I can't believe he didn't use PG Tips !

The infinite improbability drive

April 1st is still a week away.

More articles like this please :)

He better watch his step, before he gets lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable Physicists, who finally realize the One thing they really can't stand is a Smartarse...

..... on the Deeply Disturbing and Highly Enriching Quantum Dimensional Plane[t]

Only on El Reg do you get such Classy Madness on a Friday. And hey, with the Energy Crisis solved, what's there to brainstorm about whenever Tea and Doughnuts are so readily available to give Fuel to everyone ...." we're still brainstorming about the economic one"

And Paris because Houses of the Rising Sun cannot Survive and Thrive without such Selfless Bounty and Exquisite Booty........ Definitely Manna from Heaven for Seventh Heaven.

.. when they realised the one thing they can't stand ... is a smartass...

Turned out that the doughnuts I was using were low calorie ones made with "I can't believe it's not Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles"......

Science at its very best. And kudos for the southpark reference. ??? Profit!

Paris, because... well, because.

...make all the the molecules in your undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance to the theory of indeterminacy?

Mine's the one with the badge "No one likes a smart arse"

I'll get my coat.

Sounds more like a large, flat battery to me.

I love this.

Too much DH?!? No such thing.

Mine's the one in brown plaid.

...when the price of doughnuts goes up?

http://www.mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanolab/TiO2/index.html

Looks like 0.4V for the finished cell.

This is old news. The only new thing new about it is extracting titanium dioxide from doughnuts.

I've made a cell like this using blackberry juice instead of the tea and it had a similarly crap efficiency of a tiny fraction of a percent.

The ammeter in the video was showing about 40 micro amps when the cell was exposed to sunlight. The cell voltage is about 0.4V. Let's assume that the cell area was about 1 square centimetre. Calculating this up we get a power output of about 160 milliwatts per square metre. Assuming visible light levels of 1 kilowatt per square metre we get an efficiency of converting light into electricity of 0.016%. This compares to about 5-15% for commercial silicon cells.

Just for fun lets have a look at what area of these cells would be required to power the unibody macbook that I'm typing this on. Using the battery voltage and current drain reported in apple system profiler 12 watts are calculated being drawn from the battery. 12/0.16 = 75 square metres of solar panel required.

I know what i'm doing this weekend :-)

As Douglas Adams put it, " he fed that value into the finite improbability generator, gave it a really hot cup of tea, and managed to generate the infinite improbability generator out of thin air"

As Homer Simpson said: Dounuts, is there anything they can't do?

i love all the douglas adams references here. its a shame I couldnt include any in the video!

I also submitted a version of this video to an American Chemical Society video contest here: tinyurl.com/blake-acsnano and could use all the support I can get!

And I've never been called a boffin before. Fantastic.

High efficiency triple junction solar cells use 3 layers with absorption peaks at different wavelengths. the top 2 being thin enough to allow the unabsorped light to pass through. These have hit 34%.

They're popular with satellite manufacturers and commercially available but *very* expensive.

Uhh, don't you mean ANTHOcyanin? Nomenclature fail aside, it was cute, though somewhat marred by the fact that "conducting glass" isn't something most people have lying around like the other ingredients.

Conducting glass is just glass coated in tin oxide. Not terribly hard to do, even in a garage workshop.

Mine's the lab coat with the name "Mad Scientist" stenciled on it.

Where are you finding the donuts? I've never found a donut lying around anywhere.

This will never work.

Has this guy seen the crap people eat over here in the UK.

He would never get enough donuts out of the tea room!

great...so the donut & tea solar panel it generates electricity...needed to power the LIGHTS

inside because no natural light can get through the donut and tea smeared windows!!!!

good one Dr einstein! hee hee hee