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Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

fastcompany.com

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Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#91

Post by cubefox »

akira2501 wrote: post #60
TeaBrain wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other guy who responded to the parent is right. The absolute scale for measuring the difference between two Fahrenheit degrees is Rankine.

Just for the sake of sheer pedantry. The scale for measuring the _ratio_ is Rankine. You can measure differences with an _ordinal_ scale, which is what Celsius and Fahrenheit are.

For even more pedantry, Celsius and Fahrenheit aren't just ordinal scales. They are called interval scales, which lie between ordinal and ratio scales:

> Another typical example is the Celsius scale, which is divided into 100 equal degree sections between the freezing and boiling points of water. Unlike the intervals in nominal and ordinal scales, it is possible to make calculations with individual data points in interval scales. The difference in temperature between 10°C and 20°C is the same distance as between 40°C and 50°C. In contrast to ratio scales, interval scales lack a natural zero point. In the case of the Celsius temperature scale, '0°C' is an arbitrarily chosen zero point (whereas the Kelvin temperature scale begins at the absolute zero point with 0K (-273.15°C/-459.67°F). Multiplications with an interval scale are therefore not useful. While it is true for the Kelvin ratio scale that 100K defines double the heat energy in a mass as 50K, this is not true for 50°C/100°C.

https://www.statista.com/statistics-glossary/definition/320/...

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#92

Post by OutOfHere »

throwaway290 wrote: post #88
OutOfHere wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that some small amount of nano silver is perfectly manageable by the body, although I make no claim for the lungs. People even apply or drink it as an antimicrobial medicine without issue. It's when they take too much silver over time that it becomes an issue.

The key is "nano wires". What we drink and eat gets pooped out and doesn't permeate organ tissue and cells. Nano stuff does.

As I understand, the body has mechanisms to safely eliminate some low amount of nano silver. I don't know if the exposure from this material as clothing would exceed any safe threshold.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#93

Post by freedomben »

throwaway290 wrote: post #79
freedomben wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the things I've seen, it almost always comes down to IP issues clashing with economic realities. The person holding the rights either can't get it done and/or won't license it to people who can (at economically viable rates), so it languishes. It's especially frustrating since the whole IP system was supposed to encourage innovation.

Can you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.

> If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.

I won't go into specifics because none of them are my story to tell, and I don't have enough inside information to say with certainty anyway, but their research clearly showed it was not just a bunch of hot air, but the economic viability was mixed and often not there. In one case, it was only a marginal improvement over something that was already in high production, and the economies of scale made it so that this slightly better product would initially cost 100x more to produce, and even at moderate scale still 10x. My friend was offered some small amount (IIRC it was like $5,000) by some research firm to buy out the patent. He refused because he felt it was worth a lot more, but AFAIK it never ended up going anywhere. He (like the other cases) was inundated with (often conflicting) advice from a ton of angles, by many people who wanted to profit from the whole thing. It was pretty disheartening to watch. There was another one where a friend of a friend who was a professor discovered a way to improve efficiency in transmissions. They ended up raising substantial money but wanted too much to license out the IP to auto-makers, and the auto-makers walked. They ended up with essentially nothing and shortly afterward an even better CV transmission was discovered/invented, rendering his design obsolete anyway.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#94

Post by throwaway290 »

OutOfHere wrote: post #92
throwaway290 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is "nano wires". What we drink and eat gets pooped out and doesn't permeate organ tissue and cells. Nano stuff does.

As I understand, the body has mechanisms to safely eliminate some low amount of nano silver. I don't know if the exposure from this material as clothing would exceed any safe threshold.

1) human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime.

2) nano means it is not subject to elimination by food pipeline. It will cross into tissue and stay there, addition only.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#95

Post by throwaway290 »

freedomben wrote: post #93
throwaway290 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.

> If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design. I won't go into specifics because none of them are my story to tell, and I don't have enough inside information to say with certainty anyway, but their research clearly showed it was not just a bunch of hot air, but the economic viability was mixed and often not there. In one case, it was only…

Thanks. Fascinating story.

It looks like the market worked but of course subject to human greed and such. Auto makers didn't see enough value to justify the expense. If it was something radical then presumably everyone would have a big enough piece...

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#96

Post by darajava »

deaddodo wrote: post #13
vermilingua wrote: post #6

I feel like the title should qualify that this is 16degF

The article was written for an American audience. I feel like if you went to a French article and it said "12 degrees" you would know to convert that to Fahrenheit, if you needed. And that's an even less common situation than second-language English speakers ending up on American articles.

There’s no harm in specifying the unit though.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#97

Post by OutOfHere »

throwaway290 wrote: post #94
OutOfHere wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand, the body has mechanisms to safely eliminate some low amount of nano silver. I don't know if the exposure from this material as clothing would exceed any safe threshold.

1) human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime. 2) nano means it is not subject to elimination by food pipeline. It will cross into tissue and stay there, addition only.

> human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime.

The human body has diverse ways to excrete things many that it doesn't use, namely by urine, stools, sweat, and bile. Kidneys, liver, and intestines specialize in it.

>, although other things like various forms of PFAS are not.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#99

Post by oopsallmagic »

p51-remorse wrote: post #66
oopsallmagic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If something is good for public health or safety, the best way to deploy it is to start selling it now. Exponential growth of production rates means that every day, month, or year you delay is many thousands or millions of units not produced. If you care about public safety and health, your best route is to find a way to align it with something profitable. That’s just the truth.

[dead]

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#100

Post by throwaway290 »

OutOfHere wrote: post #97
throwaway290 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime. 2) nano means it is not subject to elimination by food pipeline. It will cross into tissue and stay there, addition only.

> human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime. The human body has diverse ways to excrete things many that it doesn't use, namely by urine, stools, sweat, and bile. Kidneys, liver, and intestines specialize in it. >, although other things like various forms of PFAS are not.

All of those things you described happen in food pipeline, something nano size that could even come through your lungs would cross into soft tissue and individual cells and live there forever never to be excreted, again see microplastic in sperm and placenta
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