Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

inhabitat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 151 posts

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#61

Post by llambda »

ColinWright wrote: post #51
pigbucket wrote: post #9

Inhabitat credits treehugger.com as its source. Treehugger's article is not breathless about biomimicry, not spread over two pages, and not interrupted by adsense and images. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/13-year-old-makes-so... Edit: The source of treehugger's article is Aidan's own article, which is better still, and addresses briefly some of the issues raised in comments here (e.g., about fixed vs. track…

In part, this is why it says in the guidelines: In Submissions ... Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your last link has now been submitted by someone as a separate item and is just so much better. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902496

Colin,

It seems a great deal of your comments have begun to fall into either the "this has already been posted" or "you're not following the rules" category.

Do you see the problem with "contributing" material on top of material you see as less than satisfactory? You're only adding more cruft to the cruft.

We get it. You don't like reposts. We get it. You don't like it when people don't follow the rules to a "T". Guess what? This is what happens. It's the real world where people don't always make the best choice all the time.

If you would get over that fact and focus on making insightful comments I think you'd be doing everyone a favor.

Lastly, to cite the oft quoted Guidelines:

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

Edit: here is a list of links to Colin's comments from the first and second page of his comment history where he is either complaining about resubmissions or the rules not being followed:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902905

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902882

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902745

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2901255

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2900909

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2900877

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899857

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899687

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2897109

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2896827

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2896677

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2896311

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#62

Post by mattdeboard »

cperciva wrote: post #16

He "discovered" the Fibonacci sequence in how trees branch? Seriously? Maybe I'm just being a grumpy old guy here, but when I was in school this was in our math textbooks as an example of how the Fibonacci sequence appears in nature.

Yes, you're being a grumpy old guy.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#63

Post by pge »

While this is interesting, the most important metric for solar power is not Watts per square meter but Watts per dollar of production cost. Complex configurations like this may be more efficient from a W/m2 but unlikely to be more efficient from a W/$ perspective.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#64

Post by tiddchristopher »

icode wrote: post #47
tiddchristopher wrote: post #28

The description, "The study earned Aidan a provisional U.S patent," is misleading. A provisional patent is merely a completely automated recognition of your claim to an invention. You submit your provisional filing, and then have one year to file an actual patent, which is reviewed by patent examiners. You don't "earn" a provisional patent--you just pay a couple hundred dollars and submit a few forms.

I guess someone paid the fee for him.

That would be the cynical way to look at it. For a sole inventor, working independently of any company, I think the filing fee is about $150. It's possible he had enough saved to pay for it himself. :) Heck, judging from his report, the kid might have even figured out the whole application by himself. That alone would be just as impressive as any invention.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#65

Post by toppy »

uvdiv wrote: post #55
felipemnoa wrote: post #3

The comparison is against a flat row of cells that do not track the sun. I suspect that it will not do better compared to an array of cells that do track the sun. Basically the tree of cells are arranged in different angles so that as the sun moves some of them will always be receiving optimal sunlight when their normal is parallel with that of the incident light. Very nice insight, especially for a kid his age. I ce…

"Basically the tree of cells are arranged in different angles so that as the sun moves some of them will always be receiving optimal sunlight when their normal is parallel with that of the incident light." Except it's trivially impossible to generate more energy like this (as he claims)! If a set of solar panels is independent and non-interacting (e.g., they don't shade or heat each other), then their total power out…

This guy is 13 ;)

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#67

Post by palish »

llambda wrote: post #61
ColinWright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part, this is why it says in the guidelines: In Submissions ... Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your last link has now been submitted by someone as a separate item and is just so much better. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902496

Colin, It seems a great deal of your comments have begun to fall into either the "this has already been posted" or "you're not following the rules" category. Do you see the problem with "contributing" material on top of material you see as less than satisfactory? You're only adding more cruft to the cruft. We get it. You don't like reposts. We get it. You don't like it when people don't follow the rules to a "T". Gue…

1) By not ignoring him, you'd be just as guilty.

2) However, he's not "complaining" about duplicates in those links. He's cross-referencing previous discussions in order to let people learn from them.

3) For what it's worth, he's been here almost two years -- you've been here barely half a year.

I read through his history and found this really cool submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2878264 Computer Graphics? Or Real? "Ultimate Batting Practice"

Which led to the analysis of the video: http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/exposing-a-fake-vide...

Which led to another analysis, "Water Slide Jump" http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/preemptive-mythbuste...

http://scienceblogs.com/dotphysics/2009/08/more-on-the-giant...

It pretty much demonstrates just how difficult it is to apply mathematics to analyze real-world problems, which is really interesting and thought-provoking IMO.

Anyway, my point is, Colin has good taste, and you're doing him a serious disservice. He does good, helpful work, and I hope he doesn't stop, and doesn't straight-up leave, because the community would be worse off. I'd certainly be tempted to leave after reading something like what you wrote.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#68

Post by lloeki »

uvdiv wrote: post #55
felipemnoa wrote: post #3

The comparison is against a flat row of cells that do not track the sun. I suspect that it will not do better compared to an array of cells that do track the sun. Basically the tree of cells are arranged in different angles so that as the sun moves some of them will always be receiving optimal sunlight when their normal is parallel with that of the incident light. Very nice insight, especially for a kid his age. I ce…

"Basically the tree of cells are arranged in different angles so that as the sun moves some of them will always be receiving optimal sunlight when their normal is parallel with that of the incident light." Except it's trivially impossible to generate more energy like this (as he claims)! If a set of solar panels is independent and non-interacting (e.g., they don't shade or heat each other), then their total power out…

Agreed with the experiment flaws, plus the article is way too shady to make anything even remotely reliable out of it. It reads awfully like "Child pwns scientists, saves world and his dog"

Still, what if you consider a fixed volume as the constraint in establishing the comparison? For a flat panel assembly, a given volume would constrain the surface quite obviously. If you consider a tree structure one might be able to pack some more panels in the same volume, and Fibonacci might give us some solution about how to maximize panel density in the volume while minimizing shading interference from other panels and supporting infrastructure.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#69

Post by ColinWright »

llambda wrote: post #61
ColinWright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part, this is why it says in the guidelines: In Submissions ... Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your last link has now been submitted by someone as a separate item and is just so much better. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2902496

Colin, It seems a great deal of your comments have begun to fall into either the "this has already been posted" or "you're not following the rules" category. Do you see the problem with "contributing" material on top of material you see as less than satisfactory? You're only adding more cruft to the cruft. We get it. You don't like reposts. We get it. You don't like it when people don't follow the rules to a "T". Gue…

Yup, OK. I'll stop. Despite lots of people saying they appreciate it, you've convinced me.

I won't cross-reference, I won't point out when people break the guidelines, I'll just silently downvote and flag, leaving people - often newbies - with no idea why their contributions disappear or get negative karma.

That might or might not lead to still more bewildered posts saying they don't understand, but that's OK. There's no point trying to educate them. Let them learn the hard way.

As a mathematician by training, an engineer at heart, and a teacher by vocation, I hate seeing the waste of constantly repeated submissions and the redundancy of split discussions. I had hoped to add value by helping people become enculturated, but I've decided I've failed.

I'll stop.

PS: Besides, it plays hell with my average karma.

Re: 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

#70

Post by palish »

ColinWright wrote: post #69
llambda wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colin, It seems a great deal of your comments have begun to fall into either the "this has already been posted" or "you're not following the rules" category. Do you see the problem with "contributing" material on top of material you see as less than satisfactory? You're only adding more cruft to the cruft. We get it. You don't like reposts. We get it. You don't like it when people don't follow the rules to a "T". Gue…

Yup, OK. I'll stop. Despite lots of people saying they appreciate it, you've convinced me. I won't cross-reference, I won't point out when people break the guidelines, I'll just silently downvote and flag, leaving people - often newbies - with no idea why their contributions disappear or get negative karma. That might or might not lead to still more bewildered posts saying they don't understand, but that's OK. There'…

Just ignore him. Really, he's not worth it, and his behavior shouldn't be rewarded (publicly calling someone out and framing them in a bad light without context).

I appreciated your work, for what it's worth.

Post reply on HN