The Crookes Radiometer may be old, but it's not useless

This video reminds me that my windows don't have any kind of IR rejection layer, it's ridiculously hot during summer with no air conditioning, I may be saved this summer by your video

MOVE DE SHTUFF OUTTA DE VEY

John Lavallée

I came for a toaster and I stayed for a radiometer. Neat!

The usable energy generated from these things is pretty low which is why youve never heard of anything mass scale like a radiometer power plant. Radiometers are a novelty item but fantastic tools for explaining somewhat tricky concepts.

Michael Bracey

"Partial vacuum" - great, but also terrible 😀

Nigel Brown

Could we generate electricity with these things? What if it was enormous? I’m picturing a windmill farm like the one by Palm Springs but inside an evacuated (near-vacuum I guess) greenhouse.

David Larsen

Great video! And, my loud “HAHA!!” at the Nixon joke scared my dog. 🤣

Seeing the effect of the open vs closed window reminds of NileRed's homemade sunscreen tests. But that is UV and this is IR - different wavelengths. Also reminds of the glass at LIGO which is opaque to visible but transparent to IR. Will we someday have windows that are only transparent to visible light, and opaque to most other wavelengths? Except the sun makes many more IR photons than visible photons, only about 4% are UV. So maybe only blocking IR is good enough? But these UV are energetic enough to bind thymine base pairs and make kinks in our DNA - and knock electrons off metal atoms in solar panels, and be absorbed and re-radiated as several IR photons. Great video, really gets the mind spinning!

Stephen Gillie

it comes with a pack of Wrigley's 5G gum.

Stephen Gillie

Pixel 5? 😀

Scott Rowland

The parents of a guy I grew up with in my neighborhood had Christmas Tree ornaments that had these inside.

Mass, not weight. EDIT: That is not right either. Photons are massless. Momentum is the term that you are looking for. Light pressure imparts an acceleration because some of the momentum of the photons is transferred to the object being accelerated.

I hope you have an Aladdin lamp for the lanterns video! I just got one and it's pretty neat.

John Hiesey

Yeah, that was my bad! I forgot to change the direct link but I just did

Technology Connections

Is there a link to the new version, or should I just wait for it to go public? EDIT: Ah, I had to click on the video embed as the text link to the video hadn't been updated. Got it!

Okay, I about lost it on the partial vacuum joke... :D

AuroranFilms

Well done! The toast too!

Mr. Hunter Jones

Thank you. I need the captioning, and it is much appreciated.

I lost it at the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine reference. Well done!

Philes

Love this video. You've really hitting your stride!

I hope Sudden Valley was an Arrested Development reference.

I see someone else has been bombarded by those annoying commercials too...

Arthur Robillard

My grandma had one of those, and I always loved it. So when I found them in a Christmas store a couple years back, I bought one! :D (see pic: https://ibb.co/ZX0B7RD )

Arni Bjorgvinsson

Ya know, I kinda liked the different audio quality of “Voiceover Alec” as the tonal difference reinforces to the viewer/listener that this is an additional correction to the main voiceover, but it’s all good, man.

Mark Hesse

Low emissivity glass has a side effect of also blocking radio signals. Back in the days of analogue TV, my bedroom TV had a set-top aerial in the window. To my surprise, nothing would tune in after we replaced the windows, whereas the other TVs on the roof-top aerial were fine. Once I opened the window, the picture came in! It was the same with our mobiles. As we're in a weak signal area, we had to get a cellular repeater installed. As for in-shop demos of light bulbs, some stores here had analogue electricity meters under two light bulbs, one CFL and one incandescent, where the wheel span much faster. It didn't take long for me to find out there were fake as the wheel was still spinning fast under a blown incandescent in one shop. 🤭

Seán Byrne

Top notch outtakes in this one, Alec! lol

Patrick Bianchi

The puns are off the charts with this one. "Partial vacuum" 🤣

David LeBlanc

I’ve never seen one of these, but my mum used to have a Christmas decoration with four candles (not fork handles) that when lit would spin a fan, that had a disc attached to it that had little angels playing trumpets hanging from it, the trumpets had metal rods hanging from them that would ring a pair of bells. This decoration always fascinated me as a child and was useful for showing that heat rises to 6 year old me.

I watched that episode of DS9 yesterday. Holy coincidence Batman.

The coating is normally on one of the surfaces inside the window (given any sane window is at least double pane). And it is not directional, it simply blocks/reflects IR.

Lennart Sorensen

Apparently the makers of the windows claim that the reduction in IR leaving your house through the window is useful in the winter, more so than the amount of IR the sun would give for a few hours a day in winter. So apparently they work great as they are and no change is needed.

Lennart Sorensen

Talking to your younger self could turn that 8 year old into someone who talks about lightweight light weight. Wouldn't that just be crazy?

Don Eitner

6:05 Time to start changing the channel name to Technology Carnotctions =P

Pietro Gagliardi

May you walk with the Prophets ;-) The radiometer reminds me a lot of the Stirling engine as shown by Techmoan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRB0pnb_JqY

Jason Wellband

Great video. Does the IR reflecting coat on the smart window work in the same way whether it is on the near or far side of the glass relative to the source. I rather doubt it but if it did then reversing the window pane would give you the winter / summer option. I had the same thought as Mark Hesse above, but decided the film would have to be on the outside and therefore rain and wind vulnerable.

Jim Hewlett

Low volume?

Braxen

Fantastic! That was a really great video.

Aaron the Tinkerer

I wonder if a possible solution to the problem of low emissivity windows in winter could be some sort of low e "shutters" that you could open in the winter or possibly, attach a roll of low e film to a window that could be unrolled as needed. Extra cost could be problematic though.

Mark Hesse

Radiometers are nifty indeed! Melted siding caused by sunlight reflecting off Low-E glass was a topic on an old This Old House episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyis1tbBxBY&t=7s

Eric Nelson

I had one of these almost 20 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it had the exact same vague explanation on the bottom. It's probably still somewhere in a box...

Emily Elam

Great content & I'm so happy you showed it going backwards! Voice-over-you does not ride as high in the mix and seems muffled. Was the right channel/mic used for that section?

Jeremy

As a Valley Tech Bro(tm) I just want to say.... hi. Your videos are great!

Michael Dunn

Did you have any trouble uploading this? Yt was having an outage a little while ago. They might still be as far as I know.

Warren Garabrandt

Whoa. This is genuinely (imho) one of your most entertaining videos in a long time. I agree that it feels a bit more 'classic', what with the tangents, asides, and bad jokes, but I feel like you've really pulled the production value up to 11 at the same time, and covered a wide array of related subjects while also making an important point about the value of a "well that's neat" curio. Absolutely fantastic. I might just rewatch this entire thing again after you finish off the subtitles.

h2g2guy

Did you grow up in Bellingham? (Sudden Valley reference)

Thanks. I am hard-of-hearing and rely on captioning.

I have a world globe that spins when it’s in direct light. Do you know it it works the same way as the Radiometer?

Brett Walton

Will it break if you give it too much light? They sound fun to use! (Also awesome new hairdo!)

LovelyHeiferDev