Scientists Make Water Run Uphill

redshadow01 writes to mention a BBC story about scientists flouting the laws of physics for fun, and profit. From the article: "The US scientists did the experiment to demonstrate how the random motion of water molecules in hot steam could be channelled into a directed force. But the team, writing in Physical Review Letters, believes the effect may be useful in driving coolants through overheating computer microchips."

Not flaunting, FLOUTING

[mrjeff3000]

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/flaunt.html [wsu.edu] ("To flaunt is to show off: you flaunt your new necklace by wearing it to work. "Flout" has a more negative connotation; it means to treat with contempt some rule or standard. The cliché is "to flout convention." Flaunting may be in bad taste because it's ostentatious, but it is not a violation of standards.") (That is all.)

Maxwell's demon?

[Toba82]

Has Maxwell's demon been discovered?

Usefull in computers?

[SmallFurryCreature]

It works by having the water hovering on steam. As said in the article the same effect you get when you poor some water on a hot plate.

Now you only get steam above 100 degrees celcius. Meaning you chip must be literally cooking before this effect sets in.

A bit too late perhaps?

Well offcourse you could use liqueds with lower boiling temps but then it wouldn't be water flowing up hill anymore now would it.

Nice idea but I think I just use a pump rather then waiting for the cooling to set in only after my cpu is glowing red.

Except it really is flaunting.

[artifex2004]

It's conspicuously showing off the ability to exploit physical properties so that they appear to go against the laws, but don't really. I don't think they are showing contempt for the laws, just showing that things aren't as simple as they seem.

Re:This is not flaunting the laws of physics

[Aranth Brainfire]

From Dictionary.com:

Usage Note: Flaunt as a transitive verb means "to exhibit ostentatiously": She flaunted her wealth. To flout is "to show contempt for": She flouted the proprieties. For some time now flaunt has been used in the sense "to show contempt for," even by educated users of English. This usage is still widely seen as erroneous and is best avoided.

Another way to do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitesides made water run uphill 14 years ago! He used a different "trick" though: he made a surface that was very hydrophobic on one side, and very hydrophilic on the other. A drop of water feels this gradient and moves towards the hydrophilic side, even if it happens to be uphill. The energy comes from the surface tension of the drop (it relaxes as it moves).

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992Sci...256.1539C [harvard.edu]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Interesting

[It'sYerMam]

Ahem. Are you seriously suggesting the creation of a perpetual motion machine?? Something that gives out energy? Hehehe. Besides, if you'd RTFA (yes, I know, this is /.) you'd realise the water has to be pretty hot, in order to give the water molecules enough energy to do this.
Incidentally, this science is months out of date: http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/dn861 6.html [newscientisttech.com]

Re:Interesting

[joto]

How about a self recycling dam? After the water creates energy going down you push it back up and do it again. Maybe even you can get some engery from moving it up. This is all assuming that you gain more energy than you're losing with this method.

Well, that would work. Except that you also need a heating source that will heat the water vapour to above 200C. You could use solar power for that, but if you already have solar power, solar cells would be more efficient. Heck, if you could consistently heat a large area to above 200C with solar power, it would probably be more efficient to make a steam engine.

Another possible heat source could be a volcano, but I think that if you want to extract power from the heat difference of a volcano and it's surroundings, you'd find more efficient ways to do it, than making small droplets of water climb upwards and then fall down through a turbine.

Re:WTF..

[Mike Quin]

That was really just an optical trick - the water flowing 'up' the ramp was actually flowing down it, with bubbles underneath the ramp giving the appearance of motion in the other direction.

see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3046791.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Links with information...

[Mike Peel]

Why doesn't the article link to pages with more information that just a summary?

• The group's website [uoregon.edu], including movies [uoregon.edu]
• The journal article [arxiv.org]

Incidentally, this news dates from the end of 2005 - so slashdot is running 4/5 months behind the times.

Re:Maxwell's demon?

[pla]

Ooh! <A random quasi-interesting topic my highschool teacher mentioned offhand, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand>

Wow, the slash-trolls have come out in force today!

Perhaps you would have done better to listen to that "quasi-interesting" topic, then apply the knowledge gained to reading the FP link. Because, strangely enough, it has everything to do with the topic at hand. From the linked article:

the original intention was to devise an arresting demonstration of how random energy can be rectified into directed motion

Pretty much the frickin' definition of Maxwell's Demon [wikipedia.org]!


It may have confused you that in this case, the "demon" has a higher temperature than the surrounding area - But Maxwell only propsed that the source and destination of the molecules have the same temperature, not the demon itself. Somehow I suspect that subtletly lost on you, however, and you had no such semi-legitimate objection in mind, preferring to just act like a complete git in general.

Re:So what

[rockwood]

There at least 22 other net-documented places that this occurs. Rolling Uphill Illusion [ucr.edu]. The 'local' location to my residence is Gravity Hill, PA [bedfordcounty.net]. These locations are well documented and explained in detail. Furthermore [gravityhill.com] the fifth picture from the top shows where the street has been tagged as well as the starting point.

Re:Maxwell's demon?

[Anti_Climax]

And if you want to see Maxwell's Demon, You can do so here:

http://www.machall.com/index.php?strip_id=346 [machall.com]