrects herself if there are truthful claims like yours.

@kantanlabs3859

2 жыл бұрын

@@pontiuspilates Indeed love Sabine for that !

@AndreasDelleske

2 жыл бұрын

@@kantanlabs3859 Well everything that has to be understood by "common people" has to be half incomplete.. you don't explain Peano axioms or only symbolic expressions before you start counting but in principle, we should.

@epsilonjay4123

2 жыл бұрын

I think that she is often overly pseudoskeptical about ideas like Panpsychism, The consciousness causes collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics, and other positions within the philosophy of science.

METAMATERIALS VIDEO YES PLEASE SABINE. See, this is what I need: To grab my smartphone, a drink and some snacks and to sit near a wall charger to top up my pacemaker battery, instead of being sliced open to replace the battery manually every decade or so. Something else to make @MedlifeCrisis redundant.

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for letting me know!

Absolutely love the dry sense of humor. You have convinced me to subscribe and watch them all. Thank you.

4:07 Not to mention just how inefficient this method is. So much of the energy is lost to heat, and what's even worse, the heat is negatively impacting battery life of your phone. I used to charge my phone wirelessly but stopped because of how quickly the battery started degrading and needed replacement. Also, if we want to be environmentally friendly, - we need something just a tiny bit more efficient.

@joseph-mariopelerin7028

2 жыл бұрын

hey, think about the extra efficiency you get by not having to plug in your phone every other day while you sleeping...

@echelonrank3927

2 жыл бұрын

specifically about lasers its easy to buy a 60% efficient infrared laser. but im thinking of something else that hasnt been tried before. a giant tuned coil around the entire house. its mad science tesla style i might try that on low power before every device inside fries.

@joseph-mariopelerin7028

2 жыл бұрын

How about... BRAINS?? 😂

Ooh it would nice to have a video on metamaterials. I remember the buzz regarding invisibility with metamaterials

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for letting me know!

"It may be used for powering alarm clocks or other things you don't use." I died !! Sabine... brilliant in so many ways. Waiting now for the crowd funding for the nanobot company carrying batteries to people's devices so that you can become rich and famous !!

@viperswhip

2 жыл бұрын

I use one because I constantly forget to recharge my phone.

@ponyote

2 жыл бұрын

Just imagine how much less gobbledygook there would be if Sabine was even more influential. Tremendous.

@hydrolito

2 жыл бұрын

I have more than one radio alarm clock I use.

@YodaWhat

2 жыл бұрын

Oh, if you WANT nanobatteries that crawl around looking for place to insert themselves, that is a HOLE different thing.

@ayushdowerah6855

2 жыл бұрын

@@YodaWhat lol

This is really intriguing, thanks! Then again, you always bring us really cool stuff to watch. 🙂👍🏼

thank you so much for your videos. You've got a real talent for being informative and fair with your reasoning.

Listening to James Lovelock, I can imagine if someone's tooth filling or worse yet, a heart pacemaker accidentally turned to the same frequency as the wireless charging transmitter. 🤔

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed a scary thought :S! What other future technology innovation are you most excited about?

@clivegranville9690

2 жыл бұрын

The Telcos installed a cellphone tower next door to us at microwave frequencies (4G). In order to cover a small area they beamed downward instead of outward. The result was that I got 24/7 radiation at a dose considered by many expert to be damaging to my health. And it was. I got all sorts of symptoms, getting worse with time. After 6 months, I had all 4 metal fillings come loose and fall out. Some after cracking the tooth. I had most of these for decades. Some silver and some gold.

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

@@clivegranville9690 ai.. that's not good!!

Thank you for this. I always am amazed by your content and your comments are very appreciated

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

What other future technology innovation are you most excited about?

I watched a random documentary about batteries , I think on curiosity stream, where they showed a battery that charges via radio. I have this lifelong interest in wireless power as well, and that sure seemed awesome to me.

The best definition of PHYSICS is: "The study of why things are as the are, and not otherwise."

Thanks for the great content as always! I would love to see a video on meta-materials.

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

Same here! What other future technology innovation are you most excited about?

Sabine, would be interesting if you talk about solar panels in orbit as a mean of clean energy on earth, the various transmission possibilities including wireless power. I would love to hear about that from you.

@jamesvandamme7786

2 жыл бұрын

A quick napkin-sized calculation would show it's a bad idea cost-wise. vs. panels and batteries on the ground.

@guidoftp

2 жыл бұрын

@@jamesvandamme7786 but in orbit is direct source, there's always sunlight, not only at the day, no cloud interference etc. If the price to put solar panels drop because of the new space race, I think it could be a good idea. But i would like to see an expert talking about that and do the math.

@guidoftp

2 жыл бұрын

@Evi1 M4chine hmm, i see. Thank you for explain this. Recent i read an article about a japanese team that were testing this technology with lasers, but seems like isn't viable indeed.

@GreasyBirb

2 жыл бұрын

why transmit the power itself? why not just orbit some passive mirrors and direct that light to a ground based station? figure it would be a lot cheaper and less technically complex than converting solar to microwaves etc multiple times to repay the power.

@lenger1234

2 жыл бұрын

Lots of panels in orbit and a really powerful beam to get it to the ground... nothing could go wrong with that lol! Actually I'm pretty certain in read a science fiction book to that effect. 🤔

Google surveyed me about this video. I gave them positive feedback and hope it helps. Thank you and your team for all your work!

Here after listening to "Stuff You Should Know" podcadt about wireless energy. You made a subscriber out of me within the first 5 minutes! Excellent video!

Would be amazing to see a video on metamaterials in general not only relating to wireless. LiFi is in some ways interesting as a wireless form of power combined with data transfer. Thank you for your amazing content. 🥰

@KevinJohnson-fw8kv

Жыл бұрын

metamaterials are not required, it's already been done at the University of Michigan using copper coils, 10 Mhz Resonant Frequency is capable of transmitting around 1,000 Watts of power. There's no need to do research into advanced materials, you just need to build it.

@hieroglyphica

Жыл бұрын

@Kevin Johnson sorry my grammar is awkward. Two separate sentences and two different independent clauses. So, I was saying it would be neat to see a video about metamaterials in general. Second was referring to the context of her video and that LiFi that powers the device is interesting. I have seen these demonstrated by, for example Harald Hass in his Ted talk in 2011 and subsequent one in 2016.

@KevinJohnson-fw8kv

Жыл бұрын

@@hieroglyphica Magnetic Resonance works for SAFE far-field wireless charging.

@mattieMathmatica

Жыл бұрын

@Kevin Johnson ok interesting thank you for the introduction to the topic.

Yea, I'd love to see a vid by you on meta materials. The stuff seems almost magical, and I'm curious if there are hard limits about what could be done with them.

Thank you for referring and discussing our PRL paper!

I actually REALLY like your traveling robots idea, especially as things become smaller, great vid thank you!!!;)

I do love it when my 'creators' are actually aware of each other, in some small way it makes me feel good. Fancy Sabine and Tom Scott eh? Nice video Sabine.

Aw come on, Nicola Tesla deserved an honorary mention at least. He was the first who had it all figured out, working prototype included.

@NeovanGoth

2 жыл бұрын

Mentioning Tesla and wireless energy transmission together tends to attracts crackpots, so it may have been a good idea for the sake of the comment area. ;)

@CAThompson

2 жыл бұрын

That Electricity Guy.

@nas8318

2 жыл бұрын

I mean, that was his worst idea that ultimately led to his demise

@CAThompson

2 жыл бұрын

@@nas8318 How so?

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Sorry for that omission. Guess I was thinking too much about the future to give due credit to the past.

I really like this one Sabine!! I would like to see a dedicated video on meta materials (microwave invisibility and whatnot) also, I've requested information from technovator, I'll comment again if they get back to me. KEEP IT UP, love your videos!!

Hey, I'm a retired senior and I love your mini science classes. LOL ... keep in mind I had to use a slide rule to do my math and science. No calculators or desktop computers in my day. Its great to learn what's going on in this hi tech world.

The way it was (very briefly) explained by my EE professor was as follows: It's not about being able to transfer power wirelessly. We can do that already. It's not even about the distances required. We at least understand how to solve that problem in principle. No. It's about how much damned demand there is. The size of the plant required to generate enough electricity to power both a city and its own transmission of that electricity immediately outweighs the benefits of the wireless transmission. But if we were operating the world of ... say 1930? We could have that up and running in a decade. Unfortunately, every time we add more available power, it is instantaneously used somewhere. Like adding a lane to a highway and finding it just fills up with even more cars. Or increasing internet bandwidth only to find that the pipes are still jammed up because image ads become audio/video ads.

@jamesvandamme7786

2 жыл бұрын

Or switching to LEDs and now everybody wants to have colored lights on their building exteriors.

@ZrJiri

2 жыл бұрын

@@jamesvandamme7786 I read your comment and right under it I see an ad showing a small house with its walls lit up by floodlights like it was some great cultural heritage site. :D

@BGBTech

2 жыл бұрын

Idle thought: Thermal wireless energy transmission. Moderately safe (occurs readily in nature), relatively easy to make transmitters and receivers compatible with each other. Multiple modes of transmission available (conduction, convection, or optical). For conduction, your wireless charger could consist of a short segment of nichrome wire and a conduction plate, this wire loop is then connected to AC power, and emits thermal energy into its immediate vicinity. Charging would consist of placing the object to be charged on top of the plate. (Could also thermally charge non-electronic items, such as ones' food or beverages). For transmission over a short distance, the transmitter could have the nichrome element inside of a tube-shaped apparatus, with an electric fan at one end. This fan causes a stream of heated gas to travel out of the tube, and can be directed towards the device to be thermally charged. Alternatively, thermal energy may be generated via non-electronic means (such as the combustion of volatile materials, or "fuel"), or collected from other natural sources (such using a lens and sunlight). Optical transmission would be accomplished by turning energy into light in the visible or infrared regions, and then directing it towards a target (such as via optical lenses or reflectors focused on the target). The device to be charged could have a reservoir of working fluid which undergoes a phase transition (liquid to gas), and once in gas phase is then is used to spin a small generator; with a "cold side" where thermal energy can again leave the device, the working fluid then condensing to a liquid phase (say, we use butane or pentane or similar as a working fluid...). Ideally, probably want a boiling point around 45C or so, assuming a "cold side" around 25C. This would allow it to be "safe to handle" (without posing undue risk of burning the user). Though, various other mechanisms are also possible...

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

Did you not watch the video?! we are NOT able to transfer power wirelessly the laws of physics expressed in Faraday's equations makes it clear over any distance the losses negate any possible benefits Your professor was talking out of his lower orifice, or you did not understand what he said

@ZrJiri

2 жыл бұрын

@@kenwittlief255 Did you watch the video? There's a couple of examples of wireless power transmission. You say the benefits never outweigh the costs, but that's clearly ungrounded. I can think of many scenarios where you can deal with wasting a ton of power if some of it gets through. I'm sure if we had power consumption of a century ago, and production of today, we could get away with wirelessly powering a lot of things, it would just be insanely wasteful.

This made me really start to miss old cell phone battery packs. It was so convenient having 2 or 3 charging on a dock and one in the phone. I never minded the 5 seconds of swap out, and I loved not having to be tied to a wall with a charging cable.

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

most smart phones today will run 2 days of normal use on a single charge

@Patrick-857

Жыл бұрын

@@kenwittlief255 For the first few months maybe. I have to charge mine twice a day now.

@Patrick-857

Жыл бұрын

Ah yes, let's develop a whole new technology with limited practicality, a lot of downsides and potential hazards to solve a problem that early 2000s brick phones already solved. You can thank Apple for that one, they decided to make the battery non removable so when it wore out it would encourage everyone to go and buy the new one. We should have had a standardised battery pack by now, not disposable phones. Oh but wait, Apple got rid of the included charger to "save the planet", right at the time they changed their charging cables. Apple cares about consumers and the environment, because that's what they tell you abd a corporation would never lie....

These are so funny as well as informative. Thank you Sabine.

Thank you for a very good explanation of the limits of power transmission.

A name for your startup could be BirdyBots. :) Flying bots right? Thanks again Sabine. Always intersting.

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Brilliant, we're only one step away from being billionaires!

@nearlyzero9849

2 жыл бұрын

@@SabineHossenfelder I will try and raise the capital!

@CAThompson

2 жыл бұрын

Add me to the IPO! Is Elon going to be in on this?

@nearlyzero9849

2 жыл бұрын

@@CAThompson I will get my people to call him.

Another great informative video. I love the well crafted explanations. And the presentation and production values are always great. And you outdid yourself in this one with the humor (“…alarm clocks and other things you don’t use.”) 🤣

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

Hahaha indeed! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?

low key but great sense of humor and very informative. just found her today, will be back

I love her sense of humor and sarcasm in these videos. Very subtle and catchy. Interesting video as well. I would also like to learn about meta-materials from you

Thanks as always for another great video. Wireless - Does not have to refer to EM radiation. You can shoot a canon ball and the receiver can covert the kinetic energy of the canon ball to electrical energy. Or you can spin up a flywheel and carry it over to a distant location and have it run some electrical generator. But I suspect these are not marketable goods or methods 🙂

@agimasoschandir

2 жыл бұрын

Flywheel do not have to be moved to be useful, and is a marketable good

@Merilix2

2 жыл бұрын

Shooting canon balls is what power transfer via ultrasound actually does. Ok, air molecules are very tiny canon balls and you need a lot of them in between sender and the final receiver and a lot of them are going in the wrong direction. Not quite efficient.

@Merilix2

2 жыл бұрын

@@agimasoschandir Spinning flywheel can be seen as remote power transfer through time but its not wireless. The wheel itself is the wire connecting the two points in spacetime where its spun up and where its driving a generator. ;) Spinning flywheels are energy storage technology, not wireless power transfer technology.

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

you gun nuts think bullets are the answer to everything.....

Excellent video as always, Sabine, but minor correction: Power delivery over USB-C is much more complex than just a single number. Most phones support fast charging over USB-C, which range from 20 to as much as 100 watts. Additionally, the spec called USB Power Delivery has supported up to 100 watts for a few years, and a new spec is in the works to support up to 240 watts. Edit: I see that someone else commented with the same info & you replied to them. All good!

@KevinJohnson-fw8kv

Жыл бұрын

i have yet to see a USB phone charger that is more than 5v/3A output. You only need to supply as much current and voltage as the USB phone charger you plug into the wall is able to provide. That's the difference between a Physicist and an Engineer. Physicists say: "we will have this in 10 years....". Then 10 years later, they say again... "we're about 5 years away from a breakthrough..."

@InTimeTraveller

10 ай бұрын

@@KevinJohnson-fw8kv higher wattage USB power delivery doesn't happen with increasing current, but with increasing voltage, at 9V, 15V, 20V all the way up to 48V for 240W power delivery. The reason is the same as the reason that normal power delivery from power factories happens at several killovolts: efficieny. The higher the current that flows through a cable the higher the losses. But if you increase the voltage and decrease the current flow, the losses get smaller. There are currently USB chargers that you can buy off the shelf with at least 30W into a single USB port.

Absolutely love the topics you cover and you cover them so well! Thank You -_-

Your humor is so sharp and brilliant :)

35 years ago my calculator already had a wireless energy supply: a photovoltaic cell. The energy came from the classroom ceiling.

@alex15095

2 жыл бұрын

Interestingly, a lot of those calculators now don't even have a real cell and they just put a black plastic piece that looks like a photovoltaic cell

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

@@alex15095 How do you know that?

@alex15095

Жыл бұрын

@@Anonymous-df8it VWestlife made a video about it

Love this one. Exactly the reason I turned down recruiters' invitations to those companies. I told them that I didn't want to be part of their scams. People criticized me for not being "open mind". How can you violate the basic law of physics?

Small correction, usb can send up to 2a at 5v meaning 10w in some cases, usb PD on the other hand can deliver up to 240w in the newest standard

Loved it, thanks for the talk.

Thanks for the very good video, all you presented is up to date and accurate. I've been working on wireless power transfer (WPT) for many years, mainly on inductive WPT, it works fine, but the advantage all you can achieve is to not connect directly the device to the power source. Even if you take advantage of resonant WPT the distance you go is not so far. But there is a big problem, efficiency. If you want to avoid plugging your appliance into the power outlet, you pay at least 5-10% of the energy you draw from the outlet wasted in heat (a wired connection wastes less than 1%). It might not seem too much, but if you start to recharge large power appliances or cars in a large number it ends up in an enormous amount of wasted energy, just for the fun of not plugging the jack. Climate change and energy shortage cannot admit this waste of resources. In conclusion, WPT can be useful to solve specific issues, but at the moment its mass spread adoption might be dangerous for the environment.

Damn - I thought this was going to be a late April Fool's story. Turned out to be well-made, serious, and fact-based, as always.

@uropygid

2 жыл бұрын

Sabine is always serious, in a funny sort or way.

Yes, please do a video on meta materials. Would love it. Thank you for all of your great videos.

"It'll still be hard to dry your hair underwater" 💀💀 delivery was flawless

EEVBlog has done a few videos on many variations of this concept. They technically can work via a few methods but they are all horribly inefficient and very expensive. It's unclear to me if they can ever focus and recover energy well enough to be viable. I'm very doubtful.

Lovely video as always, informative, educational and entertaining at once. What we want, I think, is for our phones (and other convenient handheld devices we keep in our pockets) to charge no matter where they are in the house, and possibly in the office. Putting your phone on a pad is better than having to plug it in, but you still have to remember to charge it every day or else you are left with a dead phone, and it's easy to forget if you keep in a pocket other than the one in your pants. Those 60W antennas that deliver 1W within 2 meters may be enough already - assuming you have a few of them strategically placed. Wasteful as hell, obviously, but I think that is a physics problem, not an engineering problem. With that said, I wouldn't want much more power than that flying wirelessly around my house, honestly: at some point, some part of my clothes, or worse, my body, will be close enough to the right length to heat up, and it takes surprisingly little to destroy certain important chemical reactions. For example, if your brain is warmer than 42-43 degrees (315-316K)... You die. And of course if the power is high enough you can get burned, or literally catch on fire. Bottom line: I'm fine with wireless energy transfer not delivering kW of power. That's what microwave ovens are for, and I'd rather not live in one. If we could get consistent delivery of 2W at 10m, however, without those scaling up to 200W at 1m, I would be very much okay wirth that too. Thank you for coming to my TED talk :P

Sabina, you are one smart comedian! So much fun watching your videos

I just discovered your channel and it is awesome

When we desperately need to conserve energy and reduce our carbon footprint, we are looking at technology that will reduce energy efficiency 90% or more...

@TheRysiu120

2 жыл бұрын

Energy use of humankind is growing and will continue to grow. Solution to reducing carbon footprint in a long run is changing the way we produce it, not to use less of it.

@ericfleet9602

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheRysiu120 Um, false. The solution to reducing carbon footprint is changing the way we produce it AND using less of it. We have been working hard over the past two decades to improve efficiency and that has done more to reduce total carbon output than solar panels has over the same time period. Even if we go 100% solar, we are still having an impact on our environment, from the resources needed to produce the panels, to the land we take for the panels themselves... so moving to 1% efficient power sources is never going to be good for the environment...

@Ithirahad

2 жыл бұрын

We don't need to "conserve" energy, and you can forget about "reducing" the carbon footprint. We need to stop PRODUCING energy in ways that are fundamentally altering the parameters of our atmosphere, period. NO "carbon footprints" outside of limited industrial/residential burning.

@ericfleet9602

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ithirahad Yes, we do need to conserve. Until we have 100% "green" energy solutions, conservation is part of the equation. You seem to be operating under the pretense that we can snap our fingers and be 100% green tomorrow, but the reality is we are decades away from that. Until then, every kilowatt of electricity we use, every mile we drive our cars (even the electric ones), we are adding CO2 into the environment. I am not saying we should shut down society until then, but I am saying what is the point in switching to a 99% inefficient phone charger just so we don't have to plug into a wall when we are adding to global warming by doing so.

@mykalkelley8315

2 жыл бұрын

@Ithirahad7 cringe

At 4:04 you mentioned adding capacitors to the transformer circuit but showed resistors instead. Hope this helps out. Thanks for all your work keeping us inspired, Sabine.

@IngieKerr

2 жыл бұрын

I'd argue they were symbolic of "Thévenin Equivalent boxes" as the circuit addition isn't one single capacitor but more akin to an LC circuit, and the fact they looked like standard circuit-diagram resistors was just a matter of aspect ratio :)

9:05 I love your sense of humour☺️ And your voice is very soothing.🙂🌷

Love the links! Thank you!!!!

The biggest problem is the fundamental inefficiency of any such system: even if it was safe to transmit energy wirelessly, it would be ridiculously expensive. When transmitting information, this loss in power efficiency is just as huge, but doesn’t add up to that much for WiFi, for example. Sure, sharing WiFi will drain your phones battery pretty quick, but you won’t notice switching off your router in the electricity bill. For wireless headphones, this is even worse as wired headphones often are operated by the power used to transmit the information alone: so wireless headphones need to both keep up a bluetooth connection, and power all the actual functionality of headphones from internal batteries. We went from no power required to batteries that need charging daily. So for some company to look at those technologies and think “that’s it! We will charge phones like this!” is in my view ridiculous. The power is the worst part about the current technology. It’s their big weakness. It’s why you now need to charge your headphones daily. The companies pursuing this are constantly balancing safety with power, so that the energy they waste is at least not a health hazard or cause fires. I’d like to think we would consider the energy efficiency of any wired consumer product BEFORE the heat radiated might burn your house down.

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

Just use wired internet and headphones!

One use that I can see is having a solar power plant in orbit, and then beaming the power to ground stations. Still inefficient and prohibitively expensive for now, but who knows.

@jamesvandamme7786

2 жыл бұрын

People have been trying to do that for many years, but it always ends up being cheaper and more practical to put them on the ground and use storage. Maintenance is easier, no rockets involved, safer, more efficient... the list goes on. There's plenty of space to put them if you look. What are we waiting for??

@cuthbertallgood7781

2 жыл бұрын

@@jamesvandamme7786 Solar on the ground has a lot of problems that people don't want to talk about. First, solar in space would be far more efficient, because you don't have an atmosphere. But setting that aside, solar takes enormous amounts of real estate, and causes a huge environment impact to taking away the sunlight from the ground. For one, it affects the local plants and animals, and for two, if it can affect weather patterns if it's on a large enough scale. And solar is ugly, which counts for something. Ground-based solar is an awful solution. The only practical solutions to modern energy requirements are space-based solar or nuclear energy.

Yes Sabine we would be interested in a video on metamaterials specifically.

Indeed I'ed love to hear meta-meterials info. Please and thank you 😊

Very interested in a meta materials video. Would also love to see a video about technology you think will be possible in 20, 50 or 100 years. Without the gobbledygook ;)

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion!

Third in Sabine's list of problems caused by wired charging is wear on the device's charging port. The wear can be eliminated by using a magnetic-tipped charging cable, which has a low-profile detachable tip that you keep in the device's port. This compares favorably to induction coil wireless charging because (1) it's more efficient and (2) the cable length offers flexible positioning & use of the device while it's being charged. The style that I purchased has oval-shaped magnet connections (not circular like the older style) and supports USB data transfer too (not just charging). It came with an assortment of tips: usb type c, micro usb, and apple. It takes only a few seconds to connect the cable to the tip that's in the device's charging port and can be done with one hand because the magnets on tip & cable are reasonably strong and attract each other.

@leif6534

2 жыл бұрын

Nice life hack, thanks

I was wondering why you left out solar cells as they are the most common method of wireless energy transfer? Great show as usual, well done !

You could have a crystal which internal structure will amplify this crystal intrinsic properties (be it optic, or acoustic) when under proper resonance. Using those amplified properties the stream of energy will be generated. The energy amplification will have a "mechanic" similarity to acquiriing energy from random movement using latches. In this solution, the latches will work in the domain of resonated crystal (optic, acoustic, etc). This double working will need two kind of metamaterials, one crystallic and one not. The not crystallic metaworking will be available only under proper resonance of the crystallic metamaterial.

Wireless power for everything could cook us all. Great video Sabine as usual, thanks.

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

you are correct the sun delivers 1kw per square meter to the surface of the Earth on a clear day at noon go outside all day in bright sunlight for 10 hours, and you will die of heat stroke..... literally cooked

There are several wifi routers today that claim to be able to locate devices within their range in 3D space and adjust their field geometry to increase the signal strength directionally, toward these devices. Instead of using a kilowatt to blast a few watts in all directions of a sphere, maybe a similar directionality could be used to achieve better power efficiency.

@brothermine2292

2 жыл бұрын

The acronym is MIMO and this is a very common technology now. It uses multiple antennas, and controls the phase of the signal in each antenna relative to the other antennas, to produce constructive interference in the desired direction and destructive interference (cancellation) in other directions. This tech is used in modern smartphones too, not just in wifi routers.

@dominic.h.3363

2 жыл бұрын

@@brothermine2292 Yea, it's a nice theory, but it never worked out for me in practice. I have the same crappy signal strength from my upstairs router with MIMO off than on.

@brothermine2292

2 жыл бұрын

@@dominic.h.3363 : Is that the fault of the MIMO technology, or is your wifi signal being degraded by obstacles between the wifi router & device? Which wifi carrier frequency are you using? Have you tried running a wifi signal strength app on the device to display all the nearby routers, their strengths, and the channels they use? You could walk around while observing the display to help you find dead spots, and maybe that would let you deduce the obstacles. You might also observe interference from a neighbor's router on the channel you've been using, in which case you could choose a different channel. (I choose a non-standard channel, in-between the standard channels, because many nearby neighbors in the building have routers.)

@dominic.h.3363

2 жыл бұрын

@@brothermine2292 I have been an IT professional for the better part of two decades. I've been employed as a network analyst in 2016 by the biggest eCommerce company of my country, so I find it highly unlikely you could teach me something new about my own router. The technology makes big promises that flop just as big when it comes to its application in certain environments.

@brothermine2292

2 жыл бұрын

@@dominic.h.3363 : Are you trying to say you already performed the tests I suggested? I hope you understand I'm just trying to help (you and anyone else who has a wifi signal problem). Here are four more questions: How many MIMO antennas does your router have? How many MIMO antennas does your device have? How many devices are using the wifi router simultaneously? Does your background in IT networking include the relevant wifi experience?

Hi, finally subscribed your channel, loved your humor and fine english :) Yes, please do make a video on metamaterials!

Great video! I think one of the most powerful statements that we don't see very often was "...I don't know what that means." Not even the greatest minds can always figure out marketing jargon.

I just tripped over a wifi cable. Looking forward to replace it with wireless technology! 🤩

Great episode! Even the jokes were good in this one… 🙂

Interesting. Thanks for sharing, Sabine Hossenfelder. Will be interested in video for metamaterials for wireless power transfer.

There is the rain/snow/pigeon problem, not to mention a 'hot-seat' for passengers of passing airliners. But shoveling wet feathery snow in the dark is OK, well then look no further. The sensible place for that would be underneath parking spots and stop light lanes where sensors could activate cars or coffee cups passing overhead and bill the receptive owner accordingly. But wireless power transmission within safe pipelines is cool.

We already have wireless power. It comes from our nuclear fusion reactor, the power is transmitted wirelessly, and it’s captured using specialized panels. I have such panels on my roof. Great technology.

@vhawk1951kl

2 жыл бұрын

Ah you mean God, or the Sun which is god for this system

@lumberjackdreamer6267

2 жыл бұрын

@@vhawk1951kl We call it “magic photons making the electrons dance”

While I love the idea of plenty of wireless energy available everywhere, I',m a bit concerned about the efficiency of the current solution when paired with the impact of energy generation on the planet. For instance: if all the water we had was a small pond, and the only material to build hoses were very permeable and leak water everywhere, we'd keep using buckets to transport it valuing more efficiency over convenience as that convenience might be the source of our demise. In the same way imho while research is always great, we should wait to have energy generation that doesn't contribute in making the planet inhabitable before we let the conveniency go mainstream. And this is the step the market systematically fails :(

@anon_y_mousse

2 жыл бұрын

Except that we aren't limited to a small pond, the sun will keep shining for at least a couple billion years, and we could always use solar power. Plus wind and hydroelectric power aren't going anywhere any time soon either.

@un_lucio

2 жыл бұрын

@@anon_y_mousse well, it wasn't a 1:1 example. Just a different scenario where waste can be avoided until there's a better solution rather than just following the convenience sake. Considering we're, as a species, still mostly relying on stuff the keeps degrade the habitability of the only planet we have perhaps that might be the pond? 😅 But let's don't get too much caught up in the pond example, it was just a trope not at all the center of what I mean which is still: definitely do invest in research about wireless energy transfer, but perhaps please refrain from marketing it while it's still just a wasteful gimmick.

@anon_y_mousse

2 жыл бұрын

@@un_lucio It's not really a concern, if humans really can affect climate change then humans can cleanup whatever mess they make. If they can't then it's a non-issue.

I assumed that you were already rich and famous! The frozen hamster video is definitely well worth watching - and I came back.

This was an awesome episode.

I remember my father having a wireless power device. It was in the early 00’s. He flipped it on powered his PlayStation. It was very short range.

@CAThompson

2 жыл бұрын

Cool. Is it still available, or are today's consoles too big for it to work? I remember my brother's first-generation PlayStation being the size of a large lunch box.

@petra07

2 жыл бұрын

did the CIA get him?

@JP-st9hn

2 жыл бұрын

@@petra07 Well... One day he woke up in the middle of his yard with several broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken clavicle, and a broken hip. Apparently he had fallen off of his roof. At least that was the official story, but I always had my doubts as the roof was 3 stories, and my dad lived on the 2nd floor. Soon after while recovering, His roommate literally went insane and started accusing him of being involved in some grand cross continental conspiracy... she even went so far as to accuse me (an 11yr old boy) of poisoning her water and food. She disappeared shortly after, but not before turning off the electricity and canceling the phone. After that my dad had to put most of his stuff into storage and move into a smaller place. He fell on hard times. Eventually he was unable to afford the fees and his property was sold at auction.

@petra07

2 жыл бұрын

@@JP-st9hn I'm sorry to hear that, regardless of what actually happened. Paranoia like that ain't fun, I've had to deal with that myself and boy is it scary what our minds are capable of. Wishing you all the best! Life goes on, I guess.

@JP-st9hn

2 жыл бұрын

@@petra07 Well Thank you for your empathy. I never thought any agency was out to get him or anything, however I always thought it was odd that he would up and one day, just fall off his roof. Especially because he never had any recollection of why he was up there. Nonetheless a single sandal was found on the roof that belonged to him, so maybe he just tripped over his own feet. Its better to not attribute malice to what can be sufficiently explained by clumsiness I suppose. The paranoia was something else though. You think you know a person, and you think they know you. Then one day something changes and you are looking at a stranger who thinks you are the stranger.

Dave Jones of EEVlog fame loves to debunk these wireless charging systems. They are, as you point out, not very practical except in very isolated applications. How about geosynchronous solar arrays that beam energy back to the planet using microwaves?

Loved it. You did a thorough description. Efficiency for wireless transfer should be high to be practical. Nearly systems that provide interesting range are very power inefficient. Systems have been built which enable inductive resonant wireless power transfer from a road. None of them are nearly efficient (or low in cost) enough for large scale deployment.

I worked on a project that used VHF RFID. These could be read at a range of 10 meters. They could also be read within a truck which also contained metal tools and materials or, in one acceptance test, a load of gravel. The Scanner had about 1 Watt of radiated power. The limitation was FDA rules regarding cardiac pacemakers. The truck had multiple antennas inside. The tags could be within a piece of paper, foil sandwiched inside and a chip in the middle. As we tested the scanner, we found a surprising number of our personal possessions had these tags as well. Typically high end coats, briefcases and the like. Turns out that stores could scan customers, key the RFID serial number to a credit card database. If your sales person seems strangely psychic - this may have a scientific explanation.

Based on my experience of watching people with their phones, and the fact they hardly ever put them down or stop staring at them, I think a better solution would be to work on a phone that can charge using the capacitance of the human holding it, if your battery gets really low you could just pop on some nylon socks and run around on a cheap carpet for a bit. I think it's easily as viable as running half a fridge to slow charge my phone at 30cm from the charger.

@Techmagus76

2 жыл бұрын

If you find a way to turn stupidity into energy even the second part would not be needed.

@joevignolor4u949

2 жыл бұрын

It might be easier and more efficient to simply take an electrical generator and put a hand crank on it.

@michaelmoorrees3585

2 жыл бұрын

There you go. Run the phones on human blood, directly tapped off the user. Kills two birds with one stone, so you can do "Theranos" blood analysis and power the devices from it at the same time. Of course, considering how much time people spend on their phones, they'll probably get tapped out... At least it solves the population problem.

@brothermine2292

2 жыл бұрын

I've heard about clothing that captures some energy from the movements of the person wearing it. I assume it's in the sleeves of shirts and the legs of pants. I don't know whether it can capture enough energy from people whose lifestyle is typically sedentary. But it would have a secondary use of burning a few extra calories... inefficiency wouldn't necessarily be undesirable, assuming it produces enough power to charge the device(s).

@FUTUREDTECH

2 жыл бұрын

Hhaha indeed! Or maybe it's good that we have to put the phone away to charge. So we get a break from it. What other future technology innovation are you most excited about?

You're absolutely right Sabine, we'll never agree on a standardized receiver for transmitting power. The United States still will not adopt a simple method for measurement like the metric system, we won't ever relinquish our cockamamie way to measure things.

@kensmith5694

2 жыл бұрын

Give them a foot and they will take a mile.

@kensmith5694

2 жыл бұрын

@@johncarlaw8633 We have 10 fingers. If you treat them as a binary code you can count up to 1024.

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

@@johncarlaw8633 Then use base-60 for counting!

Thank you! Yes on the metamaterials video!

Danke Sabine. Das war -wieder mal!- eine interessante + augenöffnende Sendung... Und: Ja, ein Video über Metamaterials würde ich gut finden. Bin schon gespannt!

@Anonymous-df8it

Жыл бұрын

Stop speaking H!t1er

Can you please devise a device to blow dry my hair underwater?

@SabineHossenfelder

2 жыл бұрын

I'll get on it right after I'm done quantizing gravity!

@janekalbinsky

2 жыл бұрын

Sometimes I question your priorities... 😁

@agimasoschandir

2 жыл бұрын

How about stream wet it?

@kenwittlief255

2 жыл бұрын

they are called railroad flares.... hold a glass of water over your head light the flare....

What about improving the efficiency of solar panels to the point where ambient light can power devices? How many orders of magnitude are we away from that? If we had 100% efficient capture of the entire EM spectrum, how many watts could something roughly phone-shaped device absorb?

@edsnotgod

2 жыл бұрын

America sits on the precious rare metals that could achieve better solar panels but the usual suspects put stuff like Mar a Lago and Mount Rushmore atop the pockets of it. Area 51. They detonated countless nuclear tests on top of it

@tobeyh6878

2 жыл бұрын

With entropy considerations I believe there's been a proof that current solar panels would max out at around 35% efficient at converting light energy into electric energy. Then ambient light levels in your home is extremely small, say you have led lights that are somehow 100% efficient. Usually they are about 10W but let's round up to 20W. Then I'd say the closest you get to a light bulb is about 1m. Say you're phone is .1m^2 and is orthogonal to the source. Then you'd get .1×(3.14x1^2)×efficiency ≈ .314×1/3≈ 0.1W Not nothing but not a lot...

@jamesvandamme7786

2 жыл бұрын

Not all that much, even in bright sunlight. 1361 watts per square meter at the equator. Do the math if you like, but phones are small (1/100th sq, m), it's cloudy sometimes and dark half the day, 20% efficiency solar cells are more common, and you don't live at the equator. So you might be able to keep your phone charged if you can let it sit out in the sun all day. You could harvest less than 1 cent worth of electricity a day. Better to charge a power bank and plug that into your phone at night. Or you could just plug into a charger. The key to cost-effective energy harvesting is cutting consumption to where you don't need an extra power source. Like ultralight cars that run on solar power, or superinsulated houses wit no furnace. I have a couple solar powered calculators that work great, even under room lights. Those tiny little batteries are crazy expensive.

@StreakyBaconMan

2 жыл бұрын

Well considering that light bulbs don't use that much power to run, are not 100% efficient, and your solar panel would be capturing just a small portion of the light I doubt even if you had 100% efficient panels (which are impossible) that you could realistically charge a phone from it. You'd probably drain the battery more just from the phone being in standby mode than you'd be able to charge it.

@Wltrwllyngaeiou

2 жыл бұрын

Solar panels are effective enough currently that any future gains in efficiency would not fundamentally change the nature of the problem. Some back of the envelope math, assuming perfect efficiency: Suppose a 60 watt lightbulb. You place your phone in direct contact with the bulb, let's suppose you capture 1/6 of this power (I guess it would take about 6 phones to completely absorb all the light based on geometry). So now you are charging at 10 watts, which I would say is acceptable. Now suppose you are ~1 meter from the surface. Now the light is spread out over a sphere of surface area 4pi 1m^2 ~10m^2. Let's say a phone is a 0.1 m x 0.1 m square, to be generous. So that's an area of 0.01 m^2 for the phone. Now we would need 10/0.001= 1000 phones to completely absorb the power. So each phone is charging at 60W/1000=0.06W, which wouldn't even register. Maybe I made an error here so please correct me if I did

Thank you, excellent as always. I was glad to be disabused of the tunnelling wireless technology, as I had a vague memory that someone had indeed made one (forgive the biologist). Which Curiosity Stream video have you made?

The crystal radio which had no battery used wireless energy transfer to enable head-phones to be powered; since it used a tank circuit, the transfer was resonant. That was well over 100 years ago.