Earlier quoted context omitted.
If he starts a company on this, he's a professional.
What matters is not being employed to do research when he discovered it. Not what happens later.
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Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
71–80 of 91 posts
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#72Now, who has the number for the Nobel Prize committee?
Easy: http://www.kva.se/en/contact/Committees/Nobel-Committee-for-.... :)
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#73In spite of our understanding of chemistry, metallurgy still has quite a few mysteries in store for us. Some of them go back thousands of years. For instance we still have not been able to come up with a convincing reproduction of Damascus steel, the prized material that middle eastern swords were built of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel . Another supposedly related and "lost" steel is wootz steel. http:/…
Indeed. The other problem with metallurgy is that it's awfully complicated on all sorts of scales from the atomic to the micron scale. Most materials and chemicals out there we now have a pretty darn good understanding of, thanks to being able to sit there and simulate the atomic structure of the material in the computer. But metals like steel are far too complicated since you're not just interested in hundreds or th…
No need to assume that! Some people like key lime, some people like pecan -- just like some people like their steel galvanized, and some people like their chrome-nickel-steel.
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you suggest society repay the guy who invented the material? I can't think of any way except a temporary monopoly on its use.
The problem is that as it stands now, someone like Intellectual Ventures will have a patent like "cooling metal with water", and either force him to sell for a few hundred bucks or just interfere with anyone else who actually tries to do this. It'll be 20 years before anyone figures out a way through all of the legal mess and starts production. Even then, it will cost more, not less thanks to this.
In the real world, patent trolls are an insignificant minority of patent holders. Patents are either left fallow (b/c the invention has no practical commercial use), or licensed out.
The easiest way to "figure out a way through all of the legal mess" is to simply license the patent. Indeed, there is no legal mess unless you're trying to get around the patent.
Patent licensing is not a zero-sum game. A patent holder will not demand unreasonable royalties. 0.1% of something is better than 1000% of $0.
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Second this. Don't understand why a sensationalist headline should translate as is to HN.
Because it feels like there’s a strong distaste for amateur scientists (those without degrees, not those who don’t know the scientific method) coming from both professional engineers and PhDs, anyone that has academic accreditation. The sensationalist title appeals to the autodidact that learned how to earn 100k+ without college through programming.
I'm an autodidact that managed to earn ~100k without formal education with programming, and then got some formal education in something else just for the fun of it. I don't like it when people use their adacemic experience (or lack of it) to bludgeon people that have backgrounds different from their own.
I think drawing those kinds of distinctions in headlines is unproductive and foolish.
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#76Hank Reardon... is that you?
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#77Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#78My dad had a PhD in metallurgical engineering from a Big 10 university. I heard more about steel growing up up, than... well. you know. Anyway, I got curious about steel in samurai swords one time, and I asked him about that. He said there's lots of legends about this material or that could be remade at the research lab my dad worked at that were not feasible to be mass produced. Process too costly, or too toxic, or…
I would imagine there would be a limited market for this, by necessity it would be a high-end / high-cost / high-value market, much like exclusive furniture for the rather well-off.
Any idea whether there are actual Excalibur smelters around?
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is partly misleading. It's accurate that steel is made up of grains, analogous to grains of sand, but the things you mentioned are more correctly phases, several of which can exist within a grain. e.g. Pearlite, which you mention, consists of two phases, cementite and ferrite. And these phases can form at the edges of grains, or within grains, depending on growth conditions. But this isn't the important thing. T…
How are defects related to entropy? I don't follow.
Loosely stated, imagine that atoms can be arranged in a very large number of configurations. Only one of those will be "perfect", i.e. a perfect crystal structure. The rest will be defected in some way or other. As the size of the system increases, the amount of defected configurations also increases and the greater the chance it will have a defect. This is due to entropy/thermodynamics, depending on your interpretation.
That's it in a nutshell, I'm sure someone else can clarify.
Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are defects related to entropy? I don't follow.
Loosely stated, imagine that atoms can be arranged in a very large number of configurations. Only one of those will be "perfect", i.e. a perfect crystal structure. The rest will be defected in some way or other. As the size of the system increases, the amount of defected configurations also increases and the greater the chance it will have a defect. This is due to entropy/thermodynamics, depending on your interpretat…
> entropy dictates you will always have defects
Not exactly. Entropy dictates you need to add extra energy to remove the defects. Or more accurately, metal without defects has lower entropy.