Comment by joak
4 years ago
Excerpts： "A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current."
"The idea of harvesting energy from graphene is controversial because it refutes physicist Richard Feynman’s well-known assertion that the thermal motion of atoms, known as Brownian motion, cannot do work."
It seems odd to mention Feynman here even if he did say it. Surely he wasn't the only or first person?
Maybe this is it?
> first analysed in 1912 ... by Polish physicist Marian Smoluchowski. ... popularised by [Feynman] in a physics lecture at the California Institute of Technology on May 11, 1962,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_ratchet
It’s an allusion to the Brownian ratchet thought experiment. AFAIK he demonstrated why it does not work.
Surely he was joking.
What do you care?
I see what you did there
The thermal motion of atoms in a coal fire can do work just fine. All you need is a steam engine and a cold reservoir.
Sounds like a piezo sensor
As a freshman EE I suggested this as a potential source of power. Got bad marks on the assignment.
There's nobody to give this research group bad marks.
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