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"I did more research, and realized I almost would rather be a biologist than a writer, because there was incredible stuff going on!"
- Greg Bear
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| Thermlectrium | ||
| An alloy that turns heat directly into electricity. |
Scientist Malcom Mackay needed to get close to the sun to perform some experiments, but how can you handle the heat? Perhaps it would be possible to convert that heat to electricity?
| It was a dull, silvery gray, rather heavy, being nickel-iron-cobalt-carbon steel...
Thermlectrium is a magnetic alloy, the unique property being that its crystals are of almost exactly uniform size. In any permanent magnet, the crystals are tiny individual magnets, all lined up with their north poles pointing the same way. In magnetized steel, if the bar is heated, the heat-motion of the molecules turns some of them around, with the result that the magnetism is lost. In thermlectrium, even at low temperatures, the crystals turn, but they all turn together. The result is the same as though the bar had been inverted. A current is induced in the surrounding coil. And, of course, the energy which inverts the magnet, and drives the current of electricity, is the molecular motion known as heat. Heat was conquered! |
| Technovelgy from Blindness,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1935 Additional resources -
|
And the end result? The free energy present in the atmosphere could be harvested by thermlectrium - "every home, every store, every man, has his private thermelectrium element."
To see some recent research on this very thing, see the article on Nanostructured thermoelectric devices.
Thanks to reader Winchell Chung for suggesting this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Blindness
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to Blindness
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Thermlectrium-related
news articles:
- Nanostructured Thermoelectric Devices (And John W. Campbell, Jr.)
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
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'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
