Is it possible to 'store' light so it can be used as a form of energy? | AskScience Blog

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Monday, May 29, 2017

Is it possible to 'store' light so it can be used as a form of energy?

Is it possible to 'store' light so it can be used as a form of energy?


Is it possible to 'store' light so it can be used as a form of energy?

Posted: 29 May 2017 04:29 AM PDT

Year 12 student here. I recently learnt about superconductors and how they can essentially keep current running in a loop forever without losing energy. Random idea just popped into my mind - since we've developed fibre optics - a way of transmitting data by sending light patterns with energy loss close to 0 - why can't we use principles such as TIR (total internal reflection) to collect large amounts of light (sunlight) and then store it similar to how the superconductor bank works?

If we could be able to store light as a form of energy - could be collected, amplified by using mirrors and be a source of sustainable energy much alike solar panels (quite inefficient).

So to all the scientists out there, is this concept plausible? and if it is, what could we do with such a concept?

submitted by /u/Imajhine
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Marketing would have me believe that products like detergent are improving by leaps and bounds a few times a year. Have households solvents changed much in the last 50 years?

Posted: 28 May 2017 04:55 PM PDT

According to ads household cleaning products (dish soaps, laundry detergents, all-purpose cleaning solutions etc) have a "revolutionary new dirt fight formula". However it's hard to separate scientific progress from marketing fluff.

Is my laundry soap markedly different from what my mother used? Or what her mother used? Have there been revolutionary steps forward? What were they?

submitted by /u/pie_mac
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Is there a difference between hitting a concrete wall at 100mph and being hit by a concrete wall at 100mph?

Posted: 28 May 2017 07:12 AM PDT

Why does a lens perform a Fourier transform on light?

Posted: 28 May 2017 09:28 AM PDT

I've been through the derivation and my understanding is still very much in the 'because that's what the math tells us' territory.

Is there a more intuitive explanation?

submitted by /u/anon_1349
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What are the leading explanations for the widespread occurrence of Zipf's Law, or more broadly Pareto distributions?

Posted: 28 May 2017 11:33 AM PDT

What happens if you put a spring in a centrifuge?

Posted: 29 May 2017 06:02 AM PDT

This might be a stupid question, but what happens if you put a spring in a centrifuge? When I compress a spring with my hand, for example, the spring compresses uniformly as I increase the force. Would a spring in a centrifuge compress uniformly? I'm asking because I have an intuition that the centrifugal force is weaker near the center of the rotational axis since the path of rotation is smaller.

submitted by /u/polychaos
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What's the difference between rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries?

Posted: 28 May 2017 08:39 AM PDT

Why are the rechargeable batteries more expensive than normal batteries?

Edit: thank you everybody for the answers!

submitted by /u/LucasTheBrazilianGuy
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If you put a TV and it's receiver/aerial inside a Faraday cage would it receive any static or would the screen be blank?

Posted: 29 May 2017 06:24 AM PDT

Why does body hair reach a maximum length as opposed to our head hair?

Posted: 28 May 2017 10:37 PM PDT

Why does our body hair e.g. Arm hair & leg hair reach a maximum length and stop growing as opposed to the hair on our head which we need to cut or it will grow out forever??

submitted by /u/jimmycfc
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AC current is transmitted through power lines with less than 100% efficiency. Where does the extra energy go?

Posted: 28 May 2017 07:05 PM PDT

Do the magnetic field fluctuations interact with electrons etc. in the air and on the ground or do they escape out to space as very faint waves, or is it something else? I recall there's conservation of energy.

submitted by /u/mister_goodperson
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On the lowest possible level, how does a computer do math?

Posted: 28 May 2017 01:31 PM PDT

Is the CPU literally counting zero's and one's when someone types 1045 into a calculator?

submitted by /u/gottaleavethisplanet
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Can video games help you in anyway?

Posted: 29 May 2017 04:50 AM PDT

Yesterday, I watched a video by ASAPScience where they were talking about ways that video games may help you. I would like to know if this is true

submitted by /u/BoomBoomGamer
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How do liquid clog destroyers work?

Posted: 28 May 2017 07:39 PM PDT

Answers for Two questions regarding EM-Wave equations in FEM simulations?

Posted: 28 May 2017 08:42 AM PDT

Dear people, I have a set of questions to you regarding wave equations in FEM simulations that you might be able to answer for me.

Q1. How in general is a perfectely matched layer boundary condition implemented in FEM simulations? Or are there any other ways of implementing material properties or terms that will allow me to dissipate energy without causing reflections?

Q2. Is there are reasonably accurate wave equation equivalant that results in quasi-accurate solutions for light on large scale simulations? I want to implement a FEM simulations for light but the frequencies are so high that my space (maybe a room or so) that my simulation domain would become way to high. Or do I have to resort to ray tracing here?

submitted by /u/TunnelFET
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assuming a bell (or similar device) in a vacuum emits no sound, but instead heats up, could it be used to power anything, or is the amount if heat too low??

Posted: 29 May 2017 03:28 AM PDT

say the bell or equivalent, was made from favorable materials that promote good vibrational and heat dissipation properties.

The apparatus is set up in a sealed vacuum box, which has all internal sides, bar one, coated in highly reflective materials, and angled to reflect heat upwards, to the only non-reflective surface.

above this is a vat of water and the set up for conventional steam generator.

mechanical apparatus to allow continuous ringing of said bell (or equivalent device) without breaching the vacuum.

is it at all possible/feasible to get the bell warm enough, to radiate enough heat (as opposed to sound as its a vacuum) and radiate it in the single direction, and ultimately boil water necessary for electrical generation?

I get the feeling the amount involved are miniscule, but I don't know near enough to do the math.

how much would an extremely "loud" bell heat up without being able to radiate the mechanical energy into the air?

submitted by /u/jebus3rd
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How big is the chance that you breathed the same oxygen molecule twice?

Posted: 28 May 2017 11:36 PM PDT

Why are mobile phones and laptops (All laptops, that I have come across. Don't know if it is true for all the laptops in the world) not able to act as Wi-Fi hotspots when they are connected to the internet via Wi-Fi?

Posted: 29 May 2017 02:11 AM PDT

A mobile phone can act as a wi-fi hot spot when it is connected to the internet via the Cellular Service Provide. What exactly changes when the the device is connected to Wi-Fi? EDIT 1: Let's consider only cellphones for this discussion

submitted by /u/MantisThoughts
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Why don't all non-vector images have the same file size in a given resolution if every pixel has to be defined by RGB parameters?

Posted: 28 May 2017 05:13 PM PDT

As far as I understand each pixel in a photo has to be defined by the amount of red, green, and blue in it. Then the composition of all the pixels makes a full image. So how come they have different file sizes? Shouldn't all the pixels be essentially "just" contain the parameters for r/g/b between 0 and F?

submitted by /u/Flopassi
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How long would it take to travel to Alpha Centauri, both WRT an observer on the spaceship and an observer on earth? (Assuming constant acceleration of, say, 10m/s^2, and ignoring earth's gravity). What would be the effect of space time dilation for each of the observers?

Posted: 28 May 2017 02:57 PM PDT

Can the 25% female orgasm number be attributed to performance?

Posted: 29 May 2017 12:23 AM PDT

I read this all the time: "Only 25 percent of women are consistently orgasmic during vaginal intercourse.

This bears repeating: Only one-quarter of women reliably experience orgasm during intercourse-no matter how long it lasts, no matter what size the man's penis, and no matter how the woman feels about the man or the relationship."

I wonder, are these statistics conclusive? Since female sexuality is highly mental, you can't easily clinically trigger one and hope it will happen. It would have to be associated with the right mental state. I also read that the average duration of sex is around 10 min +- 5 min not including foreplay but that foreplay only adds a minute or 10 at best (no good citations sadly).

What if women just need more than 1 hour of pleasure, mental stimulation etc? Why do we say that '25% of women can reach orgasm' and not '25% can reach orgasm within 25 minutes given an average male performance'?

submitted by /u/TunnelFET
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What happens​ if a person with Tourette syndrome never hears profanity?

Posted: 28 May 2017 11:44 PM PDT

If a person with verbal profanity tics never learns swear words, what types of words are their tics? If they are taught that mundane words (table, cloud, doorknob) or made-up/nonsense words (snarf, Zaphod Beeblebrox, gratkjipldfs) are "profane", would those become tics? How exactly do brains affected by Tourette's determine which words to tic with (and does science understand why other tics manifest differently from person to person)? Apologies in advance if my ignorance is at all offensive to anyone, it's certainly not meant to be.

EDIT: Since this is being downvoted, is there another sub this would be more appropriate for?

submitted by /u/peacelovecraftbeer
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If you drilled a hole through earth from top to bottom and jumped into it, when would you stop falling?

Posted: 28 May 2017 06:26 AM PDT

Assuming that you could drill through the core and that you had a wide open tube going from top to bottom.

submitted by /u/dustinzboyy
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Could you stick a generator in a fidget spinner to light an led on each tip?

Posted: 28 May 2017 06:49 AM PDT

A friend told me he's getting a fidget spinner with LEDs on it charged through wireless charging. Couldn't it be charged by the user actually using it? And also how much power could be generated?

submitted by /u/Mister_Giblet
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